My Hotel In Gdansk
It wasn’t actually Gdansk, but the next town called Sodot.
I arrived at the Haffner Hotel in a taxi from the airport for a reasonable fare, just before midnight and the girl on the desk looked after me well.
The hotel looked after me well, with good gluten-free breakfasts, including bread.
But it did have one problem. It was outside of the city centre and it was half-an-hour to get there on the train.
But that wasn’t there fault! It was mine!
Liverpool to Gdansk
I’ve flown out of a lot of the UK’s bigger airports in my own aircraft like Stansted, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Cardiff, Bristol and Liverpool, several times. But compared to say Edinburgh, where I flew many times, my single visit to Liverpool doesn’t rate high up the number scale.
But it was a memorable trip for one big reason; the weather.
I’d been to collect my eldest son and fly him back to Suffolk. The terminal was then small and you can just see it in this picture I took as my flight left for Gdansk.
The Leaving Of Liverpool
Then it was a small red and grey steel prefabrication. Now the terminal is many times bigger.
The weather on this trip was good, as the picture shows.
But on that day, we had to wait two or three hours to get a gap in the weather so we could take off.
When we did leave, we had tremendous thunder and lightning and it was a fight to keep the plane straight and level.
But we eventually made it back to Ipswich Airport, which now has been lost to developers and their concrete. Mainly because Ipswich’s geriatric Labour council at the time seemed to believe that private flying was all about rich mens’ toys. Despite the fact that the airport housed one of the biggest parachute training schools in the south of England.
I sometimes think that my life would be very different if Ipswich Airport hadn’t been closed.
The flight to Gdansk from Liverpool was uneventful, even if the Wizzair A320 was rather hot. But I made it off the plane with no problem.
Burnley To Liverpool Airport On A Sunday
To get to Liverpool Airport from Burnley on a Sunday wasn’t easy.
I first got a train to Preston where I got a train to Ormskirk. There was this unusual end-to-end interchange between one of Northern Rail’s Class 153 scrapyard specials and one of Merseyrail’s smart Class 508s.
Changing Trains At Ormskirk
Merseyrail has been pushing to electrify all the way from Liverpool to Preston, which would remove this change of train. Wikipedia says this.
Electrification from Ormskirk to Preston has been considered in conjunction with the Burscough Curves reopening. It would re-establish the most direct Liverpool-Preston route and is one of Merseytravel’s long-term aspirations.
This whole corner of Lancashire seems either to be sprouting wires or growing third rails. Many of which lead to Liverpool or Manchester.
Once in Liverpool, I alighted at Moorfields station and walked a hundred yards or so to Carluccio’s, where I had a supper to prepare me for the journey.
I did search for a bus to Liverpool Airport, but even at the main bus station, there was no information or anybody to ask.
When will these people learn, that one of the way to get people to use buses is to provide information everywhere as London does.
So I reluctantly took a taxi!
How Did They Get There?
There really can’t be an obvious answer to how these trees got on top of this chimney in Burnley.
How Did They Get There?
Life would be so much more boring without questions like this!
Burnley’s Smart New Station
Burnley has a smart new station at Manchester Road, which should be opened later in the year.
As Burnley are now in the Premier League, wouldn’t it be a good idea for a shuttle bus to Turf Moor on match days.
I wonder when and where the last station was built in the UK in quality stone.
This new station will be linked to Manchester Victoria by an hourly service, when a new curve is completed at Todmorden. There is more here on the Network Rail site. This is the key paragraph.
The new rail service between (Manchester) Todmorden and Blackburn will be supported by a partnership that includes Lancashire County Council and Burnley Borough Council. Initial plans are for an hourly service operating 7 days a week.
So hopefully two smart stations will be connected by a good service.
I do wonder whether in time, the Caldervale line from Blackpool and Preston to Leeds and the Manchester to Burnley lines will get electrified.
Leon Now Does Kedgeree
I had to leave early to get to the Burnley match for the 12:15 start. So I had this breakfast of mackerel kedgeree in Leon at Kings Cross station.
Leon Now Does Kedgeree
Very nice it was too!
I always think that kedgeree should be cooked more often!
You might wonder what this has to do with my trip to Gdansk!
I will be flying out of Liverpool Airport to Gdansk after seeing Ipswich at Burnley.
My Short Term Memory
Over the last four years since my stroke and the move to London, I’ve often thought that my short term memory is going.
Sometimes, I’ll go out and leave the windows open for example.
But this morning, I realised this has been happening since C became very ill on her final journey.
In other words, do we for short term purposes rely partly on our partner’s memory.
At least it doesn’t seem to be getting any worse!
The Anonymous Widower 