Up North

We visited Bradford in Yorkshire yesterday to finalize our folding, sliding doors for the extension. Bradford isn't the most likely destination for a saturday, especially considering it's nearly 200 miles away in "the grim North", but we had a great day. B spent the day with grandparents in Stoke; Yorkshire in winter apparently didn't float his boat.

Bradford was once a very prosporous and thriving city. It's got a fascinating history, not that I remembered much from our history lessons on the Industrial Revolution, but it was interesting to read about it again in this Wikipedia entry. Unfortunately, there wasn't much evidence of the once flourishing and vibrant city today -- but there were obvious signs of regeneration and we certainly enjoyed a couple of them in the afternoon.

We parked near City Hall (gothic looking building pictured here) and spent a very relaxing hour with a coffee in one of the best Waterstone book stores I have every seen. It occupies an old church in the center of town -- at last, a place to worship the true value of books!

We then took a short walk to the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television. What a gem! The updated '70's building houses three digital cinema screens and six floors of TV studios, photography exhibitions and a load of fun animation activities for kids - for free! At the moment, there is a splendid exhibition of photographer John Davies' work on landscapes in Britain.

When we read that one of the cinema theatres within the museum had been rated as "one of the best in world", we took advantage of our childless, rainy afternoon marooned up North to watch a 3pm film -- for any parents, what a cheeky treat an afternoon movie is! We saw "Black Book", a Dutch film about the resistance movement in the second world war. It was a little 'flim noir' for K's liking, but I loved it and would thoroughly recommend it (more of a movie for the boys than girls, though). And yes, it was the best movie theatre I've ever been in.