{"id":681,"date":"2018-10-14T14:48:39","date_gmt":"2018-10-14T14:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=681"},"modified":"2026-08-18T21:17:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T21:17:26","slug":"north-country-2018-03","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=681","title":{"rendered":"NORTH COUNTRY 2018. 03"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of you identified the errant spelling of the “Euro-Traveller” series.\u00a0 However, having consulted page 3331 of 3742 in the “Shorter” Oxford English Dictionary…<\/p>\n

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… I find that “travelers” can be spelt with either one or two Ls.\u00a0 So, no problem after all!<\/p>\n

While staying with Rod and Marion, I read an old letter to the Daily Telegraph in 2011 by someone by the name of Joe Gibson Dawson.\u00a0 He used the brilliant expression – “A fain\u00e9ant band of contriculators”.\u00a0 “Fain\u00e9ant” is a well recognised word meaning (as I expect you will know) – “A person who does nothing, an idler or an inactive official”.\u00a0 “Contriculators”, on the other hand, appears to be a constructed word based on “Con” and “Tricks”.\u00a0\u00a0I can only imagine he was referring to EU officials at that time.\u00a0 I’m determined to get this expression into my text.\u00a0 I may need some help with this because I’m ruling out using it to describe the current “band” of EU mandarins.\u00a0 Anyway…<\/p>\n

We stayed the Monday night at the Punchbowl pub in Lapworth, near Solihull.\u00a0 I mention this specifically because it was really good.\u00a0 Highly recommended!<\/p>\n

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We even had the bar to ourselves at breakfast time!<\/p>\n

There’s a lot of moving around on this trip.\u00a0 Lots of activity – and not much time to keep up!\u00a0 It’s Tuesday today and that means the caravan show at the NEC (Birmingham).\u00a0 All day!\u00a0 We were waiting in the atrium outside the show for over half an hour before opening time!\u00a0 And we were still looking at caravans seven hours later!<\/p>\n

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But we didn’t buy one, although we did bother a few of the hundreds of salesmen at the event!<\/p>\n

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So OMEHO 2 (Our Mobile European Home number 2) survives to serve another year.\u00a0 Always assuming that the replacement of the whole rear panel goes according to plan…<\/p>\n

After the show, having located our car in the massive sea of other peoples’ cars we headed off North.\u00a0 Slowly.\u00a0 Extremely slowly!\u00a0 The first 18 miles took us best part of two hours.\u00a0 Rush hour on the M6 is a battle in its own right.\u00a0 The junction of the M5 and M6 is always a virtual carpark.\u00a0 But when there’s an accident which blocks the road immediately after that point, it becomes a fully qualified picnic area.\u00a0 We got the “rush-hour-with-accident” version.<\/span><\/p>\n

Actually, related to this, today’s joke is a short one.<\/p>\n

The M6<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I told you it was short joke.\u00a0 And, sadly, not a funny one!\u00a0 At the outset, there was the disastrous accident which had really spoilt one family’s day and annoyed another 60,000 motorists.\u00a0 And when we did eventually get into third gear, we discovered that great sections of the road are being widened to make way for four-lane picnic areas.\u00a0 This is being done under the guise of converting the motorway into a “Smart Motorway”.\u00a0 Presumably this is so they can keep changing the speed limits with the combined aim of improving traffic flow and increasing revenue from fines applied to motorists more intent on self-preservation than checking the speed limit every two minutes.\u00a0 (Clearly the latter is expected to pay for the \u00a3274 million investment!)\u00a0 One section being up-graded was an exasperating 19 miles long.\u00a0 With narrow lanes and a 50 mph limit enforced by the dreaded (but effective) average speed cameras.\u00a0 The 108 miles took us nearly three days to complete – well it seemed about that long anyway!\u00a0 And so we reached Preston (give or take five miles).<\/p>\n

The Hallmark Hotel has the great advantage for travellers (and travelers) of being located about two and a half metres from junction 28 of the motorway. Well less than 200 metres, anyway. Its other main selling point is that it’s cheap!\u00a0 I suppose it also has the additional advantage of getting us to within an hour’s drive of the Lake District – our next target.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, after filling up with fuel at non-Lake-District-prices we drove to meet cousin Mary – Contrary Mary – at Beetham garden centre.<\/p>\n

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Now we have no need to visit New England to see the “Fall colours”, and, absolutely coincidentally, their tea shop does sell amazingly enormous cream-plastered gooey meringues.\u00a0 I do like co-incidences of that sort!\u00a0 Three coffees, one meringue and three spoons!\u00a0 Excellent.\u00a0 Not a calorie in sight (after we had finished!).<\/p>\n

Onwards and upwards.\u00a0 rom Windermere up to Kirkstone Pass…<\/p>\n

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… and down to Patterdale, Glenridding and our hotel.\u00a0 The Inn On The Lake.\u00a0 The “Lake” in question being Ullswater.<\/p>\n

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The view from our room and that from our dining table.<\/p>\n

Tomorrow is another day filled with the promise of walking in the fells – perhaps better descibed as “walking, looking up at the fells”!\u00a0 At least we don’t have to face travelling anywhere via Paddington or Victoria stations in London.\u00a0 All trains seem to have been cancelled there this morning.\u00a0 And we can avoid the M6 with its attendant traffic jams and the M40 with foreigners towing caravans the wrong way for 8 miles.\u00a0 Not to mention the M4 and M56 closed by other serious accidents.<\/p>\n

I blame Brexit negotiations…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of you identified the errant spelling of the “Euro-Traveller” series.\u00a0 However, having consulted page 3331 of 3742 in the “Shorter” Oxford English Dictionary… … I find that “travelers” can be spelt with either one or two Ls.\u00a0 So, no… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-north-country-2018"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8123,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/8123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}