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European Adventure 2017
It has been a wet old day from start to finish which we think is the first time that has happened during our entire trip! Not bad eh! We left our pretty little valley camp site and headed down to Carlisle. On the way we stopped off at Lockerbie which was the unfortunate site of a plane crash in 1988 after it was blown up by Libyan forces. There was a memorial to those lost that day, in the Remembrance Garden next to the church but just as we were going to get out for a wander to find it about eight cars pulled into the carpark. As it was a very small carpark and we nearly filled one end of it we decided to move on before we got jammed in. There was nowhere else to park unfortunately so we didn't get to see whatever there is there to remember that dreadful day. With so much open countryside in that area what an awful coincidence that it should drop out of the sky over the only built up area for miles killing 11 on the ground. A tragic waste of life. Onwards to Carlisle and my cousin Mary and her friends Sharon, Lance and their son Adam were arriving at the train station at about the same time as we were there. What a dreadful place to attempt to park! The five of us decided to head off to the Carlisle Castle car park which catered for motorhomes and then we wandered into town for lunch. It was good to catch up with Mary again before we left and we had a good laugh over things that had happened recently. After we left them to get their train back home we had a look at the map and decided heading east looked more attractive weather wise. So off we headed to Darlington in Durham. There was a Britstop in the area called the Foresters Arms which described itself as a very friendly local pub. We had heard that before and it hadn't quite lived up to its billing, however this time all the signs pointed to a good result. The sign on the door said 'The Warmest of Welcomes' and indeed it was. We learned that the manager, Kate had taken over the pub six years ago when it was not a very nice place. There was some fighting and a lot of bad language. She told them that if they wanted to act like children she would treat them as such and so she instigated the 'naughty step' outside where patrons who behave badly are given the option to be barred or be sent to cool their heels on the naughty step without their drink for five minutes. There is also a swearing jar where various unacceptable words have a monetary value and the proceeds are given to charity. Soon she lost the patrons who wouldn't play ball and gained a stream of families and members of the community wanting a nice place to spend an evening. Consequently the pub now boasts three years running a top three finish in the national Country Pub of the Year competition. We chatted to a couple of interesting chaps at the bar who were covered in tattoos. One was a mural artist, believe it or not by the name of Dan Walls, who also dabbles in body art (tattooing). We viewed his mural work from pictures on his cellphone and his talent just blew us away. It is available to view on www.illuminationwallart.co.uk. It was a very pleasant and entertaining evening with a most hospitable host.
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