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.