Granddaughter Number Two had to take some documentation into an office in Manchester, in connection with her upcoming re-employment with Transport for Greater Manchester, temporary reemployment for the summer. Without the documentation, they wouldn’t be able to pay her. So she asked me if ai’d like to go along with her and then we could take a wander round the shops.
As she had an appointment for 9.15, we needed to be on a tram before 8.30. We were up and about early. She had an address for the office and instructions for how to find it. When we got there, there was no indication on the building that it was the company she was looking for. We went in and asked. Yes, this was it: a place that housed various companies, none of which was labelled on the ground floor, just as the building had no label on the outside. Some labels would have been useful. She phoned to let them know she was there and only when someone came down to accompany her up to the third floor did she see any label saying who the company was! But she’s all sorted now.
Having done that, we went off to Waterstones Bookshop, first to make use of their cafe facilities and have a breakfast coffee, and then so that she could spend too much money buying yet more books! There was one particular book she was looking for, the latest in a series. She had already tried unsuccessfully to find it in Waterstones and W.H. Smith in York. The assistant in Manchester’s Deansgate Waterstones assured her they had about twenty copies. And then they couldn’t find them, not a single one. I suppose if you want to hide books then a bookshop is as good a place as any. They checked to see if it was available in their Arndale Centre store and assured her that there were copies available. By the time arrived there, having stopped at one or two places en route, we discovered they had just sold the last copy! She has resigned herself reluctantly to ordering it from Amazon!
It was a lovely day to stroll around Manchester city centre: blue sky and sunshine and a bit of a breeze to stop us getting overheated.
The other day I wrote about the problems primary schools are having with falling numbers and consequently reduction in funding. This article reveals how many primary schools are having to close because of those falling numbers.
In Venice it seems they have been having problems with the Grand Canal turning fluorescent green. It turns put that this was was due to fluorescein, a non-toxic substance used for testing wastewater networks. It seems that the results “have not shown the presence of toxic elements in the samples analysed”, which is reassuring but it did cause some worry. Police have been looking into whether the green water could be a protest by climate change activists, according to local daily La Nuova Venezia as it’s not the first time the Grand Canal has turned green. In 1968, Argentine artist Nicolás García Uriburu dyed the waters of Venice’s Grand Canal green with a fluorescent dye during the 34th Venice Biennale in a stunt to promote ecological awareness. There you go!
It would be rather interesting to see the Grand Canal in an unusual colour.
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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