When we arrived in Manchester my amazing hubby climbed into
the right hand side of the rental vehicle and promptly started driving on the
left hand side of the road without skipping a beat! Before I knew it we were in Oldham, the town
where I grew up. Although I lived in
Oldham from the age of seven and have many pleasant memories, the years I
remember ever so fondly start when I was about eleven. At that age I entered the austere portals of
The Hulme Grammar School for Girls and for the next seven years was spent in a
whirlwind of learning, socializing, and living what was a relatively carefree
life among people who became friends for life.
Naturally then the
first stop was back to school! School
breaks for summer later in England than in America but there were no students
in session that day as there was an extra day holiday in honor of the Queen’s
Diamond Jubilee. Everything you have
heard and all the jokes that are made about England and Europe having lots of
holidays are indeed true. When there isn’t
a legitimate reason for a holiday in England we simply call it a Bank Holiday
and everyone goes to the pub to celebrate.
It is quite a system and after centuries of doing this there have been
no complaints so it continues without interruption. Despite the holiday, my very good friend
Caitlin, with whom I went to school and who now works there, arranged for us to
tour the scene of many a great memory. This
is where we really noticed those horrible creatures known as boys that were
separated from us by the great “Iron Curtain”.
This is where we spent hours of brain power trying to break the uniform rules
just enough to be daring and not enough to get caught. This is where another of my lovely friends, with a penchant for challenging authority,
taped a slice of mushroom into her biology book instead of drawing it and later
had to discard her notes because her notebook had a runny substance dripping out of it and a smell
the rest of us could no longer stomach (you know who you are and that still
makes me giggle!) We are now known as
Old Girls and under other circumstances that might be quite offensive but it
was wonderful to go back. I had to get
used to the fact that we moved freely in the Girls School AND the Boys
School. This was not allowed in my day
and some may remember from a previous blog that those that tried introduced the
detention process to a previously law-abiding environment. On the surface, not much had changed although
I remember the “Iron Curtain” as being much bigger than it actually turned out
to be.
Once we left school, with promises to meet at the pub later
of course, we drove by the house I grew up in and then headed to a small
village that was also the scene of many a good pub crawl. This time we enjoyed it for its scenery. We only saw the whites of my usually
unruffled hubby’s eyes once when he came around a corner and a car was facing
him. He jumped and, with a semi-accusing
look as he realized the car was parked, asked, “You don’t park in the direction
of traffic flow???” I sheepishly admitted
that in England when you see a spot to park you pull into it, wherever it might
be…sorry darling!
We were famished by
the time we got to the pub, my old haunt that hadn’t changed a bit! Caitlin and a couple more friends joined us
and we started to catch up over a pint and Steak and Guinness Pie. The boys grew restless and asked if they
could go outside and with lots of warnings about the road and traffic coming
from a different direction, etc. they were finally released to go “not far” and
“not to cross any roads”. After a while,
my youngest stepson reappeared and handed me a beautiful flower; we were
distracted and I admired it and hugged him and placed it on the table. Over the course of the next couple of hours
the same thing kept happening until suddenly it struck me to ask where the
flowers were coming from. I can only
blame it on exceedingly good beer that we hadn’t thought of this earlier but at
this point four boys eagerly told the tale of the lovely huge grassy area they
found to play hide and seek. It was like
a park with beautiful bushes and flowers apparently. That is until the owner of said “park”, which
materialized to be her garden, came out of her house to let those boys know in
no uncertain terms that she was calling the police! Jailed in another country? Hauled off while the parents sat in the
pub? Stealers of flowers and tramplers
of grass? This was not the memory we
were looking to make! The bunch
apologized profusely and when she heard them speak, curiosity got the better of
her and she asked where they were from and what they were doing in this small
town in England? Before the evening was
over she had told them where in her garden they could play and watched and
waved from her window until they returned to the oblivious and clearly
irresponsible parents. We headed back
to our Bed and Breakfast finally and decided we should clear out the next
morning before we were arrested…more to come :o)
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