Manchester and spuds

Sue had warned me that I really shouldn’t blog too much about Dopey Doris, as it would make it look like I was obsessed with her. So all I say is that I was served by her on Thursday but finally managed to avoid her on Friday, but was served by someone equally as Dopey.

Had a good day Saturday. Went to up Manchester on the train. Did a quick bit of spotting at Manchester Piccadilly train station before heading out to the airport. There was another guy there who warned me that they were being a bit tight on security and he had to sign in as a visitor. Even had a visitors ID badge. Thanking him, I took a few train photos before heading off to the airport.

There used to be a couple of small portacabins on top of Terminal 1 car park at Manchester airport. One was a spotters shop selling anything from photos, books to radios and telescopes. The other was a snack bar. Looking forward to both I found to my horror that they had both gone. There are re-doing the surface of the car park. I do hope that the portacabins will return. Good afternoons spotting before return to the city centre to photograph more trains, the trams and the odd Buses. Now do I put the tram pictures in my train gallery (as they do run on rails) or in the bus section (as they do really operate more like buses). However I do collect tram numbers as they are listed in my train spotting books, so they are trains. But who would be more interested in seeing pictures of them, the train people or the bus people? Oh the decisions.

Today was a day in the garden after the coffee trip that Sue mentions in her blog. I’ve planted the spuds. Taken up more room that I had hoped, In my grand plan I was going to go for first early potatoes, and so try to get in some more veg in the plot they were in after they had been harvested. However, Sue wanted baking spuds, so I’ve gone for main crop. Meaning no extra veg, and now they have taken up half of another plot. Some serious re-thinking here I guess.

Dopey Doris

I enter the world that is WH Smiths. My heart sinks, Dopey Doris of one of two people on the tills. That means that I have a 50% chance of being served by her. I hang around seeing if the queue would die down and so I could pick the person who serves me… But no… I study the pattern on people in the queue and join it at the right moment. I should get the other sales girl,. What I don’t count on is the chap three ahead of me wanting to chat to the sales girl, She tried her hardest to get rid of him but he hung around for ages. Long enough to break the sequence and I ended up with Dopey Doris. I just stared at the pile of free books on the counter. I think she got the message and didn’t have to be reminded that, as someone who’s buying the Telegraph I’m entitled to the free book

Band practice was fun last night. Normally I’m following the other band members and just pick up the beat from them. Bit I now have an electronic metronome. So I, or rather that, sets the beat. It is to try and ensure that we play as tight as possible. So I lead the beat, which I really should but in the past I’ve not kept a constant speed and I think that the others realised how much we were playing untightness….