Rain! Traffic! Congestion! Laundry! Cool Hotel!

We started off a bit after 9:00, hoping to hit a laundry somewhere. But first, much rain and traffic congestion. It took us about an hour and a half – maybe more – to do laundry in a spot in the Old Trafford section of Manchester, but hey, we got everything clean.

Manchester, like Glasgow, is an old industrial city working at a feverish pace to reinvent itself. The city centre is a warden of small streets, just like other metropolitan areas with ancient roots. /p>

Our hotel is the Kimptoon Clocktower, which was built in 1881 and expanded in 1932 to house the Refuge Assurance Company. (If that sounds familiar, it was the Crimson Permanent Assurance that went sailing on the accountant seas in “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life.” Same type of company.) After about 20 years of being vacant, it was purchased and turned into a lovely hotel.

We’re on the second floor, where one of the rooms is reputed to be haunted. The staircase down the hall is also supposedly haunted. A distraught WWI widow jumped to her death from the top.

It’s a truly lovely building. Naturally, I’ve taken a ton of pictures.

Dinner was Sunday roast, as is traditional in England. Before that we went to a “meet and greet,” which is kind of like the manager’s happy hour at some hotels. All the beer and wine you wanted, plus Jellybabies and other snacks.

More pictures in tomorrow's entry.

(Go to the next day)