The Pudding County - Episode 11

Hey All,

First off, apologies for no updates in 2 weeks. The internet was down last week and I've been sick this weekend as well but now it's all good and now you can continue to live vicariously through me on my European adventures!

Let's see, I guess I'll start from the beginning. Two weekends ago was my birthday of course! It was a Thursday, so I was to continue doing my job that day anyway which was fine by me. But, as it turned out, I ended up having a lovely birthday day and weekend! For the day of, I got a delicious English Breakfast and later on when the kids came back from nursery, we went bowling and for dinner in Coventry. And guess what? I won! lol Okay, so I know that I only won because I beat two toddlers, but still, I never win at bowling so it was pretty awesome. Plus, M is actually pretty good at bowling cause she uses that granny helper thing, I don't know what it's called, but it's like a slide that you just push the ball down?? Anyone? Names? Okay, well you know what I mean anyway. Oh and we had bumpers, which helped. But still, I won, sooo, be excited for me.

The following day, we were off to North Yorkshire to a town called Bedale where Grahame's mum and sister live. It was a nice weekend and the family is very nice too of course. On our drive to Bedale, we made a stop in Knaresborough where Mother Shipton's Cave and the Petrifying Wells are. It's a beautiful park to walk through and yet very very creepy cause when you get to the well, there's all these hanging teddy bears that are half stone, half teddy bear. What happens is the water that falls over it has bits of calcium in it so over time - a couple months or so - the hanging objects eventually turn to stone. Crazy right?! Just behind the petrifying well, you can walk in and make a wish on the wishing well. Apparently it's known to have made a lot of the wishes comes true so of course I made a wish. M wished for bubbles, which is interesting because when we finally got to Bedale, her grandma brought out the toys and some of the toys consisted of making bubbles. She later had a bubble bath too. Coincidence? I think not. Gosh, don't you wish all our wishes were as easy as THAT?!
Next to the well(s) was the cave where Mother Shipton was supposedly born. By the way, Mother Shipton (aka Old Mother Hubbard, etc. etc.) was this woman who supposedly foresaw a bunch of stuff that actually did happen, like the Great Fire of London, the Spanish Armada and the Great Plague of London. Coincidence? Probably.

Here's a little Wikipedia info on her:

Mother Shipton

Guess who else was born in Knaresborough (but not in a cave)? Guy Fawkes. Of all the places I'm to visit, I of course end up in the town of the guy who's holiday I'm totally excited about.

On Saturday we decided to head off to a mock town called Beamish. It's like Barkerville in that it's now a historical town except with Beamish it was never actually a town. They brought in all original buildings, furniture, etc. and set it up so that it's now an open air museum. I believe it's supposed to take place in 1913 so the museum is similar to what you'd see at London Farm, except of course on a larger scale. It was really cool actually cause I'd never really seen something so in depth like that. Oohh! And it wasn't just a town, there was also a little carnival too so I got to ride an old school Merry-Go-Round.
Here, you can see it:

See Hayley Ride An Old School Merry-Go-Round

Cool eh?

Our lazy Sunday consisted of Sunday Roast, which of course consisted of Yorkshire puddings. This, of course, resulted in my feeling sick but really, eating 2 yorkshire puddings filled with gluten was soooo worth it.

It was an excellent birthday weekend.

On our drive home, we drove through the lovely dales as we weren't going home right away, but towards Blackpool as we had to drop M off with her grandparents since they were all going to Spain for half-term break. For the next two weeks, little J and I would be hanging out just the two of us.

I decided to take J to Cadbury World in Birmingham. And I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty excited. Chocolate WORLD! World of CHOCOLATE!!! Do you understand how amazing that is!? I knew it was going to be good right from the start because the minute you walk through the doors to the tour, there are two guys that hand you free chocolate. What's even better is that they show up again half way through the tour to hand you even more free chocolate. It was fantastic!

See Hayley At Cadbury World

I didn't really take any pictures of the actual place since I was a bit preoccupied with the chocolate, so just imagine a factory of chocolate and you're all set. Actually it was quite interesting, they make something like 126 tonnes of chocolate a day, how crazy is THAT?

The rest of the week was the same old working week, until Friday of course, when it was Halloween! I had dragged poor J around trying to find a pumpkin to carve and after unsucessfully finding a local farm with a pumpkin patch, I found some baby pumpkins at the Sainsbury's in Rugby. So yeah, apparently Halloween isn't that big of a deal, which makes sense since Guy Fawkes Day is right around the corner. I'm pretty sure our house was the only one with pumpkins in the front, how lame is that?! But of course there were lots of kiddies trick or treating so it's okay I guess.
Friday night was the night that Stockton decided to hold its big bonfire and fireworks so after the trick or treaters came by, we walked down the street to what was a HUUUGE bonfire. It looked like people just threw in whatever the heck they had - there was a bed frame and quite possibly a mattress in there.
This Wednesday night will be the actual Bonfire Night for Guy Fawkes Day so we're all heading to Long Itchington (the town over) for a big bonfire and fireworks again so it should be good. I'll be sure to take photos since I didn't of the Stockton bonfire and put them up on facebook.

Anywho, that's all I'm going to say for now cause I'm still a bit under the weather and hence quite tired. I'll be sure to post again soon to tell you all the random things I've observed since some of them are quite funny...and embarassing.

Ciao mein!

H-Pizzle