Revisiting Liverpool with a proper scouser

Since Julia was born in June, we've had the pleasure of the company of Lucia's sister Emilia, who came to help with the baby and also see a little of London and England.

Emilia is one of the nicest people you could hope to meet and she is certainly the nicest 'Scouser' I've met. Indeed, she is a proper 'Scouse', born in Liverpool in 1997, while Nidia was doing a Masters Degree in Tropical Medicine at Liverpool University.

She left Liverpool and England to return to Ecuador when she was only a few months old and she'd never been back.

Margaret and I enjoy Liverpool. I have a lot of ancestors who lived and died there, so it is always a pleasure to return and we promised Emilia we'd take her back so she could see the city of her birth and, hopefully, the house and street where they all lived - Nidia, Lucia, Emilia and also cousin Nidia.

We left it late - just the weekend before she was due to fly back, but we managed a Friday, Saturday and Sunday morning there.

We stayed at the Campanile on Queen's Dock, not the nicest hotel in Liverpool (as it turns out), but functional and with free parking. It also had a fine aspect overlooking the redeveloped docklands which stretch all the way to the Pier Head.

We had a short list of things we wanted to do, but first job was to head to Nithsdale Road, where the family lived. It was about three miles and we decided we'd walk there.

After about half a mile, we were diverted by the Anglican cathedral. This is a remarkable building; it stands on St John's Mount and dominates the city of Liverpool like cathedrals are supposed to do.  It is a massive cathedral, the longest in the world and the fifth largest in terms of overall scale.

It was started in 1910, designed by George Gilbert Scott, which is remarkable partly because Scott was a Roman Catholic, but also because he was still a trainee architect in his early 20s and had never previously designed anything more complex than a pipe rack. His best-known design is the red telephone box.

The cathedral was finished in 1978 and is one of a handful of new cathedrals to be completed during the 20th century. The Roman Catholic Cathedral in Liverpool is another, but also Coventry, where the old building was destroyed by German bombing during the Second World War. Liverpool is different because it looks (from the outside) like a traditional cathedral, although its Gothic Revival style sets it apart from the finest mediaeval buildings.

I've been in the Cathedral before and didn't enjoy my visit. We went on a gloomy day and maintenance work meant that large parts were closed. It didn't seem very welcoming, so we left quite quickly.

I don't think Emilia is a cathedral bagger, but she was interested to have a look around and so we spent an hour or so in the building. It was warm, light and welcoming. There was a school choir practising for a service later in the day and their music gave a good feel to the place. The Lady Chapel, the first part of the building to be completed (in 1910) is magnificent - so magnificent that it was criticised as being too Roman Catholic for an Anglican building. It wouldn't be out of place in an Italian basilica or a cathedral in the Spanish quarter of Quito.

That part is very traditional, but other sections of the building are less so. There are a couple of pieces of artwork by Tracey Emin, which you wouldn't normally expect to see inside a cathedral.

I always like to go to the top of a cathedral (or church) tower and last time we visited the place, the tower was closed. Not so this day, so I bought tickets and we headed towards god. Most cathedral towers involve a long slog up spiral staircases, worn down by the tread of centuries.

At Liverpool, you take a lift, walk across a short corridor, take another lift and then walk up flights of 150 steps through the bell tower before you emerge at the top. Instead of wood and stone, the carcass of the cathedral is made up from concrete, so under its sandstone outer skin, it's very much a modern building.

The view from the top is magnificent. You can see across the Mersey to Birkenhead and New Brighton, up the river to Runcorn and the whole of Liverpool. On a clear day, perhaps you'd see the Welsh mountains of Snowdonia.

From the cathedral, we walked along Upper Duke Street and Canning Street and through Falkner Square to come out at Liverpool Women's Hospital where Emilia was born. After that, we walked along Upper Parliament Street and then down Smithdown Road, past Toxteth Park Cemetery and turned left onto Gainsborough Road and right into Garmoyle Road. There are rows of terraced and some semi-detached houses on each side. Nithsdale Road is towards the end and the streets nearby all have names from the Lake District - Langdale, Borrowdale, Patterdale ...

We found the road and, after some discussion, decided which house it would be. Emilia sent the picture to Nidia for confirmation and we had found the right one.

I think it was quite emotional for Emilia to see where her family had lived and where she was born (and I'd have been just the same). It's very different to Quito, of course.

That was mission accomplished on our first morning in Liverpool and we could now take in the other sights. We were all pretty footsore, so we caught a bus back into the town centre and had lunch at Bill's near Liverpool One (the new shopping area). Bill's took over from our hotel as our breakfast venue for the next couple of days.

The rest of the day saw an open top bus tour, the Catholic Cathedral, a Beatles tribute show (John's put a bit of weight on) and Beatles museum.

On Saturday, we had the full English breakfast at Bill's (complete with black pudding) and afterwards we could hardly move. No-one ate anything else until late afternoon. We made a quick visit to the Walker Art Gallery and then to an Irish dance class. I'd booked us a place via e-mail. It was the start of the Liverpool Irish Festival and there was a street ceilidh planned for the following week. This dance class was to encourage people to train for that.

Emilia and I were pretty good at it (I think) but we didn't get to see Margaret's dance skills as she was injured from her exertions the previous day. We danced the Walls of Kilkenny and the Haymaker's Reel. It was pretty hard work, but certainly burned some of the breakfast calories.

Afterwards, we were hungry, so went down to the Adelphi Hotel for afternoon tea. The evening was Emilia's choice, so we watched a film - Hotel Transylvania 2.

Most of us know our birthplace well, as we are normally brought up there or at least nearby. Emilia was only a few months old when she left Liverpool and had no idea what the place was like, except what Lucy (who was 10) and her mother had told her. I don't know how reality stood up to what she expected, but it was good that she had the chance to visit while she was in England.

It's a boy!

Our second grandchild will be a boy, most probably. Lucy's 20-week scan didn't actually confirm the sex, but I think they always add "probably" just so they can't be sued for a boy forced to wear pink for the first six months of his life, live in a pink room and be pushed around in a pink buggy.

Due date is the Ides of March, so around the 15th.

The scan is remarkably detailed, you can see a foot and toes in one shot.

Julia is growing quickly

Julia our granddaughter is now more than three months old and the change in her is remarkable.

We have been lucky to be able to see her very often; I think two or three weeks is the longest interval we've had, and seeing her at intervals means we see a step change in her development every time.

Sometimes it's quite shocking, such as when she got control of her head and neck within the space of two weeks and, instead of flopping like a rag doll, she was able to turn her head in the direction she wanted.

We've seen her eyes go from 'blank, no-one's home' to bright, curious and questioning.

All these things I remember from my own children, but being with them every day, I didn't pick up the small changes that, collectively, make a large step so it all seemed less dramatic.

The other thing that I've noticed is how well Julia knows her mother. If you're holding her and she hears Lucy, she turns to try to see her. Before she could move her head, she would stiffen in excitement (or stop crying) when she heard Lucy's voice.

These past couple of weeks have been quite busy. On September 19, Sam and Lucy should have been coming across from Jersey to spend a couple of weeks holiday in England. The plan was to spend a week in Thorney, be here for Julia's christening on September 27, and then head to Ramsgate, where Lucy's parents have a second home and where a lot of their furniture has been stored for almost two years.

They were coming across in their new car (Lucy's car) a white Jeep, which they bought in August, but things didn't go to plan. Condor Ferries, which operates the link between the Channel Islands and the UK, had a problem with its new boat, so there were no sailings for a few days.

They were eventually able to get on a sailing on Monday evening and so landed in Poole during the early hours and got to Thorney about 5am. Lucy is also pregnant, of course, and they hadn't had the ideal journey - a long, bouncy crossing with people being seasick and then a long drive in the early hours.

It was good to see the two of them. Before they went to France (and then Jersey) I was used to spending an evening with them at least once a month in Walthamstow and I miss their company. I don't think Lucy had been back to Thorney since July 2014 when they came back from France.

It has been a pretty stressful time for them both this year (mainly good stress). Sam has bought into the Castle Quay practice in St Helier and is now a partner, he's also bought into the separate pharmacy business and so is now fully committed to spending his working life on Jersey. He and Lucy have bought a car and Lucy is pregnant with a baby due in March.

They have been staying in an annexe above the garage of one of Sam's partners, which has been quite OK (perhaps a bit miserable during the winter), but with the practice now sorted and Lucy having a baby, it was time to get their own place.

Jersey property is very expensive compared to the UK and they've seen a couple of places they liked, made offers and had them accepted, only to fall through. They have an offer accepted on another place and it should go through in about a week's time, so this is another anxious wait.

After staying with us, they spent a week in Ramsgate sorting out their furniture for removal and also packing some of the more delicate items to take with them in the car.

Tom and Lucy wanted to have some kind of naming ceremony for Julia, but hadn't, initially, considered a christening. There was some thought of a christening at Thorney, but then they got the idea that it would be nicer to have it in the cathedral.

Because Tom attended the cathedral school - King's School - this was possible and a date was set for the end of September, which matched Sam's holiday. After the ceremony, friends and relations would be invited back to our house for food and drink.

It was decided to cook beef bourguignon, served with a pie made from a Tudor recipe that Lucy and Emilia had found when they visited Hampton Court Palace. There would be Scotch eggs made with quails' eggs for starters, lemon drizzle cake and orange ice cream to finish, served with sweet, sparkling tea.

Parents and godparents with Julia after
the christening ceremony

Personally, I'd have got some pies and sausage rolls from Sainsbury's and made some ham sandwiches, but it would not have been as memorable. For a few days previously, Margaret and I were shopping for large quantities of meat, mushrooms (I've never bought so many mushrooms at once) and pastry. My contribution was to make a cake.

Actually, the day couldn't have gone much better. The weather was beautiful - we were having an Indian summer, the garden looked nice and we were able to have everyone seated on tables on the lawn in the sun.

The ceremony was much better than it would have been at Thorney. It was part of a regular morning communion service and was quite grand, but also very friendly and welcoming. Julia, bribed with a bottle of milk, was very well behaved.

Max was godfather and Emilia, Lucy's sister, was godmother. Nidia, Lucy's mum, was able to come across from Ecuador. We picked her up from Heathrow on the Saturday morning and she stayed with us over the weekend, then I ran Lucy, Nidia, Emilia and Julia back to London on Monday afternoon. Nidia will stay for a couple of weeks, which is fantastic.