Hail Blackpool!
Don’t get me wrong, but I do like to be beside the sea…
But I’m not particularly fond of rain, hail and high winds when I’m trying to walk on a beach. I thought it was bad whilst trying to do so at Sheringham on the North Norfolk coast a couple of years ago, but that was nowt compared to tackling the beach at Blackpool just last week.
We had seen the weather forecasts and had dressed and packed accordingly, even though our respective bags had capacities of 10 litres (mine) or 15 litres (Caroline’s).
Despite a mix of soft shell trousers and jacket (me) and windproof fleece and tech jeans (Caroline) plus an effective use of tech t-shirts and micro fleeces (both of us), the wind and rain still presented problems once we got to Blackpool North Station and started to walk down to the town centre.
When it got really bad, there was only one thing for it – get into Marks & Spencers and head into their cafe for a hot drink, food and the chance to dry out. Once this was accomplished, it was time to head back out and see what was out there…
Caroline had already decided to try and find some thermal leggings to help combat the elements and as she hadn’t seen anything in M&S, we sought out the local branch of Millets.
Which had moved and had everything but thermal leggings as they’d been recalled back to the warehouse in order to make space for summer stock. Fair enough I suppose given that it was the end of April and it should have been fine and sunny…
After a quick side trip into Sports Direct in search of leggings, it was Primark that saved the day. One set of black leggings in Caroline’s size at the princely sum of £4 – bargain!
Once that was sorted, we tracked down the venue for Status Quo’s show and then headed to our resting place for the night – The Ascot Guest House in nearby Hornby Road.
Although we were the only ones booked in for the night, the sign in the window said No Vacancies – after all, it was going to be the calm before the storm that is the Great British Bank Holiday Weekend…and the Hotel Inspector was due to take a look at the premises at 6pm on the day we arrived.
Once settled in, we freshened up, headed out and then went in search of fodder. The first port of call was full and didn’t have any tables free for about an hour or so. The next one was busy, but had tables, so that’s where we ate.
Good pizza, good beer, but we’re still waiting for our coffees to turn up. They’d been prepared, but as the place was busy and hadn’t enough staff, the coffees had been made and placed on a tray, never to be served.
After asking for the bill, the coffee error was realised and whilst an offer was made of fresh coffee at no charge, we had to go, so the bill was handed over and paid, but not before I witnessed the £5 or so being taken off the bill for the coffees that never were.
And so to The Empress Ballroom. Posh? Yes, Pricey? Yes – £4 for two jackets in the cloak room and £4.50 for a half of bitter and a half of cider and £15 for a tour programme (from Quo’s merchandising stand and well worth the cost after looking at it a few times now).
The following day saw a reasonably early breakfast and a good chinwag at The Ascot, one of the friendliest places either of us have stayed in over the years.
By the time we left at 11am (an hour after the time to go listed on the back of our room door), we decided to hit the seafront and see what was out there.
Wind, and plenty of it. A brief respite came about through heading into the RNLI shop at the lifeboat station to stock up on bags of fudge and a new ‘coin’ substitute for use in supermarket shopping trollies, but the weather had to be faced once more. And it was.
Blackpool beach was almost deserted and stayed that was as we quickly went back on the promenade in search of shelter and coffee. Both came about in The Albert And Lion pub – coffee, shelter and warmth for half an hour.
The wind had dropped a bit, but not enough to tempt us along the beach once more, so we headed up the seafront and passed Harry Ramsden’s and a few pubs. One Irish bar had a bloke with a radio mike dressed up as a leprechaun as a potential means of pulling people into the pub.
We gave it a miss, but were rather amused a few minutes later when we headed back past the pub and heard said leprachaun broadcasting an interesting comment from inside the pub – he’d forgotten to turn the radio mike off before making said comment to another member of the pub’s staff! Oops…
As a late afternoon train had been booked for the journey home, there was a whole lot of mooching around going on after a fish and chip lunch at Harry Ramsden’s.
Now I don’t normally spend much when I’m away for a couple of days, but one shop window display caught my eye – an array of Corgi die cast models including FAB1 and a joint set of Thunderbird 2 & 4. Not cheap at £20 per box, so a decision had to be made.
So it’s Thunderbird 2 & 4 that’s on the shelf to my right as I type this up and FAB1 will arrive at a later date, as will Thunderbirds 1 & 3 when they’re sighted in a shop.
Apparently this latest batch of Thunderbirds related items aren’t being sold to the same potential customers as the ones relating to the ITV animated activities of International Rescue.
The Corgi models are being sold to nostalgic fifty somethings! Like me…
Things that make you go D’oh!
Caroline and I had a great night out last Thursday.
First night of the latest tour by Status Quo in a standing venue in the wilds of Blackpool (and it was wild thanks to the combined effects of wind, rain and hailstones as we made our way from Blackpool North railway station to the guest house we were staying in for the night).
It was a great show with all the hits and a bit more. This was the fifth time that I’ve seen Status Quo, but it was the first time for Caroline and she was more than happy when they opened the show by playing her song – Caroline!
I can honestly say that it’s the first time that I’ve been made to bounce up and down in a venue as the show was taking place in the Empress Ballroom in Blackpool’s Winter Gardens.
The Empress Ballroom has a sprung wooden floor and boy did the floor move when everyone started to react to the songs being played onstage.
There will be more about the gig and Blackpool over the next week or so, but there are a couple of things that I didn’t understand about the audience.
Yes, I took a few pics on a digital compact camera, but many were consistently raising their phones to take shots throughout the show or to take video clips.
Now I could understand this in a gig with an audience of teenagers, but most (but not all) of the perpetrators were blokes around the 50 year old mark.
One person did however take the biscuit.
A bright young thing to my left decided to take shots on her phone throughout the show and also tweeted or received messages every couple of minutes or so.
Did I hope that she would drop her glass of whatever and black over the phone? Maybe…
Did I hope that she would drop the phone and it would somehow be kicked into oblivion when it fell, never to be used again?
You might think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment…
A study in purple…
Never got to see him live (came close once, but the record company said ‘No”), yet Prince was always an intriguing character.
Good music, plenty of energy and the willingness to take on the record company when things didn’t go his way.
And the nous to let other artists take on his songs too – Sinead O’Connor and The Bangles are just two names that spring to mind.
It’s Rohantime again…
Poshpacking required for this hotel! Pic by Keith Rickaby, Nikon Coolpix S3100
Yes, it’s Rohantime once more as my recent Poshpacking post is currently being featured on the Rohantime website.
Thanks as ever to Sarah Howcroft for picking up on it and publishing.
http://rohantime.com/64794/portugal-packing-poshpacking/
Watch out for something completely different regarding clothes and packing as wisepacking goes rocking all over the world!
In Blackpool…
Happy birthday…
No, I’m not going to start singing the song (the last time I was heard singing in public was a long time ago in a galaxy…).
It may rain later, but it’s still Caroline’s birthday and it may well be spent in Bronte country.
Not quite on Wuthering Heights, but almost!
News just in…
About an interesting new product that could be of immense use to travellers.
It’s the Shoulder Lite Saver, a self levitating pack that rises to your shoulder level so there’s no more frantic moves needed to place your bag on your back before wandering off in search of your digs or bus.
Apparently they’re only on sale until 12 noon today here in the UK…
Should it stay or should it go now?
No, I’m not referring to the UK‘s vote on June 23rd as to whether we stay in the EU or get the flock out of there… *
It’s a comment as to whether I take the Apple iPad Mini 2 that I bought a few months ago along when Caroline and I go travelling.
The sharp eyed may have noticed that there were no references to the iPad in the pieces I posted last week regarding packing for our recent visit to Tavira.
Yes, it was used the day before we headed off, but after the last emails and a look at the weather forecasts, the iPad was switched off and stayed at home.
Don’t get me wrong, I like the iPad and I’ve found it useful for checking emails, web browsing, watching programmes on BBC iPlayer and reading via the Kindle app, but I didn’t feel that it was going to be necessary to pack and use it whilst in Portugal.
There are times when it comes in very useful, especially when using it to log into newspaper websites that I can’t always access on the desktop.
Although the iPad has an adblocker installed, I can still read newspaper copy on the iPad without the need to look at anything up to 45 ads appearing…
One thing that is noticeable is the battery life. It may not use that much power when watching something like an edition of Michael Wood‘s recent series on China, but if you’re spending a bit of time on the Internet at different times of the day doing some research, then the battery does run down that little bit faster.
At the moment, I’m charging the iPad up on average about once every two days, which is fine by me as it can be on the desk charging from the mains charger whilst I’m doing stuff on the desktop.
On a different note, there are also recollections of a couple of recent meals out when several were constantly checking their smartphones or indeed checking stuff on their iPads rather than talking to their fellow diners…
Now this wasn’t just something that was spotted here in deepest Yorkshire.
It was also spotted in Tavira as people checked their phones by the pool to find out what TA had to say about a restaurant they were thinking of dining in, check their emails and other assorted goings on via their phones.
Although a couple of individuals were using iPads or laptops in the cloisters of the Pousada, one couple had his and hers tablets that they were using at the breakfast table in the dining room rather than talking to each other.
Were they techie obsessed twenty or thirty somethings? Nope, they were silver surfers!
I’m still not ruling out taking the iPad with me when we head off somewhere, but the booking of our next trip just proved that you don’t necessarily need to have one when you’re researching a potential destination and accommodation in said destination.
I’ve been using the iPad to track prices on four different websites for a potential visit to the Greek Islands. The prices were right, the flight times were right in some cases and the parking fees at Manchester Airport could be lived with. I’d even got a trio of brochures to do some cross-referencing with as I did the surfing…
But then it happened. The iPad needed a charge so I plugged it in and then remembered a book that I’d leafed through a few times since it arrived last year – the 2015 paper edition of The Independent Hostel Guide.
Its proved useful in the past and it came up trumps once more. A hostel somewhere in England that offered B&B accommodation at a reasonable price in an area that I know quite well, even though it’s 15 years since I was last there and over 20 years since I took groups there for three or four day backpacking trips.
Old technology ruled as I used a phone to make the booking and pay the deposit and the only time that ‘new’ technology got involved was when I received the confirmation email yesterday and when I checked the bank a few hours ago.
So on this occasion it was a case of “Apps? Where we’re going, we don’t need apps!”.
I used the paper copy of the Independent Hostel Guide – http://www.independenthostels.co.uk
And that * above? I’m very happy to maintain the status quo and keep on rocking all over the world!
And Europe too…
Accessories after the fact…
If you read my poshpacking post a couple of days ago, you may have noticed that I talked about the clothing and other bits and pieces that I took over to Tavira, but missed out on a few things that ensured that my Osprey hit that 8kg mark that I mentioned in poshpacking.
Three things that weren’t in my pack were my camera, Kindle and dumb-ass phone. Two out of the three items were used in Portugal and one wasn’t.
The Nikon Coolpix S3100 has been worth its weight in gold. The pics are pretty good and the few that aren’t are either dumped off the SD card on the day that they’re shot or nuked when they hit the Mac Mini that wisepacking is put together on.
As ever, the old style Kindle proved its worth. Quite a few books had been added before we headed off to Portugal so there was a good mix of biographies, travel accounts, business stuff and quite a few amusing tomes too.
The best one was started on the plane over to Faro and finished whilst in Tavira – My Dining Hell by Jay Rayner, restaurant critic for The Observer. His weekly column in that paper is always a joy to read and his book highlights several of his Greatest Hits (and mentions which ones are still around and which ones have disappeared into the ether).
Now I did take the respective chargers over for the Nikon and the Kindle with me, but neither were needed as both kept their charges well over the course of the week. The bag used to store the chargers & plug adaptors and any spare SD cards came from IKEA and was one of bags or packing cubes used to keep my stuff sorted and in order …
The phone was only taken along as we were driving to and from the airport rather than using the mix of buses and trains when we flew to Lisbon from Liverpool Airport in September 2015.
I did switch it on a couple of times whilst in Tavira, but the phone didn’t connect with any network, unlike Caroline‘s smartphone, which did and took texts and calls from her family as we’d flown over to Portugal on Mothers Day UK.
Anything else? A small bottle of Lifeventure‘s Fabric Wash did the usual trick when we were washing clothes out throughout the week – around half a bottle was used, even though we were washing shirts, trousers and underwear during that week.
Fortunately we did have a sink plug in the washbasin this time around and we didn’t have to source plug substitutes by buying packs of Pringles or tubs of Hagen Daaz ice cream!
An umbrella was taken along and placed in my day bag along with my reading specs and Transition lensed sunglasses every day… With the food being so good over the course of the week, the Sainsbury’s indigestion tablets taken along as a precautions weren’t needed either.
Some sachets of Tesco Recovery Powder were used however by myself, largely after drinks orders were lost in translation and large beers arrived on the table instead of small ones or after nights where the two of us shared a bottle of wine (we usually make a bottle last 2 nights at home, largely because of one the meds I’m on after surviving a stroke…).
Small packs of Wet Wipes did come in handy on a few occasions. The first was after a meal based around lamb cutlets where the only sensible option was to pick the cutlets up in my hands to eat them rather than trying to use a knife and fork.
The second was after a mini-meal of croquettes at a street cafe in Tavira and the third was after stubbing my toe whilst wearing the espadrilles that I’d taken along.
Yes, blood was drawn and yes, I’m on anti-coagulants. Fortunately the wound wasn’t a gusher, but the Wet Wipes did their job when Caroline used them to clean up the mess that had been made.
Owt else? A folder containing the boarding cards, car parking ticket, fast track security booking along with details of Expedia booked airport to hotel and back car transfers and our hotel booking information.
Other items in this folder were copies of our passports, travel insurance details and bus & train timetable printouts too. Had we photocopied twenty pages of guidebook information and taken those with us?
You might think that, but I couldn’t possibly comment!
Poshpacking…
The cloisters at Pousada Convento da Graca, Tavira
Keith Rickaby, Nikon Coolpix S3100
It all began in October last year when Caroline’s workplace approved a week away in March and then Expedia came up with an offer that we couldn’t refuse – flights from our local airport, private transfers from and to Faro airport and a week in a hotel in Tavira on the Algarve.
Not just any hotel you understand, but one that Berlitz Algarve described as “one of the most desirable places to stay on the entire coast” – Pousada Convento da Graca, a converted 16th century convent complete with cloisters and its own church.
We knew that Pousadas had special rates for those of us who are over 55, but as the offer we were made beat a few of the prices we had last year for stays in guest houses or boutique hotels, it would have been madness to turn it down…
Which left a couple of problems.
The first was what to wear during our stay, given that Lonely Planet Portugal‘s comments on the Pousada started with “If you can get past the front door (there’s a bit of an attitude here)”…
The second was packing to cope with any potential dress code, given that we were flying with hand luggage and that our airline – Monarch – had a 10kg weight restriction on hand luggage.
In the end, we needn’t have worried, even though the temperatures encountered during the first full week of March were below expectations after reading the ten day forecasts for Faro and Tavira.
We packed by taking our cue from these forecasts and perceptions based on looking through the photos in the Pousada Convento da Graca section of the website dedicated to the Portuguese Pousadas.
I ended up packing virtually all Rohan kit once more. Four Progress polo shirts, a couple of Stratum long sleeved polos, two Merino t-shirts, two pairs of 2015 Goa trousers, a selection of Cool Silver trunks and a few pairs of M&S silver containing socks.
Wash kit had the usual contents – factor 30 Nivea suncream, disposable razor, King of Shaves shaving oil, Via Sonic battery toothbrush, travel size toothpaste, Lush shower gel, and Sanex roll-on anti-perspirant. Spare shoes? One pair of espadrilles.
Caroline’s choices were somewhat similar and yes, most of it was also from Rohan. Ultra Silver camisoles and briefs, a couple of Serene vests, a brace of Malay tops, a pair of travel linen trousers, a pair of Trailblazer trousers bought during the Rohan sale at Trek & Trail Saltaire and a Malay dress – just in case. Oh, and a couple of Stria long sleeved tops, again just in case.
Our choices coped admirably with both the expected dress codes and the changeable weather conditions encountered. We’d layered up in readiness for the early start to the airport (3am departure from the house with a car thermometer reading – 1C), so these warm layers (Rohan, Peter Storm, Lowe Alpine) came into their own on the cooler nights during our trip.
We didn’t have any problems once we checked into the Pousada or in fitting in whilst wandering around Tavira, eating in family run restaurants such as Bica, Casa Simao and Churrasqueira O Manel or on the local buses and trains used to get us around the Algarve and the ferry used to have a few hours in Spain.
Yes, there was a bit of washing and wearing going on during the week to keep things sweet, but we stayed smart and our bags came in at 8kg each so no worries on the plane!
And we weren’t the only ones using Rohan in the Pousada either as fellow Brits were sporting Rohan trousers or shirts in and around the hotel.
An account of our visit to Tavira will be posted here soon!
Caroline, Sunday morning, 7.15 am, waiting for the car to Faro Airport.
Keith Rickaby, Nikon Coolpix S3100
Screenpacking…
With the after-effects of a head cold hanging around, it’s been time to catch up on some TV and films.
Several of the celebs taking part in The Real Marigold Hotel appeared to be sporting some large bags for their three week stay in India, whilst Michael Portillo still appears to travel with a small wheelie bag…
Even those in The World’s End had cracked the problem as they stashed their bags in the boot of Gary King‘s elderly Ford Granada before tackling The Golden Mile and a loads of Blanks.
Mind you, Pegg and Frost appeared to have large packs in their rented RV in the film Paul – the eponymous alien appeared to be travelling light though by carrying the same kind of bag sported by Neil Oliver of Coast fame).
One programme that I caught on The Travel Channel last week was Around The World In Eighty Days with Michael Palin.
Apart from the dinner suit that was posted home after a rail journey on The Orient Express, Michael’s bag of choice appeared to be a very full Billingham style travel bag.
The journey was however taken in the days before smartphones, dumb-ass phones, tablets, laptops or Kindles and if memory serves me right, Michael was carrying quite a few books with him as he travelled the globe.
Nowadays, I suspect that Michael would be travelling in a much lighter manner, yet still carrying his own stuff, especially as his camera and production crew had their own bags to carry around plus all the technical kit needed to record the images and sounds whilst on the road.
Mind you the crew would now be using the latest broadcast technology to do the same job, so their kit bags and cases would also be smaller, lighter and more manageable…
On a different note though, Jason Bourne appears to travel light, as does the British super spy who has the same initials.
Go back further in television history though and there are a couple of characters that spent three series apparently living out of two pairs of saddlebags in the wild, wild, west.
Who am I talking about? Hannibal Heyes and ‘Kid’ Curry – Alias Smith and Jones of course! Not only did they have the stuff needed for any ranch work, they also managed to pull smart suit and shirt combinations out of the hat on several occasions. Awesome!
wisepacking 
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