Dad’s Birthday Travels

Just this weekend was my dad’s birthday (age withheld), and so we decided to head off out to do a few bits and bobs between my mum having to sleep and work night shifts. First up was a visit to our favourite local chippy for a good old fashioned fish and chips, Grandma Pollard’s in Todmorden.

Just in case having fish and chips couldn’t get any more twee, this chippy has an old bus parked up around the back that you can enjoy your meal on, and so we scrambled aboard and perched on one of the tiny little pews to enjoy the greasy goodness.

After this we jumped back in the car and drove up to a spot I haven’t been to for many years, Hollingworth Lake, just over the border in Greater Manchester. We arrived in what felt like ;the downpour of the century, and so didn’t have the chance to grab an ice cream, opting rather to have a quick nosey before heading back to Burnley. Our trip back was interrupted though by quite an impressive sight – a huge bright double rainbow!

I seem to have managed to miss out the second and slightly more faded rainbow, but if you look in the top left corner of the image below you should be able to just make it out!

After dropping my mum off at work for the night, me and my dad shot over to Yorkshire and enjoyed a lovely evening of tapas and sangría at The Tapas Bar in Todmorden. The quaint little bar served us a variety of delicious food – we both slept well after having filled ourselves up with seafood, chorizo and pinchos!

On Sunday my mum was once again busy sleeping after working through the night, so it was up to me and my dad to get out of the house and do a little something to celebrate. We decided to head for Lytham on the east coast of Lancashire, taking our cameras along to see what we could see and hopefully have an ice cream (I really wanted an ice cream this weekend).

After parking up and wandering to the seafront, we stumbled on a collection of rusty old machinery and boats which had seemingly been abandoned along the banks of the Ribble Estuary. I climbed over the railing along the promenade and headed in to investigate…

The line of rusting wrecks seemed to stretch on forever.

The line of rusting wrecks seemed to stretch on forever, so I began to wander towards a couple of beached boats closer to the water’s edge. I was soon however slipping all over the shop on the wet mud, and at one point nearly ended up falling on a stranded jellyfish – disaster averted.

As the rusty collection came to an end, I passed by a good few stricken boats which had long been forgotten about. Ever inquisitive, I stuck my camera in some of the windows and got a little shutter happy.

Shortly thereafter I heard some strange engine noises coming from dry land, and so I headed back up the slope to return to the footpath. I found myself suddenly walking through a makeshift car park on a large patch of usually empty grass, and it soon become obvious that we’d stumbled upon some kind of event.

It soon became apparent that we’d unwittingly come along on the weekend when they were celebrating the Lytham 1940s Wartime festival! The attendees wandering around in period costume gave the game away, but I soon came across a couple of Spitfires which I thought was pretty cool – I recently watched the film Dunkirk and it was quite breathtaking.

After a quick snack by a recreation Soviet army camp, we stuck our noses in the Lifeboat Museum for a quick look around and then headed into the town centre to grab a bite to eat and do a little window shopping.

Full of dried apricots and Pringles, we eventually headed back to the car and I drove us home – 43 miles and I didn’t hit the curb once. Success.

Oh yeah, and because of the long queues due to the big event in Lytham, I didn’t even get my ice cream. Gutted.