Pre-amble

I don't know exactly how it came about but I suspect one Sunday after dinner, which generally features a shared bottle of wine a conversation like this took place.

"So we want to go to Wirral Sea Shanty festival at the end of March"

"Yes, and the Small Motor Home Forum meet in June"

"We could tag a trip to Orkney on to one of them"

"Which one, might be a bit cold in March and the midges will be out in June"

"Oh, I don't know"

"Oh, I don't know either"

[Short silence]

"Stupid idea - why don't we just stay out from March to June and go to Orkney in the middle?"

"What, stay out, what is it, nearly 12 weeks, that's ridiculous"

[Long silence]

"You know, it's not such a stupid idea, it could work"

"We'd have to be careful not to murder each other being in the van that long"

Etc.

So the idea to spend nearly 12 weeks together crammed into a space smaller than most folk's wardrobe came about. Of course, planning was essential but the trip also needed to be spontaneous. I used Furkot to at least outline the trip to make sure that it started straight after the Sea Shanty Festival and had us back in England in time for the Forum Meet. It had campsites and landmarks to see pencilled in but it was really just a guide to see when approximately we would be where approximately.

Once that was done we could search for local events: Orkney Folk Festival - nope doesn't fit. Islay Whisky Festival - would fit if we reverse the entire trip and go that way last - but means the risk of midges as we'll be on the W Coast of Scotland in Jun. Ah, but if we reverse the trip we can fit the Kingdom Of Fife Beer Festival in. Complete replan with a couple of hard stops!

Not just the itinerary but what to take. How many week's worth of clothes - too many and the van space will be consumed, too few and we'll spend much of the holiday in laundrettes. We settle on about 3 weeks and making sure everything can be used as a layer so as to work as the seasons change.

No luxuries - we'll take Liz's laptop mainly to backup photos, no amateur radio except for a small handheld, no TV. Will we miss TV not having it for almost 12 weeks? Can we pare down what is in the van to maximise space. We need to leave a reasonable amount of empty space for in-trip purchases - I'm sure there will be visits to distilleries and wee might want souvenirs!

What about the practicalities? We won't be able to open the door after 12 weeks mail has piled on our doorstep. Do we need to cancel magazines - the Radio Times being a good candidate. I speak with a friend and in exchange for him having 11 weeks' worth of RT he will collect them weekly and in doing so move the mail away from the door. A suddent thought - our house insurance is invalid if it is unoccupied for a period of greater than 60 days. Rats, we'll have to sweet-talk one of the girls to pop over for a night or too. Then we get a phone-call from Liz's sister - could they leave the car on our drive whilst they go on a cruise. They plan to come down a day or two before and spend a couple of nights in Southampton an an hotel. Now, there's a win-win - they can stay at ours saving them hotel bills and my children a special trip. The garden? Well it is spring, April showers and all that, everything ought have a reasonable change of survival without sorting out water timers.

Doctors appointments, dentist, hairdresser, window-cleaner all re-arranged or cancelled.

Let's do it!

Thur 24 - Mon 28 Mar - Beginnings

Welcome to this blog. Snatches of holiday reminiscences  when time and internet access allow.

Well, its Monday, the Shanty Festival is over and we're sitting in Wetherspoons in Southport. You may spot a theme developing re Wetherspoons but cheap real ale, free internet and good,cheap fuel food are a powerful combination. We've been been out 4 days already but the Shanty Festival has meant no time to blog.

The Shanty Festival - brilliant! I've come to the conclusion it's not folk music I enjoy but folk song. And shanty was a very loose description of the songs we heard - not everything "weighed the man down" but there were also a lot of sensitive and gentle songs reflecting on life and life lost at sea, often from the perspective of those left behind. Many of the songs were new to us and a goodly percentage of those were original songs, often written from a personal perspective by old mariners or their offspring. Still most of then had rollicking refrains and along with singing lustily there is still a childish pleasure from doing the actions to be a "Pirate" or a sailor who "ain't a sailor any more".

There were even ukulele shanties in the bar.

The location was the National Boat Museum and what a fantastic venue. Basically the old wharf/dock complex where the Shropshire Union meets the Liverpool Ship Canal is one huge museum complex with all the buildings and outhouses holding boating artifacts (boating as opposed to nautical as this is mainly canal based history). What a wonderful concordance of history through physical artifact and oral history through song. Each is as important as the other. Rumour has it that the museum may not have space to host the shanty festival in the future. That would be a tremendous shame - it is THE place for the keepers of the oral tradition to annually refresh it, songs can be written down, tunes can be recorded but it is the singing that keeps them alive.

Since I mentioned beer earlier, the festival was a surprise, 14 different brews from Liverpool Organic Brewery including Russian Stout at  7.4% and an IPA at 6.7% made a surprising beer range. 18 gallons of each * 14 = 252 gallons = just over 2000 pints and all pretty much sold when we left on Monday. Oh and I forgot the 4 boxes of cider. Singing is thirsty work!

Before leaving Ellespmere Port we take a little stroll up to the town itself. It was named after the canal that was funded in my home town of Shropshire and there is an interesting reminder featuring in pavement plaques showing all of the bridges of the Shropshire Union Canal and culminating in a reminder of home.

En route to Southport we popped into Lever's dream town - Port Sunlight. An interesting contrast to today's world - to see a toff doing something to improve the situation of the poor rather than enhance their suffering.

Tomorrow - 'tis washing day. Tonight we needed a site with services - the washing up needed doing and the portaloo was full. The Boat Museum did have a chemical waste disposal point but it was the other side of the towpath with the only access via the posh vistor centre. Somehow schelping a (fairly well sealed) container of 2 day old urine through the gift shop seemed wrong! Despite this liquid gold being a precious cargo but a century or so ago. So Southport Caravan club it is, partly because it is in walking distance of a town I hope that hosts several decent restaurants - it is our wedding annviersary tomorrow after all and Liz will be allowed to enjoy it after our socks and undies are gleaming :-). Might as well make use of washing machines whilst they are available.

Mind you, we're grateful that camping was free over the weekend - this Southport campsite is £31 per night!!!!! Yes - you can get good hotels for that! But it was the only site we could find in the area within walking distance of a town. Wednesday we move down to Maghull, nearer to Liverpool but a mile or so walk to civilisation (and the train station). But well less than half tonight's rate. We've never paid more than £20 before and baulked at that. This luxury and a decent meal will probably be the extent of our anniversary largesse.

Tue 29 Mar - 41 Not Out

41 years ago we looked into each other's eyes and said "I do"; 41 years later, the eyes are much more blood-shot and surrounded by wrinkles but we're still looking into them. Mind you, will that still be the case after nearly 3 months together in the van?

Celebration? Of course! We know how celebrate! A couple of hours in the launderette this morning, tea and clotted cream scones in a traditional seaside tea-room this afternoon. Actually it was nice, proper old-fashioned service, real leaf tea in a silver plated teapot and 1930's greatest hits crooning away in the background.

How to top that, actually sitting in this tiny micro-pub with the best point of draught mild either of us has ever drank works well.


Not found a nice upmarket restaurant for tonight but a local fish and chip shop looks delightful and will work! The posh meal can wait until we find somewhere that really appeals. That way we get to celebrate twice!

And here's that fish and chip restaurant, chosen on the basis that if the owner takes as much care about his kitchen as he does about good choice of decor then it must be good.

Wed 30 - Thurs 31 Mar - Trains, Art, And (Of Course) Beer

Well Wednesday started badly, Brian's belt buckle disintegrated. Too much good living perhaps but it did mean a wander around Ormskirk's charity shops in search of a new one. Still we weren't doing much else on our trek from Southport to the next campsite at Maghull; the bitter winds and unpredictable showers meant both the RSPB site and the red squirrels at Formby were off the agenda.

A surprise as we drive through Halsall - flat agricultural land with rich dark soil, we could have been in East Anglia. The campsite at Maghull is at the transition of this agricultural area and semi-detached suburbia. A working farm but on the edge of Maghull itself.

One of the most famous residents of Maghull (its only famous resident, probably) is Frank Hornby of Meccano,  Dinky Car, and, of course, Hornby OO trainsets fame. So the stroll around inevitably ended up at the tribute to him in the form of a Wetherspoons pub! Interesting decor, including a full #4 Meccano set carefully encased in perspex to make an interesting pub statue.

Too many people for pictures but managed to snap a couple.

Mustn't let this diary forget the culinary side of the holiday. We decided to take Mr D's slow cooker, think saucepan that fits inside vacuum flask. The idea is to boil the food for a few minutes and then leave it slow cook for several hours insulated in some modern hay box. Yesterday was a cheap gammon joint cooked in ginger beer and very nice it was too, served up with Bulgar wheat and mixed veg. Enough for sandwiches today and another meal. Not bad for a £3.50 gammon joint and a 50p bottle of pop!

Hmmm, is yesterday's bad luck still plaguing us? A late enough start to the day (it was warm in bed and cold outside) and then standing for 30 minutes at the wrong bus stop. Well, it would have been the right bus stop last week and probably will be again next week, but there's a diversion on at the moment. Never mind, a short stroll to another stop and a 35 minute ride passing both the Aintree track and the Everton ground found us in Liverpool.

Now it's been 43 years since I last visited the Walker Art Gallery and Liz has never been. A very pleasant 2-3 hours well spent, especially since it was out of that bitter wind. Lots to see although I suspect much of their 20th century collection is now housed in the Tate down by the docks. Would have been nice to pay the extra to view the Pre-Raphaelite exhibition but there was more than enough to see for free. For example as we finished our tour we were in a small space at the top of the stairs to the exit. There were a few sculptures scattered about:  3 Rodin's, a Henry Moore and an Epstein, not too shoddy for a stair landing!

A few works really resonated with us. Here's one made from corrugated iron that Liz particularly liked:

For me it was a Paul Klee commissioned by the Post Office and an interesting arrangement of pop-art words:

Across the road, between the Empire Theatre and Lime Street Station itself is a fantastic old Victorian pub, recently saved by Tim Martin with a £2 million refurbishment and now Wetherspoon's North Western. A huge pub with a back room reserved for CAMRA AGM attendees and an additional bar with 10 local real ales complementing the 12 on in the main bars. An ideal place to stop and write this blog. You'd think! But this is Liverpool, sitting tapping on your tablet is seen as a sign of loneliness, and so any Scouser worth his salt knows his soul will not be redeemed unless he alleviates your boredom by engaging you in continual conversation.

This blog entry was completed back in the van!

Fri 01 Apr - Its Grim Oop North

Well cold and damp, at least.  Last night was bitter considering it is April and this morning's dampness only consolidated the unpleasantness. So once again we didn't get up until gone 10, such a change from my wee hours insomniacal wanderings at home. When we did get up we were van prisoners until the rain ceased. Whoops, 12am, where did the day go? So much for the proposed visit to Speke Hall mediaeval mansion.

Bumped into our neighbours, from the motorhome that appeared on this site yesterday. Helped them find the bus stop whilst we discovered the train station is a 35 minute walk away (probably over 1.5 miles, we'll measure it tomorrow). Into Liverpool too late to do much so mooched around a few camping type shops and admired the architecture.

Liverpool was built on lots of late Georgian/ early Victorian money and there is some sumptuous architecture (and for a moment we'll ignore that most of the money was profit from slavery) to be enjoyed. Pubs feature large in Liverpool life and architecture, former gin palaces exist on many street corner. Not sure how it is that Liverpool still has so many pubs and how so many of them are still wonderful examples of Victorian excess.

The purpose of this weekend is the Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) AGM (actual it's not the purpose, which is to visit Liverpool again, but is the excuse). It was fascinatingly nostalgic to go back to my old student union bar, the AGM registration point. So much has changed, so much is still remembered after these 40+ years. Met up with fellow Southampton drinking companions Terry Cowling and Phil Rosenthal and wandered off for an evening of architectural appreciation.

First stop The Philharmonic - if ever there was a pub that could be considered a highlight of Victorian excesses this is it. Sumptuous wooden paneling, beaten copper work and etched windows throughout. The shoulder high, almost tortoiseshell ceramic confessionals that are the gents urinals are unique and would probably be the reason for the building's listed status in their own right. So famous are they that apparently women are allowed in to view (this sentence should probably end with some crude double entendre but let's cut it short there)

From there the Roscoe Head, the working man's equivalent of the toff's Philharmonic. Still lots of wooden paneling but 3 tiny rooms remembering when every pub had a snug. The entire pub would fit into one of the Phil's huge rooms. Still nice to see the old bell pushes above the seats, reminding of an era where service actually meant something.

OK by this time the architectural pretences were over and we just wandered into another excellent pub, The Dispensary. In the previous pub Phil was talking to a Londoner who he met in a pub in Southampton. This time it was Liz and my turn to meet up with a Liverpool real ale fan who we had met on our last trip into the city a year ago. That time she was asking us if we wouldn't mind moving as they were trying to commandeer some space for the local all women's real ale drinking group. It's a small world made smaller when you have common interests like finding good pubs.

Sat 02 Apr - We Don't Need No Insurance

Saturday, CAMRA AGM starts at 09:30, we wake up at 09:45 - whoops! Who was it who said "if you are going to be late, you might as well be really late and enjoy a good breakfast"? Plus it's slashing it down with rain. Still I get chance to try my el-cheapo new RAF Gortex over-trousers on the 1.7 mile walk to the station (see I told you we were going to measure it).

As we got into Central Station we got a text from Terry suggesting meeting up forthwith at the Augustus John pub. A good uphill stretch but the rain gave us the incentive to do it without stopping (unlike yesterday). Greetings exchanged and half-pints enjoyed (see I told you we were responsible drinkers) and time to go into the AGM's afternoon session. Well for Terry anyway; Phil, Liz & I took a bus down to the docks (whoops, sorry - a bus down to the new trendy Liverpool 1 area) to inspect Liverpool's only brew-pub, The Baltic Fleet.

Remember the "small world " from a couple of days ago. Who did we meet in the Baltic Fleet, Derek and Julia, better known as "True Rig & A Doxy", the organisers of last week's Shanty Festival. They were playing in the pub that evening (as they did every Saturday evening). We'd have loved to get back to see them but you can't do everything!

Whilst in the pub we came across this wonderful sign

 If you can't read the last couple of lines here's a close up

Pretty strong words, especially to someone who lost his great-grand-father on the most famous White Star ship, The Titanic!

Back to the AGM to catch Tim Martin's speech. For those who don't know Tim is the founder/owner of the Wetherspoons chain of pubs. An interesting and humourous speech mainly focusing on the inequalities of taxation on beer and food between pubs (high tax) and supermarkets (low tax).

Now Liz and I met in Liverpool 44 years ago and our first date was on the Kop watching Liverpool v Spurs, so it was fitting that we spend the early part of the evening watching the two teams battle it out again. We'd have loved to actually have gone to Anfield, but as I said earlier, you can't do everything.

Sun 03 Apr - A Day Of Rest

You must be joking.

Today's plan was a 5 mile walk taking in two local pubs for Sunday Lunch. And what a great meal it was too. There is no doubt that the cost of living is much reduced up here. The Derby Arms had roast dinners for £5.99. My locally sourced beef was excellent and a huge portion, more meat than Liz and I have together on a Sunday and Liz's chicken breast could easily have been mistaken for a turkey. Top that with an excellent home made trifle (Liz) and a home-made cheesecake with Morello cherries and ice-cream (Brian) and we were struggling to make the remaining half of the walk, much heavier in the stomach and not much lighter in the wallet.

Still walk on we did, to Aughton with its impressive Norman church and less impressive Stanley Arms next door. That's not fair, it's a nice pub, just one that was very busy with food orders on a Sunday lunchtime, and poor Wi-Fi when we needed it to try and sort out just where we might be sleeping tomorrow night.

Back to the van and now we can rest, well a shower each to save time tomorrow and then retire to the van to read, write blogs etc.

Still it's nice and quiet back at the van

Oh OK, it was pretty much a day of rest after all.