Bicycle Race

It has been a pretty busy week this week up in Manchester, filled with lots of interesting experiences. My time in Manchester is done for now though, which I have mixed feelings about. I enjoyed my time in Manchester but I am also looking forward to living down South. Currently I'm sitting in a Starbucks in Birmingham while Luke has a job interview before we meet up with Lindsay and head to Warwickshire.

The weather has continued to be lovely, which Luke and I have been taking full advantage of. Been watching a lot of footie (that's football aka soccer for all you Yanks) and having barbecues. I'm also proud to announce that both the USA and England are moving forward to the knock-out round in the World Cup. USA at top of the group no less, not bad considering many thought they might not make it to the next stage.

Sunday was of course Father's Day and we spent it with Luke's granddad at Luke's aunt's house in Middlewich (a town about on hour outside of Manchester). It just so happened that this weekend Middlewich was hosting a boat festival (it sits on a canal), so after our lunch buffet Luke and I walked down to have a look about. It was interesting, mainly because of the people watching, there were a lot of gypsies (gypos) about, one even with a horse tied to the side of their boat!

Perhaps one of the most enjoyable things to happen this week was on Monday. Luke and I joined Ben and Helen, his flatmates, for a bicycle ride to Reddish to do a spot of fishing. What's more impressive is we biked eight miles to accomplish this, I haven't ridden a bike since I was nine except one small bike ride in Sardinia last year to the store which was less than a mile away. Ben let me use his new bike to make up for my disadvantage. We caught a few things, not as much we expected but at least we caught something this time! The ride back was rough, my backside was extremely sore and a few of the hills left me feeling out of shape but the accomplishment of the long bike ride was worth it!

Wednesday had an eventful ending to the day, Luke and I were just deciding what Family Guy episode to watch to fall asleep to when we hear the startled shouts of Ben from downstairs, "HELEN!" We looked to each other in confusion before a second shout came from Ben, "HELEN, BRING WET TOWELS!!!" Luke realized what was happening before I did. Sure enough as we ran downstairs and into the kitchen we were greeted by a massive cloud of smoke as the smoke detectors started going crazy.

The small fire had already been taken care of by the time Luke and I arrived, but the amount of smoke it created was unreal. Ben had turned the grill on intending to make a late-night snack before deciding to just have a bowl of cereal, and had completely forgotten to turn it off. So, Helen and I ran around the house opening all the windows and doors while Luke fanned the smoke out and Ben kept turning the smoke alarm off. We'd been at this for about two minutes when Luke's last remaining housemate, Adam, came downstairs in his dressing gown rubbing his eyes and utterly confused. An amusing end to the day to be sure.

Today is Friday, and like I said I'm sitting in Starbucks waiting for Luke's mum to arrive, which should be any moment. Luke should be done with his interview in a half hour and then the three of us are going to do a spot of shopping before Lindsay drives us back to Southam, where Neil will pick us up from tonight. Going to be spending the weekend near Milton Keynes with Neil and Nicola, which I'm excited for, haven't seen them since Christmas!

Erin x