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The long journey home, though at least it was all motorways and hardly any narrow one lane grass covered roads at a 90 degree gradient. As I've said, one of the main reasons for us coming to the Lake District was to be in spitting distance of Ripley's Believe It Or Not, because back in the spring our kids had briefly been obsessed with world records.
But the obsession of the spring is the meh of the autumn and neither of them seemed particularly keen on the diversion to Blackpool. Even when I pointed out the tower from the car. Even when we passed the pier and it was surrounded by emergency vehicles and police tape. So many emergency vehicles. And yet we couldn't find any news about what was going on anywhere. So this is the kind of thing that must be commonplace in Blackpool.
Believe it or not, Ripley's Believe It Or Not was probably not worth the slight detour. Most of it scared the living daylights out of Ernie and we didn't even see a model of a man with a beard of bees, though we did see a lifesize model of Robert Wadlow, the tallest man ever. There were lots of other things to do in Blackpool and we were right by the huge amusement park. We may have been the only people who've ever travelled here just for Ripleys. We did go to an amusement arcade arcade afterwards, but like most of Blackpool it was charmingly archaic and all the machines only accepted coins! The kids won a few tickets, but were gifted more by a couple of families who didn't want theirs and were able to cash them in for sweets, a rubber ball and a pack of those paper snaps that you throw at the ground and they explode. That was my choice which was lucky as they're only to be sold to people over 16. Exactly the people who mostly won't want to use them. Though I really did. It was a lovely flashback to Middle School when these things seemed super illegal. Probably due to the age limit.
We chucked a few around before we got in the car.
Apart from that it was a long drive south - so to be honest the brief Blackpool trip had been a good idea just to give me something else to do.
It did feel like a long time since we'd been home, even though it wasn't even two weeks. I was pleased to step on the scales and find I'd lost 3kg in those 12 days. Which has to be some kind of record for a holiday where I didn't get ill or lose a leg. I hadn't been able to follow Zoe recommendations for all meals, but I'd largely avoided sugar and fast food and did cook for myself as much as possible, but it's still an impressive result. I didn't count calories. I didn't get hungry very often. I was pretty exhausted but I think that was the kids rather than the food. So that's a very welcome weight loss and I have overcome the desire to stuff my face at every possible moment and hopeful that I can carry this on.
