Manchester Pride

The atmosphere at work today was brilliant in the run up to Manchester Pride! I work in an office in the gay village and everyone was in such a good mood :) It felt like everyone was buzzing with anticipation when I walked around the village at lunch time. It was much busier than a normal Friday with people coming for pre-festival drinks or food before Pride officially started at 6pm tonight.

I have a wrist band so I can get into work on Monday, but I won't be going along over the weekend. There's a lot of pop music and drinking which really isn't my thing. It's great to see everyone in that scene getting so excited about it though! As a straight woman who is into rock and indie I felt a bit of an outsider - but I love all the support the LGBTQ community gets at this time of year. There are rainbow flags popping up all over the city, the pedestrian crossing near Piccadilly station is painted in rainbow colours, the Greater Manchester transport building has a massive rainbow coloured pane on it, there's decorations painted on windows, some of the 'green men' on traffic lights in and near the village have even got all inclusive symbols on instead of men! It's a pity such support isn't shown all year round, but it's great that it's here for this part of the year!

The photos are of a painted window in Slug & Lettuce on Portland Street, the rainbow crossing near Piccadilly station (with the GM transport building in the background) and Canal Street with all its rainbow flags.