Monday, August 29

We decide to celebrate Irma’s birthday by heading inland to Chester. Once we get there and walk from the station to the heart of the city we opt to visit the cathedral.

As we enter we bump into a man eager to explain about the project to build an accurate model of the cathedral in Lego. They started seven years ago and hope to finish by this Christmas or sometime in 2023. “Oh”, I reply. They tells me how many bricks they have used and precisely what they have done so far. I look at the model which would fill have average dinner table.

Having nodded and smiled for what I judge a polite amount of time I wait for him to pause for breath and move quickly forward.

… To more or less literally walk straight into the actual Pete Waterman. He has apparently poured his pop music fortune into developing computerised tools for running large model railways, and now stands in front of me leading a crack team of model railway enthusiasts who have almost finished a huge layout depicting the countryside around Rugby.

The exhibition, Making Tracks 2, fills one nave of the cathedral. Against my better judgement I turn down an offer to buy an autographed guide to the Peter Waterman system of model railway building, in favour of photographing the parts of the cathedral left for religious services.

Later, I will buy some startlingly good clothing for Irma from The Chester Boutique to fulfil my promise to buy her an English birthday present in England.