Isn’t it strange? How suddenly you can get a few mushrooms or toadstools spring up.

I was in the garden the other day and I noticed quite a huge number of toadstools.

They were spread between two stepping log “stones” and also under the trampoline.

What was really quite surprising was that there appeared to be two varieties fruiting at the same time.

Interestingly I’ve never seen either of these varieties in our garden before.

And once sensitised to the appearance of these fungal visitors I started to see them elsewhere.

For instance, I saw a little clump of the toadstools shown in the photo at All Saints Church in Stand before the Remembrance Day service on Sunday.

And now of course I’m wondering whether they were toadstools or mushrooms and what their names are.

So if any fungi collector is reading please let me know and put me out of my misery!

I’ve known the Marble Arch pub for a very long time. I mean it’s been there since time began hasn’t it? Or at least since 1888 when it was built (according to sources on the Internet).

Many are the pub crawls I’ve made starting, ending or simply visiting at the Marble Arch.

The beer has always been well regarded. And there’s no doubt that if you want to see a proper old-fashioned pub the Marble Arch is a very good place to go to.

It’s built on a slope. Consequently if you enter via the side door you find yourself walking up hill. Now that is a slightly surreal experience.

The pub really has a genuinely lovely atmosphere. The amount of effort that the Victorians made to make a great pub really show in this one.

And of course the pub is really finished off by having great staff. Whenever I’ve gone there they’ve been very friendly.

I went there yesterday to eat with a friend and we both had fish(cod) and chips. You might think that’s boring but the Marble Arch chef managed to make them so the batter was light, fluffy and tasted wonderful. The cod arrived as melt in your mouth battered strips. And the chunky chips were so nice that I ate them all, despite actually being rather full.

I finished with a Manchester tart (I couldn’t have eaten the starter or I’m sure I would have exploded). The tart was light and covered in coconut. Again delicious! Rob, decided for the syrup sponge which looked scrumptious and was finished off nearly as quickly as I finished mine off.

And of course the beer was excellent. There’s no doubt that now they brew their own, the beer seems to be consistently good. All, in all a great pub that anyone could visit and enjoy.

This last week has been great fun. I’ve had the privilege of building a snowman with my children and having snowball fights with them.

Later in the week my eldest took my two youngest sledging. And they came back cold, damp and filled with glee.

And even the fact that I’ve had to clear my drive 4 times and still struggle to get the car off the drive hasn’t quite managed to dampen my winter spirits. Even watching the cars not moving on the main road outside our windows didn’t make me gloomy.

As I said it’s a privilege to take part in memory moments with your children and I hope they remember this as I will when they’re a little older. And if they don’t I’ve the video as evidence!

Clayton Hall museum looks like a great new school curriculum resource for the Victorian period. It’s about to be opened for exactly that purpose.

Volunteers with help from Manchester Leisure have been decorating and finding appropriate furniture to show how the hall might have looked during Victorian times.

They’ve even had the kitchen range re-installed so that as soon as you walk in it looks just as you’d expect a Victorian kitchen to look.

They’ve just had their open day for teachers to view before the museum’s grand opening.

All the teachers that came were enthusiastic and some have already booked one or more dates to bring classes.

I suspect it could be fun for more schools to find out about this little gem. To see the progress to date check the Friends of Clayton Park’s where there are some nice photos of people working!

I fell in love with Manchester when I came for my University admissions interview. It had been exciting to travel up by train from the farthest reaches of East Anglia, well Peterborough anyway.

I’d heard all the stories about how Manchester had a permanent black cloud tethered to it by a large and grime-ridden piece of string. All the buildings would be covered with soot and bits of miners Black Lung as the matchstick men and women coughed through the fogs to buy themselves their chippy teas, with a big strong mug of tea to wash it down.

Did I believe those stories? Of course not, well maybe a little…

Yet, when I arrived at Piccadilly station I discovered that the sun that had been threatening to smile weakly over my explorations had burst through into glorious warmth through a cloudless blue sky. I walked the relatively short distance (or so it seemed in those days) from the station, through UMIST to Manchester University’s Chemistry department. There I found myself with hundreds of other hopeful candidates for a Chemistry degree. We all trooped into the largest lecture theatre and were addressed by the admissions tutor who pointed out that statistically we’d all die one day! Cheerful, or what?

Everyone I met seemed just as excited as me and very friendly. And this was a prestigious course and the best Chemistry course after Oxford and Cambridge so everyone was keen to get in.

When we eventually finished our interviews the sun was still shining gently down on us and the clear blue skies were all around. I’d seen the sun rays glance off the station, UMIST’s massive buildings, The Refuge building along Oxford road and Manchester Town Hall nestled in Albert Square. All seemed right with the world and I knew then as I boarded the train back home that I would return.

Little did I know then that with the degree course I would discover the delights of student societies, student parties, Tommy Ducks, The Salisbury, Studios 1-5 and halls of residence!