Saturday!

I got quite a lot into today....unfortunately not too many pics! I like this one for the light...Emporio Armani at Spinningfields.

The day started off brilliantly. I opened a bag of Square Mile Herbazu Naranjo beans from Costa Rica. Square Mile is one of the most expensive roasters out there, but this coffee was exceptional and well worth the money. I tasted pear and franjipane tart, sweet autumnal flavours in this complex lightly roasted bean. I still can't get a decent crema using my Pavoni.....maybe the group-head needs taking to bits for a deep clean but it didn't impact on flavour! This coffee gets 85 outta 100.....stunning!!!

Although I hadn't done any coaching in Glossop this year, I thought it would be nice to pop along and see the kids in their end of season bike race. Very refreshing to see a skill level that was higher than the average Saturday chain gang..... and that was in the 7 year olds. Skills learnt this young will last a lifetime and these kids show what is good in the world.

I then went for a wee ride out through Old Glossop on the bridleway towards Doctors Gate at the top of Snake Pass. After about 2km the weather started to close in, my mtb riding skills are poor and I wasn't dressed for a 550m hill in a storm. So, I headed back to Glossop to Praze to buy some nice bread and cheese but had left my wallet at home! Gahhh... bowl of muesli for lunch.

Then off to Manchester Buddhist Centre to hear a talk by Maitreyabandhu, a really very intelligent arty fart type who knows Damian Hirst. The talk was based around Imagination and he linked it to a poem by Ted Hughes called The Thought Fox. I missed the point...his arguments were a little abstract for me.....profound and philosophical maybe, but I never got beyond the semantics of the word "imagination"; it was being used in a different context to how most of us think about it. However, I did like his point that artists who try rather too hard to look and act like artists are those who tend to lack imagination.

Afterwards I went to North Tea Power for an espresso and for the 1st time I was disappointed. This wasn't a reflection on Wayne who refuses to compromise standards, pulling 4 shots before he managed to dial in the grind ....first a 29 sec extraction and then a 26 sec one. The coffee just tasted bitter....maybe it was my palette today or possibly a "corked" batch of beans. Wayne cares so much about quality control and put so much effort in attempting to give me the best.

To end my day in Manchester was a visit to The Cornerhouse Cinema to see the Mexican film Miss Bala. French cinematography is like French cuisine...the finest in the world. This was a spicy burrito in terms of cinematography and storyline, lacking panache, low budget but just as tasty as its French counterpart. Ok, it could never be described as "arthouse" but the main character Laura seemed believable and I empathised with her. The main emotion felt was tension and the lack of soundtrack really enhanced this feeling. Whether it was due to a lack of budget or intentional I don't know but that hardly matters. Some scenes didn't add to the story but I enjoyed it far more than watching a Hollywood blockbuster.