Road trip time

After lots of boat trips, we had a road trip arranged. It felt as though we were becoming almost normal, joining all the "dirt dwellers" and doing the kind of things they do. It made a nice change really. Our plan was to head off on a Sunday and stay just outside Lincoln ready to drop the heating boiler into the Butler Technik folks. Only we then discovered that the Cardiff half marathon was on and the road through the marina would be closed for hours. Perfect timing on our part, booking to leave that day:

They suggested that the road would be open from noon but past experience was that the time dragged on as the back marker runners passed through Penarth. So, we took advantage of a voucher we had and left a day earlier, stopping at the rather swish Celtic Manor hotel initially. By the way, for a posh 5 star hotel the breakfast service is pretty dire. The drive from Newport up to Lincoln was relatively easy, perhaps the wild fuel prices had kept some traffic off the roads? The only wildly busy bit was battling through the car park at Costco in Leicester to get to the fuel pumps. Chaos.

We had booked a late Sunday lunch at a pub near Lincoln which got very good reviews, the Thorold Arms:

Amazingly, we found a parking spot outside it and were greeted at the entrance by "mine host" who happened to be taking an order from folks on an outside table. The salmon trousers and blue shirt thing was a giveaway.  He was very friendly and the menu choice for the day was not the typical Sunday roast fare. The crew fancied the Venison with some most inventive side dishes but when she ordered she was told that venison was a typo and it should have said pigeon. Er?? Undaunted, she ordered and really enjoyed it. Very good food, good service and a most entertaining clientele - the local gentry expressing themselves loudly about their travel plans etc. We felt rather out of place as dodgy boat-dwellers.

The following morning we dropped the Webasto boiler into the engineering folks and drove up to the Hamsterley Mill area to see our friends, John and Irene. We hear the cries of "where is Hamsterley Mill" echoing around. Well, you could search for it on the internet but to save you the effort, it is near Rowlands Gill. See how helpful we are.  

John and Irene have taken on a rescue dog, the rather lovely Millie:

and no, she does not have a multicoloured perm, just a toy strategically positioned. We took her a new toy as well, which was soon pressed into service and gummed happily:

All the extremities seemed to survive though, she is very gentle with her things. During our stay we ate them out of house and home, visited Hexham for a riverside walk and lunch, walked some of the Derwent Way and had a trip to Blanchford. That is one pretty little village and home to many interesting buildings:

plus the Lord Crewe Arms hotel. We forced ourselves to a coffee stop there and had a very enlightening chat with a farmer from Stamford who was staying overnight. Renting out a field to dog walkers makes way way more profit than growing any crops and at negligible risk too. Strange world that we inhabit. 

The crew helped our last day go well by giving Mollie a brush. As you can see, she rather enjoys that attention:

unlike Izzy who needs to be bribed to put up with it for long.

After a great time "up north" we headed a little further south - to Hessle near Hull. We were off to stay with Bernie and Beau the dog. You've met them in many prior blog posts but haven't learned about Bernie's home - a converted stable block that starred in a TV renovation project. Bernie wanted to keep as much of the character of the stables as possible and use reclaimed materials so go and watch the channel 4 program, it is well worth it. You can find it here  https://www.channel4.com/programmes/george-clarkes-remarkable-renovations/on-demand/68219-006.

Grab a coffee and see just what you can do with vision and determination - also see where we stayed.

Bernie gave us a guided walking tour of Old Hull, after a stop off at a garage he owns where we peeked at a Riva Rudy that is nearly ready to relaunch and use. If you are not a boating person, Riva might not mean much. Think "La Dolce Vita", elegant Italians enjoying speeding across Lake Como etc etc. Here is one underway:

courtesy of a huge Yank V8 petrol engine. The interiors are simply an elegant 1970's time capsule:

and yes, Bernie's boat looks like that. Simply gorgeous but functional too. His other boat in Hull lives afloat in the marina and if you are sad enough to have been reading our ramblings over the years, you might recall prior images of Mimosa, the Dunkirk little ship:

She looked, and is, rather splendid. 

After a busy and enjoyable day and overnight with Bernie, we walked Beau the little Coton de Tulear (in the rain) then headed south once more. Annoyingly, this was via Butler Technik to collect our heater. Why annoyingly? Well, they didn't have the test harness needed to check out the device properly after a decoke and internal check. Instead of the normal 48 hour delivery from Webasto, this was being quoted as two weeks at least. We didn't want to be back afloat with no heating so we collected the untouched boiler and will wait for a call to say they have the required harness. The workshop guys were very apologetic. The Captain just thought of more boat yoga to refit it, then remove it again for servicing then refit it again. That made him very happy indeed.

We overnighted outside Coventry, finding that the hotel car park was rather busy for a Friday. Then we discovered why:

A face and body painting event. You can imagine some of the sights walking around the hotel. We had a quick shared pizza and retired. You can only admire so many pink attired and painted folks in one evening and we got out quota well before the shared pizza arrived. One very strange event.

We escaped the carnage the following morning and on the way south stopped off at the British motor museum. Only it was carnage there as well. An event to celebrate 30 years of the Porsche boxster was taking place:

Lots of cars outside, lots of people of a certain age and type wearing Porsche club hats and identity badge lanyards, all sporting the requisite Porsche Motorsport clothing. We escaped one crowd for another. It did occur to us that there might be a slight hierarchy in the Porsche club with 911 owners looking down on the boxster lot. There were no 911s visible in the car park.

Despite how busy it was we enjoyed the museum, the captain a touch more than the crew perhaps. A great place and still plenty more for us to see:

However, it is worrying when the model of car you learned to drive on is exhibited in a museum:

No, not the offerings on the right, he isn't that ancient. Yes, the captain cut his teeth and ground the gears on his uncle's Anglia 105e. No synchromesh on first is his excuse and forced you to learn the art of double-declutching. The Anglia ws pretty elderly at the time and had the regulation Isopon and newspaper replacements for what were once steel sills that had rotted away Structural integrity in a crash - let's not think about that.

A good few days on the road except that some nice person decided to run a key down the side of the car when it was parked against a grass verge so safe from the careless door opening lot at Scotch Corner services. Words fail, although they didn't when we saw it.