Rain, rain go away!

What they say about the weather in England is true. It sucks. EVERY day since crossing the Scotland/England border it has rained. There have been some moments of sunshine but not too many. I (Gareth) even drove through three hail storms. They say Melbourne has four seasons in one day – well here it is literally rain, hail and shine, all in one stretch of road.

Did you know the city of Manchester does not have any laundromats in the city? The nearest one is a 10-15 minute drive east. Also they call them laundrettes; Dan’s question of, “where is the nearest laundromat?” was met with a blank stare as if his second head was showing… Dan even mentioned, as only he can articulate, “well, you would think the fact that half the word was the same she would have figured out what I wanted.” Lucky for us the other guy in the information centre understood!

We decided to skip Liverpool and spend some time in Manchester. We have three nights here and we are staying on Canal Street. Yes the very street where Queer as Folk (The original UK version) was filmed; it is just like it is on TV -a vibrant night life and clubs everywhere. It was a tough decision and we were changing our plans every few hours but decided to go to Manchester for the next few days and already we’re glad we did.

Every club is in very close proximity to each other literally on every corner, across car parks and up and down the street – it also appears to cater for all types. We were lucky enough to find accommodation I the first pub/hotel we enquired at – only to realise shortly after that it is largely a bears pub!

We have finished our washing and are just relaxing today – taking a day off. We are hanging out in a funky bar/club on Canal Street called Via. All in the one place, multi levels and bars, lots of seating in and nooks for talking, a tapas restaurant, even a line dancing hall downstairs. I wish we had something like this at home (apart from the line dancing). This pub is perfect for us to watch people and just chill, it is a miserable day outside after all (no surprise there)

Happy ANZAC Day! We haven’t forgotten, in true style I have still got a headache from the last night. I blame Daniel… Dan did drag me from place to place and give me lots of alcohol. I stopped trying to match him double vodka for double vodka so concentrated on the beer instead. In one place we even had a £1 shot each.

We have been remarkably fortunate with our timing, whether it is for securing accommodation, ordering food before a whole group of people come in, getting tables at restaurants where they say you need a booking and finishing driving through Scotland before the PETROL STRIKE! Yes…wouldn’t that have made our drive around Scotland interesting and more expensive. Already we have seen the price rises of 20p a litre overnight on the news. It is funny for all the imperial measurements they use here, ounces, pounds, miles, yards, pints etc they display and charge per litre for petrol?

We have also been fortunate in avoiding traffic jams (seriously I will have to genuinely thank Dan for that one…… (BIG dramas on the M1 yesterday – bloody GPS lady wanted us to take the M1 – we intentionally ignored her… she kept on telling us to turn around, turn around, TURN AROUND so we turned her off! Unassisted and alone (well not really) and with our keen sense of directions (Dan, which way is east again – is it the same for the Northern Hemisphere?) we made it to Manchester and saw some great countryside!

On our way to Manchester we passed through and enjoyed the sights of York and stayed there overnight; I even got in a run up and down the river at 7 am. When I got back and it poured down rain and it stayed like that for much of the day. We decided to drive through to Nottingham – of Robin Hood fame; a great spot. We walked through the gardens of Nottingham Castle and had a series of photos with Robin Hood and his merry men. Who would have thought they would create a statue of Robin Hood looking so young and with such thick legs! We even took a walk down to the caves underneath Nottingham where people lived, worked in an underground tannery and was later used as a bomb shelter from the bombings of WWII.




I am constantly amazed at the history of some of these places. Things which we learnt in history classes (with varying degrees of recall) – we are actually at these places many hundreds of years later – and to think I haven’t even been to Europe yet! I am sure I will be blown away.

Some more observations:

• Jeans worn really low so you see your undies brand and half your bum is fashion de rigueur here. We were talking to some boys last night and they even said some people won’t talk to you if you have the wrong brand showing. And we think Sydney is pretentious! The staples are Calvin Klein and Aussiebum.
• You can park on either side of the road facing in either direction. You often see cars drive along the wrong side of the road to secure that perfect park.
• The drivers are very considerate they will let you turn right in front of them by flicking their lights, even when they have the right of way.
• The rip in my jeans on my right knee is on a journey of its own, doubling in size since Scotland. Errr. Dan wants to draw faces on my knee but I just wont let him.