Thursday 30 July 2015

July’s Jaunts


Have been a bit quiet on the blog front of late, life has a habit of taking over, and I’ve recently returned from a holiday in Yorkshire. We stayed at the Tollerton Caravan Park, some 10 miles north of York, which proved to be a very peaceful place – well, except for the train line on its border!

Anyway, there will be lots to report on with regard to that trip, including visits to Lightwater Valley Theme Park (watch for the interesting tale of the swan pedalo rescue), Rievaulx and Byland Abbeys and The National Railway Museum (a bit of a sting in the ‘tale’ with this one, or more specifically a burn on the belly).

So that’s a taste of future posts, but in the meantime, before I leave the Yorkshire theme, a word of warning if you’re visiting Thirsk. The short stay car park in front of the Wetherspoon’s in the town square, states that parking is free for up to 60 minutes. However, what is not immediately apparent is that you still have to press for a ticket to record your time of arrival. We missed this bit and were almost presented with a parking ticket, but fortunately our mistake was pointed out to us by a friendly parking attendant (yes, they do exist) so that we could remedy the situation in the nick of time!

As with any holiday, we returned with bags full of washing, only for the washing machine to go into meltdown. There’s no doubt that appliances do tend to pick their moments to break down! However, following my favourable experience of buying a new fridge/freezer from Co-op Electrical online, I headed straight to the website in search of a new machine. I was thrilled to find a sleek silver Beko number, at an astounding £110 off, which boasted rave reviews, so I wasted no time in placing my order. This was on the Monday – by 9.00 am Wednesday morning the machine was here and raring to go! I’m extremely pleased with it, and will be looking at reviewing it in more detail in a future post.

Earlier in the month we returned to a favourite visitor attraction of ours – Dover Castle. Having rejoined English Heritage this year (courtesy of Tesco Clubcard vouchers) we were eager to make the, now free, trip. However, this meant journeying across Kent, a manoeuvre greatly hampered by the existence of Operation Stack, which is still in place as I write. The journey was a nightmare, with many other roads on route log-jammed as a result. We finally arrived at the castle over an hour later than we should have done, but fortunately went on to have a lovely visit.

For those of us living in Kent, Operation Stack is a nightmare, which needs to be remedied by creating decent lorry parks just off the motorway. Of course, the source of the problem is far more complex, with its origins in Calais, which also need to be addressed.

So with July coming to a close it’s been a busy, but interesting month, now I’m just waiting for the return of summer, which I hope is just round the corner!

Wednesday 1 July 2015

Goodbye Twitter!


Just to let you know, those of you have been following me on Twitter will no longer be able to do so.

Following another wrongful suspension from the social networking site (apparently I was wrongly suspended in a job lot accused of automated tweets) that took days to rectify, I’ve finally decided to give up in frustration. I’d also had a bit of an unpleasant Twitter experience recently, so decided all things considered, to close my account, although it may take a bit of time for my profile to ‘disappear’ completely!

You’ll still be able to keep up with me on this Blog and on www.ruraljoy.blogspot.co.uk and www.purelypeoplepower.blogspot.co.uk as well as visit my Google Plus page by clicking here

However, I would like to say thank you to all the wonderful people who I did meet on Twitter, with whom I enjoyed friendly chats and exchanged information. Thank you all.