Moving on

We Spent a couple of weeks in Spain, early in December before returning home on the 19^th.  Because of this we’d used postal votes in the election for what good they eventually did.

I may well reflect on the election result and what that may mean later.

This year, we stayed at home to celebrate Christmas and the New Year with family and friends. It is the first time in many a year that we have been home at that time of year. But, it was very enjoyable.

We spent Christmas Day ay Betony and Josh’s.  I think that I believed Betony’s invite to be along the lines of ‘come along and I’ll do Christmas dinner’ but I was mistaken. I spent a fair bit of Christmas Eve doing food preparation for the day (making soup, cooking ham, peeling vegetables, preparing stuffing etc.) and then Sharon went along on the day to ‘help’ do the cooking.  The meal was great, the company was great and it was a pleasure to be cooked for on the day.

Following that, we went up to Carol’s on Boxing Day to join her and Mick for what turned out to be a meal. Others had been invited too, but apart from Joanne and family, they had been and gone by the time we got there.  So, we all played cards with Florence, while Carol and Joanne finished off in the kitchen.  Another really enjoyable day.

On the 28^th, we went up to Emma’s for tea. We took Chester with us too as Betony was a bit poorly and tired (she’s pregnant too).  It was great to see the girls again. We’d been up at the beginning of December for Amy’s birthday but that was a school night, so we didn’t see much of them. Today’s meal was great too, two kinds of pork from the local butcher’s https://www.jbrindonaddy.co.uk/ – Thank you Emma, another lovely day.

For several years prior to us wintering in Spain, Sharon and I had alternated New Year’s Eves entertaining or being entertained by Tony and Gill.  Having decided to spend late December in the U.K. this year we were able to recommence this arrangement. We invited David and Gail to join us and a jolly time was had by all.  We had –

Parsnip and Ginger Soup;

Cod wrapped in Serrano Ham, baked and served with mustard sauce;

Carrillada with creamed potatoes and broccoli,

Chocolate Pudding and…

Cheese.

We arrived in Spain late on the 3^rd January 2020 and I’ll pick up the story now, over on the holiday weblog.

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Southport

Many months ago, we booked trip to Southport via a KJB Deal. This was a three-night deal and cost us all of £69 – mustn’t grumble 🙂  We went there with John and Carol, who’d told us of the deal in the first place.

We couldn’t leave Huddersfield until 6:00pm due to work commitments but had a good journey, being unpacked and out again by 8:00pm.

As it was Valentine’s Day, we’d booked a restaurant – just in case.

The ‘special’ four course Valentine’s Dinner – http://www.havinrestaurant.co.uk/7-valentines-day-menu.php – was absolutely superb. Each course, and the content of each course (usually more than one dish) was full of flavour and much better than I’d expected. We’ll certainly try the restaurant again one day.

I can honestly say that, because we enjoyed Southport very much. My most recent trips there have all been for work and I’ve not really seen or ‘done’ the town. We felt that it deserved another coat of looking at.

It was handy for travelling down to Crosby too – where we’d planned to walk along the 3 kilometres of beach that contain Antony Gormley‘s iron men – ‘Another Place‘. We took a train from Southport to Hall Place and then walked from the Coastguard Station down along the beach to Waterloo. We walked back to Blundelsands to catch our train back.

On Saturday we walked around Southport and out along the pier – the second longest in England. The weather was kind to us again and we had a cracking day. In the afternoon both Sharon and I bought Russell and Bromley shoes. We tried to find the national lawnmower museum too but half our party (John and Sharon) thought that it was an old person thing to do and were not interested in walking out too far in that direction 😦

On Sunday, we drove back via Formby, where we entered the National Trust’s ‘Red Squirrel Reserve‘. This is at Formby Point and although we didn’t see any squirrels (of any colour) we did have a great walk up and over the sand dunes, up the beach and back through the woods.

All in all this was a great weekend break spoiled only by the room Sharon and I were in. I can’t really complain as we’d only spent £69 on three nights AND the breakfasts were good AND the hosts did their very best at all times AND the house and rooms were always HOT – but the sink (the only sink) was in the tiny room at the side (almost over) the bed. The shower, en-suite with the sit-upon, was either scalding or cold and there was simply no room to swing a cat (we would have tried but …)

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Easter, Visitors and Beer Trip

April has been an absolutely cracking month so far. It started with lots of ‘meeting friends’ and driving to Glasgow (reported on my EduVel blog) and hasn’t yet finished: there’s much more planned. The weather has been unseasonably brilliant.

Because we have Sharon’s mum Pat staying with us until almost the end of May, Steven and Rosie popped up the other weekend to stay with us and to attend the Wake that was planned in Honley for Steven and Sharon’s aunt (Pat’s sister – try to stay with me). Betony joined us for what was a really pleasant afternoon in the sun. No one wanted it to be a morbid affair although many had missed last week’s funeral in Scotland. And it wasn’t.

It was a great pleasure having Steven and Rosie stay with us, but as soon as they had gone Emma and the girls came round for a fabulous afternoon playing in the garden. I’d just cut the grass and hidden some chocolate rabbits in the garden, so we spend some time looking for those, before playing hide-and-seek together. I’m not sure that Charlotte quite gets the ‘hide’ bit, but she loved the ‘seeking’ bit. This was a lovely day.

Then on Thursday last, Maundy Thursday, Martin and Lin came along to stay with us for Easter. We had a few beers at the Commercial in Slaithwaite after they’d arrived before coming home for dinner. On Friday, after a relaxed morning we set off with a picnic for a drive around Holmfirth and Upperthong before returning home and walking up to the Golcar Lily for more beers and dinner.

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Beer Train Trip

On Saturday we had planned to meet John and Carol in Slaithwaite before all six of us set off on a day-long train ride. We rode to Stalybridge first of all and then had drinks at the Station Bar (and in town) before catching a train to Greenfield, where we alighted once more – this time to The Railway, just across the road from the station. Its namesake in Marsden was the next to welcome us. Once again this pub is right outside the station and like all of the others we visited, serves a selection of Real Ales – which of course if the real reason behind the trip, although we also ate (after a fashion) here. Next stop was Slaithwaite and The Commercial. Here we met Joanne and Paul with their kiddie Florence. There’s a train from each village every hour. So once we’d caught the 17.04 from Slaithwaite to Huddersfield (our next and final port of call) – we’d been on the go for five an a half hours. In Huddersfield we avoided the two on-platform pubs and visited The Sportsman and The Cherry Tree, before going to Kebabish for a right nice curry.

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The following day, we were invited to John and Carol’s for a barbecue, something you can’t usually plan even a day in advance, but the weather held well and we had a brilliant afternoon with all of yesterday’s crowd as well as Debbie and Ian.

Martin and Lin left yesterday and we picked Pat back up from Brighouse where she’d been visiting over Easter.

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