Blogs from Derbyshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 28

27 SEP 2010 - MONDAY SHOPPING IN MEADOWHALL, LAST NIGHT IN SHEFFIELD Another cold and wet day in Sheffield. With Mark away for the day at work, Tracy and Jean introduced us to Meadowhall shopping centre - or “Meadowhell” as the locals call it. There we were able to discover the delights of English department stores - Primark (“Primani”), Marks & Spencer, Debenham’s, H&M, and more... Little Cocky found a Busby outfit (Queen’s Home Guard) for his Build-a-Bear, and we found Possy’s Christening outfit in Monsoon. Poppy found a soft monkey for Possy in Mothercare, she loved it and snuggled straight into it for a sleep. Our last dinner in Sheffield was cooked for us by Mark, with help from Cocky. Buritos and nachos, with fancy ice-cream for desert, mmmm!!!! We gave the kids a fairly ... read more

LITTLE COCKY’S COMMENTS: The houses were really small and tiny, and they were all two storeys tall. We felt squished compared to being in our own house. Our Sheffield family was very nice, I liked playing cars with my little cousin Alexander and Playstation 3 with his Uncle Matt. FROM GOANNA: Our first day in Sheffield was a quiet day for the travelling Cockys, as we were all feeling a little jetlagged. The weather was cold and rainy, which was fine as we were happy being largely indoors. After making a slow start on the day, we eventually managed to get our act together aometime around lunchtime, and headed around from Mark & Tracy's house where we were staying to Mick & Jean's house (Tracy's parents) for a proper round of meetings and reunions. Goanna's brother ... read more

Ye Gods! We live! To appease your wrath for being such poor correspondents for the last couple of months, I'm just gunna launch right on in with a joke: What did Sushi A say to Sushi B? Wussa-bi?! Ha. Jo here by the way. So, a quick recap - we left you (or perhaps you left us), way back in July, in Cardiff, with Spain scoring against Paraguay. We all know how THAT turned out. After a merry few days in Cardiff we jumped on a coach (aka a bus, in normal, non-UK terms) and wheeled our way to Nottingham, as the home of Robin Hood was to be our home for the next five weeks. Well, kinda. The wee town where our summer school was based was actually about 40 minutes out of Nottingham, in ... read more

I can't say that we were sad to leave Barnsley. I would say that the fact that we were on the road by 10am says a lot about how eager we were to be at our next destination. We were staying on a site called Callow Top. We have visited it many times before in a tent but this would be our first time in a caravan. It has its own traditional pub which brews its own award winning ale - nothing to do with why Andy enjoys visiting - honest! We had been especially looking forward to coming here this time as our good friend Mandy and my god son George were visiting for a few days. They are from Shrewsbury so this would be the last chance we had to spend some time together ... read more

One of the best things about the UK is how easy it is to get out of London and spend a weekend in the great outdoors. If I'm not hiking through a national park at least once a month I start to feel a little enclosed. The national parks here are fantastic and vary so much depending on which part of the UK you end up in. I never thought I'd get such a lift from spending hours walking up and down hills, (ok I still prefer the down), but the views are amazing no matter what the English weather throws at you. If the sun is out it's a miracle and if it's overcast you get amazing skies, the heavy rain is not so much fun, but gortex solves anything and there is usually a ... read more