Blackpool Trip
A post, describing a weekend in Blackpool, feel free to yawn now....
Saturday began early, 6am early. Waking up before the baby for the first time in a long time, getting dressed, hurriedly assembling luggage and other travel equipment before waking the little man himself. For anyone older than 14 months there was a cup of tea, while the sleepy one year old bemusedly tucked in to an early breakfast. Bags, buggy, travel cot, toys, and assorted other baby supplies loaded into the car, along with the little man himself and his Grandparents, who had insanely gotten up at 4am to ensure time for a fried breakfast before setting off. The Kia had surprised us, with the rearmost seats up the otherwise cavernous bootspace always seemed quite small but it could easily accomodate travel-cot, buggy, mattress, spare shoes and coats. The Back two seats held the baby in his car seat and the bags with comfortable ease including a buffer space to stop little fingers pulling at the luggage, the middle row of seats provided grandparent accomodations, while navigator and driver occupied the front seats.
A short spin later and we were checked in and queueing for the Ulysses. on board by 7:30 for an 8:05 sailing and tucking into breakfast of bacon and hash-brown baguette. Tiernan enjoyed the boat trip, plenty of room for him to wander about although, it's a bit mean trick putting a child who is only starting to take his first few experimental unaided steps into an environment where the floor undulates somewhat unpredictably. Not to be disuaded however he grabbed a hold of the nearest available adult and led them off on a stumbling adventure up and down the ship.
It didn't seem like too long before we were all loaded back up and rumbling off the ship onto the open roads of North Wales, or so we thought, we were in fact rumbling off the ship and onto the congested exit of Holyhead port, after 40 minutes of waiting and queueing and crawling, we were out of the Port, and onto Dual Carriageway in glorious sunshine, heading towards the Britainia bridge. Holyhead is the end of the world, a mass of grim concrete and wire fencing, but once outside, it's all rolling hills and greeny pleasantness. The roads too seem to get better, the drive from Holyhead to Chester, which is the nearest access point for England's Motorway system used to be a largely one lane trundle through towns and villages and the attendant traffic chaos, now it's Dual Carriageways with 70mph limits almost the whole way apart from a couple of roundabouts at Conwy. Once past the traffic choke point that was the Britaina Bridge we were once again whooshing up along the North Wales coast at a reassuring speed overlooking the pretty vistas of Conwy and then Colwyn Bay all of which made for a most agreeable afternoon.
Nearing Chester and looking for the M56 to bring us to the M6 and on North to Blackpool there was a navigational snafu, caused in part by inadequate signage and in part by the sabbateur that lives in the borrowed Garmin that sat on the dashboard who had decided that we should take the M53 and go straight through Liverpool city centre. It was a go with the flow kind of day, and it was much easier to go forward than back so we ploughed on, underneath the river Mersey by way of a tunnel (the only toll of the day, a princely £1.40), in Liverpool, we abandoned Madame Garmin's advice and followed signs for the M6, hoping to avoid navigating city centre traffic on a sunny saturday afternoon. Only a little bit lost we pulled in for Lunch at about 2:30.
Over a tasty feed maps were consulted, Garmin was poked, prodded, sworn at and eventually persuaded to see things our way and direct us to the nearest motorway. Baby changed and smokers sufficiently re-ennicotined we were back on the road at 3:40, M6 was nearer than we thought and from there it was a simple matter of counting Junctions till 32, and then taking the M55 right into Blackpool where we were met by Lisa's Uncle Chris. I like Uncle Chris, he's a nice man, utterly mental, but a nice man. He had kindly offered to meet us at the edge of town and show us "the quick way" through the one way system to our hotel, the quick way involved several illegal turns and a quick spin up a street that was painted red, with big white letters saying "Busses and Taxis Only". Still we were soon checked in, and round at Chris' house for Tea, Pork Pies and Cake. Heading back for the night, car parked in a nearby multi-storey, we had to navigate our way through some early drunks, including a horrendous hen party clad in a motley uniform of day-glo tutus, which just defies further description, sadly day-glo outfits and tutus seemto be somewhat de rigeur attire for the self disrespecting hen partier in Blackpool. In the room Tiernan was dressed for bed, read a story and put in his cot, then we had to crouch in the tiny travelodge bathroom reading until he had dropped off to sleep, which he did mercifully quickly.
A good night sleep later and we were all up and ready to go again, breakfasted and out along the so called "Golden Mile", which, if I was feeling mean, I might point out is only golden in the same way as a golden shower is golden. Old crumbly facades, which were probably quite hastily erected 30 or more years ago and poorly maintained. Shops selling hilarious T-shirts and novelty items rarely found outside of a number of select vendors in resorts on the Canary Islands. Vendors floggig the ubiquitious sticks of rock and candy floss, alongside tacky minitures of the famous tower. The tower itself a relic of the victorian age, a sort of Eiffel Tower tribute band, suggests a time when this was the holiday destination of choice in those pre-package holiday days when the term low-fares airline was still oxymoronic, but it stands arising out of the tacky looking Tower Ballroom, a nice late 19th century building, with early 21st century posters draped on it, and dirty back alleys to either side and surrounded by the crumbling remnants of a dying resort, a museum piece without a museum, way too impressive for it's surroundings, but not impressive enough to be worth the trip on it's own. Still, among the grot and the rust and the cheap plastic signs there are some good points. Work to stop flooding of the seafront has provided a pleasant place to walk along by the beach, and the tramway has been well maintained with the old shiny trams ting-tinging past.
The Pleasure Beach, is now a proper theme park, with all the queues and costs that you expect, but the rides were of a fairly decent standard, although space seems to have been an issue and the rides do seem a bit close together, but we had a spin on a roller coaster and a Ghost Train (twee) and took photographs of Lisa taking Tiernan on one of the smaller whirlygigs, a pirate themed whirlygig I believe, so that made for a pleasant few hours. Then it was time for a spin on an open top tram all the way back along the seafront for lunch in a nearby hostelry, Tiernan got very excited on the tram, although his fun was spoiled somewhat when we refused to let him clamber over the side while hurtling along, still the trip was mostly accompanied by delighted giggling.
After a spot of lunch, a roast beef wrap, a crazy meal of roast beef wrapped in a giant yorkshire pudding, with gravy and assorted veg. It was off to the Sea Life aquarium, the much smaller Dublin Sea Life is one of Tiernan's favourite Sunday afternoon destinations, and he was not disappointed, urgling and gurgling at the fish and excitedly pointed at anything shiny in a tank that moved. The highlight was the sharks, well over a metre long, flitting about in a huge tank which could be viewed both from the side or from a dome at the bottom of the tank itself. Alas, fast moving sharks in low light are difficult to photograph, especially with a curious child grabbing at the camera, so no good pictures to be had.
Had a bit of a to-do paying for parking for Sunday, I had paid for 24 hours on Saturday as we arrived so I had to return to deposit a further £13.00 for the next 24 hours, and I made the crucial mistake of stopping in to an amusement arcade to get change for the parking machine, so thought I, I'll just pop this £20 note into the change machine and then toddle around to the parking complex with a pocket full of pound coins. Alas, twas not to be, and I left the arcade with a plastic tub containing 200 shiny ten pence pieces, my ears ringing with the sound of coin on coin, which the parking machine refused to take, balking after the first 30 coins had been deposited, with a cheeky "transaction aborted" followed by a disdainful glunking sound as my 30 ten pences chundered into the reject slot, so off I trudged back to the arcade to queue up at the change desk and ask that my tub of ten pences be exchanged for a lighter tub of pound coins, each step begging the question, "Why didn't I do this in the first place ?". On the upside, Tiernan had been hugely entertained by the sight and sound of 200 shiny tokens being disgorged from the change machine, and grabbing handfuls of change and dropping it all over the floor while I tried to direct the deluge of silver from the coin outlet into my plastic tub provided further entertainment.
Spun out the rest of the day taking it easy wandering back along by the sea, put the kid to bed, and after hiding in the bathroom till he was asleep, chilled out with some Kentucy Fried Dinner.
Early start on Monday, car loaded and on the road by 08:30, headed back out towards the motorway, and made sure to give any and all exits marked "Liverpool" a wide berth. Hit a Motorway service area for breakfast couple of hours later the motorways ran out and the North Welsh Dual carriageways hove into view, both the Britainia Bridge and Holyhead were refreshingly traffic free, so rolled up to the Terminal 2 hours before sailing, delighted that we would be nice and early and at the top of the queue, except, we weren't, the Swift ferry sailing had been cancelled (they didn't say why, I think the deck was wet or something) and all of the passengers from that sailing would be on our ship, and were already queueing. To be honest I wasn't not surprised, it wasn't a particularly rough day, and the sea didn't seem too bad, but I have come to suspect that the Swift is something of a mythical ship that ceases to exist at random intervals, perhaps at the whim of a demonic cuckoo clock on the bridge, or a transdimensional imp with a slide whistle who lives in the engine room, who knows, but clearly there is more than meterological causes behind the regular cancellations of the Catamaran crossings. Whatever the reason the sailing back to Dublin was uncomfortably cramped and marked by queues at all the shops, restaurants and toilets, and too many people, including a loudly snoring bald man whose lolling head flopped about inches from my shoulder. Unloading the cars took almost an hour, and fighting the resulting traffic all the way down the quays also took a hell of a long time, in fact it took half as long to get from the ship to Ballyfermot, as it had taken to get from Blackpool to the ship.
All in all a pretty agreeable weekend, in what might be described as a rather disagreeable looking town. To get the most out of Blackpool you have to just give in to the Kitchiness of it, laugh at the tackiness of it all, snigger at the rude t-shirts and just switch off the culture seeking part of the brain. It's impossible though not to pick up on a sense of desperation, the Hotels that seem to be clinging on, special offers everywhere, the only business left to them is the Stag and Hen parties and the Families who've come to visit the Pleasure Beach, even on a pleasant weekend in August there's no sign of swimmers, sunbathers, or any activity on the beach itself, it's sad, you can actually see the history of the decline of the indiginous tourist trade, in much the same way as you can see the demise of the coal mining industry in other towns. You have to wonder if recession will mean life or death for the British (and I suppose Irish) Sea-side resorts, has Ryanair killed them compeletly or will people seek entertainment closer to home now that money is that much scarcer ? Who knows, all I know is that if Blackpool wants to be a viable weekend break destination for the 21st century, then it has a lot of cleaning up to do.
Saturday began early, 6am early. Waking up before the baby for the first time in a long time, getting dressed, hurriedly assembling luggage and other travel equipment before waking the little man himself. For anyone older than 14 months there was a cup of tea, while the sleepy one year old bemusedly tucked in to an early breakfast. Bags, buggy, travel cot, toys, and assorted other baby supplies loaded into the car, along with the little man himself and his Grandparents, who had insanely gotten up at 4am to ensure time for a fried breakfast before setting off. The Kia had surprised us, with the rearmost seats up the otherwise cavernous bootspace always seemed quite small but it could easily accomodate travel-cot, buggy, mattress, spare shoes and coats. The Back two seats held the baby in his car seat and the bags with comfortable ease including a buffer space to stop little fingers pulling at the luggage, the middle row of seats provided grandparent accomodations, while navigator and driver occupied the front seats.
A short spin later and we were checked in and queueing for the Ulysses. on board by 7:30 for an 8:05 sailing and tucking into breakfast of bacon and hash-brown baguette. Tiernan enjoyed the boat trip, plenty of room for him to wander about although, it's a bit mean trick putting a child who is only starting to take his first few experimental unaided steps into an environment where the floor undulates somewhat unpredictably. Not to be disuaded however he grabbed a hold of the nearest available adult and led them off on a stumbling adventure up and down the ship.
It didn't seem like too long before we were all loaded back up and rumbling off the ship onto the open roads of North Wales, or so we thought, we were in fact rumbling off the ship and onto the congested exit of Holyhead port, after 40 minutes of waiting and queueing and crawling, we were out of the Port, and onto Dual Carriageway in glorious sunshine, heading towards the Britainia bridge. Holyhead is the end of the world, a mass of grim concrete and wire fencing, but once outside, it's all rolling hills and greeny pleasantness. The roads too seem to get better, the drive from Holyhead to Chester, which is the nearest access point for England's Motorway system used to be a largely one lane trundle through towns and villages and the attendant traffic chaos, now it's Dual Carriageways with 70mph limits almost the whole way apart from a couple of roundabouts at Conwy. Once past the traffic choke point that was the Britaina Bridge we were once again whooshing up along the North Wales coast at a reassuring speed overlooking the pretty vistas of Conwy and then Colwyn Bay all of which made for a most agreeable afternoon.
Nearing Chester and looking for the M56 to bring us to the M6 and on North to Blackpool there was a navigational snafu, caused in part by inadequate signage and in part by the sabbateur that lives in the borrowed Garmin that sat on the dashboard who had decided that we should take the M53 and go straight through Liverpool city centre. It was a go with the flow kind of day, and it was much easier to go forward than back so we ploughed on, underneath the river Mersey by way of a tunnel (the only toll of the day, a princely £1.40), in Liverpool, we abandoned Madame Garmin's advice and followed signs for the M6, hoping to avoid navigating city centre traffic on a sunny saturday afternoon. Only a little bit lost we pulled in for Lunch at about 2:30.
Over a tasty feed maps were consulted, Garmin was poked, prodded, sworn at and eventually persuaded to see things our way and direct us to the nearest motorway. Baby changed and smokers sufficiently re-ennicotined we were back on the road at 3:40, M6 was nearer than we thought and from there it was a simple matter of counting Junctions till 32, and then taking the M55 right into Blackpool where we were met by Lisa's Uncle Chris. I like Uncle Chris, he's a nice man, utterly mental, but a nice man. He had kindly offered to meet us at the edge of town and show us "the quick way" through the one way system to our hotel, the quick way involved several illegal turns and a quick spin up a street that was painted red, with big white letters saying "Busses and Taxis Only". Still we were soon checked in, and round at Chris' house for Tea, Pork Pies and Cake. Heading back for the night, car parked in a nearby multi-storey, we had to navigate our way through some early drunks, including a horrendous hen party clad in a motley uniform of day-glo tutus, which just defies further description, sadly day-glo outfits and tutus seemto be somewhat de rigeur attire for the self disrespecting hen partier in Blackpool. In the room Tiernan was dressed for bed, read a story and put in his cot, then we had to crouch in the tiny travelodge bathroom reading until he had dropped off to sleep, which he did mercifully quickly.
A good night sleep later and we were all up and ready to go again, breakfasted and out along the so called "Golden Mile", which, if I was feeling mean, I might point out is only golden in the same way as a golden shower is golden. Old crumbly facades, which were probably quite hastily erected 30 or more years ago and poorly maintained. Shops selling hilarious T-shirts and novelty items rarely found outside of a number of select vendors in resorts on the Canary Islands. Vendors floggig the ubiquitious sticks of rock and candy floss, alongside tacky minitures of the famous tower. The tower itself a relic of the victorian age, a sort of Eiffel Tower tribute band, suggests a time when this was the holiday destination of choice in those pre-package holiday days when the term low-fares airline was still oxymoronic, but it stands arising out of the tacky looking Tower Ballroom, a nice late 19th century building, with early 21st century posters draped on it, and dirty back alleys to either side and surrounded by the crumbling remnants of a dying resort, a museum piece without a museum, way too impressive for it's surroundings, but not impressive enough to be worth the trip on it's own. Still, among the grot and the rust and the cheap plastic signs there are some good points. Work to stop flooding of the seafront has provided a pleasant place to walk along by the beach, and the tramway has been well maintained with the old shiny trams ting-tinging past.
The Pleasure Beach, is now a proper theme park, with all the queues and costs that you expect, but the rides were of a fairly decent standard, although space seems to have been an issue and the rides do seem a bit close together, but we had a spin on a roller coaster and a Ghost Train (twee) and took photographs of Lisa taking Tiernan on one of the smaller whirlygigs, a pirate themed whirlygig I believe, so that made for a pleasant few hours. Then it was time for a spin on an open top tram all the way back along the seafront for lunch in a nearby hostelry, Tiernan got very excited on the tram, although his fun was spoiled somewhat when we refused to let him clamber over the side while hurtling along, still the trip was mostly accompanied by delighted giggling.
After a spot of lunch, a roast beef wrap, a crazy meal of roast beef wrapped in a giant yorkshire pudding, with gravy and assorted veg. It was off to the Sea Life aquarium, the much smaller Dublin Sea Life is one of Tiernan's favourite Sunday afternoon destinations, and he was not disappointed, urgling and gurgling at the fish and excitedly pointed at anything shiny in a tank that moved. The highlight was the sharks, well over a metre long, flitting about in a huge tank which could be viewed both from the side or from a dome at the bottom of the tank itself. Alas, fast moving sharks in low light are difficult to photograph, especially with a curious child grabbing at the camera, so no good pictures to be had.
Had a bit of a to-do paying for parking for Sunday, I had paid for 24 hours on Saturday as we arrived so I had to return to deposit a further £13.00 for the next 24 hours, and I made the crucial mistake of stopping in to an amusement arcade to get change for the parking machine, so thought I, I'll just pop this £20 note into the change machine and then toddle around to the parking complex with a pocket full of pound coins. Alas, twas not to be, and I left the arcade with a plastic tub containing 200 shiny ten pence pieces, my ears ringing with the sound of coin on coin, which the parking machine refused to take, balking after the first 30 coins had been deposited, with a cheeky "transaction aborted" followed by a disdainful glunking sound as my 30 ten pences chundered into the reject slot, so off I trudged back to the arcade to queue up at the change desk and ask that my tub of ten pences be exchanged for a lighter tub of pound coins, each step begging the question, "Why didn't I do this in the first place ?". On the upside, Tiernan had been hugely entertained by the sight and sound of 200 shiny tokens being disgorged from the change machine, and grabbing handfuls of change and dropping it all over the floor while I tried to direct the deluge of silver from the coin outlet into my plastic tub provided further entertainment.
Spun out the rest of the day taking it easy wandering back along by the sea, put the kid to bed, and after hiding in the bathroom till he was asleep, chilled out with some Kentucy Fried Dinner.
Early start on Monday, car loaded and on the road by 08:30, headed back out towards the motorway, and made sure to give any and all exits marked "Liverpool" a wide berth. Hit a Motorway service area for breakfast couple of hours later the motorways ran out and the North Welsh Dual carriageways hove into view, both the Britainia Bridge and Holyhead were refreshingly traffic free, so rolled up to the Terminal 2 hours before sailing, delighted that we would be nice and early and at the top of the queue, except, we weren't, the Swift ferry sailing had been cancelled (they didn't say why, I think the deck was wet or something) and all of the passengers from that sailing would be on our ship, and were already queueing. To be honest I wasn't not surprised, it wasn't a particularly rough day, and the sea didn't seem too bad, but I have come to suspect that the Swift is something of a mythical ship that ceases to exist at random intervals, perhaps at the whim of a demonic cuckoo clock on the bridge, or a transdimensional imp with a slide whistle who lives in the engine room, who knows, but clearly there is more than meterological causes behind the regular cancellations of the Catamaran crossings. Whatever the reason the sailing back to Dublin was uncomfortably cramped and marked by queues at all the shops, restaurants and toilets, and too many people, including a loudly snoring bald man whose lolling head flopped about inches from my shoulder. Unloading the cars took almost an hour, and fighting the resulting traffic all the way down the quays also took a hell of a long time, in fact it took half as long to get from the ship to Ballyfermot, as it had taken to get from Blackpool to the ship.
All in all a pretty agreeable weekend, in what might be described as a rather disagreeable looking town. To get the most out of Blackpool you have to just give in to the Kitchiness of it, laugh at the tackiness of it all, snigger at the rude t-shirts and just switch off the culture seeking part of the brain. It's impossible though not to pick up on a sense of desperation, the Hotels that seem to be clinging on, special offers everywhere, the only business left to them is the Stag and Hen parties and the Families who've come to visit the Pleasure Beach, even on a pleasant weekend in August there's no sign of swimmers, sunbathers, or any activity on the beach itself, it's sad, you can actually see the history of the decline of the indiginous tourist trade, in much the same way as you can see the demise of the coal mining industry in other towns. You have to wonder if recession will mean life or death for the British (and I suppose Irish) Sea-side resorts, has Ryanair killed them compeletly or will people seek entertainment closer to home now that money is that much scarcer ? Who knows, all I know is that if Blackpool wants to be a viable weekend break destination for the 21st century, then it has a lot of cleaning up to do.