Hi everyone,
No video once again but this cough just keeps getting worse - I will get one to you all ASAP though!
Wednesday started off quite slowly despite being woken relatively early by the Sun shining through the curtains - at around 4am! After that it was off to Ashington, about twenty-thirty minutes drive from my grandparents house. The mission - exchange currency, acquire extra cough and hayfever relief and find a Wonder Web type substance to fix my lovely flamboyant, yet fine trousers after the hem started to come away. After a bit of sleuthing we finally found the last item - the Wonder Web - and were able to move on to the next mission: depositing books and cucumber at my aunty's house. Once my Granddad and my missions were complete it was back too Rothbury.
After spending some time catching up with things online off I wandered to the pub to see the family's favourite local barman before I left. What was supposed to be a couple of quick drinks then home for tea turned into over 3 hours in the pub mingling with the locals, being made to try out new cocktails and leaving later than planned feeling mildly tipsy - a good way to end my time in Northumberland though!
On Thursday morning after finally getting my trousers fixed it was time to leave. I got dropped off by my Granddad on the M1 near Chester-lee Street around 10.30am and got a lift straight away from a guy heading down towards Manchester. I never caught the guy's name but he works driving trade plate vans and we sat discussing travel and all sorts of other things including his daughters job as a mortician...good times! It was a pretty good trip down, unfortunately he overshot the services I was aiming for so I cut simply cut across to my next destination - Grimsby. Instead of getting dropped off near Pontefract I ended up in Blythe services.
Now it's times like these when you realise how much travel time you spend in service stations as a hitchhiker. Although luckily I've only had one incident where I've spent more than a couple of hours trying to get a lift out of a service station and that was near the beginning of last year where a friend and I spent six hours trying to get from somewhere in the North of France in the middle of the night - that friend has not hitchhiked since that weekend!
Blythe services are, as expected, just like most other service stations along the motorway and so I thought it would be rather easy to get a lift. I sat outside the main door, thumb out, and and a few people apologised and said they were going the wrong way somebody pointed out that I should be on the other side of the road to get a little way back up North before heading East. The same person showed me where the walkover was and sent me on my way. Unfortunately no one on this side of the road seemed interested in helping at all. About half an hour later however I heard a voice from behind me "Come on then, if you're wanting a lift". It was the guy from the other side of the road! He'd decided to come and check if I'd managed to get a lift and decided that since he had an extra hour before he needed to be back at work he would give me a lift!!
Now I'm pretty sure it takes longer than an hour to get from Blythe to Grimsby and back but regardless it was the best offer I'd had all day. My new friend, Jeff, and I suffered through weather that would be more fitting in the film The Wizard of Oz, other people on the road incapable of driving, and trying to find our way around Grimsby sans Sat Nav but eventually we succeeded! I got to Grimsby just before 3pm to meet Courtney (who basically shares a personality with Rhona).
The rest of the day was spent meeting three other sets of Courtney's family before getting back to hers for dinner and chilling out.
Today we decided to go exploring. Courtney only moved back to Grimsby a couple of weeks ago so it was a tiny bit like the partially-sighted leading the blind but we went down to the sea front at Cleethorpes, got Doughnuts, hung out at the arcade, wandered around the shops and had an awesome afternoon!
No video once again but this cough just keeps getting worse - I will get one to you all ASAP though!
Wednesday started off quite slowly despite being woken relatively early by the Sun shining through the curtains - at around 4am! After that it was off to Ashington, about twenty-thirty minutes drive from my grandparents house. The mission - exchange currency, acquire extra cough and hayfever relief and find a Wonder Web type substance to fix my lovely flamboyant, yet fine trousers after the hem started to come away. After a bit of sleuthing we finally found the last item - the Wonder Web - and were able to move on to the next mission: depositing books and cucumber at my aunty's house. Once my Granddad and my missions were complete it was back too Rothbury.
After spending some time catching up with things online off I wandered to the pub to see the family's favourite local barman before I left. What was supposed to be a couple of quick drinks then home for tea turned into over 3 hours in the pub mingling with the locals, being made to try out new cocktails and leaving later than planned feeling mildly tipsy - a good way to end my time in Northumberland though!
On Thursday morning after finally getting my trousers fixed it was time to leave. I got dropped off by my Granddad on the M1 near Chester-lee Street around 10.30am and got a lift straight away from a guy heading down towards Manchester. I never caught the guy's name but he works driving trade plate vans and we sat discussing travel and all sorts of other things including his daughters job as a mortician...good times! It was a pretty good trip down, unfortunately he overshot the services I was aiming for so I cut simply cut across to my next destination - Grimsby. Instead of getting dropped off near Pontefract I ended up in Blythe services.
Now it's times like these when you realise how much travel time you spend in service stations as a hitchhiker. Although luckily I've only had one incident where I've spent more than a couple of hours trying to get a lift out of a service station and that was near the beginning of last year where a friend and I spent six hours trying to get from somewhere in the North of France in the middle of the night - that friend has not hitchhiked since that weekend!
Blythe services are, as expected, just like most other service stations along the motorway and so I thought it would be rather easy to get a lift. I sat outside the main door, thumb out, and and a few people apologised and said they were going the wrong way somebody pointed out that I should be on the other side of the road to get a little way back up North before heading East. The same person showed me where the walkover was and sent me on my way. Unfortunately no one on this side of the road seemed interested in helping at all. About half an hour later however I heard a voice from behind me "Come on then, if you're wanting a lift". It was the guy from the other side of the road! He'd decided to come and check if I'd managed to get a lift and decided that since he had an extra hour before he needed to be back at work he would give me a lift!!
Now I'm pretty sure it takes longer than an hour to get from Blythe to Grimsby and back but regardless it was the best offer I'd had all day. My new friend, Jeff, and I suffered through weather that would be more fitting in the film The Wizard of Oz, other people on the road incapable of driving, and trying to find our way around Grimsby sans Sat Nav but eventually we succeeded! I got to Grimsby just before 3pm to meet Courtney (who basically shares a personality with Rhona).
The rest of the day was spent meeting three other sets of Courtney's family before getting back to hers for dinner and chilling out.
Today we decided to go exploring. Courtney only moved back to Grimsby a couple of weeks ago so it was a tiny bit like the partially-sighted leading the blind but we went down to the sea front at Cleethorpes, got Doughnuts, hung out at the arcade, wandered around the shops and had an awesome afternoon!
We might be going out in a little bit so I'll round up today's post with
a few photos as usual and next time I speak to you all I should be in
France - see you there!
Cleethorpes Pier
Demonstrating my gypsy ways
Courtney at Ross Castle on the Seafront
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