Monday Mural: De Nada

It was great to catch up with two old friends last Thursday night. We met in the cosy South American cafe bar called De Nada in Chorlton, where I found this contribution for today's Monday Mural.

Weekend Reflections: Halloween

Orange paper lanterns are all over the city centre, mostly hanging on trees but some decorating Kendals on Deansgate. Weekend Reflections.

Skywatch Friday: Grey sky autumn colours

This photo, taken from my balcony, is all about the autumn trees on the banks of the River Irwell. They provided drivers with some visual respite during yesterday's rush hour exodus from the city centre centre. The sky is grey but you don't always need a perfect blue to frame the autumn blazes of colour, as the season reaches its peak. Skywatch Friday.

...a river runs through it #citydailyphoto

Salford to the right of me, Manchester to the left, here I am ... stuck on the Irwell with you...

... and dream of trees

A walk in Heaton Park on Saturday afternoon and by this point I was lost, mentally but not physically, in the woods. Drifting off in a dreamlike trance.

Monday Mural: Didsbury water supply

This mural commemorates the spot where the good folk of Didsbury once had to draw their water from a spring. We spent an enjoyable lunchtime here yesterday, wandering around Flecther Moss Botanical Gardens in Disbury.  First trip of the day though was the always fasinttaing thrice yearly vintage fair at Victoria Baths. It's good to be linking up again for the Monday Mural.

Apologies for the dearth of postings here lately. After 5 and a half years and 2000 posts, the blog is fading a little. Partly due to some exciting new projects in the pipeline (one of which will probably replace Mancunian Wave in a few months' time) and partly due to having taken on a third job over these past two months. Things will settle down a little in November.

Campus in Autumn...

FM repairs #citydailyphoto

Here's a backstreet repair shop on Lower Ormond Street that is worth knowing about. Their Facebook page is always full of useful and often amusing items too. 

Weekend Reflections: Canada House

Creativity is forged in #Manchester on the anvil of industry...

The busy Mancunian bee at Victoria Warehouse in Old Trafford the other week. I really like the slogan - maybe we will have more of these, without advertising, nationally when the revolution comes?...

I'm off for a week away from tomorrow- it was an unexpected but nice surprise when a friend invited me on holiday with her. Will have to take some work with me but I'll cope :-)

Monday Mural:@stewysstencils #Stewy #DeliaDerbyshire & #RobertWyatt at Dissenting Academy

One of my heroines, Delia Derbyshire. Last week I was at the launch of street artist Stewy’s Dissenting Academy exhibition at Future Artists’ Gallery on Chapel Street. It was great to be able to chat with the man himself as I’ve been an admirer of his stencils for years. See these on the blog, and also this one. He creates on “life size handcut stencils of psycho-geographically placed British icons… and an A to Z of indigenous British animals shown to be reclaiming the cities and towns….The British icons represent eccentrics, misfits and forward thinkers of Britain and they are placed in locations around the country that are relevant to them.” Get there if you can, ends 9 October.

Check out the other wonderful contributions to the Monday Mural. 

Below: Stencil of Malcom McLaren and a great mural of the legend that is Robert Wyatt.

CDP Theme Day: Abandoned

City Daily Photo’s Theme Day for 1 October is Abandoned.

You’re looking at what was once part of the heart of medieval Salford. The 19^th century saw it gradually demolished and replaced with Victoriana buildings and the railway cut through in a couple of directions. They lasted until World War II when Nazi bombs flattened much of it.

The post WWII period saw small engineering and mechanics set up in single and double storey buildings, plus under the railway arches. Many of these went defunct in the 1970s and by the 1980s the area was largely abandoned, save a couple of pubs and a few surviving businesses.

In the last decade a spurt of regeneration was halted when the banks crashed the markets. But in recent years it’s started again, with much being bought up it seems by Chinese investors who then rent flats out, rather than local people who want to buy and make a home…