Bridlington is so bracing!

Last weekend my sister, Mia, came up to visit. As always it was great to see her. Having visitors is a great excuse to get out and about and be a tourist in and around the area where you live! We went to Sewerby Hall in Bridlington. It’s a majestic old house, fantastically situated overlooking the East Coast cliffs and out to the North Sea. Better still, entrance to the house was free in November (there goes that favourite Yorkshire word again ‘free’!). They also have a mini zoo, so we excitedly rushed around looking at all the colourful birds, goats, rabbits, llamas, wallabys, monkeys, etc. There was one cage which supposedly had some sort of exotic striped mouse from South America. Despite thorough investigation of the cage, we decided that there was nothing in it apart from some twigs, leaves and straw, and that in fact it was a scam to make a disused cage appear more interesting, and that the exotic striped mice were probably still in South America! Of course, the penguins were our favourite! We could have just reached over the fence and picked one up. (Mia - how big is your bag???)

After visiting the house and zoo, we took a walk along the cliff and then down to the beach. There was lots of seaweed around the small rock pools, and Mia trampled through popping the seaweed pods like it was a giant bubblewrap. What fun!

Remember Remember the 5th of November

I love fireworks! Last night I went with my family to Beverley Westwood to watch the fireworks display. How do they know what the fireworks are all going to look like when they explode, and how do they get all the colours in there?? Ok, so I’m sure there are lots of people (scientists and boring people) who could explain it to me….but it does looks so magical, I would prefer to think of it as just magic.

The display we used to go to at Cleves School in Weybridge had become so spectacular and was fantastically choreographed and set to music that I don’t think it could be topped. However, the Beverley display was free (Yorkshire people love that word ‘free’) to enter (donations encouraged by Lions – not real lions as that would be dangerous and no-one would want to get close to give them any money – but the type of Lions that are part of a club and wear little metal badges and do things to raise money for charity).

We then went back to mum’s house afterwards for the traditional bonfire feast of baked potatoes, fat sausages and baked beans. Mum is having a few problems understanding some words, so I wrote down all the things needed so she could refer to it and remember. I added grated cheese to the list. That caused a few problems! However, she managed it all and then surprised us with some mini pancakes also. Er…yes….we were all very confused as to where the pancakes fitted in to the meal? Bizarre fact No. 1. Nevertheless a good time was had by all.

When Liddi and I got back home, we parked near the beck (a small, fairly fast running chalk stream which runs at the end of our road). Liddi pointed out that there was a cat in the beck, and I hardly dared look as I expected to see a slumped, lifeless body that some un-caring former cat owner had dumped. Instead, there was a very fluffy tabby cat, sitting upright in the middle of the water, in the dark, staring carefully into the water that was running past. Was he sitting on a rock? I don’t know. Possibly. Was he looking for fish? No idea, but you don’t see many fish and it was very dark. So why was he there? Again, no idea. Bizarre fact No. 2. I blame global warming. Well, everyone else seems to be blaming global warming for lots of bizarre things happening in the world – weren’t these bizarre things too??