Another few days away – King’s Lynn Day 1!

When you read this, I shall be home from a few days away in the pleasant town of King’s Lynn. As I type this, I’m getting ready to leave the hotel room for the final time. I’m sat with my tablet and wireless keyboard looking around the room for things to comment on. It’s a little dated, with crusty bits hanging from the top, but that’s enough about me, more about the time away.

Myself and Chris, my usual travelling partner for these days away, had originally planned to do this as part of my “stick a pin in a map and just bloody go somewhere” initiative last year, but as luck would have it, I got indescribably sick, and Chris had the sniffles, so it was postponed several months until this week..

I initially thought the whole trip was doomed to failure again, as we’d barely left Hartlepool when we ended u[ stuck in traffic. Some complete loser lost his trailer on the Tees flyover. I;d normally complain, but while this did add a whole 20 minutes to the  journey, it gave me the first opportunity for a photo. You should all know by now  how much I like my “grim graf”, this one was a winner.

You might have to click the original image for that one. Thankfully, as far as I can recall, the rest of the journey was plain sailing. I fired up my “trip away” playlist on Spotify. Unfortunately, I think I’d only managed to add about 6 songs to it, so that didn’t last the whole three days as intended. Instead we endured local radio. I was saddened to find that my favourite local radio station, Lincs FM, 102.2 had bitten the dust.

A quick blast down the A1, and our first stop was, coincidentially, Lincoln. A lovely little city where I’ve been before, but not for a very long time. There was also large portions of it I’d never seen before, such as the cathedral.


Of course, the most important part for me were… yes, you guessed it, the charity shops. And streetlights. I’ve not mentioned those on here for a very long time. Sadly, the LED onslaught has taken the entire fun out of everything, so you’ll have to forgive me for almost creaming my pantaloons at the sight of a Thorn Alpha 3, on original Thorn column and its almost makeshift-looking outreach arm. Phwoar. they don’t make them like that anymore.

Anyway, there was one thing I thought I’d learned about Lincolnshire. It was flat. Let me tell you, that it is not. If you want to visit certain places like the cathedral and the castle, it’s certainly an uphill walk. In fact, the route we took takes you to a place named Steep Hill. Annoyingly, I did take some photos of the ascent, but my phone thought it’d be a great laugh to convert these photos to black. You’ll have to make do with a photo at the top of Steep Hill.

Halfway up was a local beer shop. they still remain in their bag, so I’ve yet to comment on how nice they are. Of course, at the top of the hill is the cathedral, and it would be the first of several cathedral stops on this tour.

We made a quick pit-stop at a place called the Duke William Hotel. Amusingly, the guy behind the counter had relatives from Hartlepool. Us monkey hangers get everywhere.

Time was getting on, so we headed down the slightly less steep version of Steep Hill, which still gave me some good photo opportunities.


We went back to the car and headed onto our final destination, King’s Lynn, which would be our home for the next three nights.

There was, however, a moment that almost put the entire week in jeopardy. Somewhere along the A17. An amusing turn of events. We passed a service station and Chris took a wrong turning, heading towards Boston. It just so happened that I needed to do a toilet, so we attempted to pull into the service station, making a wrong turning on the way. Chris parked up, and on my way to the afore-mentioned defecation station, I stepped off the kerb… It wasn’t a normal kerb, it was one of those foot-high kerbs. My right ankle almost gave way. Thankfully, it didn’t, but I bet the bog in Starbucks wishes it had. Hoho. No photos.

That was it now. No more stops until our final destination. One thing I had never seen before, however, are fields and fields of daffodils. It’s funny, you see them in the shops this time of year, but I never thought that they’d be grown over here. Certainly, in the north-east we never have anything close to this. At least, not that I’ve seen anyway.

Anyhoo. Normally before we go away somewhere, I do a deep scan of the places on Google Maps / Street view, in order to get an idea of the ‘facilities’ that are worth visiting, namely the pubs, Indian restaurants and charity shops. For the first time in all of the times we’ve done these trips, I didn’t do that. I wanted it to be a surprise, especially seeing how long I’d waited to get here. The sat-nav eventually put us on the right road, and after only a few minutes after arriving in King’s Lynn it seemed like we were in the centre. A large market place, seemingly something that must have been around since for hundreds of years. The Duke’s Head hotel was to be our residence until Friday.

Of course, the first thing to do was to arrange parking. £15 per day, and if you left, you weren’t guaranteed a parking space back in. Still, it seemed cheaper than stayin in the market square, and probably more secure. The next job was to actually find the bloody car park. It’s not well signposted at all, and the location just throws Google Maps into a spasm. At one point, it announced we’d reached our destination, when this was clearly a council ran car park. Little did we know, that if we’d just walked down a side street, we’d have found it, and I’d have saved £2.50 for about 38 seconds parking. Hey-ho.

We headed into the hotel entrance at the back. Decorator’s sheets littered the floor. A smell of wet paint filled the air. Temporary LED lights hung from the ceiling. This looked like a hotel, but in the process of being regenerated. A workman pointed us to the right entrance around the corner. Remember that side-street? Yup, that’s when we discovered it.

Eventually we got through the right door. The reception and foyer area was very nicely decorated, with leather chairs and chandeliers everywhere. Very nice indeed. The receptionist was friendly, and after the correct parking charge was settled, we headed up to the room. It was. compact, but dated. The bathroom was spot on, but the room itself was flaking paint, along with chipped veneer on the desk. It’s also the first hotel room I’ve ever been in that doesn’t have plug sockets next to the bed. It’s 2025. People need to charge devices during the night! The only plug sockets were the other side of the room.

The view out of the window was quite nice, the view of a distant church, the name of which escapes me. Let’s just call it St. Jocky’s. There’s also some big silos behind too. I didn’t realise King’s Lynn had a port, but apparently that’s where they’re from.

As much as I liked staring out of the window, we weren’t going to spend much time in the hotel room. It’s all about the curry, beer, and charity shops. I fired up the tablet. Google recommended one called “The Curry Shop”. We got there, and it looked very closed. Thank you very much, bloody Google Maps. Fortunately, there was an Indian restaurant right next door that was open, named ‘Voujon’. Well, that’s what Google Maps tells me anyway.  We were the only people in there apart from the staff. Just like the hotel room, it was also small and compact.  the food was acceptable, but I’m sure we’d find better. It went on the “might revisit” pile.

Food was consumed, and it was time to actually find somewhere to drink. The first stop was “the Eagle”. Wow. If King’s Lynn has a chav centre, I would think this was it. The beer was awful, and I only had a Carling. I think we spent the entire time looking around just thinking “Yeah, probably should have picked somewhere else”. Think we ran out of there.

Next stop was the pub next to the hotel, the Maid’s Head. The footy was on, so we watched that. Can’t tell you who was playing or what the score was, as I was too busy shitting my brains out. Dunno if it was the curry, or that dodgy pint in The Eagle, but…. wow.

We headed out of there and went to the Wetherspoons for one, planning to have one at the hotel as well. The Wetherspoons was absolutely dead. More staff than punters. Mind you, it was a Tuesday night. We went back to the hotel bar for one, only to find it was closed, and it must have only been 11. Gosh darn it. Oh well, back to the hotel room, and after a couple of episodes of Family Guy, it was time to embark on Day 2…

Strictly Lockdown. Oh my.

2020. The year the world changed. A pandemic swept the globe, we were all confined to our hutches for extended periods of time, and the NHS was stretched to breaking point

Thankfully, amongst all of this turmoil and anguish, the team at the Darlington Operatic Society did something a little better than stand on their doorstep and clap every Thursday. In fact, they went into the recording studio and blasted out this little number…

Admittedly, I picked this CD up several months ago, and not knowing what ‘DarlingtonOS’ was until I started typing that previous paragraph, I thought it was a team of doctors who had recorded something to take their minds off their jobs. Alas not.

Now, I’m not going to break down every track like I’ve done in the past, or even listen to the CD in its entirety as opera isn’t exactly something I enjoy, or even have the slightest bit of knowledge about – in fact it all sounds like people trying too hard to sing.

50% of the money raised from the sale of the CD will have gone to the Darlo NHS trust. No idea how many they sold, but I should hope it filled their much needed biscuit barrel several times over. However, seeing as I got this from a Hartlepool charity shp for 5p, I don’t think my sale will have contributed it that much.

The CD itself is a professionally printed CDR in a slimline case. The list of names on the inside cover are far too long for me to envisage typing, but if you recognise yourself on this list, then hello!

Although the music on the CD is not to my taste at all, it’s more listenable to most of the crap on the radio, and the CD itself is an obscure throwback from the weirdest 18 months in living memory.

Beckett… The CD that started it all

As you know, I’ve pretty much exclusively been talking about homebrew CDs I’ve purchased from charity shops. In a very early post on this subject, I mentioned a band called Beckett, and unfortunately the CD never worked. I did write a short post on it last year, but never published it. Tonight, I found the Cd again, so I thought I’d try listening to it again, with no success. I thought, as I haven’t updated this for a few weeks, I thought I’d dig this post out and publish it.

Charity shops. They’re the gift that keeps on giving. Sometimes, however, the gifts simply don’t work, and you spend the rest of your life wondering what could have been. This CD is one of those examples.

As you can see, the disc is by a band called Beckett, and sadly, there’s not a lot more I can tell you. as I can’t actually hear any of the music that’s on the CD.

The things that I CAN confirm. You start off with a standard jewel case, with inkjet printed inserts. The disc is printed on a CD-R with a stickered label, and other than the pictures I’ve shown, or will show, that is pretty much all I can tell you.

The disc isn’t recognised in normal CD players, and when I try to rip it from several different drives, it just sounds like interference. The disc looks in very good condition. There are a few marks and scratches, but nothing that would prevent the disc from reading. Any scratches that are present, are probably just from my ghetto technique of attempting to clean the disc with 99% IPA and whichever item of clothing I happened to be wearing at the time. If I look at the disc surface under the equally ghetto method of “my phone’s camera in macro mode”, I can see small, dark patches on where the data is written. That’s not a good sign, and I suspect that te glue in the disc label has reacted with the foil coating of the disc and ruined it. A shame.

Who’s in the band? Well, according to the inlay, we have…

Ben Fisher – Vocals and Guitar
Greg Sleebush – Bass Guitar and Bacing vocals
Dave Bridge – Lead Guitar and keyboards
Ed Cross – Drums

There is a website listed on the dsc, which has, of course, long since expired, but according to the Wayback Machine, there was a small amount of activity from around 2004-2006, so I can only assume this is when the disc is from. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that any of the media was archived, so no pics by the looks of it. It appears that they did quite a few gigs around the London area.

I have had a look to see if there’s any mention of them on Spotify. Sadly, there are lots of artists and bands with the same name, and none of them appear to be the same band. There is a Myspace page that featured some later songs, but none of it survived the massive purge that took place, essentially wiping out an entire generation of unsigned bands’ work, a lot of it never to return.

Unless I can find a CD player somewhere that can play this sadly decaying CD, Beckett will forever remain a mystery. They could have been great, they could have been terrible. I wll probably never know.

Update: Since I wrote this post, I’ve changed CD drives several times, new and old, and sadly, none of them can read this disc. So, if you know what became of Beckett, or any of the members in the band, please get in touch. I’d especially like to hear the tracks I’m missing out on.

The weekend starts here…

Well, actually, it started over 24 hours ago. At the time of typing, it’s 22:34 on Saturday night. I’ve had a great day, in fact one of the best days I’ve had charity shopping for a long time. It started off at 10:30ish, maybe a bit earlier. Chris and I had arranged to go to Stanley. I did have a box of CDs that I had to donate, Turns out that the Walkers multipack crisp boxes are the perfect size to fit CDs. I know, I was shocked too. Crisps. Is there anything they CAN’T do?

We arrived in Stanley, after a particularly uneventful journey. In fact, I don’t even think I put the radio on the entire time. I was feeling particularly lazy, so I didn’t take the box of CDs. We hit the usual suspects. Scope fist, always expensive, sometimes some good ones in. Didn’t pick up anything in there. Second was the Sally Army. this is usually a goody too. 25p per disk. I think I picked up 8, though nothing really stood out as been exceptional. Mainly just more CDs I’ve never heard of, seeing as I have pretty much everything I’ve heard of now. Now that I think of it, and the shop I got them from, these are all going to be religious ones aren’t they? Oh well, the cases will do.

Of course, the shop of the day is always Farplace. Always an eclectic mashup of randomness. Sometimes good, sometimes garbage, sometimes… just OK. I think I picked up 15 at 3 for £1, and a copy of Blaggers ITA ‘Oxygen’ on 12″. I, of course, have the 7 inch pressing on green vinyl, but I thought the 12 inch version might have better sound quality. Dunno yet.

While in there, some guy started talking to me about the films he was picking up, asking if I remembered it, and basically if I’d known whether he’d seen it or not. Er, no. Anyway, he mentioned Consett. a place I’d never been to in anger, and certainly never in the form of charity shop shopping. I mentioned it to Chris. I wasn’t sure if he was reluctant or not, but he seemed to warm to the idea when I mentioned it was only 15 minutes in the car.

We arrived. It seemed like a small town centre. I wasn’t quite sure how good it would be for charity shops. Had I just wasted the fuel that Id just paid for? I needn’t have worried.

We left the car, and walked through a small shopping precinct. Nothing much in there. A paper shop. Maybe a grocers and there’s probably a barbers thrown in there, there always is. The light at the end of the tunnel appeared, and it was canary yellow. That can only mean one thing. YES! FARPLACE! Most people get excited over brands of cars, or expensive shoes. It’s charity shops for me. I ran towards the shop at a rate of knots, my little heart beating faster with every excited step, my pupils widening at the thought of shiny plastic discs.

I gleefully skipped over to the “media section”. A little room dedicated to books, records, DVDs, and of course, CDs. My smile, resembling a badly worn zebra crossing, grew wider as I looked at the prices. The CDs were indeed 20 for £1. This was the lowest price I’d ever paid for CDs in a shop. I came out with 40, for the princely sum of £2. At the time of typing, I’m not too sure what I’ve got. For that price, the whole lot could be used for spare CD cases and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid.

My pink carrier bag was bulging, and no, that’s not a euphemism, they really did give me the CDs in a rose-tinted bag. It can just be seen in the bottom right of this photo.


Over the road from the Farplace was another charity shop. Delta North.

While the DVD section was overly excessive, with shelves and shelves of them, the CDs weren’t quite as dense. I still managed to pick up a 5-cd set of “Sisters Of Mercy” albums, and two other random CDs for £1.

There were a couple of other charity shops dotted around the place, and I picked up a few more CDs. Little did I know that the highlight of the day was yet to come.

If these little towns do anything well, it’s a discount store. It’s where all of the surplus stock from the big supermarkets and warehouses get one last chance of getting sold. I’m not sure if thye other parts of the world have an equivalent, but imagine, a big building, full of food, for near enough pennies, and this place is huge. I was slightly gutted. I had to limit my spending. I can’t remember if I mentioned anywhere thought this marathon ramble that I’d broken my bank card the day before, so I was literally having to go by whatever money I had in my wallet. Oh, yes, and what I could carry too. I was also lumbering around 55-60 CDs at this point too. Oh, and I stupidly didn’t get a basket. Duh.

without doubt, the purchase from in there, was this….

Mmmm. I can already taste the peaness.

Actually, that line was just an excuse to crack a dirty joke, I can’t stand the bloody things! Chris actually bought them for the princely sum of £2, and when wrapped up in a shiny box with a bow on top, they made a lovely raffle prize for the little organisation I go to on a weekly basis!

The last stop was to FINALLY drop off the CDs. The ladies at the Willow Burn hospice shop were only too delighted to take them off my hands, so I hope they sell well.

And, that was it for Consett. I was pleasantly surprised about the place, and I’d happily go back any time, even if it’s just to visit Barry’s Bargain Warehouse again… or whatever it was called.

There was just enough time to hit the pleasant, cobbled streets of Peterlee. A town with less culture than a pot of yoghurt. thankfully, there was one last Farplace there. I’ve been there that often, I think I’ve worn the carpet out. Another 16 CDs for £3. You’ll do for me.

And, that was that. I headed home, laden with more CDs than I actually needed, but when is that different from any other weekend?

Jenson – Cheap to Anyone… a lost CD?

We interrupt this period of silence to bring you… a post. I know you’re all waiting with baited breath for Derby Part 4, but before that, I have a little bit of a favour to ask… Does anyone know, if a CD is coming up “blank” (as in, it’s recognised by the OS as being so 685Mb free), but there is definitely data written to it, is it possible to get to that buirned data?

That’s the question, here’s the brief story. Over the last couple of days, I’ve had a particularly successful run of getting CDs, including some very good ones. I had to go to the doctors today, and just down the road is a charity shop. A lovely one seemingly ran by two old ladies. anyway, through the mounds of Mario Lanza and Perry Como, I picked this one out. It’s from one of my favourite genres these days… “Homebrew”. And this one fits the bill perfectly.

You’ll have to forgive the really ad-hoc nature of the photos. I’m doing this as a spur of the moment thing. One of the ladies had a quick look at what I’d bought, paying close interest to this one, in fact she thought that it was a copy and she shouldn’t have put it out. I explained that it wasn’t a copy, but a personally recorded CD – a home-made recording of their own work. I got it, and hurried home to play it. I opened the box and foind… oh, no. the dreaded paper label.

Ugh, I thought it was a goner from the start. It was copyright 2000. I didn’t think I’d have much hope of it being played Thankfully though, the data on the disc looked perfectly intact. In fact, it was very “prominent” for a CD of this era…

Looks perfect. However, when I put it into the drive, I get this.

Windows sees it as a blank disk. So yeah, as per my original question, is it possible to recover the data? I can’t tell, looking from the disk reflection. So, is anyone aware of any software that can recover this disk?

EDIT: Linux also sees it as a blank disk. Tried programs such as cdparanoia and dvdisaster to see if they can make any sense of it, but no. The on;ly thing I haven’t tries is what happens in a regular, bog standard CD player

Derby Day 3

The 3rd day started a lot earlier for me than the previous day. As I mentioned, I intended to visit BPM records frlom when they opened, which means i was up and about for about 9:30. Chris was,of course, sound asleep still.

Off I went, to the short walk to the rcord shop. I was there so early, I even turned the lights on for them. That’s not bad going. Here’s a few more photos of the inside, and of course, what I describe as my little heaven. I’m never more happier than when I’m knee deep in records and CDs.

I found some classics, and ones that are a little more… shall we say… obscure.

My time in BPM Records came to an end when an old guy, who was also flicking through the vinyl, let out the most gut-curdling fart you’ve ever heard. The room isn’t particularly big, as it probably comes across on the photos, and if I didn’t get out of there right now, there would be no escape from having to breathe his gut-guff, so I held my breath, grabbed my stash, and headed downstairs. Honestly, he’s probably still scraping that one off the inside of his trousers. Unpleasant.

I headed back to the hotel, trying to get the sound of that out of my head, failing miserably. It’s something that I’ll probably suffer PTSD over.

Anyhoo, Nottingham was to be the entertainment of the day. A place I’ve been to many times, and I have a vague recollection of where the charity and rexord shops are. I was aware of two shops in this little arcade type place. Unfortunately, it seems that one of them has gone, and the other one was just closed…. Grim. Just like the car park.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo, so you’ll have to make do with a Google screenshot. This was the NCP car park on Maid Marian Way, and it’s one of the worst car parks I think I’ve ever had the misfortune to stay in. There’s development going on all the way around it, and it looks like part of it has already been demolished I don’t think it’ll be too long until it’s ripped down. If the passage of time doesn’t rot the concrete, the gallons of urine in the stairwells certainly will.

For charity and record shops, Nottingham was a bust. A shame, as I remember in the first few times we went, there were lots of good ones but they seemed to have dried up or closed down. Overall, not many CDs, but I did come away with this…


A tub of curry.

I’d heard good things about this from someone at work, so I grabbed some. I’ve yet to try it out, but I’ll post my findings when I do. “Bring to the boil, stir and simmer… It’s that easy!” We’ll see about that. I can burn cornflakes, me.

One other thing we did, was to take an updated look at the Grand Central railway that once ran through Nottingham , mainly through a series of tunnels. There’s one section of it that’s still visible, although a car park now stands on part of it. I look a photo of it when I first went to Nottingham in…. whatever year it was, so here’s the two photos however many years later.


For future reference, I was stood on Cairns St when I took this photo, though I’m unlikely to forget that name any time soon. Only difference seems to be that the bushes coming out of the wall have grown, and the lights in the car park have been replaced with LEDs.

We returned from Nottingham, and there was just enough time to have a look around the museum that was next door to the hotel. This was a great place. The star of the attraction has to be the huge airplane engine that they have there. I believe it would have been manufactured local to the area.

Oh yes, and then there’s this guy…

As this would be our last night in Derby, we said goodbye to the establishments that had became our regular spots over the last 3 days. We had one last drink in the Taproom….

And of course, we couldn’t leave without saying goodbye to the Ye Olde Dolphin. Now, I was going to type out the history of the place from this photo, but bugger it, you can just read it yourselves.

For some reason, the one-atmed bandit had been turned off, so that made the place seem ven more olde-wurlde.

They had the Screeching Owl back on, so I enjoyed a pint of that. Not pictured is a creepy guy that came in just sat there, staring out of the window with his bag of crisps. Thankfully, we survived, and our attention turned to food. Now, there was a nice looking place next to the Spice Lounce, the place we’d frequented on the first night, named Okra. (There’s a tilde in there somewhere, but I’m using my bluetooth keyboard amd I don’t know how to type that) . Chris suggested we give that a go, and off we jolly well popped.

I can confirm that the food was absolutely wonderful here too. Can’t believe we’d hit the three-for-three. All places we’d tried, we really liked, and it’s not very often you can say that.

We said one last goodbye to the Old Silk Mill on our way back. Once again, you can read the spiel about the place here…

While our time in Derby was coming to an end, we still had the rest of the day to do stuff… Onto the fourth and final day!

Viva Darbados Day 2: Some Loughborough Steamers

So, day 2 commenced with me waking up as “fresh” as a “daisy”. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was the curry, but I felt like I’d been dragged through a hedge backwards. I suspect the beer. I decided to just lay in bed for a few hours staring at my phone. You may recall that I mentioned that the room windows didn’t open. I suspect that I actually partially cooked in my own juices during the night. It was extremely warm, and it turned out the air conditioning didn’t work either.

It got to 10:30 and I decided I wanted to do some exploring, so I nipped out for an hour.

As I mentioned in “yesterday’s” post, there’s a river near the taproom, with a nice little path going down the side of it, so I thought I’d have a leisurely stroll down there. And very nice it was too. Nice to see a bit of greenery in a city.

I also just have to post this for posterity. I was stood under a road bridge that went over the river, and I mentioned there was a distinct lack of amusing cartoon graffiti. Not even so much as a badly drawn set of male genitalia. Seconds after I thought that, I spied this beautiful sticker stuck to a lamp post.

I don’t know if there’s a story behind it. I don’t really care. I just know this was the greatest thing I’d seen in my current time down there.

After my merry jaunt along the water, I had a bit of a wander around near the hotel, and found a couple of charity shops. I picked up a couple of things. Not really anything I’d heard of, but that’s half the fun. There was also a Greggs, where I picked up a sausage roll. The way my stomach felt would confirm if I was hungover, or hungry. I can confirm I was hungover. Somehow, I forced it down, rather like that scene on the Vicar Of Dibley where Geraldine has to eat all those sprouts and had to physically force them in there. That’s what I was like with that sausage roll.

By this time, Chris was ready, so I headed back to the hotel. Today’s plan was to go to Loughborough. For once, there was something there for both of us. Chris wanted to see the trains that are there, and I… well, of course, had the charity shops. Beforehand, we had another small walk around the Derby City Centre. Chris wanted some brekky, and I settled for a bottle of coke. The slice of lemon that came with it would be enough to keep me going all day.

We had enough time for a brief walk around Derby city centre before we went. We had became aware of the Derby Computer Museum, so tried to find it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t. It was on the 2nd floor of another building and Google Maps didn’t appear to signpost it very well, but it turns out it would have cost £7 to get in, and you had to book in advance. Oh well. To be honest, it looked to have been geared more towards kids and school groups anyway, so I’m not sure if there’d have been anything interesting for me. One thing that I happened to see out of the corner of my eye, that was even better than a computer museum, was a sign for a record shop, namely BPM Records. I go in and… Oh my. The new / sealed vinyl was downstairs, which didn’t really spark much interest for me, but upstairs… wow. Boxes and boxes of singles, an entire room dedicated to CDs, and even a couple of boxes of CD singles dotted about.

It was getting on at this point, so I grabbed a couple of CD Singles, the best one being “Flavor of the Month” by The Posies, a single that I’d bought back in 1993 on purple vinyl.

I vowed to come back the following day, so confirmed the opening times, and off we went to Loughborough. The first stop would be to get a photo of a building…

Apparently, they used to make parts of locomotives, or something, Chris did tell me, but seeing as it’s been a few weeks since the trip, I’ve entirely forgotten. I’m sure he’ll help out in the comments! The building is used for something else.

Next stop was to the Great Central Railway. I genuinely think we spent more time trying to get parked than actually being there. Considering this was a well-established tourist attraction (a lot of people apparently still like steam trains), there’s very little parking available, except for residential streets. I guess the locals must love that.

So, trains, then…

I took up most of my phone’s memory trying to get a decent photo of the station cat, who was happily wandering about, gathering atention from myself and other people hanging about. Of course, I don’t know if it was the station cat or not, but I liked to think he was employed as head mouse catcher, and to his credit, I didn’t see a single rodent.

We waved goodbye to the trains, and headed into Loughborough town centre. I’m happy to say I really liked it. We stopped off for a drink, and I was happy to see an old US streetlight still in use..

They were originally made by General Electric in the US, but the ‘moulds’ were bought by Phosco in the early 2000s so they could be manufactured over here. If you ever get close to one, you can see where the GE badge used to be…. cough, erm.

And so, off onto the major part of the day, for me at least… the charity shops. I’m happy to report that Loughborough does have its fair share of them, most of which are located in Biggin Street. One Age UK shop had a large amount of CD singles in there, so I filled my boots. I picked up other bits along the way too. I might elaborate on this if I can be bothered. It did have its fair share of nice old buildings, all appear to still be well maintained. Overall, yes, I can happily say, looking back, I liked Loughborough a lot.

Unfortunately, Chris got lost on the way back. It did give me a photo of what I’d consider to be the worst street I’ve seen. A passing interest of mine is to go around Google Maps and look at streets that have the worst possible view from the residents’ front window. This one is certainly up there….

I wonder what the going rate for lung / bronchial conditions is there..

We got back to the hotel dropped off our things, and then headed out. Of course, we wanted to see if that taproom was actually going to be open. Success! it was! We had a couple in there, and then went back to Ye Olde Dolphin inne. We got chatting to a couple of regulars while we were in there, who wondered what we were doing in Derby… I think they were more surprised than anything. I don’t think they get many tourists around those parts.

We got chatting about food, as you do, and where the best Indians were. A place called ‘Himalayan’ was highly recommended to us.

It was a Gurkha restaurant, admittedly not something I’d tried before. Always the ambitious type of guy, I went for something completely different on the menu… This time, I went for the…. chicken vindaloo.

It goes without saying that the food was incredibly nice, and the beer was also excellent too… again.

Not a brand I’d seen before, but I’d definitely get it again. On the way back, we nipped back to the Old Silk Mill for one more, and then back to the hotel. Great beer, great food. Now, ono the 2nd half of the trip! and because they didn’t really fit in anywhere, he’s a couple of arty shots of the cathedral…