Sister Act!

So last night saw the last of my theatre fest trips! Sister Act was at the Opera House in Manchester. I struggled to find someone to accompany me, some didn't fancy it (Mark included!), others were working, some couldn't afford it but I'm a strong independent woman so went by myself, LOL! I decided I might as well try and make a day of it, have a little mooch around the shops and have a nice tea out. I arranged for Courtney to go to my parents in law and for them to pick Charlie up from school (thanks Sylvia and Hughie.) I caught the train from Chorley and arrived in Manchester around 1:15pm, it was a fair walk from the station as I needed to buy a return to the station near to the theatre but it didn't matter, I had nobody else to think of but me! The only thing was it was raining quite heavily so I got a little wet, LOL! I decided to avoid the rain and spent most of my mooching time in the Arndale Centre. There was a good variety of shops and I enjoyed it there and would you believe I didn't buy a single thing :O Oh, except for a latte and cinnamon bun from Starbucks!
I slowly made my way back to the theatre looking in a few more shops, I knew exactly where I was going to have my tea, there's a pub just around the corner from the theatre called The Old Grapes. I discovered the pub with Sarah and Rachael when we went to the theatre a while ago. On the walls there are loads of photos of Liz Dawn (Vera Duckworth from Coronation Street) We wondered the significance of this so asked the barmaid and apparently she owns the pub! I remembered the meal being very nice there last time and this time didn't disappoint either! The only downside was they didn't serve desserts, now I'm a desserts kinda girl (or puddings as I usually call them, LOL!) so was a tad disappointed but then when I thought about it perhaps Liz was looking out for my waistline and of course I could always have an ice cream during the interval! (which I did, mint choc chip, mmmmmmm, LOL!)


After my tea I ventured over to the Tesco opposite the theatre to buy a drink for the performance, it was still only 6:30 at this point and the show didn't start until 7:30 but I could see people were starting to arrive. I spoke to Mark on the phone for a little while and said goodnight to Charlie and Courtney before going into the theatre around 6:45. I bought the CD and a programme and went to find my seat, I was really pleased with my seat M15, almost in the middle of the stalls! A very tall young girl came to sit in front of me with her hair styled on top of her head so I thought I was going to be able to see anything but the way the seats are positioned (kind of staggered slightly to the left and right) I could see perfectly! The show was amazing!! I hadn't realised there was any famous faces in it until I read the programme, Denise Black played Mother Superior and Michael Starke played
Monsignor O’Hara (both have been soap stars previously) The whole cast were great and I really enjoyed the performance. I caught the train back to Chorley, drove home from there and got in around 11:45 after a truly enjoyable day :D