And on the right we have...

The weekend of the 4/5 November, my folks were kind enough to allow me to decend on them with my Cambridge friends. I decided that since neither of them (my friends) had seen much (or any) of Cheshire that it would be nice to treat them to a weekend away. So, on the Saturday morning we headed north… all was going well until we reached the M6, a couple of miles before the junction where I usually come off. It was at this point that there was a pretty large accident involving about 5 cars and a minivan all in the fast lane. It had just happened and the emergency services were arriving on the scene to deal with the situation. Most of the cars in front of me managed to get passed the scene before a road-block was set up (I landed up at the front of the roadblock, giving us a view of what was going on around the accident scene). We were amazed how no-one (except one driver who had by the looks of things twisted his ankle) was seriously hurt. Based on the damage to some of the cars I am amazed no-one was killed! There was a lotus (had passed us early) which was pretty much crumpled junk in the middle of everything and then another car where the boot was now part of the backseat! And people were walking away from the scene… wow. We had the opportunity to see how an accident scene is assessed and then cleared up rapidly to get the flow of traffic going again. It is amazing (I know I am using this word a lot, but hey) how much these MAINTENANCE vehicles can store in the back – cones galore, little signs, barriers, brooms, jackets, and those were just the things that were taken out!

After our short stop, we were back on our way and got to my folks within another half hour. We had a chat, a cup of tea, lunch and then headed to Chester! I think we all had a good time in Chester and enjoyed wandering around and even had the opportunity to listen to a choir practice in the chapel. The conductor was a very enthusiastic chap and a perfectionist too… some of the singers didn’t seem to appreciate the interruptions though, while others didn’t even seem to care and decided that having a nap was the better option!

After Chester, we headed to my folks’ via Dellamere forest to watch some husky racing in the dark. This was fun as we couldn’t quite see where we were going (no torch, but thankfully a full moon to provide us with some light) and weren’t quite sure where we were going. We arrived at a barrier and stopped to listen. For about half an hour we stood by the barrier, listening and waiting… at all times we could hear lots of dogs barking in the distance and then occasionally we would hear barking approaching… then see an eerie light appearing over the hill and then a "sled" team would come zooming by. A "sled" team would consist of three dogs in harness, attached to a large tricycle type contraption, on which stood the driver yelling his/her instructions. Each "sled" needed a light, so they could see where they were going, and fast reactions as there were a lot of trees around and also uneven ground. It was fun to see and there was even an incident where two teams came passed us very close to each other and as they headed away from us we could hear the two drivers conversing "are your dogs all female"… "yes they are, are your dogs male?"… "yes they are!"… "argh" (as the male dogs all leapt onto the female dogs and there was a tangling of harness lines). (Photos added below of the races …can’t really see much … look like ghost-dogs,). The evening was spent a my folks’ eating, drinking and chatting…

Sunday morning we headed back to Dellamere forest to see it in the light! We had a nice walk around (got a bit lost but found our way to the car again) and then headed through Northwich to visit the Anderton boat lift, with a quick gallop through Northwich town centre too. After lunch, it was time to say cheerio to my folks and head back south. However, our goodbyes were short lived. Within about 10 mins of driving, I had a puncture… I somehow drove over a screw while overtaking an idiot rolling backwards down a hill in the village between my folks’ and the motorway. The tyre went down pretty quick and we had to pull over to change the wheel. What a mission – my folks came out to assist us and after a half-hour delay we were back on the road. The rest of the journey was uneventful (thankfully) and we arrived back in Cambridge at around 6pm. Overall I had a good weekend and hopefully managed to be a good tour-guide. Thanks Mom for all the good food and thanks Dad for driving us around!