Other than our long time friends, Paul and Debs, whom I mentioned in my last ramble, who we briefly met up with in Portsmouth when we arrived, we also have some other long time friends, Dougie and Avril, who live up in Scotland and who we also regularly keep in touch and meet up with, in both the UK and Spain, whenever the opportunities arise. Before we left Spain we agreed to meet up with them again whilst we were back here in the UK, and after consulting the map, trying to identify a mutually convenient location, we agreed on the small city of ‘Lancaster’ in Lancashire, a place that neither of us had visited before so, on the day after visiting my mother down in Lincolnshire we once again got back on the road, this time a journey North West across the Pennines, a range of hills that divide the County of Yorkshire (White Rose Country) from the County of Lancashire (Red Rose Country). Those who have an interest and knowledge of ‘English History’, particularly over the ‘Tudor Period’, will be aware of the ‘War of the Roses’ which started on the 22nd May 1455 and lasted until the 16 June 1487, even today, some 570 years later, there continues to remain an intense rivalry between the two Counties. Although it has to be said that these days that rivalry is reflected more when it comes to competitive Sporting events. However, and just to be on the safe side, what with Shazza and I both having Yorkshire accents, we thought it probably wise if, when out in public in this foreign territory, it would probably be best if we spoke in Spanish and let our Scottish friends take the brunt of any English/Scottish border rivalries 😂😂
Before we commenced our journey North we made a brief stop at a local, and highly recommended, tyre depot. I had decided that before returning to Spain that I would change all the tyres on the car, which is now four year’s old, for although we may not actually need to do so for several more months, it would probably be easier to get it done here as I wanted to get a professional opinion on which alternative brand may be better than the ‘Continental Sports’ that I already had fitted on the car. Attempting to have that sort of conversation at a tyre depot in Spain, with my poor level of conversational Spanish, could very possibly end up causing confusion and ultimately something getting lost in translation 🤷♂️ Now you would imagine that the UK tyre dealer would obviously want to lead me towards the more expensive brand, which in this case was my preferred choice of ‘Michelin Sports’. However, he said that both brands were actually good quality tyres and it was down to my own personal preference, although in his opinion the Michelin brand was the harder wearing, with less road noise and they had additional load bearing capacity over the Continentals, but they were £25 per tyre more expensive. I selected the Michelin brand, at which point he smiled then informed me that Michelin were actually commencing a new promotion on their tyres, but it did not start until the 1st day of May, which was the following week, but it would save me £25 on each tyre, making them exactly the same price as the continentals 🤷♂️ so ‘A Perfect Win Win Outcome’. I ordered the tyres for fitting on the first day of the promotion, which would be four days before we would commence our return home journey to Spain 👍
There were two things that we have found that haven’t changed here in the UK, one is the sheer amount of traffic on the roads, whether it be on Major motorways, Dual carriageways or even normal ‘A Class’ roads and the other, the very familiar road decorations, namely the miles and miles of red traffic cones and roadworks, but I guess when you think about it, the two things do logically go hand in hand, with lots of traffic consistently using the roads then the road surfaces are constantly needing to be repaired, ‘A Never Decreasing Circle’ 🤷♂️
I know that I often tend to compare our old lives in the UK with our new lives in Spain, and although their are positives and negatives for both, the climate, and current beneficial economic advantages, tip the scales in the favour of the latter but, on saying that, and as we continue to drive through this extremely diverse and beautiful landscape of England on this trip, we found ourselves agreeing that if, for whatever reason, we felt the desire to return to what is our natural homeland, at some point in the future, then we would happily do so but, hopefully, by that time, perhaps the Political and Economic landscapes would have changed, for the better, for it appears to us that the promises made by the Politicians during the ‘Brexshit’ referendum in 2016 and the UK officially leaving the European Union in 2020, many of the promises made have, so far at least, failed to materialise and the country, purely from our own personal perspective, appears to have gone into a further steep decline 🤷♂️
Shazza elected to be duty driver, yet again, but I wasn’t complaining as it gave me the opportunity to look out at the varying landscapes as the busy M62 motorway sliced through the glorious and extensive Yorkshire Moors, the acres of dry stone walled fields that criss-crossed Saddleworth Moor, a place with a sinister past. The Moors murders were a series of child killings committed by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley between July 1963 and October 1965. The victims were aged between 10 and 17, the bodies of two of the victims were discovered in 1965, in graves dug on Saddleworth Moor, a third grave was discovered there in 1987, more than twenty years after Brady and Hindley’s trial. Another body is also thought to be buried there, but despite repeated searches it remains undiscovered. Saddleworth Moor spans an area of some 29.4 square miles and reaches over 400 metres above sea level.
The dark stone buildings of the farm small-holdings dotted throughout this vast landscape punctuate the scenery, with thousand of ragged fleece lined sheep wandering up the steep moorlands. I catch a glimpse of a Motorhome away in the distance, the only indication and evidence of one of the numerous country roads that wind there way through this spectacular scenery and although it is a wild and desolate place in the Winter months, now, in late Spring, with the sunshine, it is just a mass of colour, differing shades of greens, browns, yellows, with white and purple heather stretching as far as the eye can see, the grey granite rocky outcrops against the blue of the sky above and, hidden from view, the numerous valleys, walking paths with fresh water springs, rivers and lakes along the routes. As we follow the Motorway route past the famous old towns of Rochdale and Oldham, with their Canals and old factory buildings reflecting a more affluent history we pass the Northern side of the city of Manchester and wend our way up towards Preston, with the undulating views and more dominant green colours of the ‘Forest of Bowland’ and then, as we approach our destination, we can see in the distance ahead of us, the peaks of Cumbria and the popular area that is ‘The Lake District’. Even just looking out of a car window at all of this amazing scenery that surrounds us is just so utterly relaxing, and it makes me think again of the lyrics of that song by Louis Armstrong, 🎶 I see skies of blue and clouds of white, the bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights, and I think to myself, what a wonderful world 🎶
Even with the minor deviation at the start of our journey, all the Motorways, although very busy, were free flowing and we were making very good timing. Dougie and Arrival were also having an uneventful journey and making good time so, as we could not check-in to our pre-booked hotel in Lancaster, we agreed to meet for lunch at a Garden Centre in the grounds of ‘Ashton Hall’, just South and a few minutes outside of the city.
Ashton Hall was originally built and completed in 1381, although it was re-built in 1856, the only remaining feature of the original building being the tower that now forms the Southern Wing. The Hall and Land was purchased by Lancaster Golf Club in 1993 and other than the Golfing aspects, the Hall can be booked for Events.
After an enjoyable light lunch the four of us made our way to our pre-booked hotel accommodation. Whilst we prefer to use ‘Premier Inn’ accommodations whenever possible, unfortunately the one in Lancaster was fully booked so we had to use the ‘Holiday Inn’ which was virtually next door. Both occupied a nice riverside location with a convenient riverside walk which would take us into the heart of the city, approximately forty-five minutes away, the exercise would do us good and we hoped that Avril would be able to manage it, having very recently recovered from Cancer and the lengthy treatment that goes with it, fortunately she is in remission and is actually looking quite well. However, we were in no rush and could always stop if and whenever she needed to and we could always get a taxi back, if it proved a little too much for her. We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing in our rooms and had selected a local Indian Restaurant for Dinner that evening, which Shazza said she would drive us to.
Having done a little bit of research on the area beforehand, I knew that there was the Lancaster Canal with a towpath walk, the Castle and Prison and a Museum that we could visit, as well as a wander around the city streets, although in reality Lancaster wasn’t the proportions of a major city, more the size of a traditional town. However, nearby, within only a short ten minute drive, there was also the old seaside town of ‘Morecombe’, just North of the much more popular and touristy resort of ‘Blackpool’, famous for its annual Christmas Illuminations, the Pier, and Blackpool Tower and a place that we have visited ourselves on numerous occasions over the year’s, well it would have been rude not to 🤭 However, having never visited Morecombe and, what with Shazza and I already beginning to have withdrawal symptoms, having been away from the coast, beach and sea for nearly three week’s now 😂 We planned to take a drive to Morecombe on our last day, after saying goodbye to our friends after breakfast, they were only staying for the two night’s and so allowing us a final day of sightseeing to ourselves.
It was a little chilly the following morning so, after a good breakfast in the hotel, we commenced our walk into the city wearing warm outer jackets, but the forecast was for a nice sunny and much warmer day. Dougie and I walked in front of Avril and Shazza, each of us catching up on our respective conversations, although our pace being slightly faster so occasionally we would stop and let the girls catch up, not because of Avril, who was managing the walk very well, more that the girls, whilst engrossed in conversation, found that their tongues were moving far faster than their legs 😂 Eventually we headed away from the riverside and headed towards the centre of town where we found a suitable place to stop and have a coffee, which we all needed. We had no real plan and just sauntered through the pedestrianised shopping streets until we came across the Museum, unfortunately, and pretty typical for us now, it just happened to be closed on the day of our visit 🤷♂️
On checking ‘Google Maps’ on our phone we discovered that the Castle and former Prison was open, and it was only a few minutes walk away so that was our next port of call. Looking across the street towards the entrance it looked quite impressive, and equally as impressive as we entered through the large arched entrance into the courtyard.
Of course, to visit the prison entailed an entry fee, why didn’t that surprise us 🙄 but it wasn’t the cost that prevented us from going inside, more the fact that the only tours available were ‘Escorted’ one’s, none of us ‘History Heathens’ liked those, we would have preferred to have just wandered at our own leisure, rather than having to keep stopping and listening to someone give us all the historical mumbo jumbo, each of us being selective on just how much information we wanted our ear’s to be bombarded with 🙄 anyway, needless to say we didn’t bother, we just wandered around the inner courtyard area, poked our noses into some open doors just out of curiosity and then sat in the now very pleasant and warm sunshine just chatting amongst ourselves and of course, taking the obligatory photo’s of each other, it would have been rude not to 🤭
After a spot of lunch we considered what else we could do, Lancaster also has a Canal and towpath walk, however, after checking ‘Mr Google’ it was located on the opposite side of the town from the riverside walk and another four miles walk back to the hotel. Avril certainly wouldn’t have managed that and was beginning to feel tired so they elected to go in search of a taxi. We arranged a time to meet up later and had selected a village pub, about a ten minute drive away where we would have Dinner.
Shazza and I decided to make our way back to the river and return to the hotel via the way we had walked in earlier that day, to be honest, we had not done very much walking over the last several days so we both wanted to get some exercise in. The river was tidal and so earlier that morning the tide had been in and the river flowing, we had seen rower’s from the local boat club going up and down, but on our return the tide was out.
It felt a lot longer walk back in the heat of the afternoon sunshine and we were looking for the pathway that led back to the hotel, however, before getting there we came across an Aqueduct that carried the Canal across the river, I hadn’t actually noticed it on the walk into town, probably too busy talking 🙄 There were steps leading up to it, we both looked at each other, deciding whether our legs would have the energy left in them to carry us up to the top, “It would be a shame not to” Shazza said, and so we took a deep breath and took on the challenge.
By the time we got back to our room in the hotel we were both heavy legged and knackered 😮💨 We had a nice hot cuppa and then engaged in that much needed Spanish tradition of taking a ‘Siesta’, albeit a little later than is usual. That evening we drove to the village pub and enjoyed a wonderful meal in tremendous surroundings, the menu may have reflected typical ‘Pub Grub’ but what was served was of a much higher standard, the perfect ending to our second day spent with some really dear friends. As they would be departing for their long journey back up to Scotland the following morning, we agreed to meet, a little earlier, to enjoy our last breakfast of the trip together.
Our journey continues………………………..
Hasta Luego mi Amigos, La Vida Es Buena
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