The Mission Tour: Manchester and Workington - England Part Two

Monday

16 May 

2016

The first thing we did on Monday was actually to go to Asda, which is England's Walmart and buy me a cheap straightener, along with a few other things we needed.  It was rather funny to see on the signs, "Save Money.  Live Better.  Asda."

We decided for our first "touristy" activity, we would go to Lyme Park.  Apparently, one of the Pride and Prejudice films (the really long one) used this house for Mr. Darcy's home.  We quite enjoyed exploring this lovely old home.  They have a costume department, which will dress you up in old fashioned clothing while you wander the house and gardens, and I convinced Peter we should do it!

 

Another couple dressed up about the same time as we did and took our picture for us, so we returned the favor.  

Their gardens were a little disappointing.  It seemed like they were in between seasons, so they were clearing out the flowers that had just bloomed (specifically the tulips), but the next group hadn't started blossoming yet.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed our visit.

If you look closely you'll see a 'PJB' that someone had car

The white flowers below smelled so good

For lunch we stopped at a KFC.  We thought we'd check out how some of the American fast food places were different in England.  I was not impressed with the changes to their menu: no biscuits, no mashed potatoes, and their baked beans were flavorless.

Then we went into Manchester proper and did a little shopping.  Peter had discovered that the cord to charge his Nintendo 3ds would not work with 220 V, so we bought him a new charging cord that works with UK plugs.  We also picked up a UK to Europe adaptor to use with our US to UK adaptor so we would be able to charge our electronics in France and Italy.  We explored a few of the other shops in the vicinity before heading back to our B&B.

England TJ Maxx is called TK Maxx

Argos and Boots are two British stores.

At Argos, they don't display their merchandise.  They provide catalogues and/or tablets for you to look through their stock and then they bring out what you order.  This tablet was out of order, and I thought the way they communicated that was funny.  The British say you are "poorly" if you're sick.  

After shopping we went back to our hotel and relaxed some more.  We got this dessert in town.  A cookie with chocolate sauce and caramel.  Yum.

Tuesday 

17 May 

2016

Tuesday we drove from Rochdale to Workington.  We were staying at a member's house that Peter knew from his mission.  On our way we stopped at Muncaster Castle. 

Now, at this point I feel I should say, Google never failed us when we followed its driving directions.  However, it did take us some interesting places.  In this instance, that means it took us on a two-way road only wide enough for one car across a pasture for sheep - with no fence between us and the sheep.  It was exciting.

I believe it was during this drive that Peter gave me the overview of his mission - where he served and for how long, and the major events that occurred (becoming Zone Leader, and the like). 

Like I said, Google didn't fail us, so we did make it to Muncaster.  It was a gorgeous day.  We only had a short time to visit there, but once we got there we wished we had more.  They have the castle you can explore a little, an aviary, and then a lot of places where you can go walking.  We really enjoyed Muncaster and would definitely recommend it. 

At the entrance

Prettier flowers than at Lyme

While we were there, we ate lunch at their restaurant in the stable yard.  Peter got bangers and mash, which is sausages with mashed potatoes.  I tasted it, and it was really good.  My leek and potato soup was tasty, too.  I also tried two more UK sodas.  Another J20 - Orange & Passion Fruit, which became my favorite.  Peter also got us a Dandelion & Burdock, just so he could watch my face when I tried it.  It tastes like cough syrup!  Yuck!

Stable yard where the restaurant was

Dandelion & Burdock (aka cough syrup)

Orange Passion Fruit J20 and a yummy dessert

Moss on the Castle

Muncaster had a lot of stories about Tom Fool, who was apparently the inspiration for the phrase "tom-foolery".  A friendly stranger took our picture together next to Tom Fool's Tree, where he used to sit.

We went inside the castle, but they wouldn't let us take pictures.  

After we left Muncaster, we headed to Branthwaite, where one of the members Peter knew from his mission, Vanessa, had a place for us to stay.  When we got there, it took us some time to find the house because it didn't really have an address, just a name.  Vanessa wasn't there when we first arrived, but the gentleman who lived across the street let us step in to phone her.  He also showed us some maps of the area and suggested a route we might take the next day through the Lake District.  He ended up letting us keep one of his maps, which was very kind.  

When Vanessa arrived, we found out we were staying in the house they had lived in previously and still owned.  It was nice to have our own space!  We had a good visit with Vanessa, and she told us about a youth activity that a few people Peter had known would be at that was happening that evening, so we went over to the church and visited for about half an hour before stopping for dinner.  We tried to meet up with another person from Peter's mission, but we somehow missed him.

I had to take a picture because it was in an old house and looked so different from the usual church buildings.

LDS Church Building

So you can see the sign - sort of

We stopped by a grocery store and picked up some yogurt and juice for breakfast the next morning, when we would be headed through the Lake District!