Not your usual place of worship

We'd passed it coming down the Rochdale 9 on Friday. The Comedy Store sits above Deansgate Tunnel Lock – it's a venue for stand-up.

But on Sunday mornings it's the venue for a Manchester city centre church. The bar serves as a welcome area where people gather and drink coffee,

before going downstairs to the theatre part for worship. About 140 including kids, I reckoned, with 90% under 40. Friendly (as first time visitors we got a goody bag!) and the guy on the electric guitar lives on a widebeam boat, which appears to be feasible around the environs of the Bridgewater. It was good to chat with Scott, Julia, Esther and Peter, and we even discovered a mutual acquaintance.

Afterwards we wandered round to another of the myriad arches that exist in this part of Manchester, in the shelter of and in front of which there's an artisan's market.

In this instance, the carefully crafted things we purchased were two pizzas for lunch, and some pieces of cake made by Jane. She's well talented!

The pizzas were consumed pretty well immediately, but the cake waited until we tied up to take on water later in the day. It's amazing the places you find to have a picnic as you travel!

Going down the Bridgewater we encountered another unusual place of worship:

The new stand rears impressively over the canal – it's quite a sight.

Our sympathies today are with the worshipers, whose idols have this afternoon been crushed by their noisy neighbours.

We, on the other hand, are well content to have got down to Sale without mishap, and tied up on a mooring by the King's Ransom pub.