New Islington, Manchester

I finally made my way there.

New Islington is a new development area near the city centre. (More info here.)

As I walked along the canal with my camera, I was asked by people to take their picture–all of three times. It does happen–but not three times during the same walk, in the span of about 10 minutes! I felt like I was living in a story.

The first time was two middle-aged men sitting on a bench; the second time two young men sitting on a bench–one of them actually stood up and approached me and even offered me money! (I said no, it’s just a hobby)–the third time was a group of young people from Liverpool. I did actually take their picture, but with one of their phones, not my camera.

What made me depressed, though, was that on two out of those three occasions I was asked “where are you from”, after speaking a bare one or two lines. I either ignore those type of questions or answer “Europe” or, like yesterday to those two older men (who were clearly Indian and spoke accented English themselves), “planet Earth”. Look, I hate my accent as much as you do and yeah, twenty years of living here I should not be speaking like that, but what can I do? Speaking is a skill I always lacked. Writing is my more of my thing. I don’t know what I should do, book some voice coaching lessons or what…

Well, this post escalated somewhere it shouldn’t have, so uh… hope you like the pictures. It’s been a nice sunny weekend here in Manchester!

Thank You, Manchester

For being my home for twenty years.

Portland Street.

Midland Hotel.

Spire of Manchester Cathedral.

Beetham Tower through the trees of St John’s Gardens.

Ducks and geese in the canals at Castlefield.

Canal Street aka Gay Village.

To (mis)quote Fatboy Slim, we’ve come a long way together and I have to praise you like I should. The city has changed a lot since 2003 when I arrived here to take up a placement as an au-pair. So have I, hopefully, more towards the improvement way.

Note, Manchester is not gloomy. I took these pictures earlier in the year, during winter time. Hence the greyness.

Note 2, the anniversary is not on the day of the publication of this post, but it is this week.

Note 3, the top picture was taken with my smartphone, the rest with my camera.

Canals Of Manchester

It’s actually only one canal–Rochdale Canal–but the plural sounds better as a title.

It runs between Sowerby Bridge in West Yorkshire and Manchester. I walked along part of it that flows through Manchester city centre and took some pictures.

Canal Street, aka Gay Village.

Lock in Canal Street.

Reflection of a typical Manchester architecture.

Tunnel.

Ducks, my old friends.

Goose posing for me.

Geese Argue

Even in the world of geese, it’s not always peace and harmony.

Now you go and sulk!

Sunset in Salford Quays

I went to a Vincent van Gogh Alive exhibition in Salford Quays, and when I got out, the sun was setting. Salford Quays seems like a good place for sunsets; I must go there with my camera one day.

The building sticking out on the above picture is Imperial War Museum.

The building on the right is part of MediaCityUK, a location of some BBC studios and other media companies.

It was the golden hour–had I been there at any other time, I would not have caught it!

And yes, that is the topic of Weekly Prompts Colour Challenge.

Autumnal Castlefield

You know you can’t get enough of autumn!

I took so many nice pictures on my walk in Castlefield, Manchester, at the end of October, I couldn’t just keep them all to myself. Here I share them with you:

Hold an autumn leaf.

Throw it in the canal.

Goose eats it.

Asters in front of the Roman fortress. I wonder if they were there when Romans were there. Would a Roman centurion admire these asters, perhaps?

A setting sun. It never disappoints.

Manchester During Pride

Pride, the LGBTQ+ event, takes place in Manchester every year on the August Bank Holiday weekend. Last year it was cancelled (because, you know), but in 2021 it’s very much back on track. For this occasion, the city gets dressed up in rainbow flags.

This is the bridge in Castlefield.