March 2nd-8th - England

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We didn’t manage to get away from Maidenhead until about 3pm after organizing our packages for home and Jac’s EFTPOS card which wouldn’t work. Dobbie also required a little help getting started again but nothing major, so the 4 and a half hour trip was no problem and Keith and Barbara (Jac’s Godmother) met us at the offramp of the M55 and we followed them to their place at Lytham. We spent the next 2 days looking around the Lytham/Blackpool/Morcambe Bay area trying to dodge the rain, hail and snow! It was pretty cold but we managed to get a little sunshine in the middle. The big holiday mecca of Blackpool looked very wet and tired and also had major reconstruction work being done on the seawall so it did not look very inviting. Interesting though that so many people go there in the summer to stay in little apartment blocks by the sea and I guess spend most of their time in the city as I’m not sure if the water is fit to swim in. There’s a big roller coaster, a ferris wheel and Blackpool Tower, as well as many other attractions, but I’m afraid the place is absolutely devoid of any natural beauty at all. A bit further north at Silverdale, Arnside and Morecambe Bay however was quite the opposite, which I suppose is understandable being as it was just south of the Lake District.
It was nice to catch up with Barbara and Keith, but we had to press on again on the Thursday back to Chipping to catch up with Vincent for the last time before going home. Before we got there our wipers packed a sad and wouldn’t work so it was just as well the rain held off just long enough. Friday morning was spent pulling off the dashboard and reefing out the wiper mechanism which I took to Vinny’s work where he welded the linkage that had come loose back on and ‘viola’, all fixed. Saturday we left for the grand old city of York which was really cool even if the sun did refuse to shine. York Minster was huge and just as impressive as any cathedral in Europe and the tangle of quaint cobbled streets including the Shambles were really neat to wander around. We could have spent a couple of days there had it been warmer and sunnier, but never mind. We hit the road again heading south for the ferry at Harwich which we were catching on Sunday, and looking for somewhere to stay the night. We ended up staying at one of the services on the M1 which had accommodation and turned out to be quite comfortable and quiet. The next day we drove to Harwich and hung around there for the evening until our ferry to The Netherlands at 11.45pm. We had no problems getting on the Stenaline ferry, breezing straight through customs, and after a quiet Heineken at the bar were safely tucked up in our cabin for a quiet night at sea before waking up in a new country. So long England and hello Holland.

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Photos

Lytham
Not the Netherlands but Lytham. Windmill on the promenade.

Blackpool
Central Blackpool, wet and tired with Blackpool Tower behind.

Lytham
A little hail in the morning, followed by snow at mid-day and sunshine in the afternoon!

Morcambe Bay
Friendly robin we met on a walk at Silverdale.

York
Clifford's Tower

York
The little bent shops of the Shambles