Reasons to be Cheerful - Part 3

As a Christmas present, I bought us tickets for Sweet Charity at the Royal Exchange. The tickets were for the matinée performance today. We thoroughly enjoyed it - great acting and performance (Kaisa Hammerlund in particular), fantastic choreography and set pieces, and really good music. Thoroughly uplifting.

We arrived in Manchester early. J's new fitbit was not happy about her inactivity. She had a fall in Blackburn on Thursday, attended a walk in NHS clinic on Friday, fortunately nothing broken, but a very swollen and bruised right hand. And she's been pretty inactive, so the fitbit is not happy.

Anyway, a walk required first thing. Which took us past the new Chethams building opposite the Manchester Arena. They were having an opening day, so we ended up inside. How fantastic was that. We watched a rehearsal in the brand new Stoller Hall, wonderful acoustic (and I love Brahms). And a string rehearsal in another space. The Stoller Hall officially opens on 21st April - the programme for the season looks really good, I am going to book a few things. The Chethams extension and the new organ at Manchester Cathedral have been funded by Sir Norman Stoller. He is a retired Oldham businessman whose father invented the Tubigrip, it seems. Well done him.

Our travels also took us into the City Art Gallery, and the Wynford Dewhurst exhibition. Lovely paintings, Manchester born he is now largely forgotten. But maybe not now. And a huge anti-Trump women's protest in Albert Square. One of many happening across the world today it seems.

And the funniest thing. Walking through an empty Spring Gardens, two very smartly besuited gents standing by a parking meter, with flowers in their buttonholes, reading out aloud their speeches. I hope this practice session means it went well for the groom and best man at the event itself.