Nantwich
My birthday this year happened to fall on a Saturday, so we decided to join our motorhoming pals, Jeeves and Michelle (and Layla) for a weekend of fun in Nantwich, around mid-way between where we each live in the UK. Arriving after dusk on Friday evening, having had a difficult journey, we stayed at The Willows Touring Park, which is well organised with good facilities. Travelling South on the M6 seems to be becoming increasingly difficult, especially on a Friday afternoon.
Taxis appear to be a rarety in Nantwich and Jeeves could not book one until well after our lunchtime table booking at The Vine Inn, so we travelled into town in Homer, Jeeves and Michelle’s motorhome, where some further difficulties were experienced finding somewhere to park. Most town centre car parks are not well set up for motorhome parking and it was not surprising that on a Saturday, so close to Christmas, most were crammed, such that it would have been almost impossible to park a razor blade. After a couple of town circuits, Homer was left on a car park near the lake, about half-way from the site into the town centre.
This blog post seems to be developing into a catalogue of misery and unfortunately, the weather was not kind to us either. Although Nantwich is a pleasant town with many old and interesting buildings and there was a Christmas market on, it did rather put a dampener on things.
On the plus side, the pub was warm and welcoming and the meal was pleasant enough, even though we had to wait a long time for it. The wait did enable us to enjoy a couple of pints and we were able to watch Wolves play Manchester City on TV. Further misery was heaped on Jeeves and Michelle as Wolves lost 1-0 following a very controvertial penalty goal with Wolves already down to 10 men.
Celebrations continued later, back in Fufu where we enjoyed some of Alison’s excellent cake and glasses of fizz.
Knutsford
Sunday saw us visiting Dagfields Antique Centre with Jeeves and Michelle before heading generally in a homeward direction. As the weather was much milder and drier, we chose to visit Knutsford on our way home.
Knutsford is an intersting town, situated in a very afluent part of Cheshire. This is reflected in the number of high class shops to be found. Estate agent windows do not have many properties for sale below £1-2 million and the number of Porche and other premium cars to be seen, also tell a story.
The town is quite old and has an interesting history, being on the edge of the Tatton Estate.
The Gaskell Memorial Tower, dedicated to Elizabeth Gaskell, the 19th century author, dominates King Street, one of the main shopping streets in the town. Elizabeth Gaskell is also commemorated by Manchester Metropolital University who have named one of their buidings “Elizabeth Gaskell House”.
At the opposite corner of the buidling to the tower, there is a column which lists all reigns/dynasties in English history:
At the far end of King Street are “The Ruskin Rooms” which housed a “Welcome Club” providing rest and recuperation for American Army Officers of the Third Army during WW2. A blue plaque states this was opened by General Patton on the 25th April 1944.
"See-u-Later" 