Some very short posts now, but you’ll get your ten photos, no problem.
September 2023. Manchester.
A first visit to the Etihad since August,
and a first cut at Matt’s new salon in Chinatown.
Lovely, spacious salon, great cut, usual duff music choice (joking).
Up there on the 3rd floor, just above the Chinese “medicine” store a chap on the stairs was enquiring about.
I must explore Chinatown more, but I’m a takeaway rather than a sit-down man.
I must explore the Briton’s Protection more, too, before it’s closed or (worse, presumably) forced to stock beers that people recognise or whatever.
The tram/metro/bap ride from St Peters to Stretford is thrilling, the section in the sky through Castlefield a UK highlight. Central Leeds really lacks a transport infrastructure like this,
15 minutes on the way to Altrincham (close your eyes passing Old Trafford) and you’re in a different world. I’m not commenting on where that arrow is pointing;
My last time in Stretford was in 2017, how has it changed ?
Well, the Fulham massive have visited, gloating about the superiority of the Thames over the Bridgewater Canal.
It’s trim and polite, to be fair.
But all the action will be found in the indoor shopping centre, if I can ever find the crossing to reach it.
Right, enough of this suburbia, let’s bring you some Morrissey…
retiredmartin 
The last Stretford pub in which I drank was the now long-disappeared Old Cock. When I came out someone had cut the cage for my spare wheel with bolt cutters and nicked it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, it was a pity, as it had been a good night up until then.
One of the amiable locals called Ted – a moped rider, who would stall car drivers who crossed him by placing the sole of his shoe over their exhausts after catching them up at traffic lights – was on good form.
The customers were a mix of Stretfordians, like fifty-something Ted, but also a few students, like young Simon who joined us midway through the evening.
Ted was telling a tale when he dropped a malaprop, and young Simon could not resist smirkingly correcting him – a foolish mistake.
Ted, without either looking or pausing his speech, gave a left-handed, loose knuckle flick to Simon’s right ear. Simon – these thirty years or so ago – was a fresh-faced, slightly flushed young man, who may not have shaved, in a powder-blue V-neck lambswool jumper, with slightly prominent ears.
He spent the rest of the evening silent, but with one pink, and one geranium red ear.
LikeLike
I think the Fulham sticker may well have been left, not by Fulham travelling fans, but by an old boy, who, like me, lives in Sale.
I see him out and about in the JP Joule Wetherspoons, where he uses a zimmer nowadays, but he has plastered my town with Fulham stickers, albeit not so much recently. Quite impressed he can still make his way to Stretford if it his him.
LikeLike
I did wonder why Fulham fans would get off the tram at Stretford rather than Old Trafford !
Is there any other reason to visit Sale apart from the Spoons.
LikeLike