Last-Year Travels: A trip to Manchester to visit the King, part two

Now, the appeal of the second part of this trip isn't perhaps so immediately obvious. Why get up early on a Saturday morning, leave the bustling metropolis of Manchester and head to Stockport? Well, Stockport is the home of Hat Works, a museum of millinery. Before you think I dragged poor Mr A.S. over there to look at some fashionable hats, let me plead that this is his obsession. His (not-so) secret ambition is to open a fully interactive hat museum, somewhere in central London. We were there to sniff out the opposition.

Fortified by a sausage sandwich from the Night and Day cafe (this was my own little pilgrimage after years of hearing it mentioned on Steve Lamacq or John Kennedy's radio shows) we took the short trip. The lady at the desk seemed quite pleasantly surprised to hear of an out-of-Stockport postcode visiting. The interactivity was pleasantly high - with lots of hats to try on, some of which even fitted my big head. This was slightly worrying news to Mr A.S.: this was a central element to the appeal of his museum. Back to the drawing board on that front, I think.

There was a great temporary display based around the fate of hats in the twentieth century where we found out that motor cars, JFK and the Beatles were to blame for the death of the hat. Someone had gone pretty full out in their recreation of room sets - I was quite envious of some of the furniture on show (and also that they had a job which had cleared involved them rummaging around charity shops of the North West)

And then back to the Northern Quarter where I spent too long in vintage clothing shops and Mr A.S. spent too long flicking through records. He left empty-handed, I came back with a red number in my 'signature' pattern of polka-dots from this very well-stocked shop. I also managed to pick up a sneaky copy of Lula. The issue was devoted to Strawberry Shortcake and poor Mr A.S. was thanked for his lovely trip with tales of my pre-teen fandom...

So, all-in-all, a pretty perfect weekend. This coming weekend is the long awaited Lincolnshire trip. Can our Pier and Dock Tower counteract these delights? At least I know we've got the sausages covered.