David and Kris's Blog

Saturday, October 27, 2012

North Trip Day Three

NB: These north-trip posts are posted in order so they appear in reverse order. So to see them in order scroll down and begin with North Trip Day One.

On the third day of the journey we left Preston after breakfast and headed to Chorley for a stop at the temple/MTC. From there we headed south a tiny bit to Leigh (which we found is truly pronounced LEE, not LAY, or LYE) where Vicki's dad, Edward (Ted/Grumpy) Greenall was born. The remainder of the day was spent on the motorway working our way south back to London. Having reached the M25 (ring road) we encountered heavy traffic that delayed our journey a couple of hours. What do you expect on Friday at rush hour?

Preston Temple

Ditto

The group in the gardens

The temple grounds

Leigh Town Hall

Hand-blown glass in the town hall doors

The gang in front of the Leigh Town Hall

Westleigh St. Peter's Church

Where Vic's paternal grandparents were married

The M25 at "rush" hour: not much rushing happening

Today we are shopping and running around the countryside in our new smaller rental. We may even make it to Penshurst. So stay tuned. This, however, is all for now.

OXO

North Trip Day Two

The second day of our trip north began in Bridlington, where the first day ended (makes sense, n'est-ce pas?). After a lovely English breakfast, we said goodbye to Matt and Kyle, who had to return for a youth conference, and headed west to York. We drove from York to Haworth, home of the Bronte sisters and thence over the moors to Preston for the night. We stayed at the Ibis hotel, which we feared would be as spartan as the one in Paris years ago. It was actually very nice and beautifully priced (tightwad again). We had supper in the hotel. We thought it would be microwave fare but it was remarkably tasty and well made.

Breakfast at the Royal Bridlington

Our room was the first floor up, left

Bridlington

The beach at Bridlington is sand rather than gravel

The crew in York

The Shambles

York Market

York Minster

The girlies in front of the Minster

A stolen picture of the Minster interior

Nightly Bile Beans!

Wall walkers

Lovely gardens from the wall

York Minster

Bootham Bar (gate) where our wall walk ended

Low Petergate Street

Stonegate Street

The Buffalo Skinners were an entertaining band

How thoughtful

Some have pasties for lunch

Others chose M&S goodies

The Bronte parsonage in Haworth

Graveyard between the church and parsonage

Haworth Main Street

The Church at Haworth

Looking for Heathcliff on the moors

The gang at the parsonage

One more north day to post, so stay tuned. That's all for now though.

OXO

Friday, October 26, 2012

North Trip Day One

Wednesday bright and early we picked up the Vauxhall Vivero 9-seater van and headed north with Dickie at the wheel following Matt and Kim. Rod, the navigator, was riding shotgun and sweating bullets as I learned to track right so I didn't hit the curb or scrape the hedges and trees. I believe I took 5 years off his life as I learned to compensate. I think I took 5 years off my life as we passed huge lorries on tiny roads. By the end of the trip, I had the hang of it, although I still have to remind myself constantly to track right and hug the line. We drove straight to Burton Agnes Hall, the Boynton ancestral home, in time for lunch at the cafe there. From Burton Agnes we drove along several little roads (3/4 of a lane wide -- not quite wide enough for our slightly larger than normal vehicle) to the village of Boynton for a stop at St. Andrew's Church. Rod felt his DNA firing as we visited these ancient family sites.

We spent the night at a nice bed and breakfast hotel in Bridlington on the east coast and not too far from Burton Agnes. We found a chippy where we could eat in out of the dark and cold, before turning in.