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Manchester Day 9
Got up a little earlier than the last couple of days (thankfully had a early night last night). We walked over to the rental car place and picked up a Vauxhall Mokka (a nice little 4-door manual transmission) and headed north to the little village of Rimington. It took a little while to get used to driving on the left side of the road and thankfully there were not a lot of cars out early. It took us about an hour to get there with most of the trip on the motorway. The last part of the trip was on these narrow (enough room for one car!) lanes that had us all "white-knuckling" it a little bit. We arrived in Rimington, parked the car, and explored. Rimington is in the middle of farm country and is situated not far from Pendle Hill (which is not only famous for witches that were caught there in the 17th century, but also as the site where George Fox had a vision that led to the creation of the Quakers). We walked a little bit into one of the rolling sheep pastures and then into the village itself. We came upon a very nice soccer field and realized, to our delight (actually, just Luke and mine), that Rimington has a football team, Rimington F.C.! They even had a game scheduled for 2:00 PM today. We got some details from Phil, the very nice groundskeeper/everyman for the club. We resolved to come back at 2:00 for the match. On our way back to our car, we stopped at the only business in town, Cosgroves fine women's wear. The saleswomen were so friendly and told us a little more about the town. They also told us about the village of Downham and its pub, the Assheton Arms. Downham was about a 10 minute drive from Rimington and it was quite possible the "quaintest" place I have ever seen. We had an excellent lunch at the pub and learned that Lord and Lady Clitheroe own pretty much the whole village and half of Pendle Hill. Their manor house is in Downham. It is a real life "Downton Abbey!" We explored Downham a little more and then went back to Rimington for the match. The home team lost 4-0 to Steeton F.C., but it was still fun to watch. We even got to meet the head coach and Luke got to try on a jersey. It was a beautiful day so Amy and Ellie found some quiet spots to read their books. It wasn't that late when the match ended so we decided to finish our adventure in Clitheroe, the largest town in the region. There was a big food fair winding down as we got there and there is an old castle on the hill. We walked up the hill and hung out at the castle (and it's beautiful views) and then got some cheap meat pies at a food stand that was trying to get rid of them. The highlight of the ride home was me zoning out and heading into the right lane. Thankfully, I had three people in the car politely remind me that I am supposed to be driving on the left (NOT!). We had quite a bit of traffic on the way home, but made it safely back to Manchester with the car unscathed. We had dinner at the Italian restaurant in the big mall, with a waiter who initially though we were Norwegian. When we told him we were from Minnesota, he mentioned the Twin Cities, Duluth, and Bemidji. It seems he knows quite a bit about Minnesota from the TV show "Fargo." We called it a (busy) day and went back to the hotel.
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