Well, we left Hong Kong a little late, but we were led to believe that our flight was going to be assisted by a very strong tailwind that would have us in Melbourne ahead of schedule at 5.30am. 'Twas not to be - we touched down at Tullamarine slightly late at 6.15pm. It beats me what happened to that tailwind!! We made it through Immigration pretty quickly and collected our bags from the carousel. Phew, our bags made the transfer from the BA flight to the Qantas flight despite the short amount of time. After collecting our bags we had to join an absolutely ridiculous queue to go through Customs. Because of renovations that are going on, the queue ran through the hoardings between carousels four and five and then doubled back on itself before eventually ... read more

Our flight isn't until early this evening so we had a whole day to fill in without really doing anything! The weather has turned cold and wet - I guess that will acclimatise us for the weather back in Melbourne??! Bernie and Albert went to the airport about 10.00am to return the hire car. The car is due back at 2.00pm, but our flight from Manchester to Heathrow is not until 6.50pm. We rang yesterday to see if the return time could be stretched at all because we really don't want to be at the airport at 2-2.30pm when we don't fly until nearly 7.00pm. Hertz would not budge at all on the drop-off time for the car and, when asked if we could drop the car at another depot, told us that that would incur ... read more

With the weather forecast to be excellent today we decided that we really should do something, rather than just sit around under Kath's feet all day!! Albert was off to play golf and we decided that we would visit the National Trust property, Erddig, just over the Welsh border at Wrexham. It only took us about an hour to drive down to Wrexham on the motorway and we were there not long after opening time at 11.00am. Erddig is considered to be one of Britain's finest historic houses and it provides a unique insight into the upstairs downstairs aspects of a British country home. The York family enjoyed an excellent relationship with their staff and there is an extensive collection of portraits and photographs of the hired help that the family commissioned. One of the Yorks ... read more

Today we went rambling over the old Wycoller Estate. This was a destination that I discovered on the Internet after watching an episode of 'Grand Designs' where they undertook a barn conversion. During the show they visited the barn restoration at Wycoller and, when I Googled it, I discovered that we would be in the area when we visited Haworth. I let Janet know about it and between her and her Aunty Kathleen we ended up with a wealth of information to guide us. We started the walk at Pendle's Panopticon. This is a modernistic structure that represents a molecule. In its sides are rounded apertures from which atoms have supposedly tumbled to their fate in the peaty waters of Wycoller Beck far below!!? There is supposed to be one atom (or maybe just a stainless ... read more

This morning we drove over to Pontefract for their annual Liquorice Festival. This event came to Janet's notice a number of years ago on an earlier trip to Yorkshire, but she was unable to attend on that occasion. She has been burning with curiosity ever since and recruited us to the cause fairly early on by alerting us to the fact that this event would coincide with our time in Haworth!! Considering that the event is high on Pontefract's calendar of events it was surprisingly difficult to find. We thought that we would be able to follow the bunting from the outskirts of town?! Eventually we found our way into the town centre and that was where it was all happening. We had timed our arrival for the start of festivities so it was not very ... read more