This laid-back lifestyle is frequently rather frantic! So much so, we’re once again a couple of weeks behind with posts. This week can hopefully be ‘catch-up’ time, to get you all up-to-date with where we’ve been, and what we’ve been up to along the way. At least the publishable stories!

If you want to see where we are currently, ‘like’ our Facebook page where we post more frequently (much less time-consuming lol!), or Barry keeps our location up to date on his website.

Sheffield to Rotherham with friends

One of the main reasons for making our inaugural trip to Sheffield was to catch up with close friends Sara and Fred.

On Sunday 25th March, bright and early (though not in the least bushy-tailed as the clocks sprang forward that morning!) they met us in the basin on their bikes, and accompanied us down the Tinsley Lock Flight. We’d have much preferred a later start than 0930hrs, but the resident lock-keeper wasn’t keen to negotiate the time unfortunately, so we were left with no choice but to leave the city by 0830hrs.

That afternoon we thought we’d venture into Rotherham and see what delights it had to offer. We weren’t aware of any in particular, so were happily surprised to find a couple. One was what appeared to be an A-mazing shop, sadly closed on Sundays and Mondays, Grimm & co, which, on further research, turns out to be a most magnificent guise for a children’s writing workshop venue:

“Grimm & Co’s Writers’ Pad is our Yorkshire-wide centre, based in Rotherham, where young people aged 7 to 18 come and enjoy creative, imaginative happenings that lead to the joyful discovery of writing for pleasure.”

How spectacularly splendid is that!

We walked up to Clifton Park, on a rare sunny and mild day, and wandered slowly around. It was so unusually warm (in comparison to the past six months or so!), there were even children playing in the water-park in their bathing costumes!

 

We stayed just above Rotherham Lock overnight, taking advantage of the nearby Lidl to stock up on a few essentials before heading to Doncaster on Monday 26th, as I had a train booked from there to my mum’s on the Wednesday.

Rotherham to Sprotborough

En route Doncaster, we spotted our first ducklings of 2018 – spring and settled weather MUST be just around the corner? Yeah right. In my dreams …

If you’ve been reading them you’ll have gathered Barry’s done most of the captions on this post, some of them have tickled me …

An overnight stay in Sprotborough was adorable! Rather a contrast to the industrialised and dismal-looking Rotherham and Doncaster.

Sprotborough to Doncaster

We didn’t wander around Doncaster, though did find the railway station there rather delightful. As we walked in, I noticed the walls were covered in poetry from Doncasterians (is that a word?). Here’s a small snippet …

What we didn’t know, was that the evening before a tragic young couple had jumped onto the track, in front of an approaching train, and committed suicide, hugging each other. It’s surprising the station was even open the following day. How awful that at the ages of 27 and 34, you can feel that life is not worth living.

Next moves …

From Doncaster Barry finally managed to get to Goole. More on that to come.