Days 24-27: Darlington

We're on the train to London now, so time for an update of our few days in Darlington.

After spending a whole day doing nothing when we arrived, we also tok it easy sarting off the next morning, before walking into town with Gaynor or a spot of shopping and lunch. It was a lovely day, so we sat outside in a cafe in the town square. It was really weird hearing people around us talking English after hearing French for so long - but it still sounded quite foreign as this is the region of the strong Geordie accent.

In Darlington, the sales were in full swing, so after a long lunch, Gaynor gave us tips on what shops might be the ones for us and she headed back to pick Riley up from school and we made a few more local purchases. No shoes but. In fact, no shoes have been purchased since the ones I found in Bordeaux - how can that be?! in Darlington, there seems to be a fondness for stripper shoes - very high and either bondage buckles and straps or covered in more bling than Liberace's fingers.

We had booked a nice restaurant in town and Harry's brother to baby-sit on Friday eveing, but sadly there was a ftal accident on the motorway that Harry was returning from Birmingham on and he was stuck there, unable to move for 3 hours. By the time the traffic started to move slowly again, we all agreed it was a better idea for him to return to Birmingham for the night as he was really tired. So the 3 of us (dressed in our new gear) headed out anyways and had a great time. The food was fab, there was a piano-player right by our table who took requests (and was happy for me to sing along, although Gaynor wasn't quite so thrilled with that) and the Scottish waiter was very impressed that Brett went to school with Germaine from the Flight of the Concords - which he didn't of course, naughty...

Harry was back early the next morning and we all set out for a trip to a seaside town called Saltburn. Everyone here keeps telling us we have been so lucky with the weather and it was certainly another beautiful day. It makes you think about what you take for granted though, they are excited to have 3 days in a row of the weather we expect as normal in our summers.

Saltburn was lovely, the town at the top of cliffs and the beach below with a pier, donkey rides and striped deck chairs for hire. So very cliched and so very cute. We took the bush walk through the park down the hill to the beach, which was golden sand. Interestingly though, after being quite bemused by the clearing of seaweed from the beach in Les Sables d'Olonne, we saw here what the beach looks like when this isn't done and I definitely think the French way is better. Of course we had to have fish, chips, mushy peas and curry sauce for lunch, but jeepers! we were quite unprepared for the mountain of food that arrived as our order! After eating about half of it we headed to the beach where Riley had a donkey ride, but had to abandon the anticipated walk as the tide was coming in very fast. After a jaunt down the pier, we caught the wee cable-car to the top of the cliff and headed home.

Later on Harry fired up the barbeque and we sat outside in the English evening, gathering our strength for the scheduled evening's activity - Gaynor had a new Wii game called "Just Dance". It is kind of like Singstar, only you have to do dance moves rather than sing and it was a hoot! Really good exercise too - might be better value than a gym membership, it's certainly way more fun lol.

Brett here - unfortunately Barb has started getting a bit dizzy with the movement of the train so I'll finish off for the last day........After another slow morning, we all headed out to Harry's business where he keeps the motor home that he uses for his endurance motorcoss events and where Zach keeps the motorcycle he uses for trial biking. Actually, 'motorhome' is probably understating it a little - it was more like a five star hotel on wheels. Anyway, Zach showed us some of his riding skills in field close by (pretty impressive considering there's no seat on the motorcycle) and then it was Barb's turn. After getting a bit of instruction, she was charging around the paddock without any problem. After circling on the flat for a bit, Barb felt she was ready for something a little more challenging and steered toward what she thought was a gentle slope. Unfortunately, it turned out to be more of a sharp drop rather than a gentle decline. Rather than plummet down the bank, Barb decided to just exit the motorcycle which meant that she simply disappeared from view for the rest of us watching. Fortunately she wasn’t hurt but there is a rather large bruise now which looks like it may take a few days to fade.

After getting back home, we settled in to watch England play Germany in the football world cup. Before the game, we noticed that England flags had been put up all over the place (flying out of car windows, hanging from buildings, etc) but these seemed to mysteriously disappear after a convincing win by Germany. Today, all of the papers are running the loss as the front page story and the manager is likely to be dismissed. Oh well, worse things have happened……..

To finish the day, Barb and Gaynor decided that they should watch Sex & The City 2 together before it stops playing at the cinemas (they watched Sex & The City 1 together the last time we were here). Needless to say, Harry and I stayed at home and had a few glasses of wine – Sarah Jessica Parker isn’t my cup of tea really. Anyway, Barb and Gaynor were pleased they went and it means that I don’t have to join Barb watching it when we get back home.

We’re about to reach London so we should have some more adventures to share soon.