Is Grimsargh a pretty enough village in the Ribble valley?
How long from manchester city?
Could we do a short morning visit to Blackpool before an afternoon cricket game at Grimsargh?

What is the national football museum in Preston like?

This HAS to be a troll.

I'm not knocking the Midlands -- as a tot I lived outside Manchester -- in "Beech House, Toft Road, Knutsford, Cheshire, England" as I was told to recite to policemen, if ever lost.

And my mother-in-law's family were stalwarts of Cartmell Fell, Lancashire.

But Blackpool?

Must be trolling.........

What's got into tedgale?

Grimsargh should be, when traffic's runing smoothly, about 5 minutes from the M6/M55 junction, whence it's 15 mins max to Blackpool. Anyone that close would be insane and insensitive not make the trip.

Can't remember whether Grimsargh's at the pretty end of the valley (which gets very dull towards the sea). But go a couple of miles upstream to Ribchester, and it's really, really pretty. The Roman stuff, while low-key, is concentrated enough to be interesting.

Morning's not the best time forBlackpool, which is about the trippers during the season, or about the Illuminations outside, and outside the season, on a typically wet morning it is seriously dismal. But time it right, have draught "champagne" in Yates' (though it was getting terrifyingly yuppified last time I was there, and no longer does the two bob a glass Aussie white that was its hallmark in its heyday)and the mandatory fish and chips - and there's at least one cricket match we'll beat the Aussies in this coming year. Better still, from johhj's point of view, Blackpool will give you enough anti-Pom ammunition to fuel a whole tour's worth of post-match booze-ups. Beautiful it isn't. But ten days in Blackpool probably provoked more £5 Poms to make the trip down under than any other aspect of 1950s British life.

"Manchester city" in English means only one thing: the football team most Mancunians support. Ask any Brit where Manchester city is and he'll give you minute details of how to get to Maine Road, their stadium. Central Manchester (which I assume is what you really mean) is about 35 miles from Grimsargh. However both access to the M61 at Manchester, and the M61/M6 junction you want round Preston are very, very, prone to congestion at all sorts of times you wouldn't predict (like 0530 weekdays and on summer Sunday afternoons). Allow anywhere from 30 to 120 minutes.

Thanks Flanner

I can see it now...the boys and I having a post tour barbie on my verandah at scotland island laughing ourselves silly at the poms we saw at blackpool that overcast chilly july morning,parading up and down in their socks and sandals whinging about how bad life is...and how we went on down to Grimshargh and belted them at cricket and drank the Plough Inn dry!

Where's Alec to defend the flyde coast?

Fixtures out of manchester are now looking like
Westleigh CC
Earby CC
Marple CC
Grimsargh CC

What do you reckon flanner...can my more perceptive players get a fair grasp of lancastrian geography and "culture" out of that?

Looks like we will be at the Manchester YHA...comments?

Tedgale - are you SURE you lived just outside Manchester. Because most Mancunians and Lancastrians I know would throw you in Morecombe Bay for saying it's in the Midlands! They're Northerners and bloody-mindedly proud of it.

I would imagine that to most Scots, Mancunians and Liverpudlians are equally ***!!!** southerners - and English ones to boot (probably literally).

johjj:

People who live in Moaner Vale really shouldn't talk about whingers. And we exported them all in the 1950s anyway: the only ones you see here these days are their even whinier kids, doing their OE.

And people who live in a country where grown men walk round in shorts, long socks and wing-tip shoes really shouldn't cast sartorial aspersions.

Anyway, sandals and socks have a very distinguished pedigree (even though they've not been seen on a living Brit since the last edition of Monty Python). On display at the Royal Academy at present is a splendid contemporary sculpture of the Emperor Trajan (wall builder to Picts and Scots), wearing his signs of deification: thunderbolt of Jupiter, cuirasse of the gods - and the dinkiest sandals and socks.

FlannerUK,

you're obviously not a footie fan then -since the beginning of last season Manchester City have been playing at the new stadium (City of Manchester?) - Maine Road is probably an ASDA supermarket by now

Flanner ...you must have 10 quid pom relatives living the good life on sydney's northern beaches.You have to admit...when it comes to the new world the barrenjoey peninsula is pretty hard to beat.

and i see lots of poms with socks and sandals on every time i go down to the quay and they are the ones who can afford to visit oz as opposed to blackpool.

c'mon and give me a one line opinion on each of my game locations...if they are clever enough i will include them in our tour booklet.

johhj:

You've no idea how much it pains me to turn down an offer to do one-liners. Or to admit ignorance. But I know even less about cricket grounds than about football stadia, and must sadly decline your challenge

I was obviously having a series of senior moments a couple of days ago. slipping up badly on Roman emperors as well. Every fule kno that Trajan is the bloke every Romanian's named after, since he let Romania into the Empire. His wall-building seems to have been confined to Bessarabia, and it was his successor Hadrian who taught the Scots how to build things that last. Which they promptly forgot.