This is a story of Despoina’s summer trip: her very first
trip to Britain, to England, to Sheffield.
Certainly, it was raining in Manchester on our arrival but Sheffield not only
smiled on us, but offered us a welcome directly opposite our bedroom window! It
has to be said she had been suffering from an ear infection and the additional in-flight
pressure changes had not helped matters. Here she is with Mum Angeliki in the
Chinese restaurant of her choice, but tiredness overcame appetite. We decided to
take supper in carry-our form.
While I waited for it to be wrapped I beheld a memorable scene: some
of you may be familiar with the Billy Connolly drunk-eating-chips
character who is so coordination-challenged in his inebriate state that he well
nigh loses his balance by simply picking a chip from his newspaper container. (A brief linguistic hiatus: there is an ‘ebriate’
state as well which means the same thing, so the in- prefix is no negative marker here but echoes the ‘in his cups’ sense.)
Anyway, as our gent was wobbling over his fish supper, a loud noise was heard
nearby. He wheeled round with unexpected force to identify what the source was
and, as he did, a veritable arc of Sheffield-fries formed in the air, a pensile
potato parabola. What a story – it even managed to raise a
giggle in our tired heroine!
Next day, she was another person, completely recovered.
Every little girl has her dreams. A white roller draped with a pink ribbon –
isn’t that part of the princess persona? The bride may have opted for a civil rather
than a church ceremony but this was not going to be a half-hearted event!
With her smart-phone in hand, Despoina joins some cheeky
chipmunks promoting hi-tech gadgets.
And she has more furry
friends to meet in the Botanical
Gardens : chasing tame squirrels, getting a big bear-hug ( he was metal so
not so furry) and Despoina sent me this picture of the-face-in-the-tree which I
think she’d like me to add here .
Definitely furry, but not so friendly is Kubrick – Jen, my nieces’,
very own Garfield look-alike. To improve his mood Despoina designed a house –
complete with chimney and welcome mat – for him! Cute, huh?
The local restaurants were child-friendly
and our young consumer became quite the reviewer in assessing the range of
menu, quality of food and interest rating of the games and puzzles also provided.
Jen’s friends, Anna and Kate have set up the
most amazing Olde Worlde Sweetie Shoppe – check out the glorious pics at : www.cocoawonderland.
co.uk - where you can get all sorts of wonderland
goodies – D gave them full marks for their chocolate brownies! Here she is with
her Mum sitting outside their shop - in glorious Sheffield sunshine.
Of course, Jen was there as were other members of our family, seen here
at one of our more sedate meetings, enjoying delicious Italian cuisine.
The previous night we had
descended on the Anchorage Bar which
was offering specials on steaks and hamburgers – so we just had to sample the
fare. There were nine of us and our family is not renowned for silent, seemly behavior
at table. When I suggested that the waitress might like to put us at a more
remote table for everyone’s sake, she smiled indulgently, saying not to worry,
that we would have great competition from the younger (!!) diners. We were delighted when our waiter and waitress
began to speak Greek to us – they had worked in Cyprus for some time! As we
left, she came up rather sheepishly to announce I was right – we were the sound
champions, having raised the decibels to an entire other level that night –
yay!!
Sadly, the time for departure arrived. On the road to the
station, D. admired Phlegm’s graffiti figure
reclining on the wall.
And she insisted we echo a picture similar to the one I
took on my first trip.
Here she is: smitten with Sheffield!
Here she is: smitten with Sheffield!
