Poki’s Progress
Poki was due to arrive back in the U.K. at London Gateway Port last Thursday, 1st May. Everything had been going very smoothly. We had been tracking the ship, the Maersk San Lorenzo and it looked as if she would be on time. However, on Tuesday I received a message from the shipping agent to say that Maersk had been unable to secure a berth at London Gateway and the San Lorenzo was going instead to Southampton!
Looking at the tracking again, it showed the San Lorenzo heading not to Southampton, but to Rotterdam! This was not an originally scheduled stop. So, this has added a few days to Poki’s arrival. She is now due in Southampton tomorrow at 17.30. We then have to wait for the shipping agent to advise us that Customs have cleared her and when and where we can collect her. This could take 3 – 5 days.
As we had expected to collect Poki a week earlier, we now have made plans which it looks as if we may have to reschedule. (We should have known that shipping never goes to plan!)
We have only been back in the U.K. for a month and already we’re getting itchy feet. So, once we have Poki back and have cleaned her up and given her a bit of TLC, we’ll be off for a few weeks in France.
Yorkshire
This weekend we have been up to Yorkshire. I’m ashamed to say I have more knowledge of the rest of the world than I have of northern England. My son, Tim, has purchased a holiday home in Skipton in North Yorkshire. It’s a three storey townhouse overlooking the Leeds/Liverpool canal. Skipton is the gateway to the Yorkshire Dales with a 11th-century castle and an impressive history.
Skipton
Sitting on Tim and Kate’s balcony watching the longboats passing with a nice glass of rose was a very pleasing experience. However, we managed to tear ourselves away to explore Skipton, a town of around 17,000 inhabitants. Many interesting shops, cafes, restaurants and pubs. We managed to sample a few.
We took a long walk around the woods bordering Skipton Castle. It had been a lovely warm week in the mid/high 20’s, but winter has decided to return and the wind was decidedly chilly. It has been very dry and the river was very low, the lake next to the castle was drying up and where the water normally runs from the lake to the river, the waterfall was bone dry. Farmers are complaining about poor crop growth.
Skipton Castle
Yesterday morning we visited the castle. Over 900 years old, it is one of the most complete and best preserved medieval castles in England, built in 1090 by the Norman Baron, Robert de Romille. After the Romille line died out, King Edward 11 granted the castle to Lord Robert Clifford and it remained in the Clifford family until 1676.
The Norman builders sentiment – Des Or Mais. ‘From now on’
During the English Civil War, the castle was the last Royalist stronghold in the north of England to surrender, after a 3 year siege. A surrender was negotiated between Oliver Cromwell and the Royalists, when Cromwell ordered the removal of the roof. After the siege, the last Clifford to own the castle, Lady Anne Clifford, ordered repairs and planted a yew tree in the court yard to commemorate the castle restoration.
Lothersdale
After our castle visit, we drove through the countryside, a patchwork of small, green fields divided by stone walls, to the village of Lothersdale. Kate had booked us a table for Sunday lunch at the Hare and Hounds pub. The village is dominated by a large chimney. The site of a former corn and then textile mill. It apparently contains the largest surviving internal waterwheel in Britain, now under repair.
Salts Mill
On our drive back south, we stopped in Saltaire, close to Bradford, to visit Salts Mill. This is a huge complex, formerly a textile mill. In it’s working day, it’s 3,000 workers produced 30,000 yards of cloth. When the mill opened in 1853 it was the largest industrial building in the world in terms of total floor area. The mill closed in 1986 and a long period of restoration took place. It now houses an art gallery, shops and restaurants and one could easily spend the whole of a rainy day exploring.
Huge halls once home to clattering wool processing and spinning machines to now hold book sales, art displays and antiques.
A list of the many individual skills for processing raw wool into textiles.
A beautiful wall mounted Tile mosaic depicting the mill and other town buildings.
It was a very enlightening weekend. There is so much history and so many lovely places to visit in the north of England. Perhaps this should be a future Poki tour.
We are supposed to go to New Milton, on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire, next weekend to stay with my friend, Victoria. We’re hoping collecting Poki won’t interfere with this plan. The next update will be when we have Poki back and have made some firm plans for France.
Views: 2