For our third day into our trip we woke up to a home-made breakfast and coffee from our friend Kath. We were incredibly grateful to stay at her place (saving us some money but also to spend a little bit more time with her).
Whilst having breakfast, Kath told us about the issue with squirrels in the Lakes District. Apparently, the American Grey squirrel is causing the native Reds to lose habitat and they are at risk of extinction. A debate in the UK Parliament (Commons) resulted in one MP calling another a “squirrel racist”. Chris did not get to see the squirrel which appeared briefly that launched this conversation.
Before we left for Edinburgh, we decided to go into the Manchester city area for an hour or so with Kath as our guide. The city area is beautiful and such a gem to explore. There’s lots to see and we agreed that it’s a place we need to come back to in a future trip.
We visited a market building called Afflick’s which is an alternative co-op of stores which feature everything from clothing to records to art. It was very cool and definitely a place to check out!
We continued our journey through the city, passing the gay village and found the statue of Alan Turing, who studied in Manchester.
During the drive into Manchester and walking around the city, we observed a lot of bee-related messaging and imagery. We’d come cross a store that explored Manchester’s association with bees as, when it assumed city status in 1953, the bee was associated with the city as its occupants were “worker bees” as the city was so industrious at the time (and contributed immensely to the Industrial Revolution).
While we wanted to keep exploring, we had to wrap it up pretty quickly and make our way towards Scotland. After a couple hours drive we made a stop outside Carlisle at a lovely cafe to have lunch with another friend, Nikki.
The final stretch on the road took us into Edinburgh. We were impressed by the size and number of wind turbines stretching across the horizon. It felt like every 5 minutes Chris was yelling out “wow look at that turbine!” and “so cool!”, even after the hundredth turbine we’d passed.
Chris and Chantal 