Not quite Edinburgh

Sometimes I get the feeling that I’ve really annoyed someone somewhere in the universe for an unknown reason and I’m being roundly punished for my actions.

Last weekend I should have been in Edinburgh with The Person. Someone he knew offered us a flat so we didn’t have to pay accommodation costs and he had managed to find pretty cheap tickets (Return from Hull to Edinburgh normally is £90. Yes really.) for us to travel up by train. It was exciting and something to look forward to. When you only get to see each other once a month if you’re lucky and you don’t have many pennies to spend the idea of a cheap weekend somewhere is pretty exciting.

And then...

I got a call to say that I was invited to interview for a job in Lancaster.* I asked if I could be interviewed on another date but unfortunately potential employers hold all the cards at the moment and can afford to say no. Edinburgh was officially cancelled. (And we couldn’t get refunds on the tickets because they were advance purchases. Nice.)

After a few minor meltdowns at this news we decided to make the best of it. Lancaster’s only 20 minutes away from Preston by train (part of the reason for applying for the job in the first place) so I would go there after my interview and we’d have a weekend in Preston instead.

We figured that as we were going to spend money doing Edinburgh things like go to the castle we would spend the money on (another) train ticket and travel into Manchester for the day and be tourists there instead. Even though we’ve both lived there...you know what I mean.

So we did what all good tourists do and went to a museum, specifically the Museum of Science & Industry, which I have to hold my hand up and say I never went to in the whole time I lived there. That could be because I’m allergic to science though.

It is full of science things you know. And industry things. The main thing that excited me was finding out that there was actually a reason the place I lived in was called Whitworth Park – he was a real-life person! Hurrah.

I won’t lie. There’s a reason I did an arts degree. I can’t get excited about science. I CAN however get excited about it when it’s interactive. Aaah it’s a magical word – and MOSI uses it to the max with the whole 2nd floor devoted to hands on science. I can’t get enough of that to be honest – you just have to be prepared to shove some children out of the way. Cretins.

Also. There is a whole hall that’s devoted to the textile industry with looms and all sorts of stuff in it. I like that bit. (Apologies for conforming to stereotype.) But I definitely wasn’t enthralled by the hall with the engines in it. I did get momentarily excited when I thought I could climb into an old railway carriage but it turns out that you couldn’t, you could just look in it. At the engine. Boo.

I might not love science but I do love food and after some productive window shopping and real life shopping (frame reduced in Habitat from £9 to £2 yes please thank you very much) we were seduced by the smells coming from the market in Piccadilly Gardens and got us some chicken tikka and kebab wraps. I declare it the best £7 The Person has ever spent on food.

A quick trip to the Northern Quarter was in order after that for drinks with a friend. Trof was rammed to the rafters but we managed to squeeze in to Apotheca to have a drink and a catch up before we took our tired little bodies back to Preston for the evening.

Evening activities included going to The Olive Press for food. The verdict? Meh. Alright but nothing to write home about. However you can get two cocktails for £6 all day every day and that most definitely is something to write home about. We sat on big comfy armchairs in candlelight and got to be a real life couple, instead of the part-timers we usually are. We cocktailed our way out of there and on to another bar, before stocking up on crisps and Toblerone and heading home to watch The Hangover (where have I been? That film was amazeballs.)

The Person is kind enough to let me watch the Hollyoaks Omnibus every Sunday morning, against his better judgement and despite all his whining. He likes it really, he just won’t admit it. And then there was the familiar onset of depression as the day drew to a close and I realised that I’d be going home and won’t get to see him again until the end of March.

Not quite Edinburgh, but not too shabby either.

More photos can be found with one little click of the mouse here

*Yeah. Waste of time. I didn’t get the job. Apparently I’m awesome but was up against someone with a PhD. Which begs the question....why invite me to interview in the first bloody place?!