WHERE WAS I?
My friend has a bad case of the blues.
“Must we have back-toback history lessons like this?” he moans. “First the museum — and now these cramped little houses?”
He has a point. We started the day at an open-air museum eight miles northwest of here. Now we’re at a National Trust attraction that’s not at all like a country mansion. Still, I’m fascinated by these remnants of an industrial past. They help illuminate a feature of life hereabouts that was recently turned into dramatic television.
Friend however wants to see the home of a sports club a mile east of us. It would, I admit, be a crime to miss it.
The club, which started life in a district once paced by some shady characters, has seen record-breaking success this year.
First, though, I have a treat for him. So we go to a coffeemaking lesson at a nearby barista school. Then we head to a former factory, half a mile northeast of the National Trust houses. Once devoted to another stimulating drink, it is now being redeveloped into a media hub. The visits pep him up no end.
Now, on to the sports club.
We get lost by the canal basin behind the former factory — but a local shows us the way. “Keep right on to the end of the road,” he says, with a giggle. “Then you do a kind of dog leg, and cross the canal and the Inner Ring Road, heading east — and you’re almost there.”
So off we set, eyes sparkling as we mix sport and history together in a heady brew: a right pair of perky blenders.
Sean Newsom
THE QUESTIONS
1 What is the National Trust’s name for its attraction?
2 What is the name of the sports club?