Last Chance Weekend Trips

Hi Family and Friends,
The last blog was really just an update on what the kids are doing  now – this one’s about all the places we went to in March. With Mark working full-time most of the month we really needed to cram the short trips we wanted to do into our weekends.

Manchester & Olde York

We went to Manchester to meet up with Gramma Barb and Grampa Eric, who were on a weekend stopover on their way back from a trip to Africa. They took Mark and Liam on a trip on the Manchester Eye – a giant ferris wheel designed for city viewing – while I tried to get Gemma to nap whilst shopping at Next (a store we’re really going to miss – it’s like Gap meets H&M – fun basics at a reasonable price – great kids’ stuff). We went out to a “Nicholson’s” pub for tea-dinner (this is what we call dinner now, since where we live in England, dinner is ‘tea’ and lunch is ‘dinner’, or lunch-dinner for us).

The next day we drove 2hrs to the city of York to meet Gramma and Grampa who arrived by train. We checked out the National Railway Museum, which both Liam and Grampa enjoyed, walked through the city and along the old city walls, visited an old castle tower site and took a river cruise. After a lovely Italian tea-dinner we said our see-lots-of-you-soons, as we will all be practically neighbours when we move back to Guelph.

An Irish Life for Us (at least for a long weekend)

Mark booked a Monday & Tuesday off work after the second weekend in March as we had flights to visit friends in Belfast, Northern Ireland (the Ireland that’s part of the U.K., not the one that just went bankrupt). Before we left for Belfast, we made sure we got our heads around which Ireland we were actually going to. We didn’t want to embarrass ourselves, although we found ourselves constantly forgetting to clarify we were going to Northern Ireland. Like Scotland, N. Ireland uses the Great British Pound as currency and accepts ‘English’ pound notes, but gives out their own pound notes that can’t be used elsewhere in the U.K. – annoying.  We flew with FlyBe, a low cost Belfast airline to Belfast City Airport and rented a car with child car seats (crap ones), but had our own SatNav (GPS) to get us to the Miskelly Residence. Julia, Mark’s childhood friend, her husband, Steve, and 4yr old, Olivia, were all on hand to welcome us to their home outside the city in the village of Darragh Cross, about a half hour drive from the airport.

Olivia and Liam had only met once before in August when our UK Adventure began but they were both so excited to see each other again! We arrived for dinner and Olivia had set up her little table for her and Liam, and also helped her mum set up his bed – super cute. The kids (Gemma included) got on so well all weekend together – it was so lovely (and relieving for all the parents!)

Our friends are very close to moving into their new home designed by Steve (he’s an architect) so we went for a short walk to get the Grande Tour. Ah-May-Zing! The kids had fun playing in Olivia’s playhouse outside and running around the empty rooms inside. I wanted to marry the kitchen. Mark may have an affair with the espresso machine. We will definitely return for a future visitJ

The Miskelly Family took us to one of Liam’s new favourite places – W5. It’s all about the Who, What, Where, When and Why of science.  There are tonnes of hands-on experiments for kids - of all ages - but what Liam loved best was the kid-sized Tesco supermarket – complete with cash registerJ W5 has similarities to the Museum of Science and Industry we went to in Manchester but the little Tesco was the real winner of the day with two visits from the kids. Outside the W5 building is the harbour where the Titanic was built and launched. Two famed Harland & Wolff shipbuilding cranes, nicknamed Samson & Goliath also stand tall in the area.

We had Monday and Tuesday on our own since Julia and Steve had work(what’s that again?) and Olivia had Nursery. They recommended we do the Giant's Causeway and Coastal Route which sounded fine to us. The weather in N. Ireland is even less predictable than in England. As we drove North to the Causeway (not along the coast route) it was raining and hailing! By the time we got to our destination, it was sun and blue skies – so weird, but lucky for us! This area reminded us a lot of Iceland with the black molten lava sand and rocks and the basalt formations. From here we drove South along the Coastal Route – one of the top ten drives in the world, as some list compiler once stated. There are lots of stops to make along the route including a Castle and Old Bushmills Distillery (Whiskey) however we chose to stop over and do the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge – Yowzers! Honestly, this was really scary. I’m not great with heights, particularly on bridges and particularly when there is hardly any bridge beneath me. If it weren’t for Liam holding my hands and leading the way (I was scared for him too!) I wouldn’t have been able to make it without crying or swearing my face off.  I did once utter a small ‘I hate this’ that I didn't think Liam would hear but he totally did. Gemma was brave too as it was fairly windy that day, especially on the bridge – Daddy held onto her tight. She also went up all the steps, with Daddy’s assistance, along the trail back up the hill to meet the pram we left behind.

Our last day we went into Belfast to see the city – an interesting concept indoor/outdoor shopping mall called Victoria Square, a Liverpool FC shop – random, but we guess there are a host of fans in Belfast since the two cities are just across the Irish Sea from each other and there are probably lots of ties to Liverpool. We drove through The Troubles, the area where walls of poetic graffiti now stand in place where violent clashes between Protestants and Catholics once took place. We also found two Spar Tim Hortons stores in and out of Belfast!

The kids were sad to say goodbye and still miss each other loads. Liam often asks if we are going to Ireland or if we’ll see Olivia when we’re going out somewhere. It was such a lovely visit and we were glad to go after having lived in the countryside ourselves as we really understand the appeal of British country living know. We weren’t there for St. Paddy’s day, but we did have Guinness – and it did taste better in Ireland! This trip concluded our visits to all the countries in the UK – YAY!

Lincoln, Lincolnshire (go figure)

We weren’t sure if we would be able to get in a visit with Mark’s cousins Ben and Roger before we left but by some magical luck, and a bit of planning on Facebook, we were all able to get together at Ben’s in Lincoln for a Saturday visit. We drove about 2.5hrs East to get there and Roger, Pauline and Elyse, now 13, drove about the same from Norforlk. They took us to a giant jungle gym play area in a warehouse that also served food. They seem to have a lot of these places in the UK and we think we don’t have a lot of them in Canada for two main reasons:  1. Insurance and Liability and 2. Health and Safety. They are great for kids and parents though. Liam and Gemma got right to it in the under 5 area. Gemma showed Pauline the attitude she’s developing by giving her the funniest, skeptical ‘looks’ all afternoon – Pauline runs a homebased Nursery and kids are usually drawn to her so this made Gemma’s looks even more humourous. Back at Ben’s we had fun with bubbles in the back garden until we had to leave to make the drive back to New Mills - with a stop for tea-dinner at the ‘Burger Store’.  We’ve had bubble fun at our house since then – thanks again for the bubbles pack Pauline! And thanks to Ben, Rog & Family for a lovely visit!

The Lakes (not 'Great', but pretty good)

The day Mark finished his online course we picked Liam up for Nursery in a rental car and we headed North for the Lake District. It was different walking up to the Nursery without Gemma and the pram - usually when I pick him up, Gemma  waits outside with the other toddlers and babies in prams! What was supposed to be a 2hr drive to The Lakes turned into a 3.5hr drive with traffic around Greater Manchester and a stop at the ‘Burger Store’, of course. We arrived in the town of Kendal at the cottage we rented for the weekend (or 'Hotel House' as Liam called it) with provisions in hand – donuts (albeit, Krispy Kremes), beer, tea, Cheerios and Thomas the Tank pasta shapes. This trip was a two-for-one – a visit to the Lakes and a trail race for Mark. We had Saturday to explore Kendal and nearby towns Windermere and Bowness both along Lake Windermere, the largest of England’s lakes. Liam averaged two ice creams a day here.

The race was on Sunday in Grizedale Forest, about 45 minutes from Kendal. The kids and I didn’t hang out near the race area, since there was a play area and café further into the park. After our lunch-dinner and a runaround at the play park, we attempted to make it back to the race area by walking trail to see Mark finish, but not even 1/3 of the way in, Mark texted that he had already finished! In 20^th place, we later found out! We got back to Kendal a bit late for a good tea-dinner out – many restaurants in this area are normally only open for the day and not open at all on Sundays so it was KFC for us. Liam was quite excited to find out there was such thing as a ‘Brown Chicken Store’J

We headed back to New Mills on Monday morning and even with a stop at the Stockport Tesco for Liam to have a ‘wee’, by some miracle, I fed the kids and got Liam to Nursery on time while Mark returned the car - on time and full of petrol.

When Mark was young, his family would do a trip to The Lakes about once a year, and before we had kids, we did a trip to Ambleside, also in the Lake District so it was nice to visit this area again during our UK Adventure.

Our next blog post will be on our last trip while in the UK – to Italy! We’re really taking advantage of the fact that mainland Europe is just a few hours away. And we really won’t be going anywhere for the next year or so;)

Photos of Ireland: Facebook UK - March N. Ireland
Other Photos: Facebook UK - March
Mark's Race Photo

Cheers and thanks for reading (I know it was another long one),
The Nicholson Family