Wide blue skies....

I love living in a city. I like the press of 3,000,000 people around me getting on with their lives. And a city of that size, well organised in the rich west, like Manchester, provides you with a range of goods and services and cultural experiences that are second to none. Well, maybe New York City or Paris may be better. But, in Manchester, we want for little.

But it is nice to get out into the country sometimes for some peace and quiet. And, I guess that’s one way that Manchester beats New York, Paris or London. Those cities are so large it can take hours to get out of but, on a good day, you can leave city centre Manchester and be out in open country within 30 minutes.

I had two older relatives to get together today. One’s been under the weather so we thought getting them together might help. It seems to have worked. While I did lunch they chatted and the older one was able to bring the younger one out of his mood by asking for help. He didn’t need the help but asking someone for help can help the person being asked. Sometimes you have to use a bit of subterfuge to help someone.

The older relative lives in a village to the west of the city. We’ve had day after day of grey skies and rain for what seems like weeks. But today there was frost first thing in the morning. And in late winter/early spring that often leads to sunny, blue sky days in the UK. And so it was. Here is a picture I snapped on my phone when we stopped to enjoy the view and appreciate the wide, blue skies with hardly a building in sight. And the sky was really that shade of blue.