Mid-summer solstice

Mid summer solstice is just so wonderful. The long bright nights either side, but that night in particular. The night that goes on for ever. The magical, dreamy night. This night we went on a barge trip along the Bridewater canal, to the Manchester Ship Canal, past the Theatre of Dreams. The barge leaves from Castlefield Quay just off Deansgate. As the world cup is on there is a big screen showing the TV sports channel. People are slowly gathering for tonight's game. Spain against someone or other. The converted Roman amphitheatre takes fourteen thousand people, and for England games you need a ticket to control the numbers. The tickets are free. There's a beer stand, burger stalls and further along there's a beach. Yes, a beach with deck chairs and parasols. Along the canal people are rowing in a coxed four. It's like being on the set of 'Half a sixpence', I almost expect Tommy Steel to come bouncing along the edge and cartwheeling over the tables, the staff and punters alike bursting into song and a dance. When the weather is right, there's no better place than Manchester.

Pretty soon we're on our way. From the water you see a side of Manchester you never get to see by road. It's wonderful, even wondrous, magicking you back to the time when, a hundred years ago, the industrial revolution was in full swing, the co-operative movement was beginning, the suffragettes were changing politics in England and Marx was changing politics in the world. Manchester was the centre of the world, of the brave new world. I wonder if we're ever going to give Communism a try?

Tonight, the sun is bright as we chug rhythmically along ever widening man-made water. We seem a hundred years away from Communism, and so we are as the child Chancellor prepares to make us all pay for the failure Capitalism and bloated greed of Capitalists.

Much of the waterside has been redeveloped now, and very tastefully I think. The old warehouses are now lived in. The new high-rises house thousands of young singles and couples in modern flats. We reach Salford Quays and it looks every bit a modern and exciting as Darling Harbour. The Lowery Centre and the Imperial War Museum show off the best of modern Manchester architecture, the Hilton Hotel is still visible on the skyline, and the Theatre of Dreams itself of course.
Long summer days, not that you'd want to strip off and dive into the water. Well not this water. The rat traps were out when we got back to dry land. But stripping off, on hot nights, well mornings, that's for the younger ones, and it's another story altogether