April 14th (Mon)

I'm up bright and early as we are now officially on our hols. The kids are up before nine and we set off around ten. Nice to see the folks again. It is a shame they are so far away I'd like to see them more.

Emsy is navigating, but it's not her fault that we take the wrong road coming out of Newark. The problem is compounded as we try to get back on track and meet a police roadblock which sends us on a tour of some reasonably attractive Lincolnshire countryside. Not a lot of that to be found! Thinking about it, we are probably in Notts by this stage.

The scenery gets progressively more northern as we venture towards Sheffield, with the occasional pit wheel commemorating now defunct collieries, and still rarer, a working mine.

We get to the steel capital well behind schedule and things get no better as we try to pick our way through the city to find Snake Pass.

The A57 runs out in the middle of the city and it takes us half an hour to find it by a process of elimination.

I think of the city of Sheffield as I visited it with Dad in the mid sixties. Along with Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, this was a filthy, grimy place, where thick soot inches thick clung to almost every wall and roof. Industrial chimneys belched more smoke into the foul smelling atmosphere. So what does Sheffield resemble today? Penzance, Brighton, Norwich, Lincoln, Chester,Dundee or Belfast. The same crappy 70's leisure centres, the same square boxes hiding away the grandeur of the Victorian town centre, and the identical collection of high street chains stores.

We find our way through eventually, despite an almost total lack of signposts for our route, and head out onto the moors which are a lift to the most addled of spirits. The sun, though never warm, blazes over the rugged and barren scenery.

Needing the bog, we stop at a pub about halfway from Sheffield to Manchester and look out over a splendid reservoir. The arches of a road bridge peek out but a few yards above the water level. In the pub is a picture of the same bridge prior to the flooding of the valley. The arches are huge, at least a hundred feet high.

We get lost again in Glossop, but eventually find our way back out onto the Moors and towards Padfield, where the Peel Arms is soon located. We used to know this pub, and it's convivial Irish landlord Dennis and his wife Viv, very well. We spent a few footy weekends here, and would walk on the Moors on the following Sunday, with very sore heads.

I'd shown Emsy the video I took here nearly fifteen years ago, when H was pregnant with Daniel. The pub is stone built and has hole in the stonework which is just large enough for an adult to squeeze through. In the video Alan Sharps had made it through easily. A few years earlier I had also passed through and decided to repeat the feat. A big mistake! I was wedged solid for about seven minutes, unable to move forward or back. I can still recall the controlled panic, and it was reinforced watching the DVD. Needless to say Emsy is dead keen to try.

Dennis is there no longer. The new patron gives as a civil, though hardly effusive welcome. Dennis died a few years back, it transpires. Yes, you can still go through the hole. I tell Emsy she must first eat her lunch.

H is apparently about 20 minutes away, and it is last orders for lunch. I order lunch for 5. Dan and Emsy are puzzled. What they don't know is that H is arriving with Emsy's mate Florence as a surprise.

When they do enter the pub Emsy's face is a picture. They hug like long parted lovers. A lovely scene. Emsy slips easily through the hole in the wall but can't persuade Flo to join her. Don't even bother wondering if myself, H or Daniel tried it!

We get into our respective cars and head for Fleetwood. The journey is marked by an astonishing hail storm on the motorway. I am seriously worried that the windscreen might break at one stage so fierce is the bombardment.

We arrive at the camp to a cheery welcome, but a fairly dismal landscape. The land must be reclaimed from the sea as the ground is sandy soft. Consequently concrete has been allowed unhindered access. The caravans are much closer together than on our last such adventure, at Mullion. Around the concrete blocks on which they are sited had been spread concrete aggregate. Lovely.
We settle into the caravan. It's perfectly adequate, though not as nice as it's cornish counterpart. The two girls are wildly excited though. Dan just bemoans the enforced separation from World of Warcraft.
We decide to go into Blackpool to eat. We think the buzz of a seaside resort coming into season will be the fillip we need to get things buzzing. It'd be hard to be more wrong.
The drive takes about half an hour, and it is like a bloody ghost town, only most of the ghosts have taken the night off. Every pub is empty, row after row of B&Bs stand, clearly empty, and with a kind of pathetic triumph of hope over expectation, a light is placed on a table top in each front window in a desperate attempt to entice the weary traveller. They ain't here though. It transpires that the early Easter has seriously messed up the start of the season, and the place is almost deserted. We worry that the Pleasure Beach may not be open, but when we stumble across an empty Pizza Hut we are reassured that it is open during the day time. The girls munch on pizza and chicken wings in the back of the car, whilst the rest of us hunt down an open curry house spotted earlier. Hols are hols, but Mondays are Mondays are curry night is curry night!
It is a nice, friendly establishment. Empty of course, but the prices are more than reasonable, they are cheap! emboldened by this we order, and rather than go to the pub next door for a drink, we have a Cobra apiece and order two more to take away.
Big mistake. The food prices may be northern, but the beer is very much south east, and the bill escalates t0 £35. Hmmm.
The meal isn't great when we get it home, and salt is the predominant taste. Still, I'll be home by Friday!