The Grand Tour - Part 2

The last 3 weeks have gone by so quickly and we've crammed a fair bit in too. We left the B&B near Romsey on 4th August to drive to Manchester to stay with Ron's son Peter and his wife Jenny. En route we stopped off to see my friend Charlotte and her husband Henry near Warwick where we had time to admire Henry's coy carp collection, not to mention a very impressive raised pond. Sadly, I had contracted a nasty head cold and was seriously under the weather for a week.

We had a great time with Peter and Jenny (Ron's son and daughter-in-law) in Manchester, some great food (including the obligatory curry), loads of bowling and golf on the Wii (me beating Peter at bowling was only forgiven because I beat Ron at golf) and some real bowling (we'll draw a veil over my performance.......).

Next stop was my friend Lizabeth and her husband Paul who live in a fab house near Lamplugh in the Lake District. We did a couple of longish walks, one over Rannerdale Knots (great cake in the cafe in Buttermere afterwards) and the other close to Loweswater. The only really wet day we spent in Keswick picking up a number of bargains and discovering the joys of Booth's the supermarket. We took Lizabeth and Paul out to lunch at Armathwaite and had a wonderful four course lunch in a gorgeous setting overlooking Bassenthwaite water, ending the day with a leisurely walk round the northern shore of Ennerdale water and a drink outside the Shepherd Arms.

We're currently in Baildon, near Bradford staying with Ron's daughter Kate and her fiance Tim. Kate took some time off work and we've had some wonderful days out including walks at Malham tarn and cove, a trip on the Keighley Worth Valley railway (my first time on a steam train) and an afternoon at Salt's mill where we spent a small fortune on some great books (not to mention the cake......). On Saturday evening, Peter and Jenny drove over from Manchester and we all went out for curry (I decided that this one tied with the Manchester curry) followed by some ten pin bowling (much improved performance from me). Tim and Kate are keen walkers and Sunday was spent on a 6 mile walk from Ilkley over the moor in lovely sunshine via a pub and then home for a roast chicken dinner with all the trimmings. The weather forecast for Monday was awful so we decided to have a quiet day in and Ron played chef making a delicious chilli con carne for dinner.

The Grand Tour is underway

Ron arrived from St Lucia yesterday. I had been at Gatwick since the day before (in a hotel!) as Ron's flight was due to land at 5.30am. I woke at 4am which was a bit annoying as the alarm wasn't due to go off till 5am. I was at the arrivals hall by 5.45am and it only took half an hour for Ron to appear through the automatic doors, his flight having landed 15 minutes late. After a welcome cup of coffee (Ron) and peppermint tea (me), we headed off up the M23, M25 and M3 stopping at Fleet services for the most wonderful cooked breakfast (not only had Ron been up for over 24 hours but due to a catering c**k up on the plane, he only got fed dinner and nothing for breakfast). Having not seen each other for 112 days and making do with Skype and MSN meant we talked 19 to the dozen and thoroughly enjoyed bouncing ideas off each other as to why the weather was doing what it was doing (well, we are both meteorologists). After a detour to collect my walking boots from home (I have a long tradition of forgetting at least one important item when I go away on holiday), we made our way to the B&B near Romsey. It turned out to be perfect, our own suite separate from the house so we had plenty of room to relax, talk and watch TV (I wonder how long before the novelty of TV will wear off for Ron....). Sue, the owner, served us a three course dinner in the suite and it was touch and go whether Ron would a) stay awake long enough to finish it and b) not go pop from the volume of food. It wasn't too long before we retired for the night and I'm glad to report that Ron was asleep in minutes (he was concerned that having slept for a year on the bunk on Zahara, a real bed might be too alien a concept). Ron even managed to sleep through till 7am, a good deal later than he usually manages in St Lucia. Breakfast this morning was another wonderful cooked affair and Ron thoroughly enjoyed his first duck egg, so much in fact that he reckons he may never eat chicken eggs ever again. After breakfast we attempted to read the Sunday Times but very soon got distracted by looking at the meteorology of the tropical Atlantic. We are rather concerned by the potential for hurricane development later in the week but there's not a lot we can do from here and will have to trust that the marina will look after Zahara as promised. We're both really enjoying learning more about tropical meteorology especially as we'll be sailing there for the next couple of years!

Once we'd got the Met sorted, we decided a long walk to the pub was in order (well, 2 breakfasts and a 3 course dinner needed walking off) so armed with a map we headed off up the footpath. It turned out that neither of us were appropriately dressed for the vegetation we encountered and could have done without being attacked by brambles and nettles. However, all was forgiven when we reached The Hatchet Inn in Sherfield English where Ron had his first pint of English beer (Summer Lightning) in over a year. The walk back by road was much less dangerous from a vegetation point of view but the lack of footpath meant we were in danger from the Sunday afternoon traffic.

If you're wondering about the significance of the photo at the top, it's of the sunset over Marigot Bay on 4th July 2010, the anniversary of our first meeting..... all together now, awwwwwwwwwwww!