Crewe town centre

I was torn today between two photos, and I've gone with the one which is more interesting as a photo: the other is more I met resting as a story.

Took this today while out foraging for emergency supplies - well, getting some olive oil from M&S! I've processed it a little as the sky was the only part that was exposed correctly as it came from the camera. It looks a little ill, to be honest, despite the sunshine, which seems appropriate really. Superficially things look fine, flowers everywhere, people about. But a closer look at the row of shops reveals more: from the left we have an empty shop, a café, another empty shop, Millets, which has just reopened after being closed for months, another empty shop, and part of an opticians. The rest of he town centre is similarly degraded. Most of the big stores moved out to a retail park some time ago, to be replaced by pound shops, pawnbrokers, betting shops and phone shops. Now the few remaining shops are shutting and you end up with something that's beginning to resemble a ghost town.

The other photo? While I was in M&S I picked up a chunk of simnel cake (subject of the photo), because it reminded me of my gran who was a compulsive baker(!). She used to bake simnel cakes as her standard celebration cake, for Christmases as well as Easter. The M&S version is pretty meagre compared to gran's, though: gran's had great slabs of almond paste on top and through the middle of the cake, and proper almond paste, too: no essence or anything. Also I think there was a high-ish brandy content, too! The M&S version is quite nice, and works well as a memory jogger, but I don't think my gran would have been impressed...

Well, there you are: you got both the better photo and he story of the other one. Bargain!