OneGuyFromBarlick

I am keeping my eye on the forecast....

Richard Broughton

21:00 last night and we have about -5C this morning but no snow forecast until late tonight.

Travel agents, bottom of Park Road, Skiathos it is then, recovery from the bucket and spade holiday we will have done with all three grandchildren. I can see the Mythos now in a frozen glass from a beach bar with the Aegean behind.

Sounds lovely, Ian. It'll be a bit cooler up the Baltic which is where I'm going this year. Got an overnight stop in St Petersburg and vists to Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Estonia and Finland on the round trip, should be interesting.

That sound good Kev, camera at the ready for aurora.

Kev, If you call round I have a classic book on that area which I think might give you some good background to enhance the trip. It's a good read, one of my favourites.....

Stanley wrote: ↑05 Aug 2017, 02:23 Kev, If you call round I have a classic book on that area which I think might give you some good background to enhance the trip. It's a good read, one of my favourites.....

Sounds good, thank you.

A return journey down the misery that is the M6 corridor as far as Sandbach services. "Smart Motorway" roadworks start just below Thelwall and are present for the next 30 miles or so, at least until the A500 junction and roundabout which is the nearest turning point from the South to North carriageways. 50mph although many in the outer lane were doing a lot more, having experienced falling foul of the average speed monitoring I would assume that there will be a lot of revenue raised today, be it by fine or retraining with a speed awareness course. Either way it's going to cost those in too much of a hurry at least £100 and maybe points as well. Rain was torrential for about half an hour on the way back just as we cleared the roadworks. Downward journey two hours and just about the same coming back, we have our Ruby though now for the bucket and spade holiday. Isla and Finlay will come to us later this week.

I hope they have some good weather. Memories of windy shelters on the prom looking out at a grey seascape in Rhyl.......

We will take appropriate clothing for whatever we get and there is lots off opportunity for adventure.

Enjoy them, and adventures with them, Panbiker.
They grow up too soon...
I praise you for being such committed grandparents. The memories you are giving to these children are priceless. I have recently spent a week with two people who don't give a hoot about their grandkids and I found it difficult not to say anything. My words, if I had said anything, would have been wasted. ( between them, they had 7 grandchildren). I did suggest they take them to a wildlife park one day, but they said they couldn't stand the thought of spending a day with them! I found that very sad indeed.
( I should add I was only referring to the youngest three grandkids, who lived close to our holiday place. The other four live on the other side of the country. They wouldn't even take the nearby grandkids out for lunch!)

We are lucky in that the youngest two are only 20 miles away. Ruby of course is 170 miles away in Stratford but we collect her whenever we can, we have an enforced surrogate parent role with her which we accept gladly but we dearly wish it wasn't so.

Fortunate as well that in the main all three get on apart from the odd falling out which is ingrained in most kids but only lasts 15 minutes or so when it occurs. The two girls are only a year apart and Finlay dotes on Ruby, (sometimes to her annoyance) but in the main they are OK. I also cannot understand how some folk can ignore the younger generations of their own families. We held all these kids within the first few hours of their birth, the bonds were made then and will not be broken as long as we are able.

I don't have any grandchildren, and I am not likely to ( son is adamant he doesn't want children), but I cannot understand those that are blessed to have them would not take an interest...and enjoy every moment.

All mine are 10,000 miles away apart from Jess in Burnley and I love all of them and they know it. We will all be together for Jess' wedding in March..... That will be a red letter day.

Newcastle on Saturday
The middle of the North Sea on Sunday
Fredriekstaad, Norway on Monday
Aalborg, Denmark on Tuesday
Sailing on the Baltic on Wednesday
Stockholm, Sweden on Thursday
Today in Tallin, Estonia.
Thoroughly enjoyed it so far, looking forward to St Petersburg on Saturday and Sunday.

Sounds nice Kev. A much underrated part of Europe.....

Excellent Kev sounds great. We have just got back from Newbiggin two and a half hours for the journey 15 miles of roadworks (50mph) on the A1, (upgrading to motorway) but other wise uneventful and steady progress. Can cover distance better on the A1 than the M6 or M1 motorways. A really nice week weather wise, beach most days with shorts and T shirt, cant complain for further North.

They have been having better weather than us this summer. Glad it went well......

I forgot to report a feature of Newbiggin by the Sea. These are the smaller versions of Couple who are installed on the promenade.





Couple is the UK's largest and (to date) only offshore sculpture installation. Sculpted by Sean Henry and known locally as Ebb & Flo the full size 5m high effigies stand sentinel on their plinth atop the beach breakwater.



Here's a link with a bit more info:

Newbiggin Bay

We have just been to a local Breton festival that celebrates and demonstrates early farming and ancillary techniques and produce. Very interesting and a lovely sunny day.
http://www.eterritoire.fr/detail/sortie ... tre(56910)


http://tourisme.oust-broceliande.bzh/to ... ux_metiers

At high tide they are supposed to be standing on the water. Surprisingly, a lot of the locals don't like the statues but would have preferred something more in tune with the 'fisher folk' rather than a touristy theme. I find them rather interesting. A view from the prom. On the extreme distant left is a gas drilling rig. And on the extreme right a couple of windmills that at one time were the biggest in the UK.

First I have known about them. I thoroughly approve!

Been for a week to Normandy. Travelled round the cider route. Stopped off at the Foundation Schlumberger museum.
According to the text Mme Schlumberger was fascinated by her menfolk filling her bath with layers of clay and gravel to develop their electrical resitance well-logging equipment for the oil industry. I think she just said 'which dirty b* hasn't cleaned the bath.

The other thing I liked about this place was a fascinating section on wood jointing used to construct an overhanging medieval timber house. Great work with simple tools when all you have are the local trees.

On way back we stopped off at the museum for the Airborne Division capture of Pegasus Bridge on the East flank of D-day.

Sounds like an interesting trip Bill. I came across a bloke when I was doing the LTP whose dad slaughtered goats in the bath. No mention of his mother's reaction!