19 September - And more rain

Woke up to the new swimming pool. Okay, not really a swimming pool, just a flooded plain across the street. I don't know how I slept through rain that strong. Rain is pretty much a daily occurrence in the northwest of England, not dissimilar to the Pacific northwest, but they take it to a new level.

We ventured out during a lull in the rain but, of course, halfway to our destination the heavens opened. By the time we reached the Manchester Art Gallery, I was soaked. Happily, they have lockers so I was able to check my saturated raincoat. They have such an interesting collection, and the way it's displayed is intriguing. They are known for their pre-Raphaelite collection, but they have sculpture, craft and design and costume collections as well. In the sculpture gallery they chose to present items as you would find them in storage. Some larger pieces were crated, with one side of the crate clear acrylic, rather than wood. Smaller pieces were on shelves, not necessarily upright or positioned in a way to make viewing them easy. An odd choice, but certainly novel.

One thing that I find increasingly annoying in museums and galleries is the use of glass on paintings and acrylic boxes around sculpture. There were presumably beautiful paintings on display, but due to the reflection of light, people, and other paintings, they can't be viewed clearly. That was one thing I found refreshing about the Tate. Many of the pieces had low wires and stanchions around them. Why can't more museums do that?

There was a special exhibition called "Unpicking Couture" which celebrates pioneering creativity and design. Some of these pieces were absolutely breathtaking. They look better on the website than in my photos, if you want a better look.

There was an outstanding exhibit which featured 6 videos of staff creating "living art". It was made to call attention to equal rights and representation of all people regardless of race or sexual orientation. It was so clever. My favorite was the man/unicorn mirroring the painting next to him. I could have stood there watching it for hours, had my back not been screaming for me to sit down.

In a couple of hours, we hadn't even scratched the surface of the museum's offerings, but had reached sensory overload, so decided to add another Mowgli restaurant to our collection. The design of each restaurant is similar but the spaces are so different. This one was massive, but divided into smaller spaces to be more inviting. We had two wonderful people serving us, Chris and Mia, and they made the experience really enjoyable. Today's dishes were Sticky Chicken, coated in a chickpea batter with a spiced molasses glaze and House Lamb Curry, simmered with anise, plums and chickpeas. Those who know my usual diet may have noticed that I have added meat to my diet lately. This is by design. Since we're headed to Africa on safari, I wanted to prime my gut to deal with the diet there, which is very meat-centric.

From Mowgli, we wandered over to the Manchester Cathedral. It was mentioned in the doomsday book, which indicates that it pre-dates 1066. Of course, the church has been rebuilt many times since then. The Victorian stained glass windows were destroyed in the Manchester Blitz in 1940. According to Wikipedia, "Until the late 1960s, only two windows had been replaced, notably the Fire Window by Margaret Traherne (1966). The dean and chapter commissioned Tony Hollaway to prepare a scheme for reglazing the cathedral, with priority to the five western windows: St George (1973), St Denys (1976), St Mary (1980), The Creation (1991) and The Apocalypse (1995). To commemorate the restoration of the cathedral following an IRA bomb in 1996, the Healing Window by Linda Walton was installed in 2004."

I found the modern design of the windows a marvelous juxtaposition to the classic design of the cathedral itself.

The rain was just a sprinkle by this time, so after a quick wander through the city center I headed for home.

Here are some more treasures from the Manchester Art Gallery (shot to minimize glare).