Day Two: Travels With A Lego Lady

Grange-over-Sands was made by the railways.  Until the 19th century it was just another fishing village on the Irish Sea.  The Furness Railway brought its wide open sea views and soft beaches within the grasp of thousands of tourists; coupled with its proximity to the suddenly fashionable Lake District, the town was soon straining with visitors.

It's appropriate that the railway station is suitably grand to reflect its importance.  A pretty, stone building with ornate roofs and chimneys.

The platforms are covered by clear glass canopies, and there's plenty of seating.  In short, it's close to being the perfect seaside station.

Close, but not quite.  It fails on two very important counts.  Firstly, there's a right jobsworth working there who's very keen that you don't use the toilets.  I was by this point dying for a pee but there were A4 printed signs all over the place: "Toilets are for rail passengers ONLY."  "These are not public toilets."  "A key can be requested from the ticket office."

I have a hard and fast rule, and that is that I will not go up to a ticket window and say, "Please sir, can I go and excrete some urine?".  I won't do it on Merseyrail stations either.  "Ask the staff at the barriers" - no chance.  I'd rather do it in a side alley and widdle all over my boots.

The other complaint I have is there wasn't a station tea room.  Grange-over-Sands had been so successful at convincing me that I had travelled back in time that what I wanted to find was a wood panelled tea room inside the booking hall.  There, a buxom middle-aged lady would make indiscreet sexual innuendo while she served me a hot cup of char in crisp white china.

I got excited when I saw a sign advertising "hot drinks", but was incredibly disappointed.  Inside was a standard station newsagents (sweets, fags, newspapers) with a coffee machine plonked on the end.  Not.  The.  Same.

I had plenty of time before my train (I'd assumed that the town would ensnare me with its astonishing beauty and grace - I was still waiting) so I headed for a nearby parade to top up my tea levels.  I passed on a chocolate cafe.  There seemed to be an awful lot of chocolate shops in Grange-over-Sands.  I guess it's part of that whole "oh, we're on holiday, let's indulge ourselves!" ethos but it doesn't appeal to me.  I don't have a sweet tooth at all.  One Mars bar is more than enough for me, and I actually like to then brush my teeth or have a mint or something to get rid of the taste of the chocolate in my mouth.  It makes me feel sick otherwise.  I picked what I thought was called the S Cafe, but which I have now discovered is called Scafe, which sort of makes me wish I hadn't.

Yes, that is some Lego.  For Christmas last year Robert bought me a Lego Moleskine notebook, thereby combining two of my loves in one handy form.  It has a two by four piece inlaid in the cover - the perfect place to put a Lego minifig.  Long-time readers (hello you!) will remember Lego Lady, my favourite minifig when I was a child who I took on a visit to Wrexham.  I decided to bring her along with me on this trip, just to have someone to talk to (note: I did not talk to her) (not much).

One pot of tea and a safely discreet wee in the cafe's loo later, and I went back to the station for my train.

Ulverston station has a curious platform layout.  Platforms 1 and 2 are either side of the same track.

The idea behind this was to make cross-platform interchange easier.  The train would pull into the station and passengers could choose what side to exit on - if they were just leaving, they went to the left, or if they wanted a different train, they went to the right.  The idea didn't catch on, and now that train doors are automated and out of the hands of the passengers, it's impractical (although the idea was resurrected for the Central Line platforms at Stratford, as a way of dispersing Olympic crowds).

The station's been nicely restored, the paintwork touched up, the glass roofs cleaned.  The ticket hall's a bit bare if you ask me, but for that we should probably blame the Victorians.

Outside, there's a clock tower with - and I know this may come as a shock to you - a fully working clock.  I know.

It was a pretty good start for Ulverston.  And it got better.

The only thing I'd thought about Ulverston before I visited was "how do I get out of there?".  It was a fair old distance from there to the next station, Dalton.  I could've walked it, but it would have taken all afternoon; after a whole bunch of online research, I found a bus service, so that left me with twenty minutes or so to loiter in the town.

Not enough time, as it turned out.

Ulverston is lovely.  Just wonderful.  I immediately regretted spending all that time in dull old Grange-Over-Sands when I could have been here.  It's a historic market town, and everything about it was charming.  Softly coloured houses with sash windows, twisting narrow streets, cobbles.  I loved it instantly.

The Coronation Hall is one of those Victorian buildings that was designed to do anything; delightfully, a poster advertising a forthcoming production referred to it as "the Coro".  Outside were a couple of familiar faces.

Stan Laurel was born in Ulverston, and the town is home to the Laurel & Hardy museum.  Which confused me, because last year I visited Bishop Auckland and found a statue of Stan there too.  Two towns, literally on opposite sides of the country, laying claim to the same man.  It seems Stan's parents got about a bit, running theatres across the country, and so Stan went with them.  A bit cheeky of Bishop Auckland to try claiming him if you ask me, but looking at their Wikipedia page, the alternatives were Anthony "Suez Crisis" Eden and "one of Britain's most prolific serial killers, Mary Ann Cotton", so I can see why they went with Laurel.

Immediately after tweeting that photo I got a reply from Carrie: "ULVERSTON!".  I know Carrie through Lowculture and then, Twitter; it's one of those 21st century friendships where you gab away to one another about Strictly without ever meeting.  She's an expert on musical theatre and wrestling, not the most frequently put together combination of interests (though I have heard Julie Andrews does a mean roundhouse).  Incidentally she's written a book about wrestling, which you can pre-order here (I'll take 10%, thanks).

Anyway, Carrie is frequently in this part of the world, and she peppered me with excited tweets about places to go.  I didn't venture into her recommended pub in Barrow, the Duke of Edinburgh, because I was usually too exhausted to move when I got back to the town, but it was handy to have some local knowledge.  She said that Ulverston held an excellent Dickens Festival every year; a bit of net research reveals that the town markets itself as a "Festival Town", with some kind of shenanigans always going on - Lantern festivals and Flag festivals and, slightly terrifyingly, a Breastfeeding Festival.

I pushed on into the pretty market square, past busy shops and smiling locals.  The sunny weather made everything so much crisper and happier.  It was just an immediately pleasing place.

I resisted the pull of a pub garden and a pint of frothy beer and headed out of town in search of my bus stop.  I passed an old-fashioned cinema, the Roxy, its "coming attractions" displays filled with hand inked posters for the new releases rather than glossy posters; if they'd been advertising the imminent arrival of Eskimo Nell and Confessions of a Driving Instructor instead of The Croods I wouldn't have been surprised.

The bus exchange was just half a dozen stops with a little kiosk selling ice creams and cups of tea.  I waited patiently by the totem, but an old lady, far more used to the vagaries of bus travel than me, plopped herself on a bench a few metres away to enjoy some sunshine.  While I anxiously waited for the double decker, and waved frantically to attract the driver's attention, she just ambled over.

I did something I haven't done for years: I sat at the front on the top deck.  I don't think I've done that since I was about 12.  We used to always go on the top deck, coming back from town, because my mum wanted to have a cigarette; yes, children, you used to be able to smoke on the upstairs of buses*.  As I got older, I still went upstairs sometimes, but I always felt that those front seats were for little kids to enjoy.  The bus was empty, so I didn't feel like I was depriving anyone, plus - I was on holiday.  I was disappointed to find that little view tube from the driver's cabin up to a mirror has been replaced by a CCTV camera.  It was pleasing to get the high-level view as we tore through the countryside on our way to Dalton-in-Furness.  Look how excited I was!

In Dalton I made the classic mistake of a tourist on a bus: I rang the bell too early.  I could see the town square approaching and panicked that we'd drive straight past.  Being English, I couldn't just explain my error to the driver; instead I got off, and then pretended this was the stop I wanted in case anyone on board watched me when the bus parked up fifty yards further on.  This involved a strange little pantomime that made sense in my head.

After Ulverston, Dalton was going to be a disappointment.  It was a perfectly ordinary town but compared with its neighbour it was distinctly second best.  It didn't help that the town centre was lousy with schoolchildren on their lunch.  They queued out of chip shops, bakeries and newsagents, clogged up the pavements by walking - very - slowly - indeed, and clustered round benches giggling behind their hands.  They irritated me beyond all reason.  Go somewhere else, I thought.  Go back to school and stop getting in my way.

(Before you go saying, "that was you once!", no it wasn't.  I used to spend my lunchtimes in the empty art room playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  ROCK AND ROLL).

I headed out of the town centre while I still had my sanity, up to the top of the hill where Dalton Castle sits.  It's not actually a castle; it's just a tower, and a small National Trust plaque said it was believed to be "the manorial courthouse for Furness Abbey".  Also, it was shut.

I went back the way I came, past a house with a poster saying WE VOTE PRO-LIFE in the window.  There were tiny courts behind the main street, little medieval cottages clustered around a shared space.  I tried to find a cafe that wasn't full of hyperactive 13 year olds, but the only one they hadn't annexed had been thoroughly claimed by pensioners.  I gave up on Dalton and wandered off towards the railway station.

I kind of doubt that Ben Drew has nothing better to do of a Saturday night than to trek up to the Lakes to perform in the back room of the White Horse.

The main station building was closed forever of course, but they'd had a bit of a go at making the place more of a landmark.  There was a cast iron archway welcoming you in, which was nice enough:

On the platform the town's schoolchildren (them again!) had decorated the place with their interpretations of the paintings of George Romney.  I'm afraid I'd never heard of him, but he was local, so Dalton was immensely proud of him.  I passed the time trying to guess who the portraits were of - for example:

Siouxsie Sioux and Frank Bough.

Catherine Tate and Jason Orange having a romantic stroll, plus Janine from EastEnders.

Liz Taylor c. X, Y and Zee, and Graham Norton.

When even that started to get boring, I settled down on the bench to get some sun.  Lego Lady decided to join me, and for a little while we baked, until I began to get concerned that she'd melt.

I'm sorry Dalton.  It's not your fault you've got a far more attractive neighbour.  Perhaps you could start your own festival programme?  That might get me back.  That and a curfew.

*My mum has been in touch to inform me that she NEVER smoked on the top deck of buses as it would set off my brother's travel sickness.

This is why I resisted getting her on the internet for so long.

Day Two: Gentle Pursuits

Oh yes, I thought.  This was a good idea.

I'd stepped into a quiet country station.  Trees, as yet unburdened by leaves, rose up above me on either side of the tracks.  Green ivy swarmed over stone walls.  A station building turned into a home, soft nets at the windows, budding flowers in pots.

I trotted across the barrow crossing to the exit.  It wasn't even 8 am, and the world was still rousing itself.  Monday morning made it sluggish and lazy.  On the other hand, I was full of enthusiasm and cheer.  This was the first station of many, the start of my odyssey, my epic journey with little purpose.

I passed the old station building - rechristened by its new owners La Gare, complete with blue and white tiled name plate - and onto the tarmac.  There was no footpath of course, out here in the countryside, but there wasn't any traffic either so I didn't have my usual trepidations.  Sheep croaked at me from the adjoining fields, lambs huddled against their mothers - was it a warning or an acknowledgement?  I hovered by a gate in the hope that one would wander over for a stroke, but they stayed at their distance.

The road bisected a golf course.  I've already made it clear that I have no time for golf or golfers.  The signs warning me it wasn't open to non-members, and wasn't a public right of way, and basically we don't like oiks, didn't endear me to them further.  There were a couple of men out on the greens even this early in the morning.  I considered sneaking up behind them and coughing or shifting the small change in my pocket loudly or something.

I didn't of course, partly because I didn't want a putter up my anus, and partly because I didn't want to ruin the gloriousness of the day.  Even though it wasn't perfect - too many clouds - it was still wonderful to be walking without a coat through the Lancashire countryside.  Yes, as that red rose at Silverdale indicated, I was briefly back in Lancashire.  It's quite astonishing how huge that county is (and how much bigger it used to be before Manchester, Liverpool and Cumbria were all torn away from it).  In fact it's a bit of a shame that it was reorganised that way - it's like the government looked at Lancashire, cut out all the best bits and left the rest for the county council.

At Challan Hall, a tiny row of houses where a man was just taking two excited labradors for their walk, I turned left.  I was shadowing the railway track again.  Fast trains sped by, and every single one fired their horn as they did so; I resented the intrusion every time, silencing the birdsong for a moment.

I crossed back over the railway and straight into a quarry.  The signposts were brutal: the public footpath was to the right, and that was as close as you were going to get, sonny.  Massive red danger signs were everywhere.  I don't think the quarry is still in use - I certainly couldn't hear any digging - but I sloughed off quickly.

It took me into a wood, a beaten track that was only a little muddy after the previous day's rain.  The birds were even louder now.  It was a cacophony.  I wished I had even a slight knowledge of countryside lore to be able to identify them, or perhaps some of the plants at my feet, but I am absolutely hopeless at all this sort of thing.  I probably should have learned all this in the Cubs, but I managed to get only about four badges in my whole time there: we were too busy playing British Bulldog on the wooden floor of the Scout Hut to bother with that sort of thing.  I'm very good at getting splinters out though.

I could identify a flock of ducks who were having a break in a field.  As I approached, they began quacking at one another, and strolling away, that outwardly nonchalant but also slightly panicky fast walk I always do when I have to pass a gang of teenagers on a street corner.  "No, I'm not worried at all; I always walk like Duncan Norvelle wearing a full nappy."  Their quacks became more and more fevered until one of them finally broke ground and flew away; his screaming fit made all the rest of them panic too, and they catapulted into the sky to escape me.

There's something vaguely homophobic about a path leading to "Fairy Steps" and "Hazelslack".  Especially as I chose the other option - the route to "Black Dyke".

I'd entered Arnside now, a little commuter village full of horrible 1960s bungalows.  The houses on the opposite side of the road were upside down, with the bedrooms downstairs and the lounge up top, so they could peer over the roofs of their neighbours.  There were pretty stretches of flowerbeds, but also a lot of over tarmacked driveways and big ugly cars.  It was Daily Mail territory.

Down by the coast though, it became special.  The River Kent expanded out into a sandy estuary, wide and empty.  A low wooden viaduct carried the railway across to the east, while across the way the mountains of the Lake District were shrouded in morning fog.

I went down onto the front, just to take in some of the brisk air.  I'd hoped for a cup of tea or something, but there was only a pub, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks (stop it) and that wasn't open, obviously.  There were a couple of B&Bs and a chippy too.

I doubled back to the station.  It's right on the end of the viaduct, as though they built it on the very first bit of dry land they could get to.  The salt air had bitten into the footbridge, rusting it picturesquely.  I say "picturesquely"; I probably would have found it a lot less scenic if I'd had to actually use it.

I guessed from the lack of a red rose that I'd crossed back into Cumbria somewhere along the line.  They should have a marker post or something.

I got off at Kents Bank, which I'm sure should have an apostrophe in there.  It's the Bank of the river Kent: possessive.  Sort it out, Northern Rail.

Inside the waiting room was a strange object.

What's the point of that, I wonder?  A leaning post so you can relax while you take in the timetables?  Something to tie your horse to?  A wooden homage to the Spinal Tap Stonehenge?

There was a further curiosity at the level crossing.

A pump-action level crossing is a new one on me.  I pictured wheezing old ladies struggling to get it up to the right height, furiously pumping away like they're trapped on some sadistic Wii game, just trying to get the barriers up another six inches to accommodate their Mini Metro.  I was tempted to have a go myself, but I have the upper arm strength of a recently birthed vole, and I didn't want the CCTV footage ending up YouTube.

Pretty cottages the colour of ice creams wound up the hill away from the coast.  Well-tended gardens were testament to the high proportion of retirees in the village.  Every hedge was straight and clipped; I pictured grey haired men using set squares to make sure the angles were just perfect.

I'd planned on going up the hill to the main road into Grange-over-Sands, but I spotted a little wooden sign pointing to the right: The Promenade and Grange.  Rough steps went towards the river's edge.  I had to go down.  I can never resist a mysterious staircase.

"Promenade" was a very grand title for what turned out to be little more than a footpath round the back of some houses.  Maybe there had been a time when this would have been above the water, a couple of centuries ago, but now the railway line took up the land by the front.  Instead of inspiring vistas I was left with a curiously claustrophobic walk beneath the embankment.

Back on the road, I followed a sprightly old lady with a shopping trolley up the hill and into Grange-over-Sands.  I was immediately struck by how genteel it was.  I thought of Victoria Wood, saying that it was like Morecambe "only without the throbbing sexuality".  The houses, the parks, even the road signs seemed to exist in a state of perpetual turn of the century repression.

It said a lot that the town's modernist swimming pool was closed and left to rot.  I could only imagine the collective pearl clutching when it was first built.

I headed away from The Esplanade and into the town itself.  The high street was lined with tiny, local businesses, the only chain store being the Co-op.  A grocer's window tempted me with red checked cloths and promises of potted shrimp.  Coffee shops were already filling up with pensioners.  I ducked into the At Home Cafe and claimed a seat by the window.  It had only been open ten minutes but two tables of four were already occupied by old ladies drinking tea.  To my side were the dullest couple on earth, a pair in their mid-twenties who consulted every item on the menu, discussed its nutritional value at length, then ordered English breakfasts without the egg.  When the wife's orange juice came, they discussed whether it was from Spain or from Italy for what seemed like twenty minutes, leaving me with no choice but to stove in their skulls with a salt shaker.

I ate my ham and cheese toastie (I'd ordered a cheese and onion one, but never mind) and left.  I immediately regretted it.  Round the corner was Higginsons of Grange, a butcher that had the most tempting array of pies I have ever seen.

I cannot say enough how much I love pies.  You've seen pictures of me; of course I do.  Pie crusts are pure temptation, their brittle collapse under your teeth, their savoury beauty, then finding the meat inside as it swims into your mouth.  I am absolutely hopeless at making any kind of pastry, which regretfully means I will never meet Mel and Sue on The Great British Bake Off.  I once tried making my own pork pie, but the less said about that grey abomination the better.

I stared in the window.  Steak, ale and stilton.  Turkey and ham.  Pork pies the size of my fist.  All with the little boast Baked Daily On The Premises.  I thought about striding in and demanding they simply fill my backpack with whatever they came to hand.  I cursed that toastie; I was too full to eat anything now, and having one of those pies cold would have been an abomination.  I dragged myself away, leaving a pool of saliva on the pavement behind me.

At least the sun had come out while I was in the cafe.  I wandered down to the front, passing under the railway to reach the prom.  A sign informed me that, even though it was a big archway leading to some steps, the path beneath the railway "was not dedicated to the public".  I'm not sure who it was dedicated to, then.

It was still a bit too cold for tourists, a bit too early in the season, which suited me.  I took up a bench on the front and watched the light sparkle off the river.  Grange-over-Sands might not be an exciting entertainment mecca, but at that moment in time, that was fine by me.