Another Day Of Rest

We spent another day of resting since Amelie and Chien-yu have started to feel ill. Its not been good since we came back with all the hacking coughs and runny noses. Its a lot cooler than it is in Taiwan. Today's highest reading was a mere 20 degress celsius.

Even with the cooler weather, we still decided to go for a car ride. We set off in the morning making a pit-stop at Asda, a local supermarket to buy some Camaline lotion for Amelie. She seemed to have developed a rash on her skin and has been scratching a lot. So this Camaline stuff should ease her itchiness until he cold symtons are gone.



From there, we took the road which lead us pass my old secondary high school, Stamford High School and my college, Ashton Sixth Form College. Many things has changed at both education institutes, with additional buildings and new paintwork around the buildings. I also spotted that a lot more house are being developed in the area. Ashton has certainly changed a lot since I last remember it.









On our car journey we took on some of the mountain roads which lead us pass a small town called Mossely. As we climbed higher in the car into the hills, I took regular stops to get out of the car and take pictures on the landscape which was only a 15 minute drive from where we currently staying. The scene was great, and I enjoyed the fresh air, and of course not to mention watching the sheep and cows going about their daily business of grazing and wandering. We was lucky that the sky stayed pretty much constant and the with the rain held back, I took a lot of cloudy landscape pictures. I was quite happy with the shots when I got them.






After a few more moments on the road we entered another small town called Holmefirth, where the British sit-com series "Last of the Summer Wine" was filmed. It was a quaint little town with many old folk walking around leisurely at their own pace, shopping and chatting with people who they recognise on the streets on a windy Autumn day. It gave me a feeling of well-being I guess, watching their happy faces chatting and enjoying life. Or maybe its all a show eh? I don't know. I guess I would find out when I get to their age in a few decades later!



We stopped at a coffee shop having some vegetable soup and a panini sandwich. The shop owner also offered some jellies/jam to go with the sandwich and I must say, it was rather tasty. They had a spicy chilli jam jelly, sweet onion jelly and a plum jelly, all of which was very tasty! Especially the spicy chilli jam jelly, which wasn't at all spicy, but sweet and tangy. That would go very well with a lot of Chinese cooking I think!



After a little walk in the town of Holmefirth, we headed back to
Ashton-under-Lyne. On the way back however we took a little detour to a local park, Stamford Park. Its not owned by my aforemention secondary high school, but we did host a lot of fights with our mortal enemies of West Hill High School :-p.










At Stamford Park, there is a boating lake which I remember as a kid going there in the paddle boats. It was a busy thriving area. But today, it was all rather too quiet. Maybe because it's not the weekend or something. The paddle boats were locked away and the gates were shut to the boating area. There were, however, as always, a huge gaggle of Canadian Geese and White Swans floating about on the lake, looking for people to offer them bits of bread. It was Amelie's first time coming in contact with these live animals. She kept on saying "Tweet Tweet!" when she saw them, so cute!










After the boating lake, we ventured into the main area of Stamford Park. I remember that there was a water fountain where kids could go in and just have fun. Now they filled it with sand and built an adventure playground. Much better I guess, since it probably cost the government a lot more to keep maintenance of the pool and water. Having sand, some swings, slides etc. is much more cost effective. Amelie had her first go on a swing today and loved it, although she was a little scared. She tried the other things like the slide and the merry-go-round, all a lot of fun for her. But the grandparents were a little tired, so we headed off home early.

Just realised that its a week today where I will be setting off for Taiwan again. I better start to get the shopping done for the good people in Taiwan.



Come evening, I met up with a couple of my old school friends who I have known for almost 10 years. I met up with Kalpesh, Bhavesh, Chris and his girlfriend Amber at the Ashton Moss pub, located near the new cinema complex in Ashton. We caught up with old times and generally caught up on the adventures I have missed whilst I was away in Taiwan. I even bumped into a old school friend Emma. It was a certainly a surprise to see her!

After an evening of quiet drinks (well orange juice for me) and catch up, we all parted and arranged to meet up again on Saturday night.