We arrived at the Blackpool North train station at about half past midnight. I recognize Dave immediately. I'm assuming the younger man with him is Karl and I'm right! It's lightly raining and so they waste no time in getting our luggage into the car and us into the back seat. We leave the train station following Karl to the hotel. We arrive at the Hotel Belvedere, where our delightful hosts, Steve and Lee, await us. Greetings and introductions are given all around and soon Josh and Steve are off to the business of checking in. It was terribly late and everyone agreed that we should settle up the tab in the morning. We said our "Good night"s and hustled off to bed.

We were incredibly happy with the accommodations we were given. A corner room overlooking the Irish Sea. Of course, we couldn't see it at midnight but we could hear it. Our room was an "en suite" which means that it has a private bathroom in the room. Our bathroom at Bob's was communal but it was clean and pleasant so we didn't care. I was the only one going to be using the showerin our "en suite" since Josh wasn't allowed to shower for a week. Ew. He didn't smell too bad. We wasted no time going straight to sleep. Before we did, though, our hosts asked if 9:30 would be too early in the morning for our Authentic English Breakfast. We said no but set the alarm to make sure we got up for it. I had never had black pudding before so I was looking forward to that.

We got up, we dressed and we went downstairs for breakfast. It wasn't long before we met the resident pooch, Toffee, a 10 year old golden labrador retriever who was adorable. Blackpool is currently in its last week of off-season and Lee is the chef during that time. He presented us with our Authentic English Breakfast which consisted of ham, sausage, beans, egg, grilled tomato, fried bread, hashbrowns and black pudding, lots of tea, toast as well as juice and fruit. We'd never had black pudding and I was eager to try it. I didn't know what to expect so I kept an open mind for my palate. The black pudding was hearty, rich and meaty. It tasted like a whole meal of meat in one bite. I wanted to put gravy on it. I liked it. I didn't like it. I liked it. It was a meal by itself. I didn't eat all of mine since I had so much food to consume but I would definitely have it again. I remarked to Lee that the typical English breakfast was quite substantial and could sustain someone for the whole day. He said that Englanders don't typically have lunch so that's why breakfast is so hearty. I noticed later that I wasn't hungry again until around 7pm. Never mind the fact that I had been bingeing on sweets all day.

Josh and I walked south down North Promenade to the more touristy areas of Blackpool: the North Pier, the shops, the donkeys on the beach.... Apparently, there's been this long tradition of children getting donkey rides on the beach. So, I decided that I wanted to pet the donkeys. (I learned that these animals have work rights. Click the link to find out more.)

Ask a simple question of the donkey proprietors and they'll talk your ears off about donkeys. Who knew there was so much to know about donkeys? I remarked that they are so little and that I'm used to much bigger donkeys, the size of horses. The lady said she had one that big, brought it to the beach and it scared the children so she never brought it back. It wasn't long before this whole donkey episode that Josh found a cool shell on the beach...

We didn't stay out much longer. Josh was tiring from the walk so we headed back to the hotel where I was hoping to get some work done. Steve graciously let me use his laptop for awhile and I did so while sitting in their front salon watching the tide come in. As you can see from the above picture, the tide is out at the moment, well past the end of the pier. By the time high tide rolled around, near 8pm, the water had risen close to 27 feet and come in over 300 yards. That's one helluva tide. Not at crazy as the Bay of Fundy but still pretty dramatic!

Josh and I had had the experience of everything closing up pretty early in Hendon so we thought that if we were going to have dinner, we'd better do it before 8pm. We'd been given the suggestion of going to the Gynn for dinner, hopefully to have our first meal of fish and chips. Luckily, The Gynn was just around the corner and seeing as how it was blustery, cold and raining, we didn't want to go far for food. We arrive at The Gynn to be told very sternly by the barmaid that the kitchen is closed. We were unlikely to get fish and chips that night. Instead we went to Paparazzi, a nice little Italian place across the street. Both of our meals were delicious.

One of the things we noticed about England was that there was still a hint of light in the sky even at 10pm. We mozied our way back to the hotel thinking that it was just around 9 or so when we realized it was creeping up on 10:30pm! Our hosts were waiting for us to come back, since they don't have a porter in the off season, so they could retire for the night. I felt bad. I didnt' realize it was that late. The sky had us fooled. We went to sleep with light still in the sky...

Wednesday had us up to a glorious day and eating our lovely breakfast again at 9:30 and then we were off to another day of walking around Blackpool. We popped into and out of shops and made notes of places we'd like to get souvenirs from should we not find a better deal somewhere else. O'Neills Pub was where we had our fish and chips and it was delectable. Both Josh and I were licking the plate. We spent the better part of the day just wandering around aimlessly looking at all kinds of fun things. I chased a few pigeons, too.

That night, however, Josh looked up the train time tables for our return trip back to London. We needed to be on a very early train in order to get on the Tube to make it to Heathrow in plenty of time for our noon flight. The time table stated that there was a 5:19am train leaving Blackpool North and arriving at the Euston Station at 8:41am. That was fantastic! We'd arrive at Heathrow with time to spare. I suggested to Josh, just because of the way things were going, to email the train company and verify that the train was indeed going to be there and that we could be on it. He agreed and sent an email. Not long after, we get a knock at the door that Karl is there to buy us a drink. Yay! Downstairs we go to the lounge to partake. There was pleasant conversation all around, including a bit with Dorothy, another guest whose accent was so strong, I couldn't understand her. I just said "yes" a lot and laughed when she did. Karl said that he couldn't join us for the Harry Potter movie we were going to the next day but that he would give us a ride to the theatre since it was a considerable walk. Josh bought our tickets online in case it was sold out and found it interesting that the theatres have assigned seating.

We woke up Thursday to some seriously nasty weather. It was breakfast as usual and then soon Karl arrived to take us to the movies. We were kind of hoping to see a ton of people all dressed up but that wasn't the case. School is in session until July 20th so there weren't many children running around and the theatre was only about 1/3 full. Our seats were good choices and our seat mates to the right were quite fun to talk to. With the movie over (and a good movie at that) we headed out of the theatre into a full blown rainstorm. And us without our nellies. Neither Josh or I had an umbrella (nelly) so we were to walk in the rain. It wasn't so bad, actually. Walking in the rain is a nice thing to do from time to time. I had given up a week earlier of any hopes of my hair looking nice on the trip so I was hoping that the rain would make it all curly and Medusa-like. We were due to have dinner with Karl and his family along with Joanie and Dave at around 5:45pm. I didn't want to look like a drowned rat but there really was nothing to be done about my hair. Dag nabbit!

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped off at the shops and picked up a few things to bring home. I also needed to log onto the internet at the Starbucks I saw and check on work. The month of internet service I had purchased on Monday in Stratford didn't seem to be working. Luckily, there was a T-Mobile store right across the avenue from the coffee shop. I headed in there to hopefully get one of the guys to fire up a computer and let me look at my email for a password. That's exactly what happened. One of the gents there booted up a computer, I logged on and he wrote down the password for me. I trudge back over to Starbucks, Josh leaves to go get some items to take home and I try to log on. Its still not working. I've tried every combination of case-sensitivity of the password I can think of. I thought maybe the 2 was a Z, tried that. Nothing. Tried a whole bunch of stuff and nothing worked. I decided that it was the universe's way of saying, "there will be no working while in England." I gave up. I went back to the T-Mobile store and headed right for their computer kiosk which only displays T-Mobile sites. I had given Josh my phone earlier so that I could text him from the computer to let him know when I was done. (I was getting text messages on my phone but that was all.) I texted him that I was finished with work in a exasperated sort of way and was ready to just give it all up and wait until I got home to the States to do anything else. He met me soon after and we started our way back to the hotel.

Upon arrival at the hotel, Josh checks his email and sees that he got a notice back from the National Rail system. The email said that our tickets were not good for the train leaving Blackpool North at 5:19am and that we should choose another train. The email did not say why we couldn't take it, it just said that they were not valid tickets on that tirp. I suggested we find the number and call from the house phone to figure out why that particular time was not available to us when the nice gentleman at Euston Station on Monday said as long as we used our ticket within a month, any trip back was valid. I proceed to fuss about on the internet while Josh goes to make the call. I come down soon after to find Josh hunched over the reception desk looking particularly pissed off.

From what I'm getting from Josh's side of the conversation is that we would have to upgrade our ticket to take that train and it would cost us 220 pounds for both of us. That's about $440. For a trip back to London. That was not going to happen. When Josh inquired as to why our tickets previously purchased were not any good, the lady on the phone said it was because our tickets were only good for trains arriving in London after 10:55am. I distinctly remember Josh asking the ticket seller at Euston Station about times. He told him when our flight was and the guy said, "yeah, yeah, these tickets are what you need." Curses!! Foiled again!

Right about this time, Dave shows up to take us to dinner with the family. We tell Dave what's going on and ask about renting a car to get back. He tells us that since we hadn't driven in England before, taking the risk of driving ourselves and getting lost would not be a good idea. Dave then graciously offers to drive us to London Heathrow airport from Blackpool, about a 4-1/2 hour trip, one way. We are blown away by the offer. At that point, we both say, "let's just go to dinner and think on it a bit." Off to Truffles Restaurant we go.