Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Towards York

We had another look at Crowle this morning before we left the area, but couldn’t get into the Library because it didn’t open till 2 pm, and couldn’t get into the church because there was no local vicar any more. Did get into the Regen shop (a kind of charity shop, though I’m not clear what group it was supporting). Picked up another couple of pair of cufflinks to add to the dozen or more I’ve bought since I came here. One of these was of Big Ben (though it took the shopkeeper and me a while to work it out).
Thought we’d take a look at Scunthorpe, which is close by. It’s been highly redeveloped in the Centre, with new shops and pedestrian malls everywhere. We thought that was all there was, but some of the older buildings remain. Plenty of op shops, of course, but not a lot else that was exciting.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned a chain of shops over here called Poundland. We first came across one of these in Kentish Town, (in London) and they have a remarkable variety of goods, many of them top quality. How they manage to get to sell them at a pound a piece is something they know and I don’t, but they’re obviously very successful. They’re nothing like the $2 shops in NZ, which mostly seem to sell el cheapo stuff.
Anyway, after an all-you-can-eat lunch for £4.95 each in a Chinese restaurant, we moved on towards York. We haven’t quite got to York yet, because by the time we got here it was getting late enough, and we wanted to get our tent up somewhere. The place we went to first said it was booked out, although there was little evidence of it at that point; they helpfully sent us next door (there were at least three camping grounds in a row) and the man there led us on his bicycle to our pitch which is next to the river that flows through the strangely-named village (another dormitory one, I‘d guess) of Acaster Malbis - sounds like some sort of odd wine, doesn‘t it? Seems as though the Acaster part relates to the word, Castra, which means a Roman camp. Those Romans must have been everywhere...!
Before we’d got the tent up completely we were visited by a duck and her family of eight ducklings - nearly full grown. They even made their way into the tent checking out whether we had any food hanging around. Bloomin’ cheek.
Celia has had a toothache for the last few days, and we’re definitely going to have to find a dentist tomorrow: she won’t be able to carry on treating it with Panadol.

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