Diary Wednesday 23rd August 2017

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Today I was on an all day mini-bus trip organized by the community centre, taking us from Preston Lancashire to Skipton in Yorkshire. I have been to Skipton before but I knew there was much more to see and do there. The coach was leaving at 9.30 am, so I got to the community centre in plenty of time, and like the other passengers, I got the prepared packed lunch that was included in the modest cost of the trip. The weather looked bleak as we set off but gradually got nicer over the day and only deteriorated again when we got back to Preston. We got to Skipton at about 10.30 am, and got a quick light drink (blackcurrant juice in my case) in a lovely tearoom, before splitting up to go and do our own thing before re-joining the bus at 2.30pm. I crammed as much as I could into my time. I looked around the thriving street markets, and a local craft-fair though I didn’t buy anything. I went round the local museum, housed in the Town Hall. This is a fascinating museum, full of all kinds of unexpected gems. Punch and Judy dolls from round the World, fossils, including a prehistoric hippopotamus skull found in Lancashire (I had no idea we once had hippos here), and most amazingly of all a first edition of The First Folio edition of the play of William Shakespeare, in effect a rare copy of the first ever collected works edition of the plays. It had been donated to the town by a local antique dealer in the late 19th century. I walked around the Leeds-Liverpool canal bain in the town centre. I considered taking the canal boat cruise but it finished too late for me to have made it back to the bus. I called in one pub, The Woolly Sheep for a beer. A very nice and busy hotel with a public bar, serving a very nice dark sesion ale called Ram Tam, from the Timothy Taylor' brewery - a smooth 4.3% ale. I wish I could have stayed to drink more. I sat down on a nice bench to eat my lunch. Several local people were milling around an some seem to really like the benches around the town centre statues and market traders. A few seemed to be queuing up ready to grab places as soon as anyone, myself included vacated a bench. From my previous visit to Skipton, I had only fourteen pub signs to still get photos of. I now only have four more to hunt down. Back on the bus then, and we were taken to a café-bar called The Pavilion, attached to an extensive and very expensive garden centre called Shackletons near Clitheroe. I had a very nice beer in the café. Our driver brought us all home to Preston, kindly dropping myself and a few others off within walking distance of our homes. After catching up on e-mails and other chores I was too tired to do much of anything let alone write things up for Mylot. My thanks to everyone involved in a terrific day out. Arthur Chappell