Liverpool part two...

Where to begin? I went through a bit of a Beatles phase when I was much younger and played singles on my grandparents record player. They didn't have many by the Beatles but it was the start of listening to music that I could actually make sense of ie. music that didn't drown out the voices. Stories to tell. It introduced me to 40s, 50s and 60s sounds which I then secretly listened to for years, whilst all my friends were listening to much cooler stuff like The Smiths, Eurythmics and Prince.

Now of course I am so glad I did listen to that kind of music as it has a timeless kind of quality with a feel good vibe. My ears work less efficiently now so I rely on my memory to fill in the gaps so to speak. It means I can still listen to the Beatles, Roy Orbison, Cat Stevens... And a few others, and still make sense of it. Other music sounds like machinery to me. When Ella played her music through speakers in our hotel room I instinctively looked towards the kettle and couldn't understand why it wasn't showing a red light. That's what I assumed the noise was.

Anyway, back to Liverpool and an over emotional teenage Beatles fan. She was practically in tears with excitement when we descended the steps into The Beatles Story with Hey Jude playing loudly on outdoor speakers. We stopped and read every single last word, and there were a lot of words. The early years were most interesting and towards the end Ella actually saw and heard John Lennon speak for the first time. She was mesmerised.

I can't tell you what The Fab4D Experience was like because when we got there it was out of action due to a technical fault. There was however, an exhibition of Beatles photographs which had never been shown to the public until now which was pretty good.

The third photo shows the inside of the Yellow Submarine. I took some great 'proper' photographs of Ella in there, with her digital SLR camera but she's not keen to be on my blog.

It was quite difficult to photograph anything at all due to low lighting levels and the many German and Russian visitors we went in with. They all chose to use the audio commentary devices so they seemed to drift through the exhibitions like Zombies which was rather eerie. We were the only two without headphones on and able to chat to each other!

The most exciting site we visited had to be the Cavern Club. It was impossible to take a photo, it was quite busy when we went and there was a live act on stage with crowds watching (he was rubbish according to Ella!). It really did feel like stepping back in time.

So we return with a few souvenirs. Ella has fabric patches, stickers, postcards and a sweatshirt.

So much for a day of recovery yesterday. I spent four hours just cleaning up after the men. I can't even begin to describe the state of the house and why they thought it was all acceptable. It's a mystery to me.

I will show you our non Beatles purchases tomorrow.