Well actually Travelodge at Knutsford Services is very good, especially for only £29.99 and we got a fruit salad from the service station M&S and a bacon roll and coffee from Greggs for breakfast!
We drove up the M6 and towards Crosby Beach which I have wanted to visit for quite a few years and it’s been there since 2005.
Crosby beach is the site of the art installation ‘Another Place’ by Antony Gormley. There are 100 iron figures placed along a two-mile stretch of the beach at varying distances, some over half a mile from the shore and at high tide none are visible at all. Some have gradually sunk to their knees in sand and mud and others still stand proud but are encrusted with barnacles. Looking back at the photos I took now they seem rather lonely but every low tide they are visited by many people and are regularly dressed up… until the next high tide. They are affectionately know as ‘The Iron Men’. The weather could not have been better and I had checked the time of high tide well before we visited and we arrived 3 hours before so just right. I love these figures as does everyone else here. We enjoyed a quick snack of toasted tea cakes at the Crosby Beach leisure centre and then headed on North up the M6.
Amazingly Colin has never visited Tebay Services so although it is only half an hour or so from Pooley Bridge where we are staying for a few nights we stopped there. Wow. Even better than when I last visited a number of years ago and it would have been rude not to try the freshly baked lamb and meat pies overlooking the small lake with nesting ducks. The farm shop was amazing and was such a shame that we could not buy any of the produce as it looked lovely. We were also a little nervous about trying the free samples in light of the Coronavirus.
We headed on through a place called Shap and taking a detour as roads are closed after the recent Lakeland floods arrived at Pooley Bridge and got a parking space! Our room is very nice and the bed comfortable.
We weren’t starving after the pies at Tebay but did fancy a light dinner. As I didn’t want to risk doubling on the same food as our tasting menu tomorrow, we chose The Sun to eat at and booked a table for 8.00pm. To cut a very long wait short... our food took over an hour and a quarter to arrive so we won’t be eating there again!
