The Manchester wheel

Feeling a little guilty for not having done many day trips with the girls this week, I enquired whether they'd like to go on the Manchester wheel. After a resounding "yes" we worked out that today was the best day to go - a combination of fitting in with other projects and fitting in with the weather!

Various things conspired to delay the start of the day but eventually we hopped on the bus and arrived in the city centre around noon, having passed and pointed out many of the landmarks on the way. Now that Natalie is definitely coming to Manchester I felt honour bound to give her some points of reference - especially the bus stops she'll need to use to catch the bus to our house!

I've only ever been on the wheel once before - when CP was here last year - and the queues then were quite long. Today, even though it's the middle of the summer holiday, we only had to wait for the ride in progress to finish before we could embark. The shortest possible wait time!

Aloft in the wheel I pointed out other landmarks, this time from a different perspective. We also spied our selected lunching establishment - the Old Wellington - and some rather strangely attired individuals who appeared to be handing out leaflets to passers-by. We decided to find out what they were up to once we left the wheel.

But first, lunch was calling since at least one of us hadn't had any breakfast. We dined on tuna melts and ham, tomato and mustard sandwiches washed down with suitable beverages.

After lunch tradition dictated a quick visit to the cathedral, since it's only just tucked around the corner from the Wellington. I've never been in the cathedral when there wasn't something going on. Last time we visited with Nikki's brother we were treated to a choir practice; the time before that they were holding an exhibition of stunning digital photography. This time a "young pianist" competition was in progress, with a small orchestra ensconced in front of the choir stalls and the pillars draped with special contest livery for the occasion. All very colourful.

I was glad all the orchestra gubbins and internal scaffolding didn't prevent us from seeing the Chapter House. This remarkable part of the cathedral is, as the Wikipedia entry suggests is often the case, a very ornate room.

Panelled in oak, the detail in the carving is extraordinary. Each of those panels has a complex network of arches and pillars at its top and below the lowest arch, three per panel, can be found four roseate details. Every single one of these details in the room is different.
Flowers, berries, symmetrical designs, small faces. Each is unique and only a very few have been damaged or are missing.

All this was very distracting - by the time we'd remembered about the strangely-clad leafletters we were on our way back to the bus.

Retracing our steps we approached the nearest lady to discover on closer scrutiny that her costume was emblazoned with the word "cash." What better way to get the public's attention in a bustling city centre? The ladies, vaguely reminiscent of town criers and the gentlemen on springy modern hi-tech stilts who were doing back flips were all there to promote the new co-op.

This was a far cry from the down-at-heel corner co-op of my youth, which always smelt of stale milk and whose management took a hard line with local scallywags who used to make off with the odd packet of dolly mixtures. No, this was the 21st century Manchester city co-op. All bright and shiny, steel and glass, handing out prize draw entries with a top prize of £20,000 just to raise public awareness of their existence.

We entered. Twenty grand would be just enough to ensure Natalie came out of Uni with zero student debt, and more than enough to buy us a new roof. Keep your fingers crossed!