Across the Pennines

Woke up quite early this morning but dozed.  The weather was much better today with the sun shining and no rain falling.  Tom found it hard to wake and so I left him dozing.  I wrote up yesterday's blog and drank a cup of tea.  Malcolm eventually got up himself and joined me for tea.  The morning seemed to go quickly and we drove round to Christ Church for Morning Eucharist which was being taken by Mark with Chris preaching.  A good service with a couple of my favourite hymns (There is a Redeemer being a particular favourite) .  Chris's sermon was good - on the theme of Matthew 16:21-28 (taking up your own cross and following Christ) using the example of Anna Hazare's fasting in India as an anti-corruption protest and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.  After morning coffee at the back of the church we returned to Malcolm's flat to pack up our things and put them in my car before meeting up with Chris again at Maranto's for a traditional Sunday roast dinner - cream of vegetable soup, roast lamb and trimmings finished off with apple crumble.  Tom had barbecued ribs and a chocolate fudge cake - the latter defeating him.  We set off for Grimsby at about 4.15 p.m. along the M62 from Liverpool across to Manchester, Leeds and Doncaster and then into Grimsby on the A180.  We listened to Arsenal's crushing 8-2 defeat by Manchester United at Old Trafford most of the way across.  What an interesting and unusual weekend of football we've had!  We arrived at Mum's at around 6.30 p.m. Tonight we watched some TV before Tom took himself off to bed at about 10.30p.m. and I followed just before midnight - quite tired after my 150-mile drive across the "backbone of England".