… on my travels last night.
I’d arrived at the airport, which might well have been Manchester, and caught the bus to Stoke on Trent. I had to move on yet again but by now it was snowing quite heavily and I didn’t fancy going over the moors in my car. There was however a bus that ran between the two and so I booked myself a seat on that. There weren’t very many people on there but I set next to a man in his 40s who turned out to be a musician and we had a long chat. Through the snow and through one of the towns (which we have visited in the past on a noctuenal ramble and which might have represented Congleton although we wouldn’t go that way of course) and into Sheffield, for all of £6:90. And when I told a friend of mine about the prices, he was amazed at how cheap it was to travel by bus. From Sheffield I had to go onwards and for this stage of the journey I went on a pushbike. And I was surprised about how easy it was to go on a bike these days and how I ought to do this more often.
At my destination I sorted out my suitcase and I was already starting to put aside stuff for my next journey in 12 months time, despite how absurd it was to begin to do this right now. I might need the suitcase well before then.
And so when the alarm went off at 06:00 I awoke and was out of the bed, dressed and having my tablets when the second alarm went off.
During the morning I had a few things to do, and I’ve seen a course on TV sceenwriting affered by the University of East Anglia. High time that I organised myself and gave myself something to do, I reckon.
After lunch I went for a walk, and hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards before I bumped into Brigitte, my neighbour. She had gone for a walk around the walls only in the opposite direction.
It was a beautiful day so I walked down into town, picled up a sorbet from the ice cream stall, and had a nice stroll through the town.
There are a couple of beaches in the town that I have yet to visit, the other side of the marina.
My little walk today took me along the short promenade and up a blind alley, but it was a nice day and I was enjoying the sunshine. And the beach was beautiful too.
I crossed over the main road and wandered through a series of small alleys and side streets.
We’ve seen the eglise St Paul from a distance – it stands out quite prominently on its promontory – but we’ve never seen it from close-to and this was my destination for this afternoon.
But not from inside because it’s closed to the public, and has been for almost 15 years.
We mentioned previously that construction started as recently as 1894 and its claim to fame is that it was one of the first major buildings to be constructed of reinforced concrete.
But modern reinforced concrete was in its infancy, and the absurdity of using (salty) sea-sand in conjunction with metal reinforcing rods was not realised at the time.
However, by 1999 the state of the concrete was found to be quite alarming – not helped by a few other questionable building techniques. And when a lump of concrete fell down, narrowly missing a passer-by in 2003, that was effectively that for the church.
But I enjoyed the walk, and the view across to the old town from up here on the promontory was quite impressive.
I live just to the left of the church over there, and the town centre is down there in the valley in between.
A set of stirs led down to a little side street that took me back down into the town centre. It’s still quite crowded so the school holidays must still be continuing.
Back up the hill towards the old town, and there’s still no sign of the ships that I was expecting to arrive in the port.
But there’s some kind of activity down on the gravel pile. A couple of lorries have called with another few loads of gravel, and there’s a digger down there moving the stuff about into a neater pile.
It looks as if the arrival of one of the gravel boats is imminent.
Having had a little … errr … repose, I made a huge potato, chick pea and runner bean curry. One helping went with a plate of rice and was absolutely beautiful. There’s enough left for no fewer than four other meals, and they are in the freezer. I’m right about space developing as I start to work my way through the supplies.
A walk around the headla,d this evening, and now I’m ready for bed. And a good sleep too, I hope.
