Over the weekend, we did a tour of the North-West, calling at Preston, Liverpool and Blackpool. Preston was where we were staying for the two nights, with a plan to meet up with Sterling on the Saturday so he could show us around the town.
We got into Preston on the Friday evening at around 9pm, taking advantage of the direct Northern service from New Pudsey. This wasn't a particularly great train but at least it was direct and reasonably fast, although it being the tail end of rush hour, it was suitably packed and we struggled to get a seat together. As more people got off though we managed to grab a table and we had a reasonable time drinking beer and going through some of Lancashire's most delightful towns such as Blackburn and Burnley. Upon arrival in Preston, we went for a little wander along the high street, which was largely deserted apart from the small numbers of pissed couples stumbling intermittently towards us. There was an interesting Lancashire's Constabulary police booth and information point in the centre but aside from a few dodgy looking bars which were open, there was little life to be seen.
Through Google searches, I had stumbled across an article in the Lancashire Evening Post about a new craft beer bar that had opened in Preston in 2013 called The Continental. It was described as "city centre" even though it wasn't as it was some 15 minute walk from the station through terraced suburbs. We saw an impressive Sikh temple on our way and just as we were questioning whether this was the right place, we saw its lights underneath a railway bridge in front of us. There was a metal night going on so it was quite packed, but we did manage to find a table in the atmospheric snug, where we had a few delightful craft beers from the Buxton Brewery, which is quite big here.
Indeed the Buxton Brewery cropped up again on Saturday as after we had met up with Sterling, Suburban and Glowkitty - ironically only Sterling was local and the rest were from Leeds - we headed to one of his favourite haunts, The Ferret, an American metal diner place with knowledgeable staff and a great range of ales. We went here for lunch and they do have a good range of burgers, but the meat was quite dry, particularly the brisket, which was just a chewy hunk of meat. The sweet potato fries were a tad soggy too but the range of beer made up for this, and I even got chatting to a regular who was interested in the Untappd app and how it worked. Northern friendliness clearly extends to this part of the world.
There isn't an awful lot to do in Preston in all honesty, it being a Victorian town built on the back of the cotton industry. Consequently there are many nice buildings from that time, and from the early half of the twentieth century, not least Lancashire County Hall, a giant red brick Edwardian building that flanks one side of the railway track. It's an impressive view when coming into Preston from the north while the clock tower juxtaposed in front of a modernist office block makes for an odd slightly surreal touch. In the centre of the city itself, there is a beautiful covered market place with a canopy stretching entirely over it, with intricate metalwork on each stand. I believe this is the oldest covered market in the UK. We also saw the controversial bus station of Sixties concrete vintage, which some have labelled an eyesore and want to tear down. Personally I think it's a rather graceful and flowing building, with four concrete waves at the top adding a futuristic feel. We also saw the local museum, a stunning Victorian building with inscriptions in Greek, Latin and English dedicated to learning. This was very close to the rather small main square and ended our tour of the city after a mere half hour.
After this I bought Wolfie a minion biscuit from a local bakery while we headed back towards the station for everyone to get their trains home. In the Fishergate Shopping Centre I picked up a talking puppy toy at a discounted price, not realising that I would now have to carry it around for the rest of the day with me. It was quite bulky and came in its own cardboard kennel too. In the shopping centre we also heard the simplification of the week, with a father saying to his six-year-old son "daddy will be very sad if you chopped your hands off". Once at the station, we all went our separate ways, being quite surprised that everyone wanted to split as early as 4:30pm. This left us on our own and so free to realise stage two of our weekend plan, which was lucky as going to Liverpool on Sunday would have been a nightmare due to engineering works. At least going on Saturday night meant a direct train rather than two changes.
The whole purpose of the weekend was to go to the Liverpool BrewDog bar, bar number 15 for us. We headed straight there once arriving in Lime Street. It was quite easy to find, just off the main gastro street in the city, and although it was quite busy, we did manage to find a table. Wolfie had never been to Liverpool before and the plan here was to have a drink and go exploring before checking out the Liverpudlian craft beer scene. However we felt comfortable in the bar, the staff kept serving drinks to our table and we built up such a rapport with them that we ended up staying for four hours. The fact they had Mikkeller's full Spontan sour beer range probably helped too and we were determined to get through all of them. We shared a couple with the staff while Wolfie enjoyed the arcade games they had in one corner. As I commented to him, for us, this was probably the best possible way to spend Valentine's Day. In the end I put my card behind the bar for a tab, even though their machine wasn't working. This necessitated me getting money out of a local ATM but when I got there, I forgot that the bar had my card and I had to get Wolfie to go. The bouncers thought this was hilarious and laughed at me, but it was all in good humour and a great few hours was spent - this has got to be my favourite bar outside of Leeds, and it's so massive too.
As we were having such a good time in BrewDog, we kept putting our departure further and further back, eventually settling on the last train of the evening which left Lime Street just after 11pm. We hadn't had any food on account of lunch being so big, but we were feeling somewhat peckish by the time we left the bar. Bold Street is one of the main food streets in the city, as I've already mentioned, so finding noms was easy. We stumbled across a Lebanese takeaway which did excellent authentic chicken kebabs while I had a felafel wrap which was divine. Wolfie wanted a wrap too but despite me ordering this, we got his in a little tray, but it was no less good. I think he wished he got the falafel though. The sour beer was making me feel a bit weird - not drunk but generally on edge - and Wolfie was pissing me off a fair bit on the ride home with a range of inappropriate comments. We had a bit of a falling out, probably down to my mood, but it was nothing too drastic and we had made up by the time we got back to the hotel. In all honesty, we only ever really argue after we have been drinking and even then it's fortunately rare. This was one such occasion.
With our Sunday plan already conquered on Saturday evening, we largely had a free day and having seen everything there was to see in Preston (which is very little), we decided to go to nearby Blackpool for the day as it was rather sunny and only half an hour up the track. We could also get straight back to New Pudsey from here too so seemed a no brainer. On our way, we stopped off at the McDonald's at the Fishergate Shopping Centre once again as they were offering a Big Mac medium meal for just £1.99 if we presented a voucher to them which we picked up the day before. I hadn't had a Big Mac in ages - before I started to like mayonnaise based sauces - and to be fair it wasn't bad but as is usual with McDonald's, I regretted not getting a quarter pounder. The burger also looked a little limp considering it's their flagship brand but it made for a decent lunch and for the price you can't really argue.
We thought there were trains every 15 minutes or so to Blackpool so it was frustrating when we saw one pull away and realised that the next one wasn't for another 40 minutes. Our taxi driver who drove us to the centre from the hotel said we should have gone by taxi as it was straight down the M55 from the ibis and we started to see his point. Not wanting to spend more money in the frankly extortionate Preston Heroes bar at the train station, with its touching memorial to those from the city who lost their lives in World War One, we wandered around the County Hall and discovered a load of car parks before deciding to sit on the platform and wait for our train to arrive. It was quite a long wait but it was interesting to look at the station more in-depth, with a few platforms now solely for freight and inaccessible to the public. It's quite a nice Victorian station in all honesty and a reasonably pleasant place to be but we were happy when the train turned up and we were on our way through rolling countryside to the coast.
Our time in Blackpool didn't get off to the greatest of starts as I stood in a sloppy pile of bird shit just outside of Blackpool North station before a beggar asked us for money for drugs. Things picked up after that though and while the town is clearly depressed like many coastal areas are, there were enough interesting sites and things going on to make me love the place. As it was kids half-term, there were clown displays and training courses going on inside the Winter Gardens, the splendid Victorian theatre which dominates the centre of the town. They have their own indoor illuminations with a bright friendly dog and a range of world monuments lit up but we felt this was too expensive and time wasn't on our side. There were quite a few shows going on inside the complex, which seemed to be well attended and of the Victorian slapstick variety. It is good that this tradition is still being kept alive here.
As we exited the Winter Gardens, we were greeted to the sight of three performers on stilts towering over us and dressed as bird-like dinosaurs. They were walking up the street as if they were taking over the main square, with their beaks bending down to screech at some of the aghast onlookers. It was quite a performance as they stomped right past us and towards the pretty little church which sits opposite this side entrance to the Winter Gardens.
On the other side of the theatre, we could see Blackpool Tower looming over us, the intricate red steelwork another triumph of Victorian engineering and one of the marvels of the age. Built between 1891 and 1894, this is one of the major sights in the UK and it was great to finally see it up close. It sits atop the Tower Ballroom, a wonderful open space where predominantly old couples come to ballroom dance to the sound of a Werlizer. I've been around such an instrument in the past but the flat soothing tones really worked in such a vast open space, with the Victorian decor and tables upon which traditional cream tea was served adding to a scene of a seemlees age, a catapult back into time. It was one of the old couple's anniversary dances so they were invited to lead the anniversary waltz across the smooth light brown wooden floor, with others joining them midway into the piece. We got balcony tickets for £2.95 - not being much of a dancer myself I opted against the floor level tickets, which were more expensive - and it was great having a birds eye view of this slice of quaint English life. As I have mentioned, most of the couples were elderly but there were a couple of younger ones participating, including a boy who looked to be autistic but who seemed liberated by dancing. This couple were the only same-sex couple there.
The signposting around the Tower complex does leave something to be desired but at least we got to look at an impressive metal statue of the structures before finding the entrance for the Tower itself, which was rather costly to ascend. It started with a seven minute 4D promotional film about the town which was largely pointless to be honest but quite fun, particularly as we all got wet as we got a birds eye view over the sea and the town itself. The room also vibrated at appropriate moments - when a joist came towards us when they were building the Tower for example - so it was reasonably interactive. We had to put our bags, which we were carrying around with us all day, at the back so we could lean on the metalwork to get the full experience. Before going in, we avoided the almost obligatory official photograph you are offered with these things, fortunately being behind a family who did the same as they always come here. Soon, we were heading to the top of the tower, taking 69 seconds to reach the main viewing platform. Here you had a full 360 panoramic view of the town but as it was hazy, you couldn't readily see much beyond its environs. The glass floor was probably the main highlight - something Wolfie avoided due to his fear of heights - and I didn't felt scared at all even though you could see the lattice structure and the pavement directly beneath your feet.
Another thing you could see was the Comedy Carpet, a new venture on the seafront which documents many of the key catchphrases and comedy routines from all the comedians who have played in the town, from the Music Hall and Variety days all the way up to the present. It was great matching the words with the stars, who are listed around the carpet's edge, as well as discovering some sayings from days of yore which I had not heard before. The rich scene of comedy and indeed shows in general makes one feel quite envious in some regards and the carpet is a very nice documentary of this. While stood on the carpet after we had descended from the Tower, we got talking to an itinerant soup salesman who is from the local area and was selling hot minestrone and cream of vegetable, perfect for a bitterly cold winter's day by the beach. He was telling us how the town had developed over the years, its subsequent decline and the ways the local council are trying to regenerate it. You can see a lot of that, with the new sweeping promenade, improved tram system and futuristic lighting in the centre representing mermaids adding a contemporary feel to the place, along with the comedy carpet and a huge sail attached to a malleable pole which dances in the wind. Looking at the hotels on the seafront though, it's clear the town has seen better days, with many of them faded and dated. While Blackpool apparently has more hotel beds than all of Portugal, it does seem to be very seasonal work and perhaps erratic too, hence the down-at-heel seafront and town centre in general. The soup was delicious though and it was the perfect warmer as we walked along the promenade towards the pleasure beach, dipping into the piers which were only really half open. Some of the amusement arcades were open and there was a little life there but many of the stalls were closed as it was off-season, with the big wheel on the central pier currently being repaired. Many of the restaurants were being refurbished too adding a rather depressing hue to the scene, complemented by the greying sky.
The pleasure beach was open but by the time we got down there it was closing, no biggie really as I'm not a fan of roller-coasters anyway. It's a shame we couldn't get into the water park, that did look fun, and we resolved to try and come again in the summer so we could see more of the attractions. Wanting to see the illuminations, we grabbed some food at Pizza Hut, a restaurant we don't frequent often as there isn't one in Leeds city centre. It was surprisingly quite nice, not as greasy and heavy as I have experienced in the past, while the unlimited salad bar and exotic Pepsi machine was a winner. The restaurant is right under the roller coaster and walking underneath it, you could see the grandiose nature of the structure, with lattice iron as far as you could see, up to the top with the whizzing carriages on the tracks. It was quite exhilarating being underneath it let alone on it.
There were the usual tourist shops here and as the Pleasure Beach was closing, the restaurant was starting to fill up. With the night falling, we decided to take the excellent value tram back to the Tower to see the illuminations but unfortunately only the tower was lit up, assumedly because it was off season. This was a little disappointing but the Tower was beautiful, with lights of every imaginable colour scaling up its sides. In the middle was a giant heart which flickered in purple and pink, and it was a great way to end our afternoon in the town. On our way back to the station, we saw the impressive ibis Styles hotel and picked up some beer from a local off-licence for the train back home, which was largely uneventful after a fantastic if expensive weekend.