Doing it NOW Chris and Yogi out seeing the best bits of the world while they still can....Doing it NOW

We traveled north of Runcorn to a beautiful area called the Lake Districts, best described as an area of national park with large lakes and beautiful towns. One of the larger lakes was the spot that they used to time the water speed record back in the 1960's I think it was Donald Campbell in a boat called the Bluebird. We went to Lake Windemere the largest of the lakes and stayed in the town of Bowness.

My cousin Lesley and her husband Tony droves us there in their motor-home but we stayed in a typical English bed & breakfast, very nice and comfortable with a monster breakfast the next day. We had a good walk around the town and visited the Beatrix Potter museum, she was a famous resident of the Lakes District where she owned many small farms and wrote her stories back in the early 1900's. Chris especially liked the Beatrix Potter museum and don't tell her this but I actually enjoyed it as well.

We enjoyed the nice weather and had a boat tour on the lake which was perfect for seeing the grand houses and gardens that are dotted along the shore line. This area is frequented by loads of tourists because it is so beautiful, so green and very English. The surrounding countryside is dotted with many farms that all use stones for their walls, no timber fencing all dry stone walls, no mortor to hold the stones in place.

We celebrated my birthday (22nd June) before we left for the Lake District, my auntie Jennifer had surprised me with a cake that was from Top Gear and had an icing Stig on top of it! what a surprise, she got the idea from the Top Gear Stig tee shirt I had been wearing. This was totally unexpected and really nice, she also gave me a really nice bottle of red to enjoy, yeah more wine! Later that day whilst in Bowness we had a really nice meal at a Thai restaurant and few wines of course to celebrate my birthday with Tony and Lesley.

On the return trip to Runcorn we detoured via Blackpool, this is the seaside town that everyone in the north of England goes to for their holidays, unfortunately it is a bit tacky nowadays and full of cheap hotels and tourist traps.

Blackpool is famous for it's tall tower on the sea front that resembles the Eiffel tower, it is all lit up at night. The people still come here in droves. I remember going to Blackpool as a child and seeing the "illuminations", all the promenade along the sea front is light up like Christmas lights, all the shop fronts, buildings and even the trams that run up and down the promenade. The entertainment scene used to consist of dance halls where people came to do ballroom dancing as well as theaters for singers and comedians, it's still all the same when you look around. The tide goes out a long way so the beach looks not very enticing however in the best British traditions people still swim and paddle in the shallow water.

We went south to Wales on our next outing, in Wales all the signs are in English and Welsh, which is pretty amusing, we have no idea how to say the words or pronounce the place names, this is worse than being back in France. Runcorn and Frodsham, where we are staying, is in the county of Cheshire which is right on the north Wales border.

I remember lots of outings to Wales, Chris and I came here 26yrs ago, the scenery is magnificent, very hilly and barren compared to southern England. Tony & Lesley took us to the town of Llandudno, a beautiful seaside town with a wide promenade. Just next to the town is a massive hill called the Great Orme. We went up the Great Orme on a cable tram that ascends from the town up through the houses to the top of this big bare hill. You can see for miles up here. The cable tram was originally built in the late 1800's and has a stop half way up the hill where you change cars.

The town has a typical pier that all these seaside places have, on the pier are souvenir shops, entertainment places like rides and sideshow stalls and of course ice cream. You have to watch out for the seagulls, they seem to be bigger than ours, must be all the chips they eat!! We finished a lovely day in Llandudno with a walk along the promenade, we must have walked nearly 3km, very nice.