Having been rather disappointed with the poor weather on my last UK visit, I decided to schedule my 2024 trip for June, but it wasn’t a big improvement. Like most of the rest of Europe the summer seemed very late in arriving this year. In another change to routine I decided to do the trip largely using public transport, which actually worked out pretty well. Having dropped Hebe Dog off with Alexander and Laurena in Limoges I flew from Limoges to Manchester with RyanAir to spend a few days with Felicity.
On my last evening in Manchester I found myself on my own as Felicity had to go to work (a night shift as a Senior Midwife), so I set out to find a traditional English pub for a pint – one of the two things I miss about living in France. A quick Google suggested a couple of interesting options…
Back to TGI Friday’s for dinner (right next to the Premier Inn I was staying in) I wanted to have another beer but, as seems very common these days, there are a lot of lager and cider options but no proper beer. I had to settle for a Guinness instead.
With my meal I asked if I could have a glass of red wine, but was informed they had run out of wine glasses. “That’s OK I’m not fussy” I said, and they proceeded to serve me with what seemed like half a pint of red wine…
Next stop on my tour was visiting Chris and Corinne near Newcastle. I caught a bus from the hotel into the centre of Manchester and then a train to Newcastle. It was a chilly morning and I couldn’t help noticing a lot of scantily clad young ladies arriving into Manchester. It was “Party in the Park” apparently ?
One of the first items on the agenda chez Chris was a tour of the latest improvements. You may recall they had recently had a loft extension, creating a huge amount of additional space and I had spent time helping with insulation and plaster-boarding on previous visits. Access to the new upstairs space had been with a ladder, but this wasn’t going to be a long term solution. Chris had looked at buying a kit of parts to assemble a staircase, but wasn’t happy with the quality or appearance. So he decided to make the stairs himself. This first required creating a 3D design on his computer, then buying pieces of raw oak timber to be cut and machined into the right shapes and pieces to make the stair jigsaw fit together. He used a CNC milling machine to cut out the pieces and the joints so they would all fit together with no visible external fixing. He then had to assemble it all and get it into place. The result is absolutely stunning and the quality is superb. He is rightly very proud of the new stairs…
As usual there was a long list of jobs to get on with around the farm, including :
- Getting a new bale for the little horses
- Making and painting re-inforcing pieces for the barn roof (to withstand the extra load of new solar panels)
- Fix the animal trailer ready for sale
- Clean up the horse box ready for sale
- Muck out the barn and transport the muck to the muck pile
- Fix the starting problem with the JCB
- Make some new barn doors
- Add weather protection to the barn walls
- Try to find time for a beer in the sunshine…
Sara came to collect me from Newcastle, so while we were all together we took the opportunity to go out for lunch at the Riverview Cafe, where they do a huge selection of enormous cakes…
Sara lives in Preston and is now retired and has recently purchased a static caravan near Keswick in the Lake District. She divides her time between Grandma duties and trying to walk as many of the Wainwrights as she can. So for my visit there was a lot of walking to do, although I did help out with a bit of baby sitting too.
Next stop was Sussex to see Lucy and family and to visit Nanna. I had booked a train from Preston to London but I received a notification an hour before to say it had been cancelled. Fortunately I was able to switch to one an hour later, so no harm done. On the train they did announce that we might be able to claim compensation for the delay so I filled out an on-line form and thought no more about it – I hadn’t been inconvenienced that much really. Much to my surprise a week or so later I received a full refund for the train ticket, so the journey was free !
From Lucy, I caught the train to Gatwick to get an EasyJet flight to Paris, where I was meeting up with Alexander before heading off to Canada to visit Georgina, but that’s for another post…