Summertime Travels II: Huddersfield, Holmfirth, Manchester, London, and the Midlands

ngland again!

I have some more photos of our recent, short trip:

 Sherlock Holmes, on the walk between train stations in London

 Views of Holmfirth, in Yorkshire

 The House of Eccentricity, a quirky little shop in Holmfirth

 Felix, the train station cat at Huddersfield Station!

 The Last of the Summer Wine cafe

 Dessert at Manchester hotel

 The Empire Exchange record and book shop, Manchester

"Manchester has everything, apart from a beach" -- Ian Brown

 Manchester train station

 Me, and a daiquiri

 Obligatory photo from the train

 Buskers in Manchester, "One Love Manchester!"

 Outside a Midlands pub...

 Victoria and someone else -- I didn't cross the street to find out who it was!

Wellington

In other news, I have actually started one of the planned knitting projects! I've knit about one fifth of the baby blanket... Then I stopped, because I'm still tweaking the synopsis for the Carina Press submission, and also hosting a Master Class at the Compuserve Books and Writers Community, all about raising the stakes.

And I really, really need to catch up on blog comments. Thank you to everyone that's come by recently!

This new song is my current earworm:

Neil Finn, Second Nature

And look! It's the 50th anniversary of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg.

"Claudia knew that she could never pull off the old-fashioned kind of running away. That is, running away in the heat of anger with a knapsack on her back. She didn’t like discomfort; even picnics were untidy and inconvenient: all those insects and the sun melting the icing on the cupcakes. Therefore, she decided that her leaving home would not be just running from somewhere but would be running to somewhere. To a large place, a comfortable place, an indoor place, and preferably a beautiful place. And that’s why she decided upon the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. ..."

The New Yorker has a nice retrospective.

Which song is currently stuck in your head?

Do you have any tips on raising the stakes for story characters?

🎆This is my 200th post on this blog! 🎆