Life in Northern Towns

I should have really checked the distances and times properly before driving up to Whitehaven from Grange-Over-Sands . We should have really stopped off at a couple of places on the journey up. I should have really tried harder to over take the Danish car in front of me which was going terminally slow.  Then again it is hard to find a place on the A595 to overtake with all the twists and turns on the road. I practically punched the air when they finally turned off at St Bees. Then again we should have turned off there too as St Bees is supposed to be a lovely place.  On the plus side of the one and a half hour journey it was a pretty drive.  The A595 harks back to 60s and it's scenery you'd find in an episode of "Heartbeat".  The weather was also good with pretty blue skies.  At Egremont I did find the cheapest petrol in Cumbria,  Although passing by Sellafield was a bit spooky for obvious reasons. Whitehaven is a harbour town o...

Todmorden is nestled in the Pennines on the border between Lancashire and Yorkshire.   Over the years it has been in both these counties at some point.   After the last boundary change Todmorden is now in West Yorkshire under Calderdale Council.   Over the years I’ve been known to pop by Todmorden when in the neighbourhood.   I have had ambivalent feelings towards it, but finally I’ve begun to warm to the place.   Its neighbouring town is the rather quaint and middle-class Hebden Bridge.   The gentrification effect of Hebden Bridge has begun to make inroads into Todmorden and it has begun to polish up its act.   Whilst it doesn’t have the quaint prettiness of Hebden Bridge, it has an eccentric element to it which may explain why the locals nickname it ‘Oddmorden.’   One thing which is distinct about the town is the large railway bridge that cuts through the town. Apparently it used to have lots of railway stations around the town as it was...

I took the A451 from Stourbridge to Kidderminister , which was a lovely leafy road through the countryside.   I managed to hit three counties on that road: Staffordshire, Worcestershire and the West Midlands.   It’s a beautiful run with a few pubs en route offering lunches.   The roadside borders were alive with elderflowers and poppies punctuating the hedgerows.   It was a perfect example of the English countryside. Somehow I managed to take the wrong turning and ended up in Wolverley.   So a quick spin round on a roundabout and I was back on the right route. I don’t know what I was expecting from Kidderminster, but it wasn’t this.   The name Kidderminster sounds quite affluent and leafy, but in reality it wasn’t a well-to-do place.   On the route into the town centre there was a really scruffy row of shops with dodgy looking shops.   One shop was called Amsterdamned – I can only assume it was a hydroponics shop. I parked at the Swan Shoppi...

Neil was going to the annual Kaleidoscope meet up in Stourbridge and I didn't want a repeat of last year.  He managed to get on the wrong train home and ended up going south instead of north.  Only by the miracle of Blackberry, when I was at my friend’s fortieth birthday party, I got him on the right train home.  This time I was driving, so if we got lost, we’d be lost together. Before the journey had started I was having problems with Google maps and iPhone maps as they were giving me some torturous route through Wolverhampton centre.  “Sod that” I thought as it was a sure fire way of getting lost.  I wanted lots of motorway with minimal A routes.  Indeed I found a route that was five miles longer, but five minutes shorter with little chance of getting lost – perfect! Anyway M60, M62, M6 (a road I have always called the work of the devil and which most people would agree with), M5, Junction 3, A456 and A491.  Apart from the varia...