Friday 31 May 2013

Compliments aplenty in China

About ten years ago, I went to China to trek the Great Wall with a group of people connected to a charity called Quarriers. It was one of those things were you get people to sponsor you and the money goes to the charity.

Apart from waking up on day three, unable to move, it went well. It was loads of fun. We zipwired over a river....

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We were chased off the wall by some soldiers and had to escape through a farmer's field and persuade the farmer not to charge us for walking through his fields without permission. There were adventures round every corner.

Often, when we started, some of the locals would walk a little way with us, trying to persuade us to give them our bags to carry, the implication being that you give them a little bit of money at the end of the day. Most of us wanted to carry our own bags, to feel we'd 'done it ourselves' but occasionally some would cave in and accept help.

This one day, I think it was about a week in, one of these helpers had been with us all day. She was helping a 60 year old lady called Lily and they were steaming ahead, leading the group, while we trailed behind!

At the end of the day, as we were making our way to our accommodation and the lady was getting ready to turn and repeat the day's walking in reverse to get home, she produced some t-shirts with pictures of the Great Wall on them and asked us if we wanted to buy some. They were quite nice and not expensive so we all had a look. By the time, I looked, however, all the t-shirts my size has gone. She looked at my top half and ruffled through her remaining ones but they were all children's sizes. Dammit.

"Never mind," I gestured, shrugging my shoulders and starting to walk away.

"Wait!" her voice rang out, in the way someone might shout 'Eureka!' if they had solved some great mystery.

(Are you ready for this?)

I turned back to see what she had found. She was holding a red t-shift aloft and offering it to me.

"I have extra large!" (Actually she said, 'extra rarge' but you get the idea)

Now I don't know how things go down in China but in the UK, if you want to make a girl buy some clothes off you, it's not by telling her she looks like she needs the 'extra rarge' size.

Unsurprisingly, I passed on the t-shirt.....

Thursday 30 May 2013

Phone conversations I had on Tuesday

3.15pm

TDCJ: Texas Department of Corrections, how can I help you?
Me: Hiya, I'm just calling to inquire about visiting an inmate. I was planning to come next week. I'm flying from England. But I've not received the paperwork to allow me to visit. I think the post is going slowly or something. Is there anything I can do to speed things up?
TDCJ: The inmates are allowed to change their visitor lists middle of next month.
Me: O, ok. On his latest letter, he said he's changing it end of this month.
TDCJ: No. It's the middle of the month.
Me: So what can I do about coming on Monday?
TDCJ: You won't be able to visit on Monday.
Me: Is there nothing I can do?
TDCJ: You can come but you won't be able to visit.

3.30pm

Lastminute.com: Lastminute dot com, how can I help you?
Me: I have to cancel my flight for this Saturday. I remember taking out a cancellation policy on the flight.
Lastminute.com: Yeh, it's a nonrefundable flight, unfortunately. You can get a refund on the taxes. Not all of them. But a few.
Me: How much would that be?
Lastminute.com: £147
Me: Really?! But the flight was £574! That's hardly anything back.
Lastminute.com: Yeh.
Me: Can I rearrange the flight? I'm probably going to go at the end of the month instead.
Lastminute.com: Ok, you'd need to pay the difference, if the new flight costs more. And the airline charges £100 for admin fee when you change. And we charge £45. And you're only allowed to travel between Monday and Thursday.
Me: Monday and Thursday in the same week?
Lastminute.com: Yes.
Me: So I have to get from London to Texas, to the prison for two days of visits, back to Texas and back to London? In four days?
Lastminute.com: Yes.
Me: And how much am I looking at for that?
Lastminute.com: If you travel at the end of June, going Monday 24th, returning Thursday 27th, the extra charges you will have to pay will be £472.
Me: What?! Wait a minute. My flight was £570 to start with. That's almost double!
Lastminute.com: Yeh. Shall I book it for you?
Me: You know what? I've had a pretty rubbish day. My head is aching and I'm knackered. Can I just call you back?
Lastminute.com: Mam, can I ask the reason why you need to cancel the flight? Delta have a policy that you may apply for a full refund in certain circumstances.
Me: (Deep breath.) My friend is on death row in Texas and he has an execution date next month. I wanted to go and visit him but the prison just informed me that I won't be able to visit, even if I go all the way there. So I'm not... I can't go... There's no point. I can't use those flights.
Lastminute.com: Ah ok. I'm so sorry to hear that.
Me: So will I be able to get a refund?
Lastminute.com: No. The special circumstances are something like if your family member is ill.
Me: Is this not a special circumstance? He's being executed in a matter of weeks?
Lastminute.com: No, I'm sorry. So shall I change your flights for you?
Me: No. I. Just. Just leave it. I can't be bothered anymore. I'm exhausted. Bye.
Lastminute.com: But mam, I...
Me: No. No more.
Lastminute.com: If I could just....

Beeeeeep.

It is 3.45pm. I am ready for bed.

And that, my friends, is what happened to me on Tuesday. My mind is tired. My head is aching. I'm wondering when we became so addicted to rules and regulations.

And I'm sad.

*As a postscript to this, I called on Wednesday and Lastminute.com had changed their minds. I do not have to travel Monday to Thursday in the same week. Problem solved! I'm going in late June and it only cost £280 to make the adjustments. Phew.

Wednesday 29 May 2013

Price promise vouchers (Or: Money off next time)

Hello all.  Welcome to my Wednesday guest blog post from Rambler5319. Enjoy!

 

I’m going to start off referring to a recent article in one of national daily papers, by journalist Tom Utley, here in the UK. It highlighted a very cunning ploy being used by four of the big supermarkets. (I was taken in by it just as he was.) It’s called “Brand Matching” by the one he uses – Sainsburys; it’s called “Price Promise” by Tesco and other things by the others. It means that each supermarket in this scheme (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons) finds out what the others are selling, say, their 500g packet of Shreddies for and if it is cheaper somewhere else they take the cheapest price and “match” it by giving you a voucher for the difference. For example, if you paid £4.18 for your carton of 48 Weetabix this week at Tesco - btw that is the price - and Sainsbury were selling theirs for say £4.00, and that was the cheapest of the other prices, you would have a credit for £0.18 and so on for all your other items. Some of these may be over or under the cheapest price so there will be a final balance which could be a plus or a minus figure. Just suppose in this case that the final total of plusses and minusses came to +£0.18 you would get a voucher for that amount. This voucher is received when you go through the checkout and can be used to get money off on your next visit.

Here are a couple I got recently.

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You can see that, in total, I could reclaim £2.11 off my next bill.

Looks good doesn’t it - £2.11 off my next bill? However I wonder if you’ve ever got one of these vouchers and thought, “Hang on a minute, this means if I’d shopped at another supermarket I’d have got my food and other stuff for £2.11 less.” In actual fact what these vouchers mean is that really I’ve been overcharged. Even if you had thought that, you still have a problem because you don’t know at which of the other supermarkets in the “Brand Match” scheme (Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons) you could have realised those savings. And, even if you did, is it likely that next week you will drive to that other supermarket just to pick up the items which are cheaper there? Would you stand in 4 different queues at 4 different supermarkets just to get the cheapest items? Isn’t the whole idea of supermarket shopping that you want to be able to pick up everything you need in one place to save visiting loads of different places. So what is the “Price Promise Voucher” (or whatever it’s called in the one where you shop) for? Put quite simply it is a type of loyalty inducement. They want you to go back to their supermarket and spend your money there – oh, and of course, redeem your vouchers and make that crucial saving except in reality you haven’t saved anything at all. What you’ve done is “not lost”. Think about it carefully. You’ve got back to zero after having paid more than you could have done elsewhere. (In my case I could have got my items for £2.11 less somewhere else so the overcharge of £2.11 is being credited back to me; crucially though, it’s not money in your hand.) The thing to be aware of is that the vouchers have a date limit on their redemption so you can’t just hand them in any time. In fact you can’t go back in the same day (if you’ve forgotten something) and use them because they don’t start ‘til the day after you receive them and they last for about 4 weeks.

This strict redemption period is what draws you back because you say to yourself I must use the voucher before it runs out. You go back to the very place which is apparently overcharging you so you can be overcharged again! And yet, just like Tom Utley, I felt quite pleased when I was given my voucher. “Ah yes,” I thought, “that means I’ll save £2.11 off the next bill.” I wasn’t realising that when I got my “£2.11 Tesco was simply helping me back to the zero position of no gain/no loss compared with their competitors.

I want to look at a couple of areas Tom did not cover as I think they’re also worth thinking about.

Firstly, I was not realising that Tesco had had my £2.11 for a week (or in some cases longer) in their bank account so I’ve really become a lender to one of the biggest supermarkets in the UK. Fancy that, me lending Tesco £2.11 for a week. Thing is though they didn’t ask if they could borrow it – they just took it and promised to give it me back next time I came in with that piece of paper!

Secondly, a further side to this is that, if you think about it, it could be interpreted as a type “price fixing”. What each one is saying is that whoever is selling the item for the lowest price is the one we will charge our customers. Sounds ok doesn’t it? But wait a minute, what happens if say an item is being sold for £4.00/£3.80/£3.75 in three of the places and last one says that they will put their price at £3.70. Is this fair? Well, it might be but what if the profit on this item was quite high anyway so even at £3.70 they’re still making a fair amount? The others were looking to make even more but they’ve been undercut and so agree to the £3.70 in their stores to match the lowest price and then give the difference back in the form of vouchers to their customers. The trouble is the lowest price may not necessarily be the best price for the customer. It could be that if this item was sold for £3.50 for instance it would still make a good profit but because we don’t know the details we can’t say. All we know is that the stores will still make a good profit at the lower price because it still has a good margin in it. Can you see the problem now with this whole concept?

A further twist to the psychological ploy is the other side of the coin when you get a piece of paper saying, like mine did a few weeks ago: “Today you have saved £0.94”. This is what you get:

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This means I couldn’t have got my basket (trolley) of goods cheaper anywhere else (at stores in the scheme) and in fact your store was the cheapest, over all the items, by that £0.94. What’s this piece of paper worth? Well, nothing actually. It is simply telling you that this week you have not been overcharged. Oh well that’s good isn’t it? In a kind of really odd way you now feel as if you wished you had been overcharged so that you would have the ability to get some money off your next bill because it makes you feel good. The cleverness of the scheme is that it is actually making people happy who have been overcharged! Read that again. And it’s obviously working. Ask yourself how often do you change store or supermarket? Do you really want to keep having to learn new store layouts so you know where to find all your items or do you, like me, want to know that, every week, when you walk down aisle 6 you will find the veg & in aisle 23 the tinned fish and so on?

What can you do about it? Not a lot except that maybe in a week when you redeem your vouchers and get a “you have saved” printout you go and shop in a different store the next week as a punishment for the one who overcharged you the week before. Or maybe you have a better idea?

Tuesday 28 May 2013

A cup of tea in the garden

Take your morning coffee out into the garden (Simon Gear, Going Greener)

I've been sitting on this one for a little while now, feeling like this was the next direction to go in with my Living Usefully project but not quite getting round to it.

As I drink tea, not coffee, I have adjusted it slightly but last night I decided that today was the day when I would take my tea into the garden. The weather has been nice all weekend and there have been some recent additions to the garden which I thought would make standing out there a lovely thing to do.

We recently got a cherry tree, a plum tree, a strawberry plant, tomatoes plants, a tall fuschia plant and a load of pansies and lobelia so there is a lot to look at in the garden right now. I was looking forward to my tea-in-the-garden plan.

Then I woke up, fifteen minutes ago. The birds were singing, the air felt warm and I pulled back the covers.

Then I looked out of the window. It was pouring with rain and everything looked soaked.

So I pulled the covers over me again, rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sorry, everyone. I'm sorry. I tried, sort of. I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe.

Monday 27 May 2013

Danda and the dock leaves

Before I proceed with this story, I would like to remind you all of what happened last summer when I picked a blackberry for Danda. It was the first blackberry of the summer and I picked it for Danda and trekked up the biggest hill in the world to give it to him. You'll have to check the post for his reaction.

So last week, I went foraging. I now have a book about foraging, called Food For Free by Richard Mabey. It's fabulous and I'm cautiously working my way into new types of edible plants. It started with nettles...

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...and has now expanded into dock leaves and dandelion leaves too. On the river near Ham House, there is an abundance of greenery for the taking. It's like a forager's paradise....

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Nettles on the left, dock leaves toward the middle then dandelion leaves on the right. Dandelions are really good for you, apparently. And the whole plant can be eaten, from flower to root. Things like dandelion leaves and dock leaves were once collected constantly and steamed and eaten like spinach but when spinach started to be grown more, we got away from eating these things.

Along I went, on my foraging mission, collecting lots and lots of greenery and thinking what lovely things I would make with it.

That evening, I decided to make a chilli with venison mince and lots of tomatoes and onions and fresh red chilli. As all these things are quite rich flavours, I decided to add the greenery in right at the end, just until it wilted a little, to lighten the whole thing up. So in it went, I stirred everything round, seasoned it and put it in bowls for Danda and I.

We dug in, munching away. I was feeling all at one with nature, eating my recently foraged greens in my dinner. I looked at Danda, knowing he was feeling the foraging love.

His face was a picture of uncertainty.

"It's quite bitter," he said, looking at it nervously.

"Put a bit more salt in," I advised. He did so. He tried it again.

"O, it's really bitter, Laura.... Do you want mine?"

And so I had two dinners and Danda ate toast. So that went well.

*I have since worked out how to counteract the bitterness. I need to put the greens in earlier, so the bitter taste is dissipated and the other tastes are allowed to come forward.

Sunday 26 May 2013

Squirrels, dogs and cats

Well, everyone, after the last two days, I'll bet you thought we were done with Chat. As did I. But then I found the back page story, which is generally reserved for the wackiest stories, the kind of thing which have an element of the unhinged to them. Let me remind you of other stories that have found their way to the back page.

There was the woman who knitted an entire troop of pirates and had them on her bed with her. There was the couple who got driven to their wedding in a skip. There was the woman who makes freaky zombie dolls and gives them to people as gifts. That, my friends, is the kind of story that appears on the back page.

And this week is no different. Check it out. The article is called 'Nutty but nice.' Clever.

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Hmm. An adventure park for squirrels? What on earth can this mean?

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O, ok. I get it. That's what she means. She's made a mini hot air balloon with some nuts in the basket so the squirrel will sit in it.

Yehhhh... She doesn't mention having a job. That might be something to do with it.

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No, your eyes are not deceiving you, that is a squirrel in a pram on the left and a squirrel 'cleaning windows' on the right.

She even set up a Santa sleigh full of nuts, photographed the squirrels when they stood next to it then sent it out as her Christmas card. Hmmm.

I just... I don't... I can't even think what to say about this. A squirrel adventure park. Seriously, now. People get their kicks in strange ways. Maybe she should try taking up a hobby, origami perhaps?

And now, for something completely different. A Bingo Dog!

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And last but not least, the Photo of the Week, a cat sitting on a table.

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Saturday 25 May 2013

Cement Face, clip fan and new nunbers

Continuing on from yesterday's post, we're entering the world of Chat again.

Before we embark on any of the actual stories, I'd just like to list some of the names mentioned in this week's magazine. People love sending stories or pictures of their children and I fear something has happened to the new mothers of today, something called Crazy Naming. It's like they've randomly picked out some letters from the dictionary and stuck them together to make a word and written it on the birth certificate. And even when fairly regular names are used, there's a real thing for double barrelling. We must double barrel! These are just a few....

Kaly-raine
Modlen (female, by the way)
Dayton Rae
Ella-May
Amy Rose
Roman
Olivia Grace
Harley
Darcie
Willow
Sharonesme
Kimbalee
Leigh-Catherine

And with the scene set, in we go. First up, we have Concrete Face Lady.

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Yep. Actual concrete. In her actual face. In fact, it was a mixture of cement, tyre sealant, mineral oil and glue. In her face. She was born a boy but lived as a transexual and wanted the plastic surgery to have womanly cheek bones and a more feminine shape to her body. The cement nonsense mixture has also been injected in her boobs, hips and bum, where they have now gone lumpy but the doctors can't remove them because it has solidified around the  nerves, tissue and blood vessels so can't be removed. Yeh. Being a boy doesn't seem so bad now, does it?

Next up, everyone's favourite page - the 'Blimey! That's clever' page. And what have we here?

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O, it's just some settings on an oven, you're probably thinking. Well! Let me tell you! It is not just some settings on an oven!...

Actually, yeh, it is. They had faded away so she got some more sticky numbers and stuck them on. That's it. That's the tip. When the numbers on your oven settings fade, put some more on.

That wasn't really even a tip, was it? That was nonsense.

Let's try another one.

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Store your hair clips on a fan. Firstly, who has this many hair clips?! Secondly she says 'stores them in one place and looks pretty.' And looks pretty?! Really? You decide.

Lastly, this.

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Keep toilet roll tubes and put wires in them with a label on. I mean, there's nothing wrong with this, as such. But it's not really the ground breaking life changing rocket science I'm always expecting when I look at these pages. We've cut down trees to produce this magazine! I need to feel there was a decent reason why we did that.

I guess the whole of Chat magazine overrides that idea.

Friday 24 May 2013

A return to Chat

This is long overdue and I apologise to those of you who have been waiting patiently for it. It's time to review this week's Chat magazine.

It's difficult to know where to start really. The cover has got some real gems. Check it out.

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'Fag-butt torture'?! Brilliant. There's just something really catchy about that. The main problem with this title, though, is not its catchy tag line but the fact that, when you read the story, there's not a fag butt in sight! They obviously edited that bit out but forgot to tell whoever was getting the front cover ready. There is literally no mention of fag butts in the story. None. And yet the front cover promised me some fag butts! Disappointing. I very rarely read a story unless it contains some fag butts.

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Ah. Now this is a good one. When looking for my favourite magazine on the shelf, I spotted this funny, oddly proportioned face and something about cement and knew I'd found Chat. O, the perils of using a dodgy unqualified plastic surgeon.

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I love how the inference here is that she arrived in Florida, in the airport or whatever, and she got off the plane, passport in hand, to have a lovely beach holiday. But when she got to passport control they recoiled in horror at her weight, disgusted by the thought of her on their beaches, flaunting her overweight body for all to see and psychologically damaging children for life.

"Too fat for Florida". That's what I thought I was going to read. Those Floridians can be harsh, I thought to myself. Poor woman, being told she can't come in because of her weight.

And then I read the story, which really should have been titled, "I Couldn't Fasten My Seatbelt On A Ride In Florida And A Man Had To Help Me." Yeh. That was all. Of course that was all. She just couldn't fasten her seatbelt on a ride.

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At first I didn't know whether the two things were connected - "Turn your hero into Lego" and "Win a life size statue of your child." It turns out they are, implying that one's hero is their child. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that as such, but your average six year old is unlikely to have achieved the things an adult of fifty probably has. I mean they're barely getting to grips with their times tables. They're still punching their friends in the playground to settle disputes. And giggling at the word 'boobs'. Personally, my hero, a man called Clive Stafford Smith, has got a lot more going for him than any child I know.

And yet, I am invited by Chat to turn my hero (my child) into a life sized Lego statue. I mean, really? Really?

Surely by the time you've built it, it's no longer life sized because children grow quickly? And why, why on earth would I want a Lego statue of my child. I already have my actual child. I don't need a Lego body double.

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Check out the Lego family! Now imagine it just chilling in your front room. After the initial novelty of having a Lego family watching TV with you, I imagine it'd be a right pain. And a bit scary if you went downstairs for a glass of water in the night.

Wow, guys. That was just the front cover! I'm going to stop there and let you digest everything that's been discussed today. Tomorrow we'll delve inside the magazine to find what treats await us there!

Thursday 23 May 2013

Madame Forager and friends survive the mushrooms!

Ok, guys. Let's get to it. It's the moment you've all been waiting for...

The unveiling of the first harvest of my home grown mushrooms.

Let me remind you how they looked on Tuesday morning.

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And this is how they looked on Tuesday evening.

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I cut the biggest ones, split them in half and threw in a few shitake mushrooms I found in the fridge to bulk it up a little as there were five hungry mouths to feed. I fried them for about five minutes in a little bit of truffle butter and a splash of olive oil, until they had softened and started to sizzle. I fried for a few seconds longer then sprinkled a little truffle salt over to serve.

As there were only a few of the mushrooms, I didn't want them to get lost in a bigger dish of vegetables so we had pea and mint soup to start, then the mushrooms were like a little post-soup novelty feature - just a small bite, given a space of it's own in the evening's dining. We all ummed and ahhed and made the appropriate noises to make sure all the weeks of growing had been worth it. And they were actually tasty (helped by the hints of truffly goodness). 

Then we had our main meal, a parmigiana with loads of greens on the side. More umming and ahhing and my self esteem shot through the roof. For, as I have previously mentioned (and anyone who loves cooking for and feeding others knows), it's the praise for our food that makes us feel it is also praise for us. We feel loved when someone compliments our courgettes or enthuses about our endive.

All in all, it was a successful evening and a successful mushroom course, I'd say.

And no-one got mushroom poisoning (unlike the woman who picked some mushrooms from her garden to add to a can of mushroom soup and died).

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Well, that's me for today. I'm off to Ham House in a mo to get my 17th century scullery maid groove on.

Wednesday 22 May 2013

Day out (part two)

Good morning all. Welcome to the eagerly-awaited follow up to last Wednesday's post from my guest blogger....

After the climb to St Winefride’s Well and descent to our cars we drove a couple of miles to our next port of call on our day out. Abakhan Fabrics is one of those places that have everything you could ever want for knitting, sewing & craft making. We had a look round each of the shops in this little enclave before setting out on the next part of our excursion into North Wales. A brief walk along the main road brought us to the path which leads down to the sea. This was a much shorter flatter walk than the St Winefride’s bit but the path did go under a rather low bridge. Here are two ladies walking under it and you can see how low it is. Some of the gents had to dip their heads to avoid the roof.

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Just beyond the bridge was this next pic – A ship, apparently abandoned.

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It is called the Duke of Lancaster but is obviously past its sell-by date. How did it get there? Why was it there and obviously not likely to move? In fact it looks like local vandals have sprayed graffiti along the side. Our leader informed us that the council had actually employed someone to do the artwork. The intention was to convert the vessel for use as something else. For a time it became a shopping centre with traders bringing their stuff to it to sell from inside the ship. However they moved on and due to our modern health and safety regulations further plans had to be shelved. This is because any use involving the public nowadays would have to have access for emergency vehicles; and of course neither ambulances nor fire engines would get under that low bridge (probably clearance of barely 6ft/1.83m) on the path into the berth. Given that, it is unlikely permission would be granted for anything like a visitor attraction of any kind.

The ship was originally built, in 1956, as a passenger ferry and was also used for cruises. (It could carry 1,800 passengers.) That was until about 1966 when it became a car ferry doing the Belfast to Heysham run. However demand dropped and with no other apparent employment for the vessel it was moved to Mostyn in 1979 and was concreted in. If you fancy a watch of some info about it there’s a YouTube clip (5 mins) which is part of a series of programmes called “Coast” which ran in the UK a few years ago. (The BBC2 programme is in its 8th series now with a 9th planned for next year.) It shows you the guy who lives on board (or lived on board at one time). He’s got a very emotional tie to the ship which you can see in the clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2rZWtX844w

We walked a little further past the ship along what is now part of the North Wales Coast Path enjoying the sunshine.image

Then we returned and just before passing under the low bridge back to our cars we saw this little boat. Its name, as you can see on the hull, is Girl Al.

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I couldn’t find out much about it but when I checked Flickr I found this:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/58735253@N03/6892776955/

Now you can see it actually looks like a completely different boat. The cabin is boarded up; the hull has a fair number of barnacles; the paint on deck is peeling; however, as you can see, it has the same name (Girl Al) and the same registration number (CH101). This means it must have either have been extensively re-built and repainted or it’s actually a new boat after the old one was scrapped. And what’s the reason for the name? I’m sure there’s a story there if only I could find out who knows about it.

Next stop was a very ancient village inland for a drink on the way home – The Red Lion at Llanasa, a place with, at the latest count, just 240 residents. And very nice it was too. (The pub dates back to around 1600.) Despite the Bank Holiday the place was not too crowded and we got the drinks far quicker than the cup of tea episode earlier in the day (mentioned last week).

The village & church have a history dating back to about 600AD (and possibly even earlier than that). It used to be called Llanasaph because it was where the remains of St Asaph were kept; they were moved to St Asaph Cathedral in the late 13th century. The other interesting thing is that the church is the burial place of the guy who was the father of Owain Glyndwr. (You may remember my post of 13.3.13 which mentioned Owain and the Welsh Revolt he led, during the reign of Henry IV, at the start of the 15th century.) His tombstone is still there with the words "here lies Gruffudd Fychan" engraved in Welsh.

If you go to this site and scroll down to the 4th image you can see an outline drawing of the tombstone with a brief and interesting explanation of the markings on it:

http://llanasaconservationsocie.homestead.com/page2.html

Just across from the pub was the local parish church so we decided to have a quick look.

On the way over I spotted this sign outside a house which clearly had had a significant former life.

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It was a real reminder of how, in all the cutbacks the The Post Office has had to make over the years, so many village post offices were closed down. It was nice to see the owners had, at least, hung on to the name so there’s a reminder for future generations of what the building used to be. I wonder how far the village folk have to travel now to get the services it used to provide.

Here’s the path leading round the back of the church.

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What you probably can’t see from the pic is that all those stones laid as edges to the path are actual gravestones. I could only assume they must have been ones that were falling over and had been laid flat. Cemetaries have to be very careful now because if a gravestone is loose or leaning and it falls and injures someone they are liable for compensation. Thus there are lots of gravestones which have been laid flat to avoid claims being made. One of my own family ancestor’s grave has had this done to it and I can’t read the inscription because it was put face down! Well done the council. I was told I could pay someone to come along and lift it so I could get a picture of the information but that it would have to be laid flat again for “health & safety” reasons.

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Next I went to find out if it was possible to see inside the church. It wasn’t. However there was a notice pinned to the door and here it is:

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Well there’s a curious one. I wonder why swallows seem to be the main culprits. Where I live it’s pigeons that get in these kinds places and cause mess & havoc.

If you don’t know what a swallow sounds like have a listen to this:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmhttp/radio4/science/birdsong_swallow.mp3

A local property website has a couple of places up for sale in Llanasa: one for £750,000 (approx $1,152,000) and a 7-bedroom one for £1,000,000 ($1,537,000) if you fancy splashing out!

And so it was home time. We joined the queues as everyone else thought it was a good time to go home as well but at least it kept moving. Great day!

Tuesday 21 May 2013

Madame Forager strikes again

And so the foraging fun continues. There have been lots more nettles, which have found their way into soups....

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... But there have also been dandelion leaves, which went into a lamb stew. Apparently, you can eat every bit of a dandelion plant, from root to flower, and it's really good for you.

The next thing I'm about to tell you I've 'foraged' is a bit of a cheat because I've been growing it myself. I got the kit from Hen and Hammock and planted it shortly after getting back from Italy at the end of April. You 'plant' it in the pages of a book you have soaked with water. Then you wrap the whole thing in plastic for a few weeks, until it starts to grow a white fluff. Then you cut the bag open and let the little mushrooms start to grow.

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Within three or four days, they have swelled up like some alien GM food and the dark pinhead cups have faded a little...

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... With just two or three more days of growing, they are getting pretty big and ready for eating.

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The plan is to harvest them tonight when two vegetarian friends arrive for dinner. I'll probably fry them in a bit of truffle butter.

So I haven't even eaten them yet! So most of this post has been a lie. I told you I 'foraged some mushrooms' when I should have said, 'I am growing some mushrooms from a kit I bought and I will eat them this evening.'

If there is another post tomorrow morning, you will know I have survived the 'foraged' mushrooms.

Monday 20 May 2013

Travel advice

Thinking of going on holiday? Got something booked but need advice on the sights? Look no further than today's blog. All your travel questions answered.

Danda on the Taj Mahal:
"Shite. Really, really disappointing. Right in the middle of nowhere."

Danda on the Golden Temple in Amritsar:
"Fabulous. Great day out. Best place we went in India."

Danda on Mumbai/Bombay:
"Second favourite place on my Indian Odyssey. And we won the Test Series." (Cricket-speak, I'm guessing.)

Danda on going to a test match in Mumbai/Bombay:
"Indians really love their cricket. It's more like a religion than a sport. It was noisier than the FA cup final. It was 40 degrees and the humidity was off the scale. Really really enjoyed it, especially as we drew the game to win the series."

Danda on the pyramids:
"Best thing I've ever seen."

Danda on going down into the pyramids:
"Nope! Wouldn't go! It wasn't cause I was frightened. It's just that I... I'll go tomorrow... Next time."

Danda on the Caribbean:
"Fabulous beaches. Uh. What else can you say about the Caribbean? I wouldn't recommend the cuisine. Unless you like chicken, rice and peas. Great cricket grounds! Fav island = Antigua. Lovely people."

Danda on Rome:
"The Eternal City. Wonderful place. Wonderful. Wonderful. Wonderful. And Laura took me there for my birthday."

Laura on the Philippines:
"Unbelievably idyllic. Gorgeous, like a brochure. Luscious, green, sunny, pale beaches. I think I'll retire there one day."

Danda on Florida:
"Best place in the world for a fun vacation."

Danda on Niagara Falls:
"Awesome!"

Laura on Niagara Falls:
"I have photos of me looking grumpy there. Not any prevalent actual memories. Just some grumpy photos."

Danda on Bangkok's red light district:
*pulls a face* "Uh. Yeh. Alright for a laugh. Not very tempting but good for a laugh."

Laura on Bangkok's red light district:
"Where else in the world can you find clubs unashamedly blazoned with the name Superpussy?"

Danda on Amsterdam's red light district:
"I was drinking at the time. Good place to go for a drink. But, like any red light district, you've got to go with the right people. People that are game for a laugh and aren't easily offended."

Danda on the Inca Trail:
"A beautiful experience. That's all I can say."

Laura on trekking the Great Wall of China:
"Epic. Jam dropping scenery. I swear Mordor was based on this place. The Chinese are the friendliest people I've met."

Danda on Paris:
"I've been ten times probably. Good place to take a bird. Specially if her name's Laura."

Danda on Germany:
"Wonderful place. Great people. Great country."

Danda on the south of France:
"Wonderful, wonderful place. I love France. Cannes and Nice are fabulous places."

Danda on Italy:
"La Dolce Vita."

Danda on the Algarve:
"If the weather's good, it's a good place to go. Golf is prohibitively expensive!"

Danda on Sri Lanka:
"Really interesting place. And the hottest place I've ever been! And we won the Test Series." (I think this is cricket-speak too.)

Danda on Spain:
"Love Spain. Love the Spanish way of life."

Danda on London:
"Best city in the world by far. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a London cab driver."

Sunday 19 May 2013

Search terms 8

Ah, the wierd and wonderful world of search terms. George Michael continues to be a popular theme, as does Kingston University, although for very different reasons...

womenanddogsex
the stiles woolton liverpool past
polpo cookbook pork meatballs
joni mitchell anorexia
pyroclastic flow stone people
george michael highgate address
dogs on wells and walsingham light railway
is woolton a nice area
george michael address hampstead
chatsby or gatsby
famous five wrapping paper
highgate history the grove
george michael no 6 highgate
mick fleetwood brother in law
17th century nosegays
put the little girl said to me
theft unlawful act
graham lockey
transvestites in wellies
a day in the life of a detective
things i learn watching lincoln
short termsposts in tourism
biggest tits in kingston uni
where to buy truffle salt in paris
boobs hangers
ham house santolina
strawberry field salvation army
how do i drown out the flavour of chilli
lazy 38st
old age hobbies
aggravated burglary r v klass
liverpool edge hill 1960 streets
"waltham place" gate
george michael house highgate
lion salt works blog
friday street waterfall
robinson helicoptergarage
buy truffle oil
lazylauramaisey
fig and cantuccini semifreddo
can anyone put a boat on the river Thames
baobob bookshop
passed driving test but not confident
i always say everything twice
richmond park deaths
boobs on the loose
free lectures on freehold covenants
maneiacs woolton
rene redzepi
george michael the grove highgate
kate moss highgate
curator weaver hall museum
lesley duncan sing children 
z to a alphabet
henry family crest
defence of the realm shooting pigeon
kingston university is crap
george michael highgate
pyroclastic flow death
weve only just begun sung
remember the good old days
how many hours a day did a scullery maid work
laura maisey
james bond stiff upper lip
i would love to be a scullery maid
st peters church woolton
theft burglary murder
kingston university is bad rubbish
pj and duncan the backstreet boys
ode to my tooth
pgce withdraw where next
fold up bike on grass
what shape is a dairylea triangle
the grove highgate
rubbish acronyms
dusty springfield the road to nowhere
beechams is keeping me awake

Saturday 18 May 2013

My worms and I

My worms and I have had a tumultuous relationship. When we first met (they were delivered to my door), I cut the bag open and peered inside and there they all were, just pink and wriggly and innocent-looking.

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O, how exciting, I thought to myself. Hundreds of teeny tiny worms, all my own.

I felt like a proud mother. "The worms arrived," I would tell people. "They're doing really well in school (the mud)."

Mistakenly, as described in K is for...., I thought I had ordered a home for the worms. I had not. So the worms were put in a big saucepan to live until I could work out what to do. "Worms," I was told in my worm blurb, "do not like sunlight and will automatically burrow down into the mud."

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Brilliant, I thought, I don't need to worry about them. They will just burrow down.

Then the evening drew in and the natural light faded. And this is when the other part of the worm blurb, which I had not read, became relevant. "Worms," this section read, "are naturally inquisitive and like to explore."

Ah...

This is a problem....

After an evening out seeing friends, I got in quite late. It was probably after midnight.

Let me check my babies are ok, I thought to myself, smiling happily at my new status as full time mother. I opened the door to the little back porch type area where I had left them.

They.

Were.

EVERYWHERE.

And when I say everywhere, I mean everywhere. I switched on the main kitchen light and saw them crawling all over the kitchen floor! A good portion had made off in the opposite direction for the outside world but in their rush to get out had, stupidly, all mashed into a little hole at once and become stuck. I couldn't get a hold on any of them and they couldn't move (they are still there as it is impossible to get into).

Infuriated, I gave them a real telling off whilst gathering them up.

"You were supposed to burrow, you idiots, not climb out!" I raged, stomping around in the garden with a torch, picking them up off the path before they wriggled away into the cracks between the paving stones.

I think I lost quite a lot of my children that evening.

So I put all the ones back that I could find and put foil over the top of the saucepan to stop them escaping.

When I woke up in the morning to go to work, at about 6.20am, I went downstairs, rubbing my weary eyes and going to the kettle to make tea. And of course there were worms everywhere! Of course there were. I wouldn't expect anything less. Impatient little things. I was ordering a home for them that day. But they just had to go running off, didn't they?!

So there I was, at 6.20am, pre-morning tea, picking worms up from off my kitchen floor. I opened the little door and looked at what had happened. They had simply been too excited to stay still and had pushed little grooves in the foil to squirm out from underneath it.

"Right! That's it! I'm getting the clingfilm out!" I told them sternly. And sure enough, over went the clingfilm. "You can't escape this."

In conversation with Danda later that day, he said, "You can't put clingfilm over! They won't be able to breathe."

Ah. Right. Ok. Sure. I see.

Panic! The shift couldn't end soon enough that day and I ran home, terrified there'd be a massacre and I'd be the one with blood on my hands. There was condensation on the clingfilm and the worms were barely moving! I tore it off and poked a few.

"Come on come on come on! Please be fine. Please be fine. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. I forgot you needed to breathe, little worms! Come on, move!" After some poking and gently squeezing to resuscitate them, they started moving again, rather sluggishly. I brought them into the kitchen under the light and waited to see if they would burrow.

They did, thank god!

I then moved them into a massive bin and clingfilmed the top but poked loads of holes into it and left them in the kitchen overnight with the light on, as that was the only guaranteed way to keep them in the soil and not trying to make a run for it.

Their home arrived the next day so they were immediately transferred into it and have been there ever since. Apparently it takes a few months for my first lot of compost to be ready and mine's not even been going a month so I've got a little wait before those naughty schoolchildren can prove to me that they've grown up to be contributing members of society.

They just chill down by the shed at the moment. I give them egg shells and vegetable peelings and they hide so I've not seen hardly any of them and am unsure if they've all died actually. But I faithfully put my vegetable peelings down there and hope for the best

:-)

P.S. I picked up the mop a few days ago to do the kitchen floor and three worms fell out!

Friday 17 May 2013

Hilarious memories

After an evening of reminiscing about my gap year with a friend, I just had to share some of this nonsense with you. The highlights of the evening discussions were:

1. The time a friend flipped his car and was all stressed that the police would get him so ran off into the sand dunes. We had heard about it and been given a lift to where he was. We also ran off into the desert and were covering his white shirt with Lucy's long skirt, to avoid him being seen by a helicopter....! When one has consumed much alcohol, this seems to make perfect sense, that in a place where there is no ambulance service, they would be sending a helicopter out in the night to catch a man who had flipped his car. He was quite shaken so in my 18 year old mind, I decided the best way to be supportive was to declare my love for him. (I didn't love him at all. I'm not even sure what made me say it.)

2. The time Lucy and I got in a car with a total random who drove us to Cape Town and, right before the border, while stopped at a petrol station, both went to the toilet at the same time. We suddenly realised what we'd done and rushed outside. Thankfully he hadn't driven off with our stuff.

3. The time our friend, Ramon, came over and we made up a story about a purple fairy who lived in the garden called Finesse, then went down to the tree and started calling out to her.

4. The time another of the gap year volunteers went off with some random guy after two days in Cape Town, then came back one day, told us his name was Rudolph and he'd asked her to marry him and she'd said yes! (She didn't end up staying and marrying him, much to the annoyance of the other girl at her project, who had to deal with her for the next year.)

5. The time I tried to climb up on the ledge round the house to look in the bathroom window, where Lucy had locked herself and fallen asleep after a night out. My arms and legs couldn't handle the exertion of the climb so I just let go and fell straight backwards on to the ground. I'm surprised I survived that fall, actually.

6. All the times we ate plates of rice and faux dumpling-things or the peanut butter sandwiches the kids used to make as part of their activities at school, cause we couldn't afford anything else! A box of Frosties was BIG news in our house! We only bought those when we'd just been paid and were feeling really flash with our money.

Thursday 16 May 2013

Potentially life-changing stuff here today

Ok, I'm calling today's post Cop Out Thursday, as I woke up late and am having a friend over for breakfast so haven't really time to write the post about worms that I was planning to (don't worry, I don't mean tapeworm, I mean my actual worms that make compost for me).

So what's going to happen is this. I'm going to show you a collection of photos which don't really mean an awful lot to anyone and were picked in a hurry. Are you up for that? Ok, let's do it.

First up, it's a dinosaur drinking from a glass....
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Second, we have a quote from a magazine that I'm sharing with you because I feel it is important.
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I've always felt the same way about free standing cupboards actually.

Next is a really old recipe with the original spelling of the word 'apricot' which made me giggle. Rather like a small child.
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Next up, a Christmas tree made of chocolate slabs. Obviously. (I did say it wouldn't really mean anything, didn't I?)
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And now, some tomatoes in my garden.
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And finally, to see off this fabulous, well-thought-out, life-changing, awesome post, a photo of me with some clingfilm stretched over my face.
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O wait, one last one, Yaya with an egg box on his face.

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Wednesday 15 May 2013

St Winifred's Well

Hello all. Welcome to my regular guest blogger's Wednesday post...


I mentioned in last week’s post (8.5.13) our Bank Holiday day out and about all the traffic (which did happen) and the usual expected bad weather (which did not). Where were we going? Well it was to a well - St Winefride’s Well to be precise. (Note here, you were probably expecting to see it spelled St. Winifred’s which is how most people would write it but the site itself, and a number of other sources, use the spelling in my title.) Someone had organised a walk and there were going to be about 8 of us all together.

We got going fairly handily and managed to beat the worst of the outgoing traffic. The well is in Greenfield about half a mile NE of Holywell (pronounced Holly-well) in North Wales. We pulled into the car park right opposite the Well entrance and then one of my passengers (navigator?) said, “I don’t think we’re meeting with the others here. There’s another car park lower down”. Ok, so off we go and yes, about half way down the hill towards the coast, is another car park. We pulled in. We waited. My passenger direction-giver meditated for a few minutes: “What’s the road number of this road we’ve just turned off?”

It didn’t look like it had one. It’s only like a very minor one,” I ventured.

Oh well this isn’t right either!” came the reply. Off we went again further down the hill until we came to the A548 coast road and after turning right we came to car park no.3. “Ooh, there they are”, said my navigator. Then I had to listen while our tale of woe, regarding locating the correct car park, which was somehow down to me of course, was related to the expedition leader. He was standing in his walking gear with the OS map neatly folded in a plastic carrying case on a string round his neck and one of his local history info books in his hand. I hadn’t realised it was like a proper organised walk and thought we were just doing a stroll around the Well itself. Oh well, at least I could relax while someone else did the map/path reading. I’d be the bandit & wild animal look-out covering the rear of the column as we set out on a narrow steeply-angled path out of the car park. It was at this point I realised that when we had driven past the Well we had come quite a long way DOWNHILL! That meant walking would be taking us a fair way UPHILL and me with no oxygen or sub-zero outwear! I was somewhat amazed when, shortly after we started our climb, a guy went past us holding those Arctic ski pole things the professionals use to aid in walking (or skiing) in difficult areas. How hard could this be I wondered? It’s North Wales I thought, not the ascent to camp 4 on the north face of Everest. I couldn’t resist a chuckle seeing him walk past two ladies in their summery clothes pushing prams with little ones in! Bizarre – what’s wrong with this picture sprang to mind?

So on to our walk. The first place of interest on the journey up was the ruins of Basingwerk Abbey. image

It is completely open to the public and as you can see from my pic many were sitting among the ruins on the grass enjoying the sunshine. We stopped and had our sandwiches here as it was around lunch time. image

The abbey had been founded in 1132 by a local earl who brought Benedictine monks from Normandy. Just 66 years prior to this of course those pesky Normans had come over 1066 and beaten King Harold II in 1066. (Sadly, Harold had only been in the king job for 9 months!) That was probably one of the reasons why French monks ended up here. The abbey later became part of the Cistercian order and passed through a couple more changes before ending up under the control of Llywelyn the Great in the 13th century. He was a Prince of Gwynedd which is an area of North Wales. His son Dafydd ap Llywelyn then gave St Winefride's Well to the abbey.

So, who was St. Winefride? The story goes back hundreds of years even before the Norman Conquest. It is, of course, being over 1300 years old, inevitably bound up in legend but it goes something like this – In around AD 660 a man called Caradoc wanted to date Winefride but she wasn’t interested. He tried and tried but she rejected him. As can happen in these situations Caradog “took the huff” and shortly after took matters into his own hands and came and chopped off Winefride’s head (as you do). Her uncle was called St Beuno and he prayed that she would survive and she did. The re-attaching of her head was a miracle and thereafter the Well became a place of pilgrimage and has remained so to this day. After surviving, Winefride lived as a nun for the next 22 years. The identity of Caradoc is something of a mystery as the name was fairly common around this time but the legend says he was the son of a local prince. Presumably he was used to getting his own way and her rejection was not something he would take lightly. (There is a Caradoc mentioned as being one of the knights at King Arthur’s Round Table but it’s not clear this was the same man.)

When Henry VIII “dissolved” the monasteries in 1536 Basingwerk Abbey was closed. Parts of its structure though were taken to other buildings: the monks’ stalls to Chester, the roof went to two other churches, some of the lead was taken to repair Holt Castle, and one window went to the parish church of St Dyfnog, 18 miles inland, in a small village with a long name - Llanrhaeadr-yng-Nghinmeirch. (The church there was founded in the 6th century.) Why was the window special? It was called the Tree of Jesse window and showed the ancestors of Jesus starting with King David’s father, Jesse of Bethlehem.

A little way past the abbey ruins is the visitor centre. In the next pic, check out the line above where it says Opening Hours (so 4th line up on the English part). How about that?image

We didn’t go in but carried on up the hill. We were soon on to a more path-like route and came to these gates. There was no info at this point to say what they may have been gates to. I could only presume they were possibly for one of the mills situated along the valley although being on two separate paths was a bit of a mystery.image

Then it was past what had been an old flour mill.

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And then a really nice lake. If you look closely you can just about read the old wooden sign - Flour Mill Pool. Not too hard to guess how it got its name!

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There were remains of at least a couple of mills on our route which all had harnessed the power from the nearby stream generated by water wheels. Next along were the ruins of Meadow Mill which was used to produce copper sheets. image

Clearly entrepreneurs during The Industrial Revolution saw the potential of the water flowing down this hillside as is evidenced by the variety of businesses that were created here: flour, copper, wire, cotton and a battery factory which also used water to power their machinery. Sadly though, by the 1960s all had closed.

Then it was more paths and more climbing (=walking as opposed to throwing grappling hooks and pulling ourselves up) uphill. And so we arrived at our destination - The Well. Now this is not as you might be thinking a hole in the ground surrounded by a circular wall of stones with a little roof on over a horizontal bar with a winding handle with a rope and a bucket. No, this is serious architecture of massive proportions. Here’s a pic
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Just to the right you can see part of a yellow structure – this is one of the changing tents for those who wish to bathe in the water. (Nobody did while we were there.) There is also the usual gift shop and loads of story boards to read with info about the place inside the entrance building.

Then it was a case of re-tracing our steps back down the hill to get a cup of tea/coffee and/or ice cream. It was a Bank Holiday so we expected a big queue but it wasn’t too bad. We joined the queue and noticed ahead there seemed to be two destination points: one for the tea/coffee/cakes stuff and one for the ice cream stall. We checked what people were queuing for so we didn’t jump in front. Lady in front of me says she’s waiting for ice cream so I stood behind. Once the 3 others had been served I get to the ice cream counter and ask for my choice. “You need a ticket”, the lady says.

Me: “Where do I get that?”

Lady: “Over there at the other counter.”

Me: “Where those people are queuing?”

And of course it is. I wanted to ask why there’s no sign to say get a ticket first before you come to this counter but I don’t suppose there would have been a reason to satisfy me so I let it pass. I join the other queue for tea/cakes/coffee in order to get a ticket (and pay of course as there was no till at the ice cream counter) to go back and join the first queue for my ice-cream! Hey-ho.

I got my ice-cream and went outside to join the rest of the group. Despite the crowds, they had managed to get a table and had their order ticket for their hot drinks. I finished my ice-cream and they were still waiting. A waitress comes out and shouts, “35”. No-one answers. “2 coffees and 2 teas”, she says. One of our group puts up her hand. “Your ticket says 41”, waitress says but it’s probably ok. She starts to put the cups on the table when someone else comes rushing over – they’re waving their ticket with of course 35 on. She puts the cups back on the tray, apologises and off she goes. The hot drinks members of our group are soon spitting feathers. Eventually a tray arrives at our table and waitress apologises for the wait saying sometimes they just give random numbers out on the orders. Really?

We make our way down the last part of the hill back to the car park. The weather had held and we’d had an enjoyable walk and a bit of history. Our expedition leader said there was another thing, a bit further along the road near Mostyn, we could go and see but you’ll have to wait til next week for episode 2 of the Bank Holiday day out.