Liverpool October 2017 - Trip Report

Obligatory pre-trip shot of Enid boarding the plane. Normally it's Ryanair and she has a puss on her face lol.

The view out the window was lovely but further below us it was not.  The weather had turned by the time we arrived to Liverpool from Dublin and there was a bad fog in Liverpool.  We circled the airport for a whole hour, and at that point diverted to Manchester.  We had no real agenda so it didn't bother us too much, but I did feel bad for people who were flying in for specific appointments etc.  Aer Lingus had a coach ready on our arrival and it was not too long of a drive from Manchester to Liverpool - plus it was a nice drive in English countryside.

 

I thought this photo was funny in Manchester airport.

"Hellooooooo! 1983 called, they want their briefcase back"

 

Like clearly there is something suspicious about this briefcase - it has time travelled back from the 1980's!

 

 

So on to Liverpool!  I am just going to post about the highlights of what we got up to. In no particular order, and I am leaving some stuff out but you will get a feel for our trip no doubt.

 

One of our main priorities of the trip (aside from doing lots of Beatles stuff!) was to visit The Tate Liverpool to see the Tracy Emin exhibit "My Bed",

I've been intrigued and fascinated by this art installation for the last 20 years and have always hoped that some day I would see it.  And now I have.

 

And now that I have seen it I actually don't think I have the words to tell you about it!!! It really needs to be seen to be believed.  It impressed me and appalled me in equal measures. And interested me, and repulsed me.  Quite amazing really.

 

This fella here spoke with Enid for 15 minutes about this picture...

Poor Enid.  She was overwhelmed(!)  Like she likes modern art and all....but!

 

 

The other highlight (aside from all the Beatles stuff!) was THIS!

This is Lime Street.  Unfortunately the sign is pretty faded and didn't come out great in then photo.

 

When Enid and I were in our early teens we used to read (and re-read!) and adore a series of 4 books by Liverpool author Helen Forrester.  The first book was "Twopence to Cross the Mersey", and then the final one in the series was "Lime Street at Two".  They are wonderful (true life) books about her and her family life just after the blitz in Liverpool.  Hers was an interesting story because her father and mother had actually been well off but their father had lost all their money in a business deal so the family were living in poverty in the 50's which while hard for all at that time, considering their background, and their (posh!) accents was even more challenging for them I think. 

When looking at Google maps we had seen that our hotel was near to Lime Street so we said we absolutely had to visit.

 

 

By visiting Lime Street this brought us into the Cultural Quarter so that was definitely a trip well worth making as you can see from the two photos above!

 

These two photos are from down near Albert Dock.  Liverpool was a much nicer city than I was expecting. 

As well as these lovely old buildings, there also were some very nice new modern buildings.  You can really see that Liverpool has been through a large rejuvenation.

 

The Beatles!!!

As a teenager I devoured books about The Beatles and listened to my dad's old tapes obsessively.

To be honest I had forgotten how great all their music is, and my obsession may be back...!

 

The entrance at the front of The Beatles Story

 

The museum is done very well with important aspects of the genesis of The Beatles recreated e.g. The casbah, the Hamburg star club, and the Cavern of course.  This here is the Mersey Beat office who were huge advocates of The Beatles and really quite integral in spreading their fame.

One of my favourite pieces of Beatles history - the band singing Let it Be on the roof of the Apple Offices in 1969.  One of their last appearances together.

Some of the lyrics of Imagine.

John Lennon, what a man.

 

This was up on the wall of the airport when I was leaving. 

It says a lot to me.

 

We also visited The Cavern, and it was brilliant!  It's a real live music venue still to this day. We saw two great young fellas playing guitars and singing Beatles and Bob Dylan songs.

 

 

Close to The Cavern was the Irish band KeyWest!

It was odd seeing them here as normally I see them on Grafton Street of a Saturday.  

 

This was the view from our hotel on the morning of the last day! As you know it was foggy and misty when arrived.  And it was like that on Day 2 as well.  So it was nice that it cleared so that we could see this great view at least once before we left.

 

 

We were situated near Liverpool One which was a really nice shopping area - so sure it'd be rude not to have checked it out eh!

 

John Lewis had some fab Christmas stock - as beautiful as their lovely Christmas ads!

 

Yup.  I went lunatic in Victoria's Secret.  I always do whenever I am in a city with a VS store

...I really wish we had one in Dublin.

 

We also did some clothes shopping and I got a few nice bits.  In particular a fab skirt which I'll wear at Christmas.  Oh and we bought lots of stuff for Christmas - that Enid, she loves Christmas, she's an awful bad influence on me!

 

Eek! All that shopping was difficult to pack.  I had packed lightly on the way over (just the backpack) but my TWO bags were stuffed full on the way back.

Today in work my new mouse mat made me smile.

 

Cheers! In summary, another great trip away with my twin sister :-) A big thank you to her for doing all the organising and booking!

 

Take That, so good we came twice

I apologise in advance to my regular readers.  There is a small part of this blog that could be taken as very slightly blue (but funny lol) so look away now if you are adverse to that type of thing.  I am blaming my bold friend Alice :-)  

Friday night was a big night for Enid, Alice and I as we had tickets to Take That in the Point Depot,  (Yes I know it's called the 3Arena now, but I'm old school and to me it will always be The Point!)

Our seats for the show were "so so".  They were good because we had no one sitting behind us so we could dance away without worrying about bothering anyone else.

And they were good for seeing the whole stage and the theatrics and the production which the two pics below show.

They weren't however great for seeing the guys faces.  We really could just see little people moving around and from our seating position we couldn't even see the screens.  But as I said it was great for seeing the whole production so we did get really into it and enjoyed the vibe.

So, most importantly, how were Take That?  They were amazing, amazing, AMAZING!  Considering they have recently lost Jason and are now only a three piece it really does not make a difference, they are just fantastic.  

We danced and bounced and sang and screamed our little hearts out. Boy did we scream! It's funny but whenever I am at a TT gig I am reminded of the old RTE archive footage of The Beatles arriving into Dublin Airport and then playing their one Dublin concert in The Adelphi cinema.  I've said it before but I'll say it again I truly believe that Take That are The Beatles of our era.  I believe that their songs (some of which have lasted 25 years already) will last as long as Lennon/McCartney songs.

They were so amazing that the second the concert was over we got straight on to Ticketmaster to see if we could get tickets for the Saturday night - we said we wanted Standing only as there was no point if everything was going to be the same for us as on the Friday.  On initial view it seemed there were only seated similar to our original available.  But then when I went in again I found some Standing.  Not sure but it seemed as if a batch were just released??  What luck! A few tense minutes while waiting for login and payment etc to go through but finally confirmed, phew!

So on the basis that we had been so lucky to get the tickets we wanted, we figured we should make the best of them and do something that we have never done before (even in my teens with Bon Jovi playing in the RDS), and heck, that we would go and queue outside of the venue.

Enid and I arrived at 3.30pm which we thought was very early for Doors Open at 6.30pm and were surprised to see people queueing already.

Here we are dressed for the weather sitting on our camping stools which we picked up in town on the way to The Point.

€1.49 in Dealz!  Bargain of the century.

Next time we are planning on bringing Penneys blankets and a full on picnic with a flask of coffee (plus whiskey to make Irish coffees) and will just leave it all outside the venue - we were not allowed bring the stools into the venue but for €1.49 who cares!!

While sitting outside we were joking saying we should be using the time to make banners.  Alice said she had already thought of a slogan for her banner "Take That, so good we came twice"

Enid and I were like, "Alice!!!!!!!! Do you know what you are saying??!!!!!"

Alice *innocent face*, "what?! whad???!!!!!"

Alice, "bold cheeky grin", "whad?!!!  C'mon it's funny!!!!!"

Lol, it is pretty funny. And clever :-)

So what was different about Saturday from Friday?

Well for a start....

...views like this.

And this.

And THIS.

We were so close that at one stage Howard pointed, and smiled, directly at Alice.

Again, they were totally AMAZING.   I am now completely obsessed with their new album songs - in particular These Days and Flaws.

I felt the crowd were better on Friday - they cheered loudly on more of a consistent basis over the whole night.   But once Saturday nights crowd got into it they went crazy, and as we Irish are wont to do (don't ask!!!!) launched into a round of Ole Ole, Ole while the band took a break before their encore.

Overall an incredible two nights.  Alice and I have decided that it's a simple must that you do the two nights, first seated and then standing.  I just hope, as Take That said themselves, that it won't be another 4 years before they are back in Dublin.

I leave you with a tweet from Howard which makes me think that he/they would have loved Alice's banner! Grrr a wasted opportunity.