retiredmartin

August 2024. Manchester.

8 hours drive back from Southampton to Sheffield via two sets of parents at the end of a frantic weekend,

and proof all that sitting down is bad for you as I felt my lower back “ping” on the walk up/down/up to Sheffield station the next morning.

But the best way to deal with lower back problems is to aggressively walk it off (it’s not) and sit uncomfortably on an 80 minute rail journey across the Pennines (it’s not).

Still, it’s an emergency; I need a haircut before End of the Road,

and Matt kindly pops in on his day off from Helvete to take off two months growth. Shame he didn’t train as an osteopath as well. I’d promised him lunch and a walk; my back said “just lunch“. And art.

Matt recommends Nell’s on the Kampus, Manchester’s newish residential area across from Piccadilly and the Gay Quarter.

Very excitingly, Nell’s turns out to be in the Matthew Curtis Manc Guide, AND it’s Happy Hour, so the 14″ pizzas are almost cheap. A 22″ would feed the entire von Trapp family.

I like the way the CAMRA book includes places like this, though both the seating,

and the beer,

may not be enough to see it displace the Hare & Hounds in Stafford Paul’s affections.

Matt went Schofferhoffer, being 23. I thought Nells Pale from a mystery brewer (not Marston’s) was pretty good.

The pizza was astonishing. I think Matt ate my last slice.

A proper slice of Manchester, in fact.