Blackpool

Blackpool, located out on a pointless bump on the west coast of England, remained a little village until the Victorians invented tourism. Later on, tourists discovered that there are beaches in other countries that are warm and sunny, and Blackpool has been in relative decline ever since. However, despite being 50 miles away, it contains the local violin shop so all the violiners in Settle orchestra have to go there some time (my last visit to the shop was in about 1987 when Kevin had recently taken over the shopwork from his Dad.). We were kind of dreading having to spend a day there, but the violin and both bows needed a bit of work, so eventually we went this week. It was nothing like as bad as expected. In fact it was fun. All doors have a lot of locks on in Blackpool, but once we gained entry to the violin shop everything went very well. The violin jobs were done in a few hours, Starbucks was clean and shiny, the Chinese buffet lunch was very relaxing, and we pretty much bought up Poundland. And there were blue skies! It is a bit like San Francisco. Lots of ethnic restaurants, some tourist traps, trams, and a sea front, but the police cars are much prettier (we saw this beauty right away as the only car park that our van could get into was next to the police station - all the others have a 6'3" limit to stop people staying in camper vans instead of the local B&Bs).