Mothers Day in the UK - Our poor heads

Sunday 3^rd April 

Mothers Day

The morning after the night before and we are both feeling somewhat poorly!! Self inflicted, but we press on regardless of our poor heads!   Today is Mothers Day in the UK.  After a beautiful breakfast at the hotel we moved onto Stratford-Upon-Avon   which is a town dominated by William Shakespeare who was born here in 1564.  It’s a very pretty little town, we didn’t do any of the Shakespeare sights but we did go for a lovely walk  around the river seeing punts and rowers and the park lands were beautiful on such a   crisp morning.

We left Stratford-Upon-Avon and move straight onto the M1 the biggest motorway in England with 6 lanes.  I am beginning to prefer the motorways to some of the narrow streets that we encountered yesterday.  We pass through Sherwood Forest on our way to Nottingham, Sherwood Forest was very small and not what we would consider a forest.  In the distance we see Leeds which is a massive city, we bypass Leeds on the motorway.  We make out way into York which is a lovely city to drive around, the easiest to date.  York is enclosed by a magnificent circuit of 13^th century walls.  In the centre there is an amazing Gothic cathedral.  We walked the city walls which follow the line of the original Roman walls and it gives a great view of the city. 

We have decided today to have an alcohol free day, we think that our livers need it after last nights marathon, I know my head does.  We think the Ford KA’s like I used to drive breed like rabbits over here, they are every where we look.  Just a point of interest even though i was feeling as hung over as hell i have not shut my eyes in the car for a 5 minute nap today or any day.  This one could say is nothing short of a miracle.  Too much to see and i am on constant sheila patrol!!

We head off driving through Cumbria and the Lake district on our way to Windermere for the night.  The sweeping panorama of slate-capped fells, craggy hilltops with valleys and ridges on the drive to Windermere is spectacular.  Up until today the countryside has been relatively flat but this afternoon has been beautifully rugged. This is the area that James Herriot’s all creatures great and small was filmed.  And Windermere is the area that Beatrice Potter was filmed. 

We booked into a little B&B and got fish and chips and took them down by the lake to eat for dinner this evening.  The fish was as big as big  as a shoe box absolutely massive but it  was real heart attack material they were just dripping in grease.  Black faced seagulls, ducks and geese had a good feed of grease.  It will be an early night for us tonight