Manchester and Heaton Park

Me and Mr Crafty Blueberry has a great trip to Manchester last week. We spent two nights there and even though we've been plenty of times and Mr CB grew up there, there was still lots to do.

We had tickets to see Penn and Teller live and it was great fun. They were very funny and although it's a magic show the magic was almost incidental, the punchline to a good joke almost, rather than the main focus. 

My favourite part of the trip was when we took a short tram ride to Heaton Park, about 15 minutes out of the city centre. It's massive, with meadows, woodland, a lake and really felt like a little slice of the countryside. 

Mr CB used to visit there for days out as a boy so it was nice hearing about his happy memories of Heaton Park as we walked around.

We Spent several hours there and had come prepared with a bag of nuts so we could feed the squirrels. This is the first one, then about 7 more came along when we got further into the woods.

Manchester is packed full of places to eat and drink, and we had a great dinner at a Korean barbeque restaurant one night and cocktails in the very attractive Corn Exchange,

I always enjoy visiting the libraries in central Manchester: Portico Library, Central Library and - in the photos below - John Rylands Library.

I like that Manchester is good to visit if you're not into shopping, despite that being a major draw as it is packed with all manner of shops. We're not into shopping as a hobby (as is obvious from this blog) so I love visiting cities and towns that have so much more to them than shops.