Monday 15/9/08: Manchester Delights

 Just back from a first and great visit to Manchester. It all worked out fantastically well, and any problems encountered along the way were quickly solved. Meeting Luis has thankfully opened up more future possible trips. I was very lucky with the weather. Saturday was beautiful, and the view from this big wheel was fantastic.

A great thing for me about a trip to Manchester, is the shortness of time it takes to get there. You 're barely up in the air when its time to buckle up for landing! Its an old city with all the problems associated with it for a wheelchair user, the people are lovely, even if most of them spoke to me through Luis. This no longer offends me, as to be honest, now with my slow uncoordinated movements and poor speech, I do give the impression of someone not in control of their mind sometimes.

We stayed in the MacDonalds hotel, which has a great location right beside Piccadilly tram station. The only down sides to it, are the fact that they charge 20 pounds per night parking, and 18 pounds per person for breakfast, which they mention only as an after thought. We fell for it on Saturday because no one told us, (thankfully we ate like pigs), but when we were brought up to score on Sunday, we bet a hasty retreat to Debenhams for a great start to the day.

Aer Lingus were as good as always, and I couldn't help but think of the potential lucky escape I had in choosing Aer Lingus over Ryanair. A pitiful sight I saw at the airport yesterday, was that of an elderly Irish man tottering over to us and muttering, as he tried to take my plastic bag. We offered him money, but he was insistent on taking the bag. We eventually left, but the poor tramp followed us. Its only struck me this morning, that he must have assumed that it was a duty free bag with booze inside. That poor man must have been one of the many Irish that went over, in search of a better future that never materialised. If there is a hell after this life, can it really be all that worse?

A weekend is long enough. I feel in many ways, that I am in a race against the clock. That is one of the reasons I am going back to my friends in Madrid next month, hand delivering their wedding DVD, because fuck knows what state I'll be in next July. The length of my future planning has been very shortened for practical reasons.

Just heard on lifeline, a woman called in to say that a pack of hunting hounds trespassed into her garden and savaged her pet dog. My mind wandered back to when I was around 14, and fox hunting had just been banned in England, resulting in all the English gentry thinking that they could still practice their "sport" here unhampered. A group of them obviously at the invitation of a nearby big landowner who lives nearby, dressed in full regalia, were doing the rounds.

It was a glorious day, and I was down the yard playing by myself. The land was full of pregnant ewes, lazily chewing the grass. Next thing there is a sound which is implanted in my mind forever, and I look down the end field to see a fox being chased by a pack of approx 20 fast advancing hounds. The shrieks and screams when the pack caught up with the fox made me want to puke.

Meanwhile constance, Prunella and the other nobles, had actually dismounted and were busily trying to unpadlock the side gate, and ride on down our land. I ran in to alert my father, and I vividly remember him stomping down to them, face flushed. Instead of dipping his cap to them, he told them to get the fuck off his land. I don't think I was ever as proud of him, or loved him as much as that day.

After that trauma, half the ewes had stillbirths, and I remember shaking with anger as I threw insults at the contemptible toffs that trotted up the road, pretending not to hear me. Luckily they never came back, and since then a lot of farmers have forbidden them entry, especially to land with livestock.

It annoys me when its portrayed that only townies are against fox hunting. I am born and bred in the country, and we have lost our fair share of hens to foxes, so we are well acquainted with the vicious side of nature. Weeks later, we were playing down at the paddock, when behind a bush, we found the bloodied corpse of a fox, with half its insides hanging out. But it could have been a vixen, with young waiting at home. And some humans think we are far superior than animals? Gimme a fuckin break!