Manchester, A Place. In The Sun!

This morning we headed off to the 'A Place in The Sun' Expo which was being held in at the Manchester Central convention centre.

This is the third time we have attended a 'A Place in The Sun' Expo ... it's not that we intend buying a property abroad in the near future, but it is a handy show to get info on the legalities etc. of such a move and it is, well, just nice to walk around, look and imagine !

It was a pretty small show in comparison to others we have attended but we did get to spy Johhny Irwin before he disappeared for his lunch.  Jasmine (Harman) is not appearing til tomorrow so we didn't get any pics this time!

After a yummy lunch at Pizza Express we took a walk across the road to Castlefield Basin which was one our favourite mooring stopovers on board the good ship Caxton.

There were a lot of empty spots today ...

- unlike when we were last there two years ago ...

In this old pic we have Ray and Diane (NB Ferndale) cruising past Caxton on their way to Liverpool (it was sunny then too) ...

We had a chat with a boater there, who was selling incense sticks.  He was looking forward to moving off soon when the breach at Dutton is fixed.

It is a lovely spot, and great for exploring Manchester ,,,

There are lots of examples of the old and the new, side by side ...

We did a bit of a circuit and walked up the canal for a bit, remembering our trip down there!  Unfortunately, there is still the same amount of rubbish floating around the locks - shame :(

The boys were very happy to see us when we arrived home, so we treated them to a walk around Bolly, finishing up at the Spinners for a pint.  They are naughty boys ... they won't let us go past the door of that pub!

After that it was 20 paces across the road back to home.  As our friend said the other day 'we now have an ensuite pub'!