Liverpool + Lakes District

Its been a busy few days for me since Geoff, Lyn and Alexander turned up.

Two days ago we went to Liverpool via Stoke-On-Trent and Chester. Stoke-On-Trent wasn't very interesting as it was the home of pottery places and fine china such as Royal Dalton etc, and as none of us were too interested in seeing that, we just walked around the park.

The next place we headed was to somewhere that I don't remember the name of right now, but it was a place where Geoff had some relatives come from back in the 18whatevers. We found the site of what we think might be the church they were married in, but all thats left of it is a giant tower. Surrounding where the church used to stand is a graveyard. Some of the old headstones of graves that hadn't been looked after and were 250 years old were large and so were used to make the path through the graveyard. Pretty creepy stuff.

Liverpool was next on the agenda. We ended up at Albert Wharf which is where a lot of English people left to move to Australia. It was pretty bleak looking, and we came up with the theory that they made it like that so people would actually leave and be glad to leave :p

On the way back to Manchester, as Liverpool was the home of The Beatles, I took us back via Penny Lane to have my photo taken with the sign.

Photos of that trip (you can see them even if you don't have a facebook account):
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22785&l=d5bc5&id=544876388

Yesterday it was off to whats known as 'The Lakes District'. On the way we stopped at Preston so I could look through the National Football Museum. It was so amazingly brilliant I could have looked through there all day. They had the entire history of football and the English league up for you to walk through, and so I loved seeing all that kind of stuff including random facts like that the offside rule was introduced 3 years after the first league was created.

Next stop was this place called Lancaster that had a massive castle. We had planned to go an look through it, but it turns out its STILL used as a working prison!

Onto the lakes district we went. Slowly civilization dropped off the map, and before we knew it we were driving through REAL English countryside. You know, big hilly fields with stonewalls, narrow roads, lots of wind and extremely overcast. It was pretty nice to look at, but I was glad I had the refuge of the car to sit in as it was bitterly cold outside. Alexander had his huge grin on his face the whole time as he loves the cold and loved finally seeing the countryside that he'd been wanting to see. We listened to Billy Bragg to help set the mood, so that enhanced the rural English feel. It also made me mega excited as I'm seeing Billy Bragg play tomorrow night! Yes!

Photos of The Lakes District:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=22928&l=8093c&id=544876388

Away from going places, I'm doing just fine. I'm freezing cold every day (today it was 3 jumpers, thermals, gloves and beanie) but traveling around and seeing new things is really really fun. Also, I think I'm getting a massive cold. Yay!