Part V 30th May - Tuesday Today we were off to Blackpool! Thank you so much for all the laughs and hospitality Williams and Morgan families. We went under the River Mersey in the Mersey Tunnel and came out into a less well off part of the City and passed by Aintree race course, home of the Grand National - the biggest betting race in Britain (similar status to the Melbourne Cup) run the first Saturday in April and covering four and a half miles (7.2 kms). The steeplechase is run over two circuits of the course and there are 16 [View Full Entry]

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Part VI 31st May - Wednesday Today, after a scrummy breakfast we were off to discover the Lake District. Howard had a quick motorway fix and then it was on to the C roads for the rest of the day. We had decided not to bother with the towns and concentrate on the vistas and see as much as we could in the time we had. Our route took us along Lake Windermere to Ambleside and over Wrynose Pass Wrynose Pass lies on a narrow, minor road that twists and turns from Little Langdale onward to Cockley Beck. Here, after plunging [View Full Entry]

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Part XVII …contd. 14th / 15th June - Wednesday/Thursday Our Thai Airways flight left for Bangkok at 21:30 so we were in plenty of time and had drinks and nibbles in the Business Class Lounge. One of the first surprises about Bangkok is that the city is not called Bangkok in the Thai language. It is called Krung Thep ('the City of the Angels') and the name Bangkok refers strictly to only a small part of the city. We arrived at Don Muang Airport at 15:05 and headed for the taxi rank. Had we known better we should have gone to [View Full Entry]

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Part XVI 13th June - Tuesday Susie wanted to take us to Portobello Road this morning so we went to catch a bus there. This was very different, the bendy buses have two doors and you pay for your ticket at the bus stop to show the driver, as they do not handle money. Guess which door everyone seems to use……the rear one…..and no ticket. We did this and were quite unsure of things. All of a sudden Susie whispers urgently for us to get off as she had spotted the Inspectors complete with clipboards getting on the bus. We walked [View Full Entry]

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Part XV 11th June Sunday We had to be on the coach by 09:45, as we had to catch the Eurostar at the Gare du Nord and this left at 11:30. Naturally we had some latecomers! We got a last look at Paris as we drove through the centre to the train station. We could not really fault the hotel, it was clean and comfortable and the breakfasts were extremely good and filling. At the Gard du Nord we just all followed Patrick and went through customs to the waiting area. Linda found a shop selling cheese so she bought some [View Full Entry]

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Part XIV We were on our own in Paris, but we had our map, guidebook and Linda - we were all right. The first thing we did was go down to the metro and buy a carnet - a book of ten tickets, which can be used on the metro or the buses and works out much cheaper. Took the metro to the Place de la Bastille where we were booked to go on our canal trip. In the centre of the square is the 52m (170ft) high July Column and inside the foot is the crypt where rest the 504 [View Full Entry]

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Part XIII 8th June - Thursday We reluctantly left Bolton Abbey and headed for the A1, hoping we had left the van more or less how we had found it as Sandra and Paul were coming to stay in it for the weekend. We went via the A59 over the moors to Blubberhouses and in to Harrogate, an elegant and famous spa town we drove down the Stray, an area of open parkland some 200 acres (800,000sq m), which runs through the centre of the town. Harrogate Stray was created in 1778 by an act of Parliament and is very impressive. [View Full Entry]

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Part XII 7th June - Wednesday Today we were off to Bolton Abbey where Paul had left their new Bailey Senator Indiana caravan for us to try out for a night. We left Adel in good time and headed on the Leeds ring road towards Shipley, which is not too far from Bradford, in Airedale. It was where that we wanted to see another model Victorian industrial village - Saltaire built by Sir Titus Salt for his woollen mill workers. From here we went up onto bleak Haworth Moor and the village of Haworth overlooking the Worth Valley, made famous by [View Full Entry]

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Part XI …………… The White family of Wentworth. Knowing the White family came from Wentworth, some months ago Linda decided to see if there were any left in the village and found one family on the Electoral Roll so wrote to them. She found a new branch of the family that had been missing for many generations. What a thrill it was to meet them and in the village where George and Mary White started a dynasty in 1809 when they married in the village. Peter had managed, after a great deal of searching, to find George and Mary’s gravestone in [View Full Entry]

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Part X 5th June - Monday "Thank You" Martin and Karen for your wonderful hospitality and great company, also "Thank You" Denise and Stewart for a fabulous meal last night We followed Martin into Darlington and he parked his car in Blackwell and drove ours into Darlington so he could give us a bit of a tour of the town centre. It was Market Day so we would have been hopeless trying to get around the one-way system. We stopped at Taylor’s the pork butchers so we could get some of their famous pork pies - yummy! We said a tearful [View Full Entry]

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