A Trip To The Midlands

Fahrul has some work to do in Darlington, the Midlands, and we all decided to follow him. It’s a six to seven hours drive and we left Tenby at close to 5.00pm. Our original target was to leave just after lunch but circumstances did not allow that to happen. We went in Fahrul’s VW Jetta with me driving the first half of the journey and Fahrul drove the rest of the way arriving at the hotel in the outskirts of Darlington at about midnight. The hotel is only a walking distance to the office where Fahrul has work to do. There is also a hypermarket close by, hence very convenient for us.

Ram and I were up early the next morning. We went for a walk around the vicinity and found a trail or path in the surrounding forest. We ventured along the path for some distance and in the super-cool weather was indeed an invigorating experience. We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon going round Darlington seeing the sights.

When Fahrul came back from work we drove to York, about an hour South of Darlington, to visit my niece and family living there. Dinner was waiting for us when we arrived and we had a good time chit-chatting until late. It was past midnight by the time we got back to Darlington.

The next day, after Fahrul had gone to work, we drove down to Manchester to visit my cousin and family who live there. They have an 11 month old girl, their first born and we were looking forward to meet them. The husband was recently transferred by his employer to London and they were in the process of moving over, scheduled for this weekend and we took the opportunity to visit them before they move. The drive into Manchester was kind of congested. I thought it was normal for traffic to be like that but I found out later that there was a game on that night and for that a big crowd, some one hundred thousand expected, from Scotland were to converge in Manchester. The stadium can only hold 13000 spectators and the rest I guess would just congest the city pubs. No wonder there was a jam in the city.

We had lunch and a long chat until late afternoon. It has been quite a while since we last met and naturally there were a lot of catching up to do, and mostly on family matters. It was quite late by the time we got out of Manchester but this time, the drive out of the city was easy as the crowd was at the stadium area. It was an easy drive out. Fahrul was already at the hotel by the time we arrived.

The third day in the midlands was spent in Stockton, checking out the shopping mall. Not a big place but nice to browse along though. We spent several hours there, bought some children and other stuff, and left when Fahrul was ready to be picked up from office after work. We had already checked out of the hotel and were supposed to return to Tenby but we decided to detour to Lancaster to visit Sita’s former classmate and her family living in the University residence. She is doing her doctorate in the university while her husband is working in Lancaster and at the same time also furthering his studies. We had dinner there and left at about 10.00pm for the trip back to Tenby arriving at about 4.30am.

The trip to the midlands was mainly to visit friends and kinfolks and we achieved that. Seeing the sights was not the main agenda but we managed to include it as we go along. We would certainly need more time to see all the places, especially the Lake District and other attractive places. I hear that Leeds was once voted the nicest city to live in and I would certainly like to check it out for myself. Maybe the next trip……..

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Tenby, Pembrokeshire, Wales