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!
