turning corners

I'd forgotten how special this peninsula is and especially how wild Red Rocks can feel even though it's so close to houses, roads and the Royal Liverpool.  It always felt a sort of secret refuge when I was little, and it's lost none of that magic.  It's just about at the very point where the Wirral turns one if it's top edge corners to meet the Irish Sea.

On Sunday the evening was balmy and warm and the last bits of the evening sun were glistening over the mouth of the Dee, across Hilbre, Great Orme, Ynys Mon and all the way from Ireland.

And the gorse was ablaze, just as it will be in Anglesey and the Llyn at the moment.

So I'll leave you to enjoy walking with us along the edge of the sandhills and the beach - with little skylarks singing their hearts out overhead . . .

and leaving too early for the bestest of sunsets, we watched it burning away in the distance from a zooming M53 on our way back over the Pennines.

Ahh - perfect end to a fabulous Sunday - because, going back in time, this is what we were up to earlier in the day - our first ever visit to Gladstone's haunts in Hawarden.

28 birthday surprises

#1 Make the cake

#2 Surprise the birthday girl 

#3 All the best birthdays are in April

#4 Great get together with friends, Bhaji Shop Thali Cafe, eve of the big day

#5 Birthday brunch (in luverly new jumper)

#6 and ready to hike Win Hill - was it the sunglasses that did it....?? 

#7 .... brought out the rain in bucketloads!  Picnic in the car at Castleton

#8 But still smiling up North (despite blue skies all the way down in London!!)

#9 Ahha - log fire refuge at the Packhorse Inn, Little Longstone

#10 and home to light those candles 

#11 Mining Museum at Wakefield revisited - after 20 odd years! 

#12 and what larks - great ride on the pit railway

#13 there and back again

#14 and what it's all about 

#15 down the ladder in the engine room (with apologies to Louise Mcneice)

#16 off underground for over an hour - motties at the ready

#17 tour of the mine buildings

#18 lockers 

#19 All left pretty much as it was in 1980s when the mine closed 

#20 showers

#21 Pithead

#22 and farewell to Caphouse Colliery - great visit, great guides

#23 quick arty fix at YSP for the Henry Moore 'Back to a Land'

#24 Old times sake in Broomhill - Tin Po friends and memories

#25 up on a wonderful windy Broomhead Moor, above Bradfield

#26 Free fresh wind in her hair 

#27 Glimpse of our wonderful Sheffield over the distant hills

#28 Footloose and fancy free

It all went by far too quickly but the wind, rain and general freezingness didn't deter us one iota!!

Places we visited (and almost visited) were . . .

Bhaji Shop Tahli Cafe, Chesterfield Road - newish, great food, great atmosphere
Win Hill - unparalleled views - had we been able to get up there!!
Packhorse Inn, Little Longstone - FABULOUS food
National Mining Museum, Wakefield - free entry which makes it wonderfully accessible for all (donations welcome though) and brilliant underground tour which you can book a time slot for online!
Yorkshire Sculpture Park (and our other recent YSP visit) what more can I say - one of our favourite haunts since it opened - and here is the birthday girl in equally inclement weather one misty January day way back in 1996 aged 8)

Happy Yorkshire birthday Jess

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Razzle dazzle

Such a fun Easter Sunday - a day of crossing peninsulas and spanning great rivers.

A real sea fret descended on the Wirral, though this didn't stop us spotting the amazing Razzle Dazzle 'Snowdrop' makeover crossing over from from Woodside to the Pier Head.

and what a backdrop  - can't wait for the three Cunarders to descend on Liverpool in May - the Liver Building will be dwarfed.

then it was a hop and a lift up onto the old Liverpool tram and a trip back in time down to the Birkenhead tramway museum

of course Mum remembers them first time round!

 and I just love the old Egerton Bridge

so then it was a quick shimmy over to West Kirby and lunch with live performance by Sam Wise, at the lovely Tanskey's.

then an impulse decision to eat even more, and zoom over to Parkgate for some of Nicholl's AMAZING ice cream, also brought us into a little patch of sunlight . . . but you can see the mist rolling in over the Irish Sea ahead!

and there's no hiding the evidence !!!

But later, back in West Kirby on a walk around the Marine Lake, it was quite eerie in the chill damp mist with not even a glimpse of the Welsh hills just over the Dee estuary.

and you can see here what this wonderful walk usually looks like from one of my blog posts last year - West Kirby in the sun