Too hot – part one

I had every intention of posting earlier this week, but I have been too hot and my brain has turned to mush.  Not only that, my get up and go is currently in a puddle on the floor and my to-do list is being used as a fan.  Yesterday, it reached 34°C in Winwick which is Very Hot Indeed for us in the UK who usually don’t take off our vests until the end of May, and everything has slowly ground to a halt as I have found myself on an enforced go-slow.

I have been getting up earlier and that has definitely helped, but my time has been spent on the day job (no go-slowing allowed there) and by the time that work is done, the sun is full in the sky and the temperature has been turned up to full volume.  Well, not full as no doubt you can tell me that it’s even hotter where you live, but full enough for me!

So, without any more ado, I’m going to do a quick catch-up of the last week and I’ll try to post again in the next few days so that I don’t end up with too many photos in one post.

Last Saturday, I met up with my yarny friends Lucy of Attic24 and Emma Varnam for a day in Manchester.  We all got there by public transport which always feels very freeing for a day out to me – no worrying about traffic into the city centre or extortionate parking charges – and started our day with a brew and a pastry before walking over to the John Rylands Library on Deansgate.  My very first job after leaving college was in Manchester and not far from the library, although I never went in so this was the first time I had ever seen the inside.

It’s very church-like, isn’t it?  I’ve got to say, I didn’t expect it to be quite so impressive.  The stonework is beautiful and I do love a vaulted ceiling!  You might recognise the two visitors walking ahead of me 🙂  The library was commissioned in 1889 by Enriqueta Rylands in memory of her husband John, who had died the previous year, and it took ten years to build, finally opening in 1900.

If you’ve read the blog for any length of time, you will know that my first question was “So who was John Rylands?” and off I set down the research rabbit hole to find out more about him.  Well!  What a fascinating journey that was!  It turns out that John Rylands originally came from St Helens, one of the towns close to where I grew up, and his mother’s maiden name was Pilkington which is the name of a famous glass company based the town; my Dad worked for Pilkington’s (Pilks) for many years and was involved in the development of their innovative float glass, although they would never give me a job despite me going for a few interviews – I was obviously destined for other things 🤣

St Helens was also the place where Thomas Beecham started his pharmaceutical company (Beecham’s powders still exist today) and his son, Sir Joseph Beecham expanded the company and built an impressive factory and office complete with clock tower.  I can remember going to the building when I was at school every Saturday morning to play in an orchestra (I was in the second violin section; I wasn’t that good as I didn’t like to practice!), and Sir Joseph Beecham’s son was Thomas Beecham, later Sir Thomas Beecham, an acclaimed conductor.  I find connections like this absolutely fascinating.  I had no idea this old library in Manchester would connect with places I knew like this!

Anyway, back to John Rylands.  He turned out to be a shrewd businessman and expanded his father’s textile business, along with his brothers, to the point where their textile warehouses in Manchester were seven stories high and they were also involved in spinning, dyeing and bleaching fabric.  He became the first multi-millionaire in Manchester – and at this point, I was thinking “Oh right, so he thought he’d build a library to commemorate himself”, but reading further I discovered that Rylands was a devoutly religious man and gave to many charities including orphanages and homes for aged gentlewomen, and he built a town hall, public baths, a library and a coffee house in Stretford, a suburb of Manchester.  It made me happy to think that someone who had so much money was prepared to do something to help other people in the community, and I know that there are many people who do the same these days (even those who are not multi-millionaires), but I also know there are people with a great deal of money who choose not to do anything to help others too.

After finding out more about him, I was glad that John Rylands had a library built in his memory.  It’s a beautiful building and it’s dedicated to special collections of books and you can go and work there too, in one of the spaces created especially for that …

There’s a lovely energy about the place and I was really glad that I had got to see it after such a long time.  I’m even tempted to go and work there – but it is bit of a distance from Winwick so I’ll see how that plan goes 🙂

After we’d been in there, the three of us headed off to find somewhere to sit and chat.  We ended up at Campfield, which is what now occupies the building that used to be the Air and Space Hall of the Science and Industry Museum (big daughter used to call it the “Science and Interesting” Museum and the name has stuck for our family) until 2020, and now it has a new lease of life as a flexible space for co-working, studios and events.  At the weekends, it hosts a makers’ market and we thoroughly enjoyed looking at the crafts on offer before settling ourself into comfy seats with drinks and sandwiches – and our knitting and crochet.

Ooh, what’s this on my needles?!

I’ll tell you!  It’s a new Emergency Sock because I didn’t want to take anything complicated with me on our day out so I had a rootle through my stash and found this skein of yarn …

It’s a hand-dyed yarn by Truly Hooked and I know that I’ve had this yarn for a long time because the colourway is called “Thanks NHS” and I bought it during Covid …

Now, tell me honestly (ignoring the photo of the sock cuff above), how did you think this yarn would knit up?  With that big blue section, I really thought it was going to be a blue sock with a rainbow flash – but no!  Look at this!

It’s a lovely variegated yarn and I am really enjoying knitting it!  Oh my goodness, I’ve got to admit that I have got a bit of startitis at the moment (this is when you can’t stop casting on something new without finishing anything off first) and I do have to try to rein myself in a bit.  You always need an Emergency Sock on the needles though, right?  I was very glad of it later that evening when there was a platform change and everybody missed the train, so I had a 40 minute wait for the next one.  Hooray for Emergency Socks!

And that’s me done for today.  There’s still more to tell you, but it’s now Pimm’s o’clock and I am heading outside to the shade of the garden umbrella with my knitting.  Cheers!