This blog is about football, but it's such an extraordinary story that everybody should read it. Who won the first World Cup? Most people will answer Uruguay but they are wrong! The answer is actually West Auckland Football Club from County Durham, England. How do I know this? Well, when I was young I saw a film on TV called "A Captain's Tale" starring Dennis Waterman. I remember it clearly and ever since then it has stuck in the back of my mind, so we took a detour on our way to Glasgow to see what the place was like. I wasn't disappointed! Back in 1909, Sir Thomas Lipton (purveyor of fine tea!) thought it would be a jolly good idea to stage an international football competition in Turin. A local team was put together, and ... read more

Our journey south continued in Northumberland. Until one of Russ's brothers moved to the region, we had never visited, and therefore we never imagined what delights it held. We stopped for lunch at a picturesque part of the coastline, the small fishing village of Cove which has suffered from many nautical tragedies throughout history. A very moving memorial stands atop the cliffs with the figures of families looking vainly out to sea hoping to see their loved ones return safely home. Newbiggin-by-the-Sea was our destination and the sun shone gloriously when we first arrived, soon to be hidden by a mist rolling in from the North Sea. We parked up near the beach and had a stroll around. Most notable is the bizarre Sean Henry sculpture simply titled "Couple". The sculpture itself is situated on the ... read more

We love going to visit Trish's sister in Perth, Scotland. It's such a wonderful part of the UK and when we are there we like to find different places to explore. This time we went down to Falkirk to visit an attraction we had caught a glimpse of on BBC's The One Show back in April - The Kelpies. For some reason we thought these incredible sculptures were near Glasgow and had been built for the Commonwealth Games but Falkirk is closer to Edinburgh and this had nothing to do with the Games at all. How wrong we were! A Kelpie is a mystical being which inhabits Scotland's lochs and pools. They often take the form of a horse and this piece of Scottish folklore was the inspiration for this unusual sight. When the Forth and ... read more

Having family literally all over the UK is both a blessing and a curse. Of course, it's always a blessing to have loved ones in whichever part of the country you may be visiting, but it's a damned curse trying to fit everyone in to one visit! We certainly do some miles and we keep everyone more or less happy!! The ferry to Plymouth takes us conveniently to Devon where we always enjoy a few days in the village of Thorverton, lost in the middle of a triangle joining Exeter, Tiverton and Crediton. It's such a beautiful part of the country, and is just on the doorstep of a place we just never seemed to have made it to - Dartmoor. We put that right this year and set out one morning hoping for a sunny ... read more

Bordeaux to Roscoff in one go was a bit more than we like to do, so we decided to stop along the way. The original plan had been to see what Nantes had to offer, but rather than go to another big city, we looked at the map and found the town of Vannes just a little bit further up the route. What a good decision that turned out to be, although when we arrived we could barely see a few yards in front of us thanks to the mist and the heavy drizzle. We did manage to find our hotel. This time we were in a B&B Hotel, a step up from the F1 we used in Bordeaux, but still a budget hotel. The main difference is that the bathrooms are en-suite and the rooms ... read more