Blighty 2025 - The Manchester Apartment

We had a good holiday in England, and the only thing of note that caused us any angst was the Manchester apartment. 

Booked through Booking.Com, the photos of the place were good, and while we knew it would be small, and warm with windows floor to ceiling, we weren't quite prepared for the cheapness of the place, and by that I mean poor maintenance, poor housekeeping, and a general lack of  any kind of quality.

We arrived early, parked up and had a walk down to the nearby Burger King. The apartments were modern and supplied with two parking space each, but the grounds around the blocks were, to say the least, unkempt. As we walked down Goodiers Drive, we saw garbage littered everywhere, and used cans of Nitrous Oxide in the hedges. Clearly that was the favourite of the local addicts. Certainly the apartment owners are not responsible for the mess on the street, but it didn't look good for the five nights we were staying.

The Burger King had a big set of black railings around it, a security gate and all sorts of security signage. Inside it was cards only, kiosk ordering only, and the counter had a screen like you'd see in a bank (not quite as flash, but you get the idea). Again, this didn't bode well.

The guy who checked us into the apartment was as nice as could be, helpful and obliging, as he should have been. It was only after he left that we realised that this was a place set up for a profit, and we were the cash cows. There was only the most basic things in the kitchen, only four of anything and only one power outlet for both the toaster and the kettle. The couple of sachets of coffee was a mean "welcome pack".

It was hot, too, and there was a floor-standing fan blowing the hot air around. Accessing the windows wasn't easy with the venetian blinds in place, most of which were only partly functional, and just plain broken in places. 

The bed in the second bedroom was poor positioned and allowed only about six inches between its end and the wall, meaning you had to edge past it to get to the window, or clamber over the bed. The bed itself wasn't top quality, and the sheets were all too small so wouldn't tuck in around the mattress. The pillows were, well, barely pillows.

Everywhere was dusty, too. The floor, the skirting boards, the window sills. There was a fair bit of mould around the bath and shower screen, and the bathroom sink absolutely stank of mould. It was nose stinging.

As if to cement our unfavourable view of the place, around 10pm we had to listen to a man outside being lavishly and very loudly sick. Well, it was Friday night.

We were upset that after our fantastic Cotswold adventure, we were in a drug abuse area of Salford, in a less than ideal apartment. We contacted the guy who had checked us in about getting another fan to help cool the place, but were met with a big fat no. We debated at length about getting somewhere else, and spent quite a while looking on the Internet, but there was nothing that we could practically do. We were even prepared to take a financial hit, but time was against us. We went to bed and hoped it would look better in the morning.

It was a hot night, even with the windows open, and we were certainly pleased that we'd brought some little (light and flat) fans with us, as these worked to keep the air moving. It didn't help that one of the two windows in our bedroom had a broken lock and wouldn't open.

Things did look a little better in the morning, and the smell in the bathroom was dissipating a little as we used the sink. The car was still outside, still in one piece, which I have to say I doubted it would be, given the area.

Fortunately, we didn't have to spend too much time in the apartment as we had lots of excursions planned. It was so hot in there, even with the windows open, that it would have been very comfortable to stay in for any length of time.

To be fair, it was a reasonable two bedroomed apartment, but for us it simply wasn't quite what we were expecting. I'm sure there were plenty of people in Manchester who would have been grateful for any roof over their heads, and it does seem a bit churlish to moan so much. It was also at the cheaper end of the scale, so perhaps our expectations were a little high. But I couldn't shake the feeling that this was one of many apartments owned by our host, and that it was all about expending as little as possible in order to make the maximum profit, and be damned the cursed guests. 

Still, lesson learned, be wary of apartments in city apartment blocks.

Blighty 2025 - Birthday

Today was Charlie's fifth birthday, so we stayed local and did the things he wanted to do, one of which was another ride on the Metrolink/Bee Network Trams.

Having carefully studied the tram map with a view to divining the best route to the Little Aladdin Cafe in Manchester's High Street, I was a wee bit bamboozled to find that the Eccles services into the city were being rerouted to take account of some engineering work around Piccadilly Station. So, having prepared for a change of Tram at Cornbrook in order to get to Shudehill, it turned out that the Eccles tram was going to Shudehill anyway and didn't require us to get off at Cornbrook. Cue confusion in my brain. As the disembodied voice in the tram kept telling us that it was a tram for Victoria via Market Street, it was hard to argue.

We walked to Anchorage station on the edge of Salford Quays to pick up the tram, and it took us through what might be called the "Canal District". The bigger and perhaps more well known Manchester Ship Canal has spawned the big dock area that's now known as Salford Quays, but the older and perhaps more significant canal we crossed and followed was the 1761 Bridgewater Canal, the first commercially viable canal in England. It was built to take coal from The Duke of Bridgewater's mines in Worsley, into Manchester, and it was later extended to Runcorn, The Bridgewater Canal was then effectively superseded by the Manchester Ship Canal, a canal that allowed ocean going vessels inland and into Salford and Manchester without having to unload into smaller boats in Liverpool before using the Bridgewater Canal.

But I digress. Both canals are long past their commercial peaks. The smaller Bridgewater Canal is a popular waterway for leisure boaters now, and the larger Ship Canal, and it's docks, have become a waterside development area similar to London's Docklands. There is, though, still much development work to be done because in between all the new, high-rise buildings, there are still a lot of dilapidated and abandoned buildings, many that have succumbed to vandalism and graffiti. The shiny, modern trams wind their way through this mix of old and new and give a curious view of a city that's definitely "on the up", but not fully there yet. I wonder if I came back in twenty years time what the place would like?

Central Manchester is also a mix of old and new; big, modern buildings with smaller, red brick Victorian buildings standing between them. Some of the older buildings are looking bad, but some have been refurbished and certainly add to the eclectic townscape. The new buildings, though, are on a much bigger scale and do make the older ones look quite out of place, or vice versa.

The central core of the city, on this Tuesday afternoon, was packed with people. Again, I thought of Toronto and the comparatively empty streets, although it is fair to say that the people in Toronto tend to be in their cars rather than on foot, so maybe that's difference?

The Little Aladdin Cafe was certainly little, so little in fact that the kitchen was in the basement and accessed by a tiny ladder. I didn't partake of much, but the vegans did, and loved it. Afterwards, we braved the Arndale Centre again, which was much better without the car. It was very busy, though, which seemed a bit odd given that it was a Tuesday afternoon, and before the schools kicked out for the day.

The birthday supper was back at Salford Quays' own Bella Italia, where the young woman who took our order without writing anything down, forgot my starter. Her initial reaction was that I hadn't ordered one, but I'm not senile yet and I knew for sure that I had ordered one. The mains were about to be served, so I said no to them rustling one up, but to make amends she gave us a discount on the bill. I'd have preferred my starter, and if your restaurant isn't using a mobile ordering system, it's best that the wait staff write the friggin' orders down. I wasn't in the mood to be trifled with, and the murderous look on my face so worried the server that she dealt with Emma rather than me. Indeed, in order to give a good tip when I said there shouldn't be one, Emma snuck up and paid at the till rather than at the table. I never knew I was so intimidating.

That evening was to be our last in Manchester, so it was packing and cleaning up time when we arrived back at the apartment. The morrow would bring an relatively early start, and an unavoidable run down the M6. Such is life.

Blighty 2025 - Go North Young Man

Given an appointment with the set of TV's Coronation Street, we had decided to spend our last week in England in that Northern powerhouse, Manchester. Car loaded to the gunwales, we set our course for the motorway.

Which was a good idea except that we were stuck behind someone in a little Ford KA car, driving at between 35 and 40 miles per hour, nearly all the way to Warwick. It didn't really matter in that we had plenty of time, but it goes to show that people who don't appreciate that they're not the only ones on the road can be a real pain. Driving like that promotes frustration in others and then they start to do risky things, which is never good. Sure, drive within your own capabilities, but when you have twenty cars backed up behind you, pull off the darned road into one of the many lay byes, at least occasionally. A good read of the Highway Code would help.

The M42 northbound was at a crawl thanks to construction work, but we branched off onto the M6 Toll Road, a congestion free piece of pleasure that skirts northern Birmingham and avoids the M5/M6 Intersection at Walsall. It's congestion free because it costs car drivers a little over £10 to traverse it's length, and lorry drivers considerably more. As an irregular user of that road, I was happy to part with the cash, although if you need to drive it regularly, at your own expense, then I guess it's not so wonderful.

We stopped at the only service centre along the Toll Road, at Norton Canes. I wondered how the owners of such a place would manage with the reduced number of road users, but I found the answer to that question as we left the motorway and discovered that the centre served both north and southbound traffic. It was packed out, too, at noon on a Friday. Tsk. These service centres are not great, although the chance to get out and stretch our legs, and perform other natural tasks, is always welcome. I do struggle with the 30p a litre surcharge on the petrol at these places, though, and wonder who is mug enough to pay it. I bought petrol in Lechlade at £1.29 a litre, at Norton Canes services it was £1.59. That's more than gouging, that's robbery.

Paying the toll on the M6 Toll Road was easy, and something Doug Ford could look at for his highway robbery scheme, the 407 Toll in Ontario. On the M6 Toll, your licence plate is read by a camera as you enter, and again when you leave. The computer does a real-time calculation and presents you with a bill at the Toll Gate, which you can settle immediately with a contactless bank card or phone app. No paper bills, no video fee and no transponders like the 407. Regular users can open a Breeze account and pay online, and at a slight discount, too; again, no paper. Dougie, this is what you need to do.

Back into the real world, and a toll-free motorway, I noted that the M6 has lost its hard shoulder and has four lanes for driving traffic as opposed to three and the shoulder. Refuges are provided every mile or so of course, should you break down. That ought have eased the flow, but instead of three lanes of crawling traffic, it's now four lanes of crawling traffic, thus proving the point that no matter how big you build a road, the traffic will always expand to fill it. Taxes on petrol don't deter people, either, so maybe more roads should charge in order to reduce congestion? A simple but sadly impractical solution, because all the folks avoiding the tolls would just gum up all the free "A" roads. 

Coming into Manchester, the series of urban motorways in the area brought us almost to the door of our accommodation in Salford, although not before having to turn right across what was a seemingly endless stream of cars on a three lanes carriageway. Our apartment has, er, issues, but I'll deal with those in a separate post. Suffice it to say here that the Burger King we snacked at had only kiosk ordering, card payments, and screens like a bank on the counter. Nice.

Once settled into our home for the next couple of days, we searched out a vegan restaurant in Central Manchester, got back in the car and braved the tortuous roads and traffic of this great city. I don't think I appreciated just how central this place was, but it was a chore driving in the narrow streets, and we only really stumbled upon the multi-story car park of Manchester's fabled Arndale Centre by accident. The Arndale is giant shopping mall, but not an out-of-town one, this one is squarely down town, which I guess keeps the core vibrant. The car park was hideous, as they nearly all are here. Seriously low-ceilinged, dark, and with tiny spaces. There was a man from the car wash area relieving himself against a wall, which pretty much sums up the ambience of the place, and it was nearly £10 to park for a few hours. These are the things I do not like about England.

The restaurant was good, though, and the guy serving had time for a chat. He was local and said that he liked Manchester over London because although crazy, it was a level of crazy he could cope with, which was a trenchant observation. We sat and watched the Friday night revellers appear in the streets, young women wearing outfits that covered only the essentials, and men being loud, presumably to impress the scantily clad young women. Don't get me wrong, I'm not being censorious, I'm happy that the young folk feel free to express themselves, but goodness I wouldn't want to be young again these days.

Manchester is a vibrant and burgeoning city, without doubt. It's on the up. But away from the centre, places look battle-scarred and there is a perception that the place is under siege, at least if you look at the graffiti, the urban razor wire and the phalanx of security guards in Tesco. I hope, I really do hope, that the perception is worse that the reality.

Saturday is to be given over to a trip to the East Lancashire Railway, a heritage steam railway based in Bury, just a few miles north of Salford. I'm looking forward to that after the mean streets of Manchester.