alafloat : The Centre of Liverpool

Liverpool is such a diverse city, now coming from a Mancunian this piece about how wonderful Liverpool is may sound strange I know and love my birth city and consider it to be the best in Britain however Liverpool has its merits. Our mooring here is just below the main gates to Albert dock we couldn't be more central. It’s a great place to visit by boat, just imagine how much a 10 day stay in a central hotel would cost, and we get it free.

Yesterday was a big walking day we visited the Catholic Cathedral which is for those who do not know its one of the highest points of the city. As all readers of the Blog know Noreen and I love our religious buildings. Although very beautiful in its own right I am not the greatest advocate of modern places of worship, I feel they lack an awe about them, that’s just me as far as the beauty goes Liverpool cathedral is a magnificent example of a modern place of worship. We even had time to take part in Mass which was very nice and it always calms my soul. Matthew was also in Liverpool yesterday on business so he collected us outside the cathedral and drove us back to the Dock Having had lunch Mat headed for home and we set off again, I needed to get a couple of decent art brushes as I have brought work with me and Im running out of brushes. Again we set off up hill to the art shop which is on Bold street, now every town has a Bold street where every shop is weirder than the its neighbour but absolutely fabulous just very small outlets selling everything from candles to car-parts, Tattoos to Table cloths, Josh sticks to Jumpers, there is a lot of new development going on so lets just hope that the street can remain an oasis of private individual enterprise.

Back to the waterfront which is my favourite place I have a very vivid imagination I can see, hear it, smell it 100 years ago, the place full of ships coming and going on every tide transferring cargo onto barges for transport to Wigan Leeds Manchester Chester Birmingham, there must have been every language spoken around here and every British dialect. Looking at the wear on some of the cobbles and the stone work it must have been real hard graft for the bargees, sailors, stevedores, carters and so on. I probably have made it sound very romantic but always remember the poverty, child mortality rate, poor wages and bad conditions that takes away some of the romanticism.

We went to Weatherspoons last night with John and Kath ( thurs night Curry and a pint £6.00) that’ll do me.

I love it no matter what city it is they are a melting pot of its inhabitants, I am a people watcher I just love people creed, colour, ethnic origin no matter I just love them all, I would love to be a linguist and talk to every one, I an restricted to very poor Arabic, incoherent Swahili, unspeakable French and not bad German but non of them are fluent oh how I wish they were.

Just a few pics of the last two days I am sure I will have a funny story to tell soon for tomorrow Noreen and I are on a shopping expedition that always causes some chaos to somebody

God Bless

Buggerlugs