Our adventures in Helsby and Chester - March 2008

Everything is going well. We are now on day 5 (Friday morning 7am) and finally everyone has managed to sleep right through the night and awake about 2am thinking it is time to get up. That was Scott and I anyway, the kids seemed to have their body clocks tuned in already.Well, what have we been up to?

We have loved staying in the Cheshire area. Have made two trips by train to Chester which is just such a beautiful city. Full of history and character. We have walked along the Roman walls which are amazine - and we still have Rome to go to! The people too we have found to be so friendly. Without exception, everyone we have spoken to has been really helpful.In Chester we tried to hire a car but it ended up there wasn't anything available that would fit us - so we are using public transport. The Public transport though is really good and we have purchased a family railsaver pass which means we save about 30% on each fare.

Chester is laden with history. The second church (Chester Cathedral is the main one) is called St John the Baptist Church and was built in a about 1200. It has a really interesting range of stonework from many different periods - Norman, Saxon etc. the painting of the Last Supper at the back of the alter was wonderful and the children really enjoyed retelling me the story of the Last Supper. Luckily it was fresh in their memories. We are finding that there aren't many tourists around which makes it great to look at things - in the church for example we were the only visitors.Beside the Church was the Roman Ampitheatre, or at least the remains of it. The kids loved running around and throuh it and Scott was very interested in the different signage. He has been taking lots of photos of both the scenes and the signs which is great because we can then re-read them and it seems to make more sense.There is a real sense of Tudor style in many of the buildings in Chester which makes for some fantastic looking buildings, many of which don't seem to be too straight - but yet they keep on standing.

Elizabeth and I have discovered the Tesco stores - grocery stores on a very large scale. There is an amazing range of pre-prepared foods to be purchased. May be a life saving when we hit London.We have also used the bus to travel to Frodshom which is the next town. Thursday is market day - a bit similar to Wednedsay market day in Mornington I think - and all the locals were out buying their fruit / vegies and a range of junk.

We visited the Golden Lion which is the first 'pub' we have visited. It was built in 1316 and was great. we sat in a lounge room type area, no kids allowed in bar, with some locals and had a beer (kids had pots of lemonade) and the local specialty - cheesy chips. Cheesy chips are hot chips with melted cheese on top - served with a range of condiments. Scott was in hoggy heaven! This dish was probably not so great for the arteries I think! The chef, to whom we spoke, was quite chuffed with the concept of cheesy chips, which she had introduced a few months ago and had proved very popular. She is now working on her next plan which is - soupy chips - a bowl of chips with soup poured on top! GOOD LUCK!

We also took the opportunity yesterday morning to traverse Helsby Hill. This hill is just near where we are staying and has an iron age fort and a nuclear bomb look-out bunker on top. We decided in advance that if the children started complaining we would turn around and go back. Well, we made it to the top without any worries. All the walking to school has paid off I think as all the children are handling the walking with no problems, even, amazingly, James who is very proud of himself. Although very cold and windy on top of the hill the views of the area where great and we could see the Mersey River and Liverpool in the distance.

We went to the Helsby Arms for tea and this was a very warm and comfortable establishment. The children and I were all in bed asleep by 8pm.

Today Scott, William, Elizabeth and James are taking the bus to Liverpool. Xavier is showing a few signs of getting tired so he and I are going to have a day in. We might zip to Chester this afternoon to pick up a few supplies and our train tickets to London, but that's the extent of it.Will be very interested to hear about their journey to Liverpool when they get home.