Yet again the Manchester weather spoils the plans of parents.

My eldest daughters last sports day at her primary school was scheduled to be on Monday, 7th July. As sometimes happens in Manchester the heavens opened and a veritable torrent over the weekend and in the morning washed away any chance of the day happening on Monday.

So much for booking the morning to watch it!

Last year the rain had fallen in such a steady way that sports day was completely cancelled. If you remember the pictures of floods from Hull, Sheffield and elsewhere you know we had some rain. Luckily Manchester stayed relatively flood-free. Although like I say, the odd sports day was cancelled!

Anyway today when I’m booked solid with coaching has to be the day they can do sports day. So my wife and youngest daughter have been packed off to enjoy a few hours of people running around, jumping in sacks, skipping and possible egg and spoon races. Apparently the three-legged race has been banned because someone broke their leg doing it last year. Not at my daughters school though.

I love it every year, it’s real fun for the children. And this stuff about not being competitive, don’t make me laugh. Children are competitive and really root for their teams.

So sadly I can’t do sports day this year (although I managed my middle daughter’s sports day in June). So it looks like I have to rely on video…

Manchester weather appears to be an odd variety of sleet, rain, sun and cloud. So to get a more consistent type of weather – snow – we decamped to the relatively new “sports resource” near to that shopping Nirvana: The Trafford Centre.

To disappoint the keen golfers I’m not talking about the all weather golf driving range or the enormous gym.

I’m talking about The Chill Factor!

For my snow bound readers it could be a home from home.

The Chill Factor is a huge building with a real snow ski slope, tubing run and even a junior luge. The ski slope can be seen from the picture on the right.

The whole place is impressive from the snow that abounds and covers every inch of the slopes to the restaurants and the balconies where you can watch people ski or fall down.

As you’d expect get out on the slopes or on one of the two massive balconies and you can feel the Chill Factor chilling you too. Still that makes it fun to nip back inside for some retail therapy, either in buying snowboarding or skiing duds, or feasting at one of the restaurants.

Everyone I talked to loved the experience.  And by the way if you’ve got a digital camera with a slight delay between pressing the button and the picture being taken be prepared to take a lot of pictures of just snow. I did!

My only concern about the whole place is whether it can run at a profit because of what must be an elephantine electricity bill for the snow and keeping it cold. Hopefully the fact that there are quite a few winter sports enthusiasts who will pay the entrance price and buy the latest must-have snowboard fashion gear will help.

All we need now is a good sized ice rink as part of the complex and I’ll be there every day!

The Russians are coming! Are they intent on invading Manchester and the Northwest? Certainly looking at my blog statistics it looks that way. Over the last few weeks the subscribers from Russia have simply sky-rocketed.

Obviously I’m always pleased to have new readers. However, I’m a little puzzled that they’re all from the same country.

Is it our attractive motorways, more commonly known as short stay car parks? Maybe it’s the ski slope near The Trafford Centre. Or are they all keen supporters of the Swimming World Championship being held at The Manchester Evening News Arena or are they following Manchester United’s run in league and cup?

Maybe one of you would like to tell me why?

IceRocket tags: Russians, Manchester, Manchester United

Technorati tags: Russians, Manchester, Manchester United

So the “Enjoy England” campaign is presenting information about lots of cultural stuff going on in England under the banner of Culture08.

Meanwhile in sunny Manchester (although my fingers are dropping off from the cold) we’re getting ready to have a huge set of sporting fixtures that should help to propel us back to the top for sport, or the near the top if you count the Olympics!

So without further ado you can check out the fixtures at the Manchester World Sport08 site.

There’s a whole boatload of information there.

Meanwhile here’s a brief summary (with links) of the sporting events we’re getting:

A few weeks ago he was reviled. And now he is a hero, well in Manchester.

It is amazing what 3 weeks does and 9 points.

I thought he was a con artist, but if he can do the double over the rags then he has something.

Of course United were without Rooney and Ronaldo who helped each other get over the defeat in their own particular way.

Technorati tags: Manchester Derby, Manchester United, Manchester City, Sven

IceRocket tags: Manchester Derby, Manchester United, Manchester City, Sven

LiveJournal tags: Manchester Derby, Manchester United, Manchester City, Sven

Manchester seems to be getting better and better at hosting sports events. Why don’t we help London by hosting the 2012 Olympics for them?

Anyway, the latest sporting event starts on Saturday, 18th August at Bellevue.

It’s the European Hockey championships 2007. The best 8 teams in Europe will be there to battle it out. And by the way, contrary to the photo it’s not ice hockey – it’s the real thing.

Fancy seeing some sticks hitting legs? Well get there and enjoy!