August Life Update; Visit To Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire.

Hi readers,

On Saturday, my boyfriend and I visited Bolton Abbey in The Yorkshire Dales near Skipton. It was just over an hour's drive from his home in Preston and the Abbey has been on our to do list for about a year now. I did visit a few years back and there might even be an old post on here about it! But my boyfriend hasn't been and I thought it was a day out we both would enjoy.

Set in wonderful countryside with the river wharfe weaving it's way around and boarding on one side Barden moors and further up the ancient Strid woodland is the ruins of an Augustinian Priory dating back to 1100's and the Priory Church. The whole area is so picturesque and fascinating to explore.

There are three car parks to pick from; one at the village and entrance to the abbey, one in the middle at the Cavendish Pavilion, where I chose to park and the third close to Strid woods. Each car park is close to cafes, toilets and shops etc. We when were arrived large groups of people had set up 'camp' for the day and it was really busy. We had lunch and then decided to go to the Valley of Desolation on the moors.

However, we didn't make it! We walked for 40 minutes along a path that was more of a track other people had made through dense woodland and brush. Along the way we meet people who had decided to turn back because the path was too narrow and steep in some places. Despite being determined to get there, we had to give up as it started to look dangerous.

We doubled back and went to visit the Abbey, firstly though we took a break in these giant beach chairs!

We had the option to cross the bridge, which we choice or to take a chance on the stepping stones - see next photo. The river was really low due to all the hot, dry weather England has been experiencing this summer. So, it probably was a good time to cross the stones but they were busy and later on we saw two children slip and fall off them. That made feel like it had been a good idea not to cross via the stepping stones!

The abbey ruins are huge and since a lot of the walls and window frames are still in place its easy to picture what this place would have looked like. There is also a surrounding graveyard but you can't walk around the headstones and have to stay on the pathways. 

Even though it's a little bit sad to see such a once grand place reduced down, lucky the church survived and is still in use today. Inside, gives ideas about how the rest of the priory would have looked. The stain glass windows are really something to behold and they are so tall! At the back of a church are a few tables were you can by religious items, guidebooks and other things to help support the church and remember the day. I brought two wooden crosses, three postcards and two bookmarks.  

The church is so quiet and peaceful. It was also a nice place to get away from the sun from! The weather forecast had said it was going to be cloudy with some patchy sun, but it was actually clear and hotter then that! I could have spent more time in the church but we had a 30 minute walk back to the car, so we had to leave. 

Expect from when we went onto the moor, we were either following the river or going against it.

There were a lot of people, swimming, paddling, catching fish and bugs, playing with their dogs or just chilling on the shore. The river actually seemed more of a draw then the abbey. I can understand all that and not just because of the nice summer weather but because the river is super pretty and the countryside it meanders through adds to the appeal.  

We did sit a few times and watched the river, the people and their dogs having fun. I was half tempted to go for a paddle myself but we hadn't brought a towel and I was driving. Maybe next time! 

Overall, we both had a great day out. I can see us coming back to Bolton Abbey again as it's a great place to walk and we only did some of it! Next time I'd like to see the woods and try to get to the valley.

Thanks for reading!

August Life Update; Flash back to July part 2. Birmingham bear hunt and London trip

Hi readers,

In July, I went to Birmingham for a night and a day then on to London for two days and two nights. I had visited Birmingham before a few years back whilst on a canal boat holiday and stopped in what's known as the Birmingham basin. This time, I stayed in the city center and I had a really good time. Currently, they have this bear statue hunt on and there's like over 200 bear statues and some little bears to find. I had great fun doing this and it also helped me navigate about the town center. My favorite bear has to be the first one I found; Shakesbear.  

Around the church yard there were lots and I spent time taking photos and looking at the gravestones. It was a nice place to chill. I went inside the church too and saw the pretty stained glass windows.

My favorite bears here where Peony the panda and this love hearted one. There was also a jungle bear and a metal bear called Snowy.

 I then went over to the art gallery and museum which I'd picked to spend the afternoon in. On the way I found some more bears! This moon and star one is so cute.

Everyone loves the Spock bear.

My favorite in this section had to by Olly bear because he was so funny. Lots of people wanted their photo with him.

It was also at this point I helped someone to find a bear. I had a printed out map but it made it easier as I had already seen and taken a photo of the bear she wanted to see. Later, I picked up a real map from the train station and discovered the locations of all the bears!

I also liked this bear with a northern lights theme. Then I went on to the art gallery and museum. They had a lot of the little bears there and I too far too many photos to post up here. I looked round and did enjoy it, but with the weather being so nice and the wanting to find other bears, I left early.

The bear who cares a lot was the first bear on my list but I didn't find her until we had got back to the train station. She was the last bear I found because we then had to leave for London. I did so want to stay and look for other bears though!

I had a good wander around Birmingham city center and I really enjoyed it. There was lots of shops and people, who were all interesting to watch. I found a cool Japan shop and brought some presents for myself and my boyfriend. I found this like hidden cathedral and this cool waterfall, which the water falls over a poem about the city and it's really interesting to watch. I'll miss Birmingham and hopefully I can go back someday. 

London

Next came two nights and two days in London. Sadly, I wasn't feeling well and choice the first day just to stay close to the hotel which was in Blackfriars, so I just had a wander around there. I walked alongside the Thames and I saw the Eye. I've been on it a few years ago and I saw some of the bridges and some boats. It was a nice walk under lots of trees. 

Then, just wondering about, I found St. Bride's church. I think I'd past it last time I was in London but this time I decided to check it out. It's really small and pretty. The old woman at the desk was so nice and happy too. I went down to see the crypt which had some buried headstones inside of it. No one actually knew about the crypt and foundations until the a second world war bomb hit the church. Then they found that it dated back a long time.

This is like a underground chapel that's just off the main crypt. It was really quiet and cool down here. I took a few moments to chill out.

From there I went to St. Paul's and had a walk around the gardens which I'd missed last time. I also saw and went on the Millennium bridge which felt a bit weird crossing. I only went like half way because I had no reason to cross to the other side.  

View of St. Paul's from Millennium Bridge. 

The next day, I was feeling worse, but I couldn't stay in the the hotel as we'd checked out. I went to see The Temple church which wasn't far away. Though I did get lost and had to ask a doorman where it was. There are lots of doorman in London and they may seem scary but they are actually nice and helpful.

You have to pay to get into The Temple church, but its' worth it. Inside is really nice and bright, it's quiet expect from when a load of tourists come in! They had lots of history information up but I was distracted by the knight statues. It actually took me a good few minutes to figure out this was the Knight's Templar church! You can go to the first floor and look down which gives a nice view of the structure of the tower.

There's lots of knights and other important people statues. There are like from the 1300 and have worn a bit. I found that there wasn't much information about them and some of the statues haven't been identified! There are some memory stones too and it was interesting to read some of them.

The Templar's have a thing about Pegasus, I saw a lot whilst I was there in all the designs of the floor and hangings. There was also one in a stained glass window. I should have asked what it meant, but I forgot.  

I also liked all these little faces which came out of the sides of the tower. These two were like the cheekiest as most were sensible. They made me laugh though.  

I also liked all the old Bibles, prayer and hymn books there were in the pews. I took some cool photos of them. This one is my favorite though. 

Temple Church is really nice and if you want to escape the busy flow of London It's a good place to just sit and chill. Though I'd prefer St. Bride's as it's less busy with tourists.

You can't get into the gardens, even though I wanted to. I had to make do with the courtyard. It was nice with this water fountain, though it was really loud. I read my book for a bit and then had to go back to the place my mum was at because I still wasn't feeling great.

I wished I'd been better and bale to travel around London more. There's so much more I want to see there. Maybe next year when I hopefully go for my birthday.

That's all for now anyway. I'm off to Sweden on Thursday, so my next post will be all about that. In the meantime please check out my other blog; https://thestoryfiles.wordpress.com/ I write a new shor story everyday on there.

Thanks for reading and see you soon!

Canal Boat Holiday 2013

Hey readers, I got back from my holiday last weekend and I thought since today I'm not feeling so great and just fancy staying curled up in bed that I'd write up what I'd been up to and the adventures I've had. Also prepare for lots of photographs!

We decided that this year would spend another week on a canal boat for our family summer holiday. We set off from Worcester Marina in our boat after a two hour drive down. The boat was bright blue, built for six people and was 67 foot long. The boat was called the Nottingham Castle and would be our home for the week. My dad had planned our route and we would be doing the Stourport Ring anti-clock wise. From Worcester we would go to Birmingham, through Dudley, to Stourbridge and then back to Worcester along the river Severn. It wouldn't be an easy trip as we had 118 locks to get through, a handful of tunnels and a river to travel up!

The holiday got off to a good start with us making it the place my dad wanted to moor at for the night. Outside the The Eagle and Sun pub, which served good food and had a peaceful atmosphere. We had four hours of travelling and we are pretty tried when we got there. Opening the locks slowly came back to us and we were able to get the boat through in good time. It also took everyone away to find their 'sea legs.' This holiday was special for me because I had brought my boyfriend along. This would be the second time we'd be away together (see post on the Lake District) and the first that he'd been away with my family. Of course not everything went to plan, but I am glad to say that we got through it.

Travelling through locks can be difficult and scary. It also some time as on average it takes 15 minutes to do.



Firstly, the level of water inside the lock needs to be the same as the level of water the boat is on. So either the lock will need emptying or filling before the boat goes in.


We got lucky at some locks because people had already come through and so left it ready for us.










The boat goes in, the gates get closed behind it and the paddles get shut to stop the water moving.

The paddles on the other gate are then opened and then you have to wait for the lock to fill or empty.

This can happen quickly though due to the force of the water.







Then you close the paddles and open the gate so the boat can go out. It does take some practise!

It does take team work to achieve this as well and we had enough people to get through the locks at a fast pace and helped other people too so that we weren't slowed down.

Some of the locks were really hard to open!

Also people shouldn't mess around with them as they can be dangerous. But this also has a knock on effect of water being wasted. This can be really bad as it means that boats can't use the locks because there's not enough water to fill them.




There are also different kinds of locks and paddles. We experienced a range last week. Of course the single ones are the easiest to get through, there are ones that have three paddles to fill up the lock faster and ones that are machine driven and controlled by a warden. The best ones for me have to be the stair locks. As the name suggests these are a number locks one after the other, without much space in-between. They are hard work because its none stop, but I just enjoy watching the boat go through them.

These are the Delph Locks which we went through on Wednesday afternoon. We were grateful to get through them and to the pub that day because of what happened in the morning! We had to travel through the Netherton tunnel which is one of the longest canal tunnels. It's almost 2 miles long and takes an hour to get through. I was hoping to spend that time learning how to play a card game, but instead within a few minutes of entering the tunnel we encountered a problem. 

There was a boat in front of us that had an overheated engine and because they forced us to slow down, we hit something and it seemed that the probable had been damaged. This meant that we couldn't steer the boat. There were a lot of things that we could have done, but we decided to pull the boat through the tunnel and try to fix it or else wait for someone to rescue us on the other side. Yes we could have pulled the boat back out of the tunnel as we were only a few minutes in, but that would have caused trouble for other boats and made things dangerous. 

Pulling the boat for so long was hard work and it was just lucky that there was a stable walk way at the side, as most tunnels don't have this. The problem was that the path was covered in deep puddles and also slime. We also had to try and jump over a railing and back on the boat at the other end like something out of an action movie! Doing that wasn't much fun and we then found out the true cause of the problem. 

We had what seemed to be the reminds of a kitchen sink stuck inside the boat! When we had removed it the boat was fine and we were able to get back under way. I would like to say that was the only problem we had, but we encountered a lot of rubbish in the canal; like clothes and plastic bags, shopping trolleys and traffic cones, every day litter and factory rubbish. It all made me feel really mad and I don't get why people believe its okay to dump stuff in these places. It's harmful to the environment and spoils it for other people.

The night before we had stayed in Birmingham and it looked pretty cool light up. We didn't get much sleep as everyone seemed to be out for the night, but it was nice to see how the canal was still being used. There seemed to be something warm and welcoming about the city lights too. We didn't fancy going out as we were still tried from the 40 locks we had done on monday. So we decided to get the table and chairs out beside the side of the boat on the walk away and play some games. It was a rather surreal moment! Everyone was walking past us and we were just sat there talking and playing cards.

The holiday ended with us taking a trip around Worcester after we had dropped the boat off in the morning. We got to see the cathedral and spend sometime exploring the many corridors. The crypt was my favourite part, but I also liked the stain glass windows.

Overall, it was a fun holiday, even if we had so many problems with the boat and there was a bit of crashing and burning between people towards the end. It was hard work though and I think next time I'd like a hotel on beach somewhere with a swimming pool

(All the photos belong to me.)