London to Penrith: Sun to Snow

by Miss Penny Black

I had a quick exit from Heathrow after buying a new SIM card, probably from the exact same store I got my last one (sorry Charmaine, I forgot the one you gave me but luke will bring it) and then caught the tube to Kings Cross. It was a short walk of a couple of blocks in the rain to the Prince Arthur pub where I bought a large glass of wine, a packet of chips and sat in the cosy bar for a short while before heading to bed around 10.

If you like ties, old cameras or spinning wheels you’ll find a surprisingly wide collection of each dangling from the ceiling inside.

All the trains that go to the north west leave from Euston, which is almost next door to Kings Cross and St Pancras, and if you think I’ve spent enough time in London to be over the Monopoly board names you’d be sadly mistaken.

Getting my hopes up despite checking the radar.

I bought a sandwich to eat on the train, and as we pulled away from London the sun came out and the blue skies and green fields really lifted my heart. I’ve been feeling a bit anxious about all the travel and doing it solo, but being on a train and heading in the right direction with only a couple of hours to go I could feel myself relax.

The first sights of the fells brought a surprise – snow! Not an entirely welcome surprise, as I’d left my warmest coat at home. The air felt icy when I stepped out of Penrith station.

I walked through the rain to a camping goods store to buy fuel for my stove but they didn’t have the one I wanted. It wasn’t much of a loss since there’s no way I’m going to set up a tent in the current weather conditions. As I stood in the store planning my next move I looked out and saw it – SNOW!

So that was it, I booked a room in a pub in Askham, a little village outside Penrith, and called a local taxi to take me there.

The taxi was driven by Jacqui, and the taxi company is entirely comprised of Jacqui and her taxi😂. She turned up almost instantly, since she was dropping someone at the train station next door. We had a good chat on the way to Askham and I told her that I come from a family of taxi drivers. She gave me her card and I said I’d share it on the blog so here it is!

If you need a taxi in Penrith I’d highly recommend pre-booking, this lady is in high demand!

the room I booked is in a pub called The Punchbowl. There’s two other pubs in town but Jacqui said I’d picked the best. Phew!

If you’ve ever seen the movie ‘Hot Fuzz’ then you have a bit of an image of Askham. Not only did I have this thought but the guy behind the bar at my accommodation said the same thing. It’s extremely pretty, with swathes of daffodils on the village green and all very neat and tidy. It must be a popular spot in nice weather because I think I counted about 20 signs telling people where not to park. It wasn’t such a problem today of course.

I would’ve taken more photos but I was wearing gloves and it was raining sideways.

The highlight of the rest of the day was sitting by the bar in the Punchbowl and chatting to the bar staff and other patrons at the pub. One of the bar staff, Jack, is on his second last day here and we talked about proper cider, the joy of festivals and he showed me picture of his dogs, one of which is the size of a Shetland pony and does wear a Shetland pony’s coat when the weather gets cold. Speaking of dogs, more than ten came in at various times during the afternoon, none as big as a small horse, sadly.

I love the low ceilings and tartan carpet.

I had an amazing chicken pie for dinner, took a glass of wine up to my room and settled into a bath to relax before bed. Unfortunately the fire alarm went off and I had to jump out and dry off, burning myself slightly (and somewhat ironically) on the heated towel rail in my haste. It turned out there was no emergency and fortunately I didn’t have to stand in the car park for hours in the rain waiting for the fire truck to arrive, which is what would happen in Australia if a fire alarm went off for any reason.

So now I’m in bed, hoping for better weather but planning a trip by bus to Pooley Bridge and Penrith tomorrow if things don’t look good enough for walking.

Here’s a few photos of the room, just because I always like to remember what places looked like. Hopefully tomorrow I can get some decent photos of the village!

11Apr2023

Incheon to Heathrow: Making The Most Of Economy Travel

by Miss Penny Black

I have nothing exciting to report about the second half of the journey, which was 14.5 hours long and had me questioning the wisdom of my entire holiday.

The plane was full but I enjoyed having an aisle seat so I could get up and stretch. When I’m flying I’m always thinking about the little details that make flying long haul more bearable, so here’s my collected thoughts on the things I do to get through it so I don’t arrive feeling like I want to kick the entire world in the fork.

I googled the flight path, the official one is in blue but I drew the route we actually took in orange. Seems like it’s better to fly over Afghanistan than Russia right now!

1. Taking a very small bag that fits under the seat in front so I don’t have to worry about using overhead baggage space, one of the reasons why most people race to be first on the plane. My cabin bag is actually two small bags that clip together to make a backpack about half the size of a regular daypack. When hiking they each clip to the front of my big backpack which makes them look, rather unfortunately, like boobs, but they are super comfortable and distribute the weight evenly.

They look dorky but they do mean I get to talk to a lot of other hikers who want to know what on earth I’m wearing.

They clip together with a minimal attachable harness to make a day pack and every part of the system has its own dry bag so everything I pack stays completely dry. Aaron is a NZ company and I highly recommend them for travel!

2. Having an aisle seat means being able to get up and down many times and frequently have a stretch. The guy next to me didn’t go to the bathroom once the whole flight! I need a stretch at least every three hours if I’m not sleeping. I did take some ibuprofen on the second flight as my hips and knees ache a bit after so long in the same position.

3. I don’t straighten my hair. I’m sure not many people will find this useful, but hair straightening makes it super dry and with the extremely low humidity on the plane everything becomes full of static electricity. Same goes for wearing wool or any clothing prone to static. This does make me sad, because I prefer having hair that doesn’t make me look like I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards.

4. I have super dry skin so lip balm and moisturiser are vital. I don’t normally bother at home but it’s makes the flight so much more comfortable.

5. I don’t sit while I wait for the plane. I did 5km in Incheon and saw tons of interesting stuff on my walk, such as a parade!

I didn’t get a good photo, but here’s an excerpt from the airport website.

6. This was my first flight with my noise cancelling AirPods and I don’t think I’ll ever leave home without them again. If the noise of a crying baby or just the plane’s engine noise gets too much for the noise cancelling function, I just play my ‘rain sounds’ playlist that’s downloaded onto my phone and it solves all my problems!

I do have to be careful with headphones though, it’s like they reduce my acuity by about 50% so I turn them off when I am moving or packing so I don’t leave vital things behind or miss directions.

What’s your top tip for plane travel?

18Oct2018

Three Plays, and High Tea On A London Bus

by Miss Penny Black

While in London Jess, Luke and I stayed at a flat in Camden that was in an excellent location for two reasons: first, it was only a block away from Camden tube station and second, because it had a huge glass window that overlooked a narrow street where van played dodgem cars – literally ramming each other to make parking spaces. As we watched I couldn’t help thinking how much my dad would enjoy sitting 5ere and watching the mayhem play out below.

The apartment, like all AirBnb places under a certain price, had its oddities. Like 18 halogen downlights in the small lounge/kitchen space and a bathroom fan switch that was so high up it almost touched the ceiling. Weird.

While in London we did a bunch of things! Here they are in a roughly chronological list.

The Play That Goes Wrong

Andrew and Lila came down from Cambridge with us and we bought them tickets as a thank you present for letting us use their house as a backpackers hostel.

We had seen a bit of the play on YouTube and it didn’t disappoint live. Much hilarity, both slapstick and more clever humour. Well worth the ticket price.

High Tea On A London Routemaster Bus

My friend Lorraine and her daughter Rosie were in London at the same time as us so Jess and I joined them for a lovely afternoon tea on a bus!

We arrived a little early and had a chat to the bus driver who was a proper cockney.

I booked an upstairs table and we had a lovely time! They catered for vegetarian and gluten intolerances (Jess and Lorraine) and the food was good!

After we’d eaten the food pictured above the scones were brought out and these were the first warm scones we’d been served in all our UK afternoon tea experiences. We were very pleased!

I will admit that we didn’t pay all that much attention to the commentary and the only thing I really remember is passing the ship front from the movie Kingsman.

Not a cheap experience, at £45 each but worth it for the special treat.

Cereal Killer Cafe

Jess’ friend Erin joined us for the next few days and we all made an early trip to Cereal Killer cafe to see what the fuss was about.

Although not all he ones pictured above were for sale. I had Oreo and a peanut butter cereal mixed together. It was delicious but tasted more like dessert than breakfast. There was literally nothing healthy on the menu.

The decor was neat – very 90s bedroom chic.

A Comedy About A Bank Robbery

At the end of the first play we saw they announced that the same production company was putting on another play in the West End so we went to see that too.

This time it was just Luke and I – Erin and Jess went to see The Lion King – and we LOVED it. It was funny and clever and they set design was fantastic. Go see it if you get a chance! We bought tickets on the day and still managed really good seats. The theatre itself was beautiful- like a wedding cake turned inside out.

My photo doesn’t really do it justice.

The Importance of Being Ernest

We saw this production on our last day and it wasn’t bad. I’ve seen it before many years ago and I like all the Oscar Wilde I’ve read but I wasn’t thrilled by this interpretation. It felt rushed and the two male leads seemed to be shouting most of the way through.

Camden

We all did quite a lot of walking around Camden. We looked at street art.

And I went with Jess and Erin super early to take a photo at… well, you can guess where.

On our last day Luke and I took a walk around Hampstead Heath and looked at all the dogs. I’ve tried to go to HH a number of times previously but my hay fever has always flared up. Autumn was definitely in the air this time so I was safe.

Our last meal in London was a return to Five Guys, a burger chain Luke’s Aunt Sue had recommended. We enjoyed it a lot more this time as we’d been able to read the menu, unlike our attempt in France;-).

Also Oreo shakes are amazing!

So that ends the European part of this trip! We packed our bags and boarded our Thai Airways flight for Bangkok. I spent most of my awake hours on the flight thinking about how I could manage to come back next year to do more hiking in the north of England. We’ll see!

17Oct2018

The Peak District and Makeney Hall

by Miss Penny Black

Apologies to the handful of people who check the blog with any regularity, I’ve really fallen off the regular-posting bandwagon these last few weeks. Partially because we’ve been lazy and haven’t done a lot of noteworthy things and partly because when there’s other people around I try to be more social. Hopefully I’ll catch up before we get home in a week and a half.

We start at the end of the last post – catching the ferry from Dublin to Liverpool.

After a 4:30am breakfast, the ferry from Dublin to Liverpool disgorges it’s passengers at the cruel hour of 5:30am, which meant we had a long day to fill before booking into our accommodation for that night.

Jess and Luke loved the croissants onboard and we could see why all the truck drivers were virtually spherical. Excellent food and service on the overnight P&O ferry!

We filled our day by first taking a drive to Edale, a little village in the Peak District and well known to me as the start/end of the Pennine Way, England’s most well known long distance trail. Possibly also it’s most grueling too. Not that I’ve done it, but it was nice to take a drive through the gorgeous hills and then stop for a cup of tea at the campsite cafe, once it opened. We were seriously early.

A classic British pub. Hopefully we’ll be back one day during opening hours.

Next we drove to Chatsworth farm house and cafe for a slice of cake and more tea. The range of stuff on sale was very tempting (and pricey) and I bought a few things for Andrew and some tasty treats for us too, including a ginger brack (a type of cake that keeps well) to put in my package of stuff to send home.

Fancy farm shop pies.

After the cafe we took a quick drive through the actual Chatsworth estate but we were all a bit too knackered to be bothered with the entry price and doing much walking around. The weather was glorious though and the building looked magnificent.

Last stop before our hotel was a leisurely walk around Bakewell, a very pretty, touristy and well-kept northern town. We looked through a few shops then made our way to Makeney Hall. As I’d thought the Lake District was too far to drive and our preferred hotel there wasn’t available anyhow and we thought it would be nice to spend one night in a relatively fancy country house/hotel and Makeney Hall looked nice and was in about the right location.

The hotel ended up looking quite nice on the outside but having a somewhat run-down feeling in the interior. Tatty carpet, dirty windows in the restaurant, and the bedrooms were pretty ordinary.

We had booked an afternoon tea and we were the only people in the spacious dining room. The food was nice and the ambience improved once we disconnected the country/pop music playlist on the staff iPad and connected my phone with more suitable classical music. Luckily the staff weren’t fussed.

All in all, not a hotel I’d recommend but we enjoyed taking a walk in the evening and watching the rabbits and squirrels in the garden.

The next day we drove to Cambridge for two nights then spent our last week in London, where we saw a number of plays and had high tea on a bus! More about the next post.

26Sep2018

The Yorkshire Sculpture Park

by Miss Penny Black

We left Harrogate mid morning but our ferry to Ireland didn’t leave Liverpool until 9pm, which left us with quite a few hours to fill in between. I’d seen a few photos of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on Instagram and, as it was a nice day, we decided to take a detour.

While there are around 80 sculptures placed around the large grounds, there’s also the main gallery and a chapel that houses exhibits.

The first exhibit we looked at was by an artist called Mister Finch, a local man who made anthropomorphic sculptures of animals from found fabric and other materials. This exhibition was based on a story of his where animals who delivered wishes were allowed their own wishes granted… I think. It was quite enchanting.

The next gallery space had works from a number of artists and all the works had something to do with nature. I particularly liked this one:

At first it looked like a pile of potatoes – which it mostly was. This seemed intriguingly strange and then the nearby gallery guard/explainer told us that the artist had taken a cast of his face then buried it with the potatoes then the potatoes had grown into the shape of his eyes and ears etc. Amazing! The artist then cast those potatoes in bronze and then displayed them with regular potatoes.

You won’t recall this, I’m sure, but in my post about Rome earlier this year I included photos of an artwork that was acacia thorns on canvas. Coincidentally, there was one work by the same artist on display in Yorkshire.

We had a little wander through the grounds but it was a bit windy and so I didn’t take too many photos. Also there were a lot of Henry Moore statues, which I’m not that keen on. I did like this though :

A haha over a haha! Possibly the most elaborate pun I’ve seen all year. I don’t know how many other people would get it… or even if the artist intended it.

There was also a neat iron tree by Ai Weiwei.

This was made by making casts of a bunch of parts of other trees then roughly bolting it together.

The last thing we looked at was inside the chapel on the grounds. An elaborate and ethereal string and paper installation by an Asian artist. Lovely! As the clouds came across the windows the strings would glow or become pale.

We finished off with a very tasty lunch in the cafe then continued on to Liverpool, a city I’d expected to like but perhaps we stopped in the wrong part because it smelled rather bad. We had a few drinks at a very fancy pub then headed to the ferry, ready to start the Irish leg of our adventure.