The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
In May my sister and her (now) husband moved their entire wedding to Coleraine to accommodate me. As a result their night do was a charity rock gig with very few of their friends in attendance.
Always one to make the best of a situation, my sister had a further two wedding parties! One in London for friends living there. The second was tonight in Manchester. Hubby, son & girlfriend, and I decided to come along and celebrate with them. Normal people would fly here, like my son and his girlfriend. But nooooo, the wee princess won’t get on a plane. A good thundery day gives me a headache..... ain’t no way I’m getting on a flight. I pity the fool.......
So how do we get to Manchester? Boat of course! Dublin to Holyhead? Dublin to Liverpool? No good. Too long and boat times awkward. Poor hubby worked through all the options with me. Finally we decided on Larne to Cairnryan and a drive down via the Lake District. The princess wants to see Ullswater....
We left yesterday morning. Larne to Cairnryan is a very different experience to what I remember as a kid. We used to do it every year. It took hours and I spent most of the time throwing up. Nowadays it takes 2 hours and is cruising! We paid an extra £20 for the Lounge and enjoyed priority boarding and a quiet place to sit with unlimited cuppas and snacks. Money well spent. We went out on deck and I laughed as we passed Ailsa Craig..... every year as a kid my dad would’ve quizzed us “what’s that rock called??” I even remember that it’s rock from there that’s used to make curling stones..... I enjoyed the memories and smiled at the prospect of visiting my home country of Scotland again.
What I hadn’t remembered was that Cairnryan is the middle of nowhere..... The road from there to the Lake District will not sell Scotland to you, I'm sorry to say. It’s like being on the Frocess but for hours and hours...... with less tractors but more freight lorries.
After what felt like days, we stopped in Dumfries. Again, not a great advert for beautiful Scotland. Saved, however, by the Burns trail...... a museum, statue etc to mark the famous bard’s time spent living there. We had some food and spent a short time exploring.
Next? The Lake District. We’d booked a hotel in Kendal for last night. But we wanted to see Ullswater on the way. We used to have a print of Ullswater Lake on our wall at home. A cheap, IKEA special that we took down ages ago, but it hung for many years..... seemed only right we visit the place we had on our wall for so long.
We duly started along the next stage of our journey. Almost there, we saw a sign saying “Alpaca Centre”. I have a friend who recently informed me she is getting two alpacas in September. She claims they can sense stress and will only come over to you if you’re calm. If you’re stressed they avoid you.... So we stopped at the Alpaca Centre because we were curious. Unfortunately it appears to be shut and there’s not an alpaca in sight. Looks like a shed in the back farm yard that sells alpaca wool products. So we go to leave....... only to find ourselves locked in!! For a moment I was scared we were in the Ullswater version of Texas Chainsaw Massacre..... Hubby went off to try and find someone and out comes this man with long grey hair and a bit of an attitude tbh..... Thankfully he opened the gate and let us out.
Ullswater was lovely but it’s getting late so we push on.
As for Kendal? Pah! It was a Friday night in August and everything was shut at 5pm. The handful of restaurants still serving were full. Absolutely no character at all. We ended up having to have Pizza Express because we couldn’t find a pub doing pub grub. Even Table Table had a 2 hour wait! Nothing to write home about at all.
This morning I woke up exhausted but excited to be going to see my sister. And I had another reason to be excited...... I’d persuaded hubby to take me to Manchester via Morecambe. His own fault as he made the mistake of telling me about the statue of Eric Morecambe that’s housed there! Bring me sunshine....... awesome! This is what life is all about.
From Morecambe to Manchester and a great party tonight. I love my sister and her hubby. I love my hubby and his patience with me and all my crazy ideas!
Now we get a few days of quality time, before the next stage of the road trip.....
Living life xx
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