A Very Different A3!
⬅ previous ⬆introDay 11- Sunday 10 September
Our flight back isn't till early evening, and none of this "check-in three hours in advance" nonsense, so we've got most of the day to ourselves.
Amanda goes for an early morning run and takes some pictures of the fine waterfront buildings.
The airport is a fair old way from Douglas, but there still are things to see and do in that part of the island. Indeed, the airport is named "Castletown" after the nearby town with a castle.
Across a small harbour, there's the castle.
Shiny paint again.
Into the castle we go.
What can I say? We are (almost) in the presence of royalty!
They like a good tableau on the island, we've found.
Different clock, different Elizabeth. Still Queen, though.
Now to the reconstructed traditional Manx village of Cregneash.
Ah, now here are some sheep with really first-class horns!
"Harry Kelly's Cottage". Harry Kelly being a crofter who lived in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Look at the way they hold the thatch down. We don't think we've seen this technique before.
Inside it's pretty basic as you'd expect.
After a week of fine weather it's suddenly turned a bit nasty, cold and wet, so it would be nice to stand close to the fire but it's creating quite a lot of smoke. Oh, not only is the fire real, the peasant lady is too. Well, she's an actor, obviously, not an actual peasont, but she's a real actor.
And now it's nearly time to go.
Raining when we arrived, raining when we left, but mostly in between the weather has been great.
Seems we're approaching from the East, so we won't get to fly down the Thames across the middle London.
Still an interesting view, but maybe we'll have to try again another time.
Home now to our own non-Manx cats. But how? Remember we found we couldn't book an Uber in advance? Well I fire up the app now, but it seems there's nobody available near us and we'll have quite a wait. Harrumph! It's not that late, but it's been a long day and we don't want it to be any longer than necessary. We'll get public transport after all.
But there's a rail strike on! That means we can get to Wimbledon by DLR and Tube, but no SWR service to either of our local stations. We'll have to see if we can get an Uber from there.
Blimey, what a palaver. Still, while less than ideal, it all works out in the end and we take our first ever Uber cab with very little difficulty.
At last!
Next trip: Egypt in January 2024.
THE END
⬅ previous ⬆intro