Grand Day Out

My third blip meet occurred today with fellow blippers Kathymay, DramaQueen, Beewriter, Chrissie1butter & Green56, which was"led" by Terraldinho who came up with the idea of following a tour guide through and around the London Road Fire Station. Awesome place through and through. I recommend it to anybody before it is converted to a Premier Inn luxury hotel as it has a fascinating history, which was expertly told by the main man, Jonathon.

It was wonderful to meet 5 new blippers (I've known Terraldinho for years and met Kathymay during my last blip meet). It certainly feels like meeting celebrities when one has got to know a blipper or two via social media alone. And it was nice to have that "finally met you" feeling too.
Shame we couldn't share a bigger table in Richmond's Tea Rooms (another place highly recommended) at lunch, but still we had an enjoyable amount of banter and a good natter. Food, drink and staff was superb.

I don't recall Manchester ever being this sunny today and in the upper 20's it was a challenge finding a group shot spot. The trolley tripod we used for our group shot was quite a laugh. One thing I noticed was that we never got any strange looks as the passing strangers knew what we were trying to achieve, especially with Terraldinho's 35mm-prime-lens-I-need-to-step-back-a-little effort! By contrast, we would get some very strange looks in Ellesmere Port, the trolley capital of the North West. Anyway, this spot (shot here taken without the said "tripod") was perfect for our blip group, minus Kathymay who had to go early, sorry. And no pouting, though DramaQueen could be here, but we'll never know!
The artist's work looks rather similar to the work shown on a visit to the Duke of Lancaster, Mostyn, North Wales last year. Quite certain it is the same artist.

Before daparting Terraldinho & myself bought some bits in Afleck's Palace, which hasn't changed one bit since my last visit way back in the mid 90's. Discovered Black Milk Cereal bar/cafe too. Aces.

After much photo sorting and RAW processing I managed to get 70+ photos from over 160 shots. The rest deleted. Learnt some shifty Photoshop shortcuts in the process and started to use Light Room for the first time. Still it took me a while to process and post etc. So Ive posted more here on my Flickr page. 


Enjoy.