Rochdale Town Centre, 1981

Some of my own photos of Rochdale this time, as opposed to those of my late Uncle Geoff.

During the 1980s and 90s whilst Miss Franny's parents were still alive we used to make regular trips over to Rochdale to see them. Every now and then I'd go out with the camera, sometimes with Bob if he didn't fancy whatever sporting event was on the telly. This is Rochdale's main town centre road, grandly called The Esplanade.

Designed by William Crossland who won a competition for the honour of doing so, the town hall was opened in 1871. Its clock tower, topped by a spire and a gilded statue of St George and the Dragon was destroyed in a fire in 1883. The preent clock tower is 190 feet tall (58m), some 50 feet shorter than its predecessor and was designed and completed within four years.

Rochdale's parish church is dedicated to St Chad and sits behind and above the town hall, accessed from below by a flight of 124 steps dating from some 400 years ago. It has roots in Anglo Saxon England and a tale that fairies or spirits repeatedly moved stones intended for building from a riverside spot to the top of the hill where it now stands.

A fountain near the site was known as the Packer Spout and in Victorian times the whole are was full of slum housing, many used for prostitution and the area known as the Gank.

The churchyard has kept its old set of stocks although the wooden bits have had to be replaced - more than once I'd guess. Sadly they are not still in used...

Looking further down the town centre, the new council office block was not particularly well-loved by the populace and became known derisively as the Black Box. Given that that unofficial term had become so well-used, it seemed somewhat inappropriate that the Council decided to name it Nelson Mandela House...

The complex included a new bus exchange that no one liked using at night due to its isolated location and its exposure to the elements.

The ABC Cinema, ex-Regal Cinema and shortly after this photo was taken, inevitably, a Bingo Hall. It was showing the Bond film For Your Eyes Only, The Time Bandits and the (ahem) artistic classic Flesh Gordon...

On the very edge of the town centre the River Roche emerged from the widest bridge in the world and flowed past the garages of Yelloway coaches with their familiar yellow and orange livery.

Moving back to opposite the Town Hall, the building to the left of the photograph was the town's main Post Office. A couple of bright red K6 telephone kiosks can be seen just to the left of the buildings front elevation.

The Central Library and Art Gallery seen from the slopes of Broadfield Park. Some of Rochdale's more modern buildings for the backdrop.

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Valletta to Barcelona on Oceania Sirena, 2026

Join us for a ten-day cruise on the Oceania Sirena cruise ship, sailing from Valletta in Malta and ending at Barcelona, after splashing our way around the Western Mediterranean Sea. And it's another chance for us to catch up with entertainer friends Tomas and Maris!

Each day is shown on its own separate entry, reached by clicking/tapping the seven photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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Mallorca, Majorca, Let's Call The Whole Thing Off

Tuesday 29 September 2026. We are close to the end of our cruise. This really is our last day, as tomorrow we will be in Barcelona but will be getting off the ship early morning to go to the airport to come home.

But today we are in Majorca or Mallorca to give it its local name. We have boarded and disembarked from ships so many times here, but today we are moored quite a way from the marina. Nevertheless we decide it's our last day so we are going to get off the ship and walk along the coastal path.

I'm not fast at walking these days, but I reckon we've walked for a good hour without the scenery changing very much at all. We did reach the marina and the King of Spain's yacht is moored in its usual spot, but we are never going to reach the basilica at this rate and already we are facing another hour's walk back to the ship.

By the time we are close to the ship we are both in sore need of a drink. Luckily there were a few benches where I allowed myself a few minutes rest but now we spy a cafe-cum-gift-shop across the road. It's a crew cafe but they don't turn custom away and we sink gratefully into a seat that isn't bare metal and treat the old tonsils to a gush of ice cold liquid...

Hang on... I know that voice... We are sitting behind a potted hedge plant but vaguely I can see Tomas in the shop. We wait for him to come out but he escapes from a different doorway and we miss him!

Back on the ship at the door knob wall, as we have dubbed it. Miss Franny keeps joking she wants one as a souvenir and in places it does look as though someone has had a go at detaching one or two with varying degrees of success. I manage to dissuade her though...

The afternoon is spent throwing clothes into suitcases and making sure we haven't missed anything (though what happened to that shoe horn I've no idea...)

We head for the dining room for one last time and I took this one later as we crossed for the last time from the rear of the ship (the round end) to the Horizons Bar at the front (the pointy end). The island of Majorca is receding in the distance and we are now heading for our final port of call, Barcelona.

A lot of hugs and a few tears as we say farewell to Tom and Maris until another cruise brings us out to their ship. This has been a fabulous cruise with great people. So many passengers willing to chat, a fabulous crew too, for whom nothing was too much trouble

Cases have to be outside the cabins by 02:00am at the latest. We remembered to leave ourselves some clothes to wear tomorrow... Hey - it happens!

Morning. As we leave the customs house in Barcelona we are called. It's an American couple we met on our first day. We haven't seen them since but they remember us and made a big thing about first day/last day meetings which was quite fun.

Also outside the customs house was a demonstration. I'm not sure what it was about but the participants were mostly student age and all of a sudden we jumped as some sort of large firework or small explosive went off with a huge bang and cloud of smoke followed a couple of minutes after by sirens and the arrival of police cars... We got on our coach for the airport and left them to get on with it.

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Port Vendres, France

Monday, 28 September 2026. We continue our cruise with a visit to Port Vendres, France. It's a new port for us but a bit of a dull day as yet!

We pass through customs and turn towards the town, finding ourselves walking along the inevitable marina. It's still a couple of hours off lunchtime but the place seems eerily deserted.

The only people about are our fellow passengers and the quiet of the place seems even to have affected them. One or two greet us in subdued voices. You would think it a Sunday rather than a weekday.

There's a row of parked cars along the dockside. Presumably somebody has been up early and gone out for a day's fishing.

The map we were given shows that there is still quite a way to go in front of us to round the corner where there is a park at the end of the bay and a church on the opposite bank.

The dockside path runs out and we have a choice of walking back and retracing our steps but on the higher level where the road and shps are, or climbing the staircase against the tall wall that supports the town and stops it falling into the bay.

I take a deep breath and we take the steps up the wall. "Oh, well done!" says Miss Franny as I reach the top. I don't answer... I'm too busy dealing with screaming back muscles and the invisible men who keep plunging needles into me... We take a moment.

We are now around the corner and the church is visible and thw trees on the left are the edge of the park. It contains a few statues and memorials to President Charles de Gaulle.

The park was as far as we walked. We came back along the row of shops on the upper level but failed to find an open cafe. Then by the time we arrived back near the customs house, the sun had decided to come out at last and altered the mood of the place.

After some lunch we made our way to Baristas again and I started this, cursing myself several times that I would start something so complicated and it would be the following day before I managed to finsh it!

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Excursion to Cassis

Sunday 27 September 2026. Today we awaken in the French port of Marseilles. We are booked on a half-day excursion to a lovely old seaside town called Cassis.

Getting there though turns into something of a will we - won't we, as there has been a bicycle race on the narrow roads surrounding the hills above the town and there has been a bad accident that has closed the road, leading to some long queues and delays. We eventually reach the coach park - there is no way a coach could get down into the village.

So we hop onto a road train and ride down to the lowest spot we can get before we have to take to foot, emerging down the steps shown here to the right of the pink building.

First priority is a drink. Luckily there are plenty of cafes open despite it being Sunday. After the steps I need to catch my breath before trotting off anywhere.

The marina is full of rather more modest yachts than Portofino, but sadly still out of range of my pocket... In fact about the only boat within range of my pocket would be an inflatable and I've watched too many programmes about lifeboats to fall for that option!

We have a slow wander up into the town centre, where a market displays a mixture of goods and crafts to tempt the traveller and Miss Franny disappears into the same biscuit shop we visited on our last visit here in 2007. We came out loaded with several bags of biscuits...

We had time to walk slowly around the marina. It's warm and already I'm wanting another drink! We settle for a tub of ice cream each as an alternative.

Then we take a seat near to the meeting place for the walk back up to the road train. I knew that I would never manage to keep up with the rest of the people in our party so I had a word with the guide and we set off up the hill. We got to the road train stop just as he arrived with another train load of passengers and soon the rest of our party was seen coming up the hill.

Back onboard the ship in Marseilles with the church of Notre-Dame de la Garde High on the hill la Garde for which it is named, it can be reached by yet another of those little road trains. It has an all-round 360 degree view of the city and from it, with a good pair of binolculars, you'd be able to spot us ignoring it for the more pressing needs of lunchtime...

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Food, Friends and Fun

It's still Saturday, 26 September 2026. But it is a bit later in the day. We have been - if you have been following this holiday blog (if not, why not?) - to Villefranche on the French Riviera during the day but are now at sea and heading for Marseilles which is our port for tomorrow. Tonight we have booked a meal in one of the speciality restaurants onboard Oceania Sirena.

There are two such restaurants on the Sirena and this is the Tuscan Steak restaurant. We were wondering what the meal would be like. We were, I have to say, less than impressed with the steaks on the NCL ship we last cruised on, but no such worries tonight as the meal was excellent.

They have not skimped on the plateware and cutlery either. Cutlery for the main meal arrives with the meal.

Miss Franny had a bottle of Prosecco set aside and I tried a glass of non-alcoholic Merlot, though as I feared it was a not so much full-bodied as one leg and half an arm... At least it wasn't quite the paint stripper that I was dreading! Come on cruise lines, get some decent non-alcoholic beers in stock, not those wind-inducing lagers...

But, the meal itself couldn't be faulted, the dessert menu required serious thought and scoring as to pros and cons. Though the creme brulee quickly won the process and was generous in portion and delicious in taste and texture when it arrived.

Then it was across the top of the ship once again to Horizons bar where we were joined for a short while by Tom and Maris until it was time for them to go on stage. There was quite a party in there but no one on the dance floor so I managed to persuade Miss Franny up for a dance - well, more a lean on stick and sway a bit really, but it gained me a round of applause for the effort and Maris grabbed her phone to immortalise the moment.

Then they came to sit with us as one set finished and they relaxed before the next. This sometimes confused other passengers... "What was that all about?" asked one passenger one night when the bar was crowded and Maris had come to whisper in my ear that they were going out of the bar for a while. I have enough photos on my phone to convince people that we have known them a long time and that I've sung with them and elsewhere all my life.

"Is that you???" is a common exclaimation upon seeing the photo of me as a long-haired 17-year-old way back in 2007. Oh sorry, my mistake, early 1970s then...

Oceania Sirena Cruise Index

Oceania Sirena visits Villefranche

Saturday 26 September 2026. It's early morning and the colours are muted still as we gaze out over the ship's rail at the French resort of Villefranche which sits neatly between Nice and Monaco's Monte Carlo.

It is, I think, our fifth visit to this lovely village on the Frenh Riviera. It has a wide bay but a shallow harbour and so we are anchored safely in the bay whilst the ship's tender boats take us into the harbour, weaving through the moored fishing boats and pleasure craft to drop us conveniently at the western edge of the village.

I know that plenty of passengers look upon the prospect of getting on and off these smaller boats as something of an ordeal, but the crew will tell you when to stand still and when to step on or off and hands are waiting to ensure you make it across safely. Grasp at forearms not at hands to make it as easy as possbily. Yes the boats can move up and down quite a bit relatively to the ship's gangway, which will follow the side of the ship, not hang out over open water. But follow instructions and you will soon find yourself on or off the boat.

We have for the last few visits, made our way along to the opposite end of the attractive seafront to the very last cafe before you reach the railway station. The cafe was there but shut. And from the state of the interior, it didn't look like it was about to open soon as boxes and chairs were stacked on tables and the place looked somewhat deserted.

But almost the entire seafront is lined with cafes and tables and we had no trouble at all in finding somewhere to sit, which action soon brought forth a waiter from the cafe across the road.

And then to our surprise, there came the sound of laughter and an accordion and a small group of folk dancers appeared along the seafront road.

Stopping not far in front of our table, they did a short sequence of dance moves without a single hobby horse, wave of hanky or banging of sticks and then turned off up a narrow street where a series of steps led up into the town proper.

We made our way back towards the maritime building but stopped for almost an hour on a bench on a raised platform of land that on a previous visit had housed a collection of market stalls and where my mother had wandered off heading in the opposite direction to that which we had told her. Luckily I spotted her, just about to disappear into the town and had to go running after her... I did 75% of the pencil sketch whilst we were sitting there then finished it later in Baristas.

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