Liverpool: Capital of Construction Workers

Now as you've probably noticed I've been away. On holiday. To Liverpool. Some of us can't afford a foreign holiday, and I had my very occasional foreign excursion last year to Paris which was lurvely until I went down with something terrible (and I'll not go any further than that, I don't know how many of you are eating). But I went to Liverpool last year as well, and I've been going for a good few years now.

This year though Liverpool is European Capital of Culture so I had to go: a.) early and b.) with an open mind that I wouldn't be one of only a couple of tourists wandering around snapping everything. The camera was at the ready this year too and the image above is meant to represent the only thing that I regret not being able to snap: construction workers!

Right now construction is under way of Liverpool One, a big complex that includes a Hilton Hotel, 5 acres of parkland and a multitude of shops. But every time I passed through it to have breakfast or to return to my hotel (it's easier than climbing up and down the hills like I used to: flat is best) the workers were all sitting down on their coffee break (or tea break really).

Mostly they eyed up the women, and gathered around the Greggs bakers that was down one of the little passages there. Like pigeons! I expected them to flap their arms and coo before pecking their sausage rolls and pasties - not one had a supposedly "healthy" roll. Not that Greggs has ever served anything healthy.

It's no wonder that they haven't finished everything they were supposed to if they've been given such long and liberal breaks. The cree, by which I mean the construction site, was normally empty or filled with sad looking worker-pigeons desperate for their next sit down on the stairs. Poor things. I bet they haven't had a tea for 20 minutes...