Sheffield 3

My sister is developing a mania for British post-boxes. Annie explained to her that the monograms on the side tell you which monarch's reign they were set up during, and so far we've found "contemporary", Victorian, and even Georgian post boxes. The attraction to Pip, I think, is that they come in different shapes and sizes.


Today was a "downtime" day in order to get some practicalities sorted out. We caught the tram to Cathedral station. After Yorkminster and Lincoln, Sheffield's cathedral came as a shock; it's only the size of a parish church. Gives you an idea of how fast this city just exploded in the Industrial Revolution.

Mum and Pip shopped around Fargate for more long-sleeved tops (funnily enough, it's COLD here) while I looked around for some kind of phone deal. After making dad promise not to snarl at the shop assistant (it's their job to be evasive to a certain extent, and politeness stops that so much more effectively), we went and negotiated with a girl in the T-mobile shop. Result: £10 phone with plenty of credit. First thing I did was to make contact with Pat after a week of total silence. I made the call standing just outside a huge Primark store where Pip had been scouting for the cheap "foonky taahts" described by our hostess in Manchester. The conversation between Pat and I was only a tiny snippet - I had to catch up to my family, and Pat had to sleep.

The family then set out for the Millenium Gallery, and after a few wrong turns up slum alleys (you don't need to scratch deep to penetrate the shiny bits of Sheffield) we arrived and met dad's old friend Barry. We all had a nice lunch in the gallery cafe together; the conversation was mostly dad and Barry's catching-up, as Pip and I had never met Barry before, and mum just the once. As a result, we three females left dad and Barry to be able to talk without being hindered by poor Barry's politeness. We went to see the gallery's wintergarden briefly, as well as a mini-exhibition exploring John Ruskin's theories about art. Remind me, someone: I must hunt down some of Ruskin's books. He seems a total idealist; I think his ideas would be fascinating.

Next stop was Sheffield central library, for internet access; and then back to the gallery cafe to collect dad and say our farewells to Barry.

As dusk was falling the four of us deliberately boarded a tram traveling in the wrong direction, so as to see a little more of Sheffield and make the most of our day-tickets. It was interesting to see Sheffield's suburbs, and to see the numbers of buildings being put up on the outskirts of the CBD.It's impossible to turn a corner in Sheffield without seeing at least two big cranes silhouetted on the horizon.

We eventually switched trams and headed "home" again to Coniston, where Pat rang at a more reasonable hour and we talked for the first time in a week. I slept very contentedly.