Bouncing Back to Burnley

Over the past few weeks England has been mysteriously graced with some lovely sunny and warm spells, and throughout this time I’ve been having to nip back home to Burnley every now and then for one reason or another. At one point Kevin came to visit, and besides taking him to see the huge Tesco Extra and Home Bargains, we went for a lovely wander over the rolling hills of Hurstwood.

Is this the mythical entrance to Wonderland?

During our walk we encountered the World War II era bunker which has sat alongside Gorple Road and fascinated me for as long as I can remember. Once we’d confirmed that there weren’t any sheep taking residence inside, we had a snoop around inside.

I left quite intrigued as I’d never done any research about the purpose of this bunker, so that evening I did a bit of online reading and it turns out that it was built as part of the Starfish site programme during World War II. These were large-scale decoys which used fires to simulate cities, with the hope that German planes would drop bombs on these rural sites rather than on the cities themselves. The bunkers were built as observation/control centres for the operation. Pretty cool to discover that a bite of history like this has been sitting on my doorstep for all these years!

Outside of this I had a lovely stroll with my friend Amber, and was drafted in to make some tapas-style food for the rest of my family as my sister was visiting from university to do a bit of revision in the sun. I eventually made some chorizo in red wine, stuffed courgettes, patatas bravas and a chorizo selection – all of which went down a treat with some homemade lemonade!

Now I’m back in Burnley again, but this time for less interesting activities – I have to take some headshots for my portfolio and clear out my room ready to combine the contents of 4 years of living in two different places. Quite the challenge!