Day One ~ In Search of Albert

My brother Alan has the temerity to live about 300 miles away from me, down in the wilds of Somerset. I’ve long suspected that he does this deliberately to try and avoid me. But I’m not that easily put off, so every April I insist that he meets me at a mutually agreed place for a couple of days so that he doesn’t forget who I am.

This idea has taken us to some rather surprising places in the five years we’ve been doing it. We aim to go somewhere that neither of us have been before. So if I say Northampton, you might say “Eh!?” but when I say Berlin, you are more likely to say “Oh yes, very nice.” Chuck in Ashby-de-la-Zouche and Lincoln, and you’ll see that we have quite a varied “listory”. (Just made that word up, by the way. When it gets into the OED, in about 2029, you can say you read it here first).

This should help explain why we find ourselves in Liverpool in 2019.

We had an apartment near Queens Dock, on the riverside, about ten minutes’ walk from Albert Dock where, I believe, the cool crowd hang out on a Sunday afternoon. Obviously, we headed there so we could blend in nicely with our M&S shirts and grey hair.

As we left the apartment block (think trendy, expensive dockland development, not 1970s East Germany) a young lad in a full Everton training kit came in through the door. I thought he was a player but as I cant remember seeing his face on Match of the Day that might be wrong. Maybe he was just a “Randomer”, something the kids at Albert Dock would say.

We wandered up the riverside towards the crowds, past the Exhibition Centre and the Arena. We both swallowed our disappointment that we’d just missed Jason Manford, who was telling jokes for a living there last night.

After posing for a photo with The Beatles at the Mersey Ferry terminal, (you’d do the same, don’t deny it) we popped into The Pump House to enjoy a pint (me) and a coffee (Alan), while we discussed Politics, Philosophy and Theology. Or did we just re-run scenes from Dads Army and Blackadder? It’s all a bit of a blur to be honest, which is more down to age than one pint of IPA, and explains in part why I feel the urge to record the trip here.

Open Top Bus Tour tomorrow. I hope it turns out nice.