9th August

We both had a fantastic sleep………until 3am for me and 4am for Pete.   So we got up at 4.15am and had some tea and toast and caught up with messages and blogging.  Just after 6am we decided it was light enough for a bike ride so retraced our steps from yesterday’s ride but went a bit further this time, stopping at a delicious blackberry bush for an impromptu feed, before heading back to Little Neston for more breakfast with the rest of the household. 

Mmmm yum yum - got my first encounter
with our old friends the stinging nettles due to
my determination to get the best blackberries!

Had a look over Andy’s bike, which dad had got a guy to check out for him the other day. This fella had taken the bike and quoted dad sixty five quid, to put right what was wrong. However, he then comes back with a figure of one hundred and sixty five. I don’t think so…!!

That, however leaves dad with the problem that he had previously….a bike that doesn’t work and he really wants and needs to get out on one and do some training. After taking an unqualified look at the bike, I felt the brakes needed adjusting, but the gears most definitely required checking out.

It was about 10.30am when we eventually piled into Pegs car to take a trip to Mariners Park retirement complex, where Peg and Andy have an apartment.  The complex was set up over a hundred years ago to provide living accommodation for ships captains, but nowadays caters to all forms of mariner, as long as they have twenty years service at sea.  However, they’re not entirely happy there but also realise no 1 Greenfields Drive is getting too big for them so are in the throes of buying another smaller house further along Greenfields Drive.  Always tough moving from the family home where you’ve been so happy for so many years.

Beautiful cycle paths on our doorstep here

From Mariner’s Park we drove under the Mersey `river to Liverpool to visit Terry, who is Jim and Peggy’s brother.  Unfortunately he has liver cancer, which is why Jimmy came over early but he still has his cracking personality and we enjoyed a couple of hours catching up.  In fact it was me who started flagging first, sitting in the early afternoon sunshine so we thought we’d better make a start on our shopping list.

A cardboard castle being built in Liverpool

So Pete, Jimmy and I walked into Liverpool and after a very average lunch and less than average coffee, we headed to Millets, a camping store.  Found a tent for Jimmy virtually as soon as we walked in the door.  No easy task as even though he is only 6ft 2in, he always seems to have trouble fitting into things.  Most tents are 210cm at their widest point, but from experience we have found this to not be long enough when you factor in the sloping sides, so were happy to find one 230cm in length and 120cm in height so he doesn’t have to commando crawl into his tent each night.  And it weighs less than 3kg, although by the time we finished shopping, it probably felt like 30kg – Pete and I both offered to carry it but Jimmy refused.

Checked out Auntie Anne's latest venture

We also picked up a self inflating sleeping mat, a bowl, insect repellent and a tic removal tool, all for less than 100 quid.  We also got some expert advice and tales of tic removal from one of the three assistants we had helping us and enjoyed a good laugh with them.  Then we had a less satisfying experience looking for a new phone for Jimmy, (decided not to buy one), a sim card and package that suited us, (dithered around so much unable to decide and in the end bought a SIM for a quid from a corner shop just before we caught the bus home), and some socks for Jimmy (found some and went to pay at Primark but the queue was so long we put them back on the shelf and left empty-handed).

I struggled to stay awake on the bus and when we eventually walked through the door at Peggy’s we were astonished to see it was 7pm!!  Peggy warmed us up some of last night’s scouse and then I loaded the SIM card into the phone and Pete began calling friends organising the next few days and I checked the emails and loaded the blog.  At 9.30pm we called it quits and went to bed.