Sunday 15 October - Doncaster


Am giving myself a gentle start to the day and then more towns before heading east towards the coast. Rotherham and Sheffield next and then not sure, will have to consult the map. Only a couple of days before I am home and the call of home now gets stronger.

posted at 10:35 in /where (permanent link)

Saturday 14 October - Doncaster


Went to York first. Had been there a few months ago for work but today was a totally different experience. It was packed with people. The car parks had coachloads of foreign visitors, the shoppers were out in force and it is half term so there were lots of weekenders as well. The Shambles were packed with tours, locals wondering what was going on to make the streets so crowded. The west front of the Minster shrouded in scaffolding the photo opportunities were compressed.

This is a very different place to most of the towns I have visited this week. This is leisure Britain central - affluent, historic, always a centre for visitors. The shops are varied, as well as a high street there is a thriving market, and lots of little shops aimed at visitors. Pretty things to buy, few essentials, lots of eye candy. Wonder how easy it is for the shops, costs must be high and although they get lots of visitors, most leave without buying anything.

As I leave York I get very sad news that my uncle, Joe, died in his sleep last night. We will all miss him a lot. He was always fun, as kids he would keep us entertained with jokes and tricks, a perfect uncle.

I go on with a heavy heart to Hull. I want to visit the Deep, 'the world's only submarium' - it is a wondrous place. It explains the oceans and how they and man have evolved but it is those that live in the sea that capture everyone. They have huge tanks that go across three floors filled with creatures. Sharks that lurk, rays that slip along like ribbon. Brightly coloured small fish that skitter along almost too quickly to see. Exotic colours, strange box shape fish, everyone is standing noses pressed to the glass, hypnotised by being able to be underwater creatures ourselves. As you rise up through the ocean, fast in the lift or slower via the stairs, you see this extraordinary world but from the surface everything looks calm and quiet and empty. Not a sign of the life below.

Hull itself is very different to York. From the grand buildings you can see it was once affluent. The civic building are solid and create the centre of the town. You can see that it has seen hard times recently and that there has been a lot of regeneration. But there seems often to be a gap between the regenerated areas and those not. Regeneration seems to be harder in the larger towns and cities where the larger space means that some areas change and others don't and there are boundaries between the two. It can seem like a gap between rich and poor - the affluent feel at home in the new shops and malls, coffee shops and art centres. The poor don't have the cash and so can feel excluded. In smaller towns the space is smaller and so things often seem more blurred.

It is late afternoon in Hull and youth are gathering. Finishing their shopping, not yet planning to go out but gathering to say goodbye before the 9.30 texting frenzy to decide where to go for the evening. The older generations look at the young as if they come from another planet, which in a sense they do. But it's another boundary that seems to be difficult to transcend and may create unnecessary problems.

I stop briefly in Scunthorpe which seems to another bastion of industry. Steel made here, although as it's owned by Corus, perhaps it will soon have another owner. The town centre is bounded by car parks, no way to get through the cordon without parking but the shops have closed and so it all looks too much like all those police dramas. Drive on to Doncaster, find a hotel where a wedding party is in full swing.

posted at 10:34 in /travel (permanent link)