Ryanair fly from the airport in Västerås, so we took advantage of their flights to Stanstead-London (return flight for including 20kg luggage was under AU$200 for the two of us!). We had been shown the “50p flights” video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CoJEyW8hqrg) but in reality it all worked smoothly and with no surprises.

From Stanstead we headed North and spent a couple of days with my cousin Duncan near Leicester.  We enjoyed some of the local attractions including the Space Centre, which has some fine displays of space travel artifacts and historical details. Moon landings don’t seem so long ago, but the first was nearly 50 years ago.

We also went on some walks including to Foxton Locks. These are a marvel of engineering, built in the early 1800s to answer the challenge of a 23 metre height difference between two canal systems. There are 2 banks of 5 lock gates, and it takes canal boats a little over 1 h to pass through.

Around 1900 they built an inclined plane system which lifted/descended pairs of barges using steam power in about 10 minutes, considerably speeding transport of goods along the canals. Today the inclined plane is in ruins, though the locks are still working and carrying many (recreational) boats each day.

From Leicester we headed south through sometimes heavy rain to visit Jill’s cousin Robert and Sally near Southampton. It was good to share some time with them, and to explore the local sights. We spend one day in the Purbeck area.Corfe Castle sits on a small hill, beside a small town of the same name. It was built by William the Conqueror and expanded in the 12th and 13th centuries.It went through several owners over the years and around 1645 the castle was blown up using gunpowder by an order of parilament. It seems the owner of the time was on the wrong side of the civil war.

After exploring the castle and taking a walk along the local hills in a howling, icy gale, we drove down to Kimmeridge where we wandered along the beach admiring the fossils in the strata there. The fossils are there  in plenty, though ones like in the mage here are a little difficult to recover and a little too heavy to take back to Australia in our bags.

We also visited the local Bird of Prey and Reptile sanctuary. This was clearly the low-season. Jill and I were among only about a dozen visitors. We had a lot of fun getting up-close with lots of very stylish birds. The sanctuary was established when the existing, council centre for rescue of injured owls was set to close. Sadly, legal costs associated with taking over the sanctuary ate up all their financial reserves, so they are struggling to make ends meet, let alone make the needed improvements they had expected to do.

We next headed to West Yorkshire to visit another of Jill’s relatives. The minute we arrived we were whisked to a pub in Haworth for the prize-giving for the 11 km fell-run that Jo had just competed in (and was in line for one of the prizes).  The pub was crowded with a convivial group – it seemed that the running club is rather large and it felt like we were among a large, friendly family. Videos of the runners were playing on a large screen. We were treated to sights of hundreds of runners splashing along muddy paths and through rivers, and jumping, hopping, running, walking or (most often) slipping and sliding down steep muddy slopes. The runners in the pub were appropriately daubed with mud. The prize giving proceeded with announcement of names for each section and loading up the winners with more things than they could carry. At the end any left over chocolates etc were thrown in profusion into the audience, where they were pounced on with great delight.

Afterwards, we were treated to a tour of Haworth, home of the Bronte sisters, and an interesting country town with a very steep main street. Alas, the Parsonage Museum was closed… something to do when we are next in the neighborhood.

Over the next couple of days we  explored the local sights, including visiting Salt’s Mill. Salt’s Mill, buit by Titus Salt in 1853 was the largest industrial building of it’s day with over one million square feet of workspace, and facitites for every stage from raw wool to finished woven textiles. Titus Salt had a strong humanitarian streak, and build a suburb, Saltaire, to house the workers in, for the time, extremely good living conditions, with good sanitation and water, recreational facilities, places of worship, hospital etc. The site is well preserved and has World Heritage listing. The mill itself now houses galleries, shops, restaurants and a small museum.

We also explored Hebden Bridge and had a lovely walk through the woods to Gibson’s Mill, now housing a cafe and small museum, though we only found out about the museum after we got back (so we have another new thing we can do when we pass by in the future).

Then it was time to head south, via Leicester, and visiting another of Jill’s relatives in Cambridge en route to Stanstead, ready for our return flight.

A larger gallery of images is at https://goo.gl/photos/6C2ANvmLhibbgg618.