ON A MISSION!

Continuing our Afternoon tea research, Redqueen and I met up in Manchester last Saturday. But first I had a mission.

My dear husband made a big mistake. After his solo trip to France he said to me. “you know, I have noticed, French women in Paris and the South of France, kind of waft, a nice smell as they walk past” !!! waft? waft?… this is the man who claims to be allergic to perfume, therefore I have spent my life minimising my perfumes so as not to upset him!!! sheee!!!

If a man reads this….never , ever, say this to a woman!

My perfume is DKNY, so I resolved to “WAFT” by “layering DKNY in the form of shower gel, body lotion, and any other kind of DKNY product I could find, instead of the usual modest spray of Eu de Toilette that I usually use. I will give him a “waft”! huh!

My other mission, which has been ongoing, was to try to find a trendy bag to go with my new coat and capsule wardrobe, having returned the very expensive dark red one I bought in London from TKMAX.

As I walked through Manchester from Victoria station, it struck me what a nice city, Manchester is and if you delve into the history of the industrial revolution, cotton trade, trade unions, religion and the abolition of the slave trade it is also a very interesting city.

The Manchester skyline as I arrive by train.

Exit from Victoria station

Historic Cheethams music college.

The National football museum, (where else but Manchester!) in the Ibis building. At the side you can see the Printworks. A former newspaper building that has been cleverly turned into a leisure complex.

Random view up king street.

What a lot of people don’t know is that we had our own devastating bomb attack, long before 9/11 and 7/7 On a sunny Saturday morning of the 15th June 1996 a massive IRA bomb, in a white van exploded outside Marks and Spencer in Manchester city canter. Designed to cause the maximum havoc. This was the result.

It the true British spirit of ” keep calm and carry on ” I went to the city the day after to complete my shopping trip I’d had to abort the day before. Walking around and seeing the devastation I felt such white hot anger at the perpetrators, whatever their political beliefs were, nothing justified to attempt to kill innocent people. Also I had such a sense of relief that nobody was killed as the police had managed to evacuate the city centre in time. But a lot of people suddenly found themselves without jobs and livelihoods as shops and businesses had been destroyed.

My friend, a single mum, worked in her fathers newspaper kiosk, just opposite the site of the bomb and she suddenly lost her job that day, her father lost his income and they struggles for months, in addition they lost their home as they lived in one of the flats above the Arndale shopping centre.

Since then the city has been regenerated, I think the mood was, we’ll show THEM. ….. and is now a thriving metropolis and tourist destination. I went into the massive Arndale (shopping centre) in the search for DKNY shower gel and it was thriving. Recession, what recession?

Here is a previous post I did about Manchester
http://denisefrombolton.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/sunday-4th-march.html
.

With my phone battery running out, I went to Kendals, a big department store, to try to spend a gift voucher I had been give two Christmases ago, before it expired in December. I found this great bag, reduced by 40%. Perfect for my capsule wardrobe!.. love it!

This post has gone on far too long, and I have digressed. So I will continue another day with our tea at the Richmond tea rooms.

BTW….despite shower gel, body lotion and perfume to the point when it gave ME a headache. Michael could still not smell a “waft“, that evening!

I have come to the conclusion that he has become immune to DKNY

Love Denise

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7 thoughts on “ON A MISSION!”

It's great that you want to "waft" for Michael! I had to chuckle at the thought of him still being oblivious after you piled on loads of DKNY. Stephane would be exactly the same way. Men! Maybe it's time to spice up Michael's nostrils with a new fragrance. That's the perfect bag to go with your wardrobe!

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Hi Denise, I think your finger must have slipped on the numbers, the IRA bomb was in 1996 not 1976! I was in the city centre with my then 14 year old son on a mission to purchase a Fathers Day gift for the next day having dropped off my daughter at her gymnastics club on the way to town. How nobody was killed I'll never know, it was truly terrifying. The bomb exploded literally 5 minutes after we got off the bus as the police were naturally concentrating on clearing the Arndale Centre and buses were still coming in to Piccadilly Gardens. As you say the sense of relief the following day when we learnt that nobody had been killed was immense.

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Janet, you are right, it was a typo and I have altered it.I think everybody has memories of that fateful day. I was on my way fora shopping trip and of course suddenly all the trains to Manchester stopped. Nobody knew what was happening and it was chaos. My son should have been starting a job at the Corn exchange building in a magazine office on the following Monday. The buildings foundations were damaged and the traders and offices in that building never traded again. Eventually it was turned into the trendy shopping centre it is now.

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Mary Kay, glad you like the bag. I am so happy with it. The trouble is the bigger the bag the more rubbish you carry about with you!

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Denise, Spice up your life and change your perfume! I thought about this post when S all of a sudden embraced me this afternoon. He said that he noticed that I smelled differently than I normally do and found it very exciting. I won't go into all of the details online but the new scented lotion that I used after my shower had him in a tizzy. 😉

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