10th August

Although Julia was up early again, I slept through until 6.30 am and felt very refreshed for it. Julia was downstairs in the lounge finishing the blog and catching up with messages when I turned up and we began the day with a nice breakfast, before having a Facetime chat with Brody and then Kate.

The Wirral Way on the way to West Kirby

About 10 we set off along the Wirral Way to West Kirby to go and catch up with Alexis.  We set off in the sunshine having just put the washing on the line, but it wasn’t long before we noticed an ominous black cloud approaching from our left over the Welsh hills.  It’s a truly beautiful ride along this disused railway line, travelling through the Wirral Country Park and it is really well utilised by cyclists and walkers/dog owners alike. The rain by now was coming in over the river Dee, although we were managing to outrun it. We were riding into a slight headwind which was keeping the rain behind us.  We felt a few spots of rain and increased the tempo in an attempt to outrun the deluge coming our way.  We’d no sooner arrived at Alexis’s with hugs all round and been ushered inside when the rain hit for about half an hour.  Once it cleared we walked into West Kirby, stopping briefly at the bike shop to buy a lock and then onto Tanskys, a cafe/restaurant that we’ve been to with Leccy before, where we spent the next couple of hours chatting and catching up, before heading back to her flat. 

Leaving Leccys place we headed back along the cycle path, now bathed in sunshine, back to Little Neston. Peg and Andy had taken off to Birkenhead for the day, whilst dad had taken off to Liverpool to see brother Terry. As we didn’t have a key, we shed some clothing and lay out on a couple of loungers in the sun. Fine, while the sun was out, but occasionally it disappeared behind a cloud and with the breeze it suddenly went very cold.

Peg, Andy and Dad all arrived home within a couple of minutes of each other and we sat around talking for a while before Ju and I went to get ready to go out.  The two Jane’s and Joanne picked us up at 7.15 and we all went for a nostalgic dinner at our old hang-out, the Ring o’ Bells.  Good food and good chat all night and then back to Peg’s for some sleep about 11pm.