Being out and about. And some people who apparently refuse to be out and about.

Overheard yesterday in the local co-op store: “Are your apple pies vegetarian?”  

Well, I suppose that if the pastry was made with butter rather than margarine then the pies might not be vegan. Otherwise, what non-vegetarian ingredients does a fruit pie usually contain? The mind boggles!

Even better, the shop assistant could not actually tell the customer; she was not allowed to. She had to give the customer the packet so that she could decide for herself. Rather like the occasion when I went to collect our granddaughter from nursery and she had fallen asleep just before I arrived. The nursery nurse told me that she could not, was not allowed to wake her up. I had to do it.

This is the litigation age! Everyone is afraid of some kind of come-back!

We have been out and about today, meeting a bunch of old friends for lunch in Prestwich. A fine lucn it was too.

We were given to understand that Labour’s Angela Rayner was also out and about in Prestwich but we did not see her. At least one of our party would have liked to see her to praise her - this person in a Momentum member - but another wanted to heckle her. Phil and I heard her speak, not terribly impressively, at a teachers’ union event some years ago but I think she has grown in stature sincee then and comes across quite well.

Anyway, we did not see her and just carried on with our rather fine lunch, embellished with lots of reminiscence from times past. We have all known each other rather along time!

The only damper on our day was the final stage of our return journey. Travelling back towards Manchester Victoria on the tram, we had to decide whether to change to a tram to Oldham, where we would wait maybe ten minutes for a bus, or take a tram to Manchester Piccadilly, the a train to Greenfield and hop onto the shuttle bus. On balance the first option seemed faster. But then the bus from Oldham failed to turn up. When it was fifteen minutes late we went to the taxi rank and requested a taxi to Delph. At that point the bus sailed past the taxi rank! Too late for us!

So it goes!

Here is a little something from today’s Independent:

“Boris Johnson has cancelled a speech to members of the public in Rochester after a small number of protesters turned up. The prime minister was due to give a stump address to Tory supporters near the Ye Arrow pub in the Kent town. A small number of protesters - which The Independent counted at five - also arrived holding signs which read “Tories out”, “Austerity killed over 130,000, the blood is on your hands” and “No to racism, no to Boris Johnson”.

Conservative officials claimed the speech had been cancelled on police advice after the late running of the event prompted security concerns. They said "security officials" had voiced worries about some members of the crowd, and were wary of members of the public being aware of the prime minister’s planned location so far in advance of his arrival.


Ahead of the visit, the handful of protesters mingled among the roughly 50 Tory activists, plus several Conservative MPs.

The crowd grew as Mr Johnson’s scheduled arrival neared, and police moved the protesters outside the small pub car park where he had been due to speak. It soon emerged that the PM was delayed, and Tory officials were seen holding close discussions with Mr Johnson’s security team.”

It seems that he has also been failing to show up at hustings in his own constituency. One of our number today now lives in Mr Rees-Mogg’s constituency. He too has been keeping a low profile in his home territory.

One could begin to wonder about these posh boys.