Rain, and sleet, and more rain .............. yesterday in Manchester

Now adventures don’t always turn out the way you want.

Even the camera wouldn't work

And yesterday was one of them.

Tina was flying out from the airport and this I told myself promised to be a day out.

I thought I would catch the train back into the city and spend a  morning wandering across into Salford with a camera.

But as everyone knows the weather was against me.

The hard and persistent hailstorm just after 6 should have been taken as a warning of things to come, and come they did.

Primark in the rain

The journey down to Victoria Railway Station on one of those freebie buses was accomplished without much of a hitch but the driving rain which chose to become sleet at regular intervals was enough to wipe away the idea of a morning in Salford.

Like any sane person I opted to spend some time in the railway station but eventually headed out across Cathedral Gardens in another downpour.

I made it into the Arndale and from there got to Market Street.

At which point I have to say that for the first time in my life I could see the advantage of a Shopping Mall, less for the retail experience and more because it offered the opportunity to traverse a big chunk of the city in the warm and dry.

Looking across to Debenhams and spotting the windblown litter

Of course most of the shops had yet to open and all the lavatories were closed, each with a sign that directed you to another set of lavatories which were also unavailable.

Meanwhile  the rain and the sleet showed no willingness to abate.

All of which left me with no alternative but to retreat to a coffee bar from which I watched the weather get worse.

And when I finally ventured out I took a handful of pictures.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Market Street, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson