{"id":33934,"date":"2017-02-10T22:59:43","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T20:59:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/?p=33934"},"modified":"2017-02-11T00:58:01","modified_gmt":"2017-02-10T22:58:01","slug":"hebden-bridge-back-to-manchester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/hebden-bridge-back-to-manchester\/","title":{"rendered":"Hebden Bridge Back to Manchester"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t believe how quickly the last month has gone by! Hebden Bridge was definitely not a tourist\/vacation stop for me as I was able to nearly make up for the very long dry spell I&#8217;ve been in with work since since mid-December. But I&#8217;m pleased with what I was able to have seen and that I got to enjoy this quaint village for a short time. I really loved the\u00a0cute little house I was minding and the cat was inordinately affectionate. She&#8217;s the only cat I&#8217;ve ever known that I could shove off my lap multiple times in an evening and know that she&#8217;d come right back and curl up once I sat back down.<\/p>\n<p>My next stop is Shrewsbury, only about two hours total from Hebden Bridge. With the schedule of the hosts there and the fact that I wasn&#8217;t in any rush to vacate the Hebden Bridge house since the host was coming in very late, it made sense to stay in Hebden as long as I could, head to Manchester for the night, and go on to Shrewsbury Saturday morning. This way, I was able squeeze in two last jobs for this week&#8217;s paycheque with a client who has been going through a very slow phase but was slammed this week.<\/p>\n<p>By three this afternoon, the house was ready for my host&#8217;s homecoming. My train was at 4:07. Of course, little last minute things popped up and by the time I was dragging my luggage up those stairs, it was 3:38! I was not pleased with myself as I really had to hoof it to the train station and was not able to get in one last meander through the village. By the time I&#8217;d collected my train ticket and crossed to the Manchester-bound platform, I had literally one minute till the train arrived! Phew. I cut it way too close!<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/16602984_10154999350983953_1436740275030850229_n.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-33937\" src=\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/16602984_10154999350983953_1436740275030850229_n.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/16602984_10154999350983953_1436740275030850229_n.jpg 960w, http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/16602984_10154999350983953_1436740275030850229_n-300x225.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/16602984_10154999350983953_1436740275030850229_n-768x576.jpg 768w, http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/16602984_10154999350983953_1436740275030850229_n-619x464.jpg 619w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Even with the cost of the bus to Levenshulme and back into Manchester, the dump where I stayed in January was still by far the best deal for an overnight. I was not keen to go back there, but needs must. However&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve been doing some testing for a new position that unfortunately did not pan out as I lacked experience for part of the work and there was no time for on the job training. That was a bummer since I spent most of a day doing the tests. Well, to my immense surprise, the testers compensated me for my time! I was shocked! They sent enough to cover an\u00a0Airbnb in Manchester right by the train station (about 20CAD more a night than the dump) and part of a real dinner out, which I hadn&#8217;t planned on doing since I had a meal out in Haworth. There are some really good people out there!<\/p>\n<p>The only flaw in my plan is that my Airbnb host had something come up and the earliest someone could meet me with keys was six, when I was arriving at Manchester Victoria at 4:45. Changing my ticket would have been very \u00a3\u00a3\u00a3. So I ended up spending only \u00a3\u00a3 on a snack at the Starbucks where I could wait in relative warmth and comfort. Slight problem, my host thought I was coming into Piccadilly. It was past six when the hosts&#8217; friend called to ask where I was and then almost 20 minutes to get to Piccadilly and then almost 20 minutes to find the apartment 5 minutes away because Manchester is obviously having fiscal challenges and doesn&#8217;t believe in street signage. Yes, I was very grumpy by the time I finally found my room. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n<p>Then, it was time to find dinner. It was past seven by this point and between the lack of signage and my stupid phone misbehaving worse than usual, I didn&#8217;t want to go too far. I went back to Piccadilly and wandered looking for a pub, going into the first one I found (Piccadilly Tavern). I liked the set up that I had to find a table, decide what I wanted to eat, then go order and pay at the bar as that meant I wouldn&#8217;t have to hunt down the cheque after. I ordered a regular beef burger with a pint of bitter and almost fainted when I was told the price was only \u00a35.69. The pint was free since they were doing a burger and beer deal! So that bonus money 100% covered my stay!<\/p>\n<p>It wasn&#8217;t an amazing burger and fries, only\u00a0a few steps up from McDonald&#8217;s, but with the high quality bun and huge pile of veggies, the meal still felt like an incredible deal and was very satisfying. I nursed my pint for a long while, watching the footie on the telly. Can you tell that I&#8217;m really struggling with fitting into the UK lifestyle. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m back at my Airbnb and going to attempt to get to bed early. I&#8217;ve been going to bed past midnight for the last month and I&#8217;m pretty sure that won&#8217;t be sustainable when I&#8217;m responsible for a puppy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I can&#8217;t believe how quickly the last month has gone by! Hebden Bridge was definitely not a tourist\/vacation stop for me as I was able to nearly make up for the very long dry spell I&#8217;ve been in with work since since mid-December. But I&#8217;m pleased with what I was able to have seen and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[637,636,1609,1610,3,56,8],"tags":[914],"class_list":["post-33934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-england","category-europe","category-hebden-bridge","category-manchester","category-travel","category-uk","category-work","tag-train-stations"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33934"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33940,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33934\/revisions\/33940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.raecrothers.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}