When I went to Bolton a week ago, I didn’t manage to take any decent shots of Ye Olde Man & Scythe, one of Britain’s oldest pubs. (Don’t tell me anybody that North West of England is not worth of visiting or inhabiting). The reason was that there was a van or a truck standing right in front of it, and obviously I didn’t feel so generous as to photograph the vehicle.
Thankfully, a week later it was completely different. There was no van, or truck, but there were a plenty of people walking past.
Some people were even attempting to chat up a young girl (who you can see on the right), oblivious to the fact that she was a mannequin. I must admit: every so often I fall the victim of mannequins. I mistake them for real people. The first time it happened in Moscow, many years ago, in a sportswear shop, when I needed an advice, and went up to a well-dressed young man, who confidently stood at the entrance to the sportswear section. My eye-sight was not perfect then already, so it took me to come up close to the figure to realise that I was intending to speak to a dummy.
This fairy, however, wasn’t a very simple fairy. She was very airy, for which reason, I believe, she had a ‘Mop&Shine’ stood between her feet – to keep her base down to earth.
This fairy was not the only one who was inviting you under the pub’s roof. Another airy creature was gazing from the window in the room above the entrance. You can see her on the very first picture in this post, but I tried to get a closer look at her.
The pub, as some of you may know, had existed since 1251, and was partially rebuilt in 1636. The bar inside the building shows the end of the 1251 wall.
Two views of the sitting space in the inner yard. The right picture was taken from the walk between the two buildings, and gives you a peek at the leaden barrels of bitter in the pub’s cellar.
I think some of the visitors were quite amused to see a girl in a red coat, with two bags (yes, I did some shopping, as well), first snapping pictures outside the pub, and then walking in and continuing to snap inside the building. One of those people were looking out of the window while I was trying to get a better shot of the female figure in the room above the entrance. I might not have walked into the building, but he looked like a pub’s owner, so I thought I’d come in and ask if he minded me taking pictures of his property. No, he wasn’t the owner, but he didn’t mind, and neither would the owner, he said. So, I carried on taking pics, my conscience being cleared.
Oh, I forgot to say why I ended up going to Bolton for two weekends in a row. First, I’m working full time in Warrington these days, and commuting between Manchester and Warrington takes me three hours in total each day. Needless to say, I don’t have much time to go anywhere after work during the week. And when I went to Bolton on the 10th, at Whitakers I found the buttons for the coat that I knitted. And then came a severe test to my math skills, or rather to my occasional absent-mindedness. I knew there were seven button-holes, but the buttons were being sold in pairs. So I bought three pairs, knowing all the while that the coat has got seven button-holes. Thus, a week later I had to go to Bolton again, to get another pair of buttons.
