While Ross was up early to return the minivan by 9am, the kids slept in while I did some washing. Ross returned with great coffee and pastries from the cafe in the atrium downstairs.

We had originally booked an Old Trafford tour for this morning, but the club cancelled all tours today in early December as they needed the stadium for a private event (Leo told us yesterday it was for one of the players to film some marketing material!). So as we didn’t have anywhere to be at a certain time, and given Jarrod was in this city in July 2023, he looked up some of the city walking tours on offer and created his own for us.

We started in a park near our hotel, where there was a statue of Alan Turing, the father of computer science (did Jarrod design this tour for us or for him?)

From there we went to the Central Library which included an extensive music library (where we lost Abi and Jarrod for a little while!).

We passed many worker bees along the way. Manchester was my city to research (clearly I didn’t research the traffic or roads very well!), and worker bees are representative of the workers in the burgeoning cotton and textiles industry during the Industrial Revolution. The bees are on public monuments, buildings, in advertising and souvenirs.

Around the corner from a souvenir shop we found a chain restaurant/bar in the UK is the “Slug & Lettuce”. We discovered they had an 8 pound lunch deal so stopped there to feed the troops before we continued exploring.

We joined a free tour at Manchester Cathedral which lasted 20 minutes and was very informative. There is a memorial outside the cathedral for the 22 people who died as a result of the terrorist attack at the Ariana Grande concert in 2017.

We then walked around to the National Football Museum. We had hoped to visit the Chetham School of Music and Library on the way as it was on the corner opposite, but it was closed.

The man at the counter told us we could save money by booking online, so we stood in the foyer while Jarrod did that. Then the woman at the counter asked for proof from those who had booked in as students. Tom and Abi had concession cards ready, Belle could get up her student email address, but Sam had nothing with him. So the lady asked me to provide proof (by which point I was wishing we had just paid the extra 2 pound for adult price!). As I went to log in to the school portal to find something, anything, so we could enter the museum, this picture was on the landing page, and was enough proof for the employee to let us in 😂

After a couple of hours in the museum, we went in search of an English pub for dinner. We chose the Sawyers Arms, but half the menu items (the ones we wanted to eat) were sold out, so we moved two doors down to the House of Dene for a pub meal and then headed back to the hotel for an early night as we are catching a train early in the morning.

Note: Tim and Zac flew out today and will meet us tomorrow. They sent me pictures from the airport so I wouldn’t panic about them missing their flight 😊

Postscript: So much for our early night! The kids picked up something for dessert at Tesco Express on the way back to the hotel and came back to our room for supper and a chat. I checked Facebook at some point and discovered this post!

The boys only left home 12 hours ago, and the dog sitter was inside the house, but Mille found a way to escape and tried to go looking for us! 😩 Luckily I have wonderful friends and neighbours who have not only saved Millie and got her off the road and returned her home, but have also done an extensive review of potential escape points around our property 🤦‍♀️