DAY-13: Entering England - Ayr To Stoke-on-Trent
Day – 13: Monday, September 4, 2017
Starting Location: Ayr, Scotland, UK
Ending Location: Stoke-on-Trent, England, UK
Today was to be another relatively long drive day estimated at 5 hours and about 250 miles but that would put us where we want to be, near Wales and then with easy access to Southeast England.
We were out of the hotel at 11 AM but before leaving Ayr Sheila wanted to make one last stop in Scotland to purchase locally sourced and produced wool yarn. We've mentioned the sheep and thought that there must be a large market for the wool.
We drove into the central shopping district of Ayr and after a few missed turns the GPS finally got us to within a couple hundred yards of the targeted store. We parked and started walking using the iPhone Google Maps app for our walking guide and sure enough the distance kept clicking down from 200 to 150 to 80 to 20 yards from the store, The Wool Sak.
The store clearly had plenty of wool, it was all over the place, all colors, all types, surely they would have exactly what Sheila wanted. The proprietor clearly saw us coming, she knew in a flash that we weren't locals, big surprise.
Sheila's asked for some help in selecting local yarn and though the owner didn't laugh, she did sigh and give the story of Scottish wool.
Seems that the store along with almost all other stores doesn't stock Scottish yarn as it is too expensive for the general customer base. The miles and miles of yarn that was in stock came from other places in the world, the Middle East and Northern Africa apparently being large producers. So basically there was no Scottish yarn to be had. The owner indicated that there were still a few artisan type producers but their products were generally marketed via the Internet. It was a nice conversation and an interesting story but an unsuccessful mission.
We resumed our trip south finally entering England along the M74 near Gretna.
We continued driving toward our targeted lodging at Stoke-on-Trent, south of Manchester. En-route but what did our wondering eyes see but a highway rest area STARBUCKS! We stopped, had hot chocolates and were on our way. Sheila actually got to flash her SB Card for store credit, points or whatever else it's worth.
The traffic was again heavy today, especially in the area of the larger cities, no surprise there.
At Stoke-on-Trent we found our hotel, The Upper House. It was a large estate-farm type house that had been converted to small hotel & special event service.
Though the hotel was highly rated for the area there were a few surprises on arrival. We had made our reservation early in the morning but somewhere en-route had received a call from the hotel staff apologizing for not having the room we had reserved but not to worry, they would have a very nice "king room" for us on arrival.
We checked in and were given our room key and up we went to the first floor and though it was a very nice room, it was actually already occupied. Fortunately the guests are away from the room as we opened the door and quickly noticed clothing and a child's stuffed bear on the bed. Needless to say we returned to the front desk and after much concern and talking by phone with what I assume was the manager, the clerk found us a room and we were off to the 3rd floor. This room would work but first we would need things like towels; a chair to sit on would be nice as well. In the end the clerk did as best as he could, we had plenty of towels and we had a chair; with that we settled in and all was well.
There's a relatively interesting history to this estate but we'll touch on that tomorrow.
Today was to be another relatively long drive day estimated at 5 hours and about 250 miles but that would put us where we want to be, near Wales and then with easy access to Southeast England.
We were out of the hotel at 11 AM but before leaving Ayr Sheila wanted to make one last stop in Scotland to purchase locally sourced and produced wool yarn. We've mentioned the sheep and thought that there must be a large market for the wool.
We drove into the central shopping district of Ayr and after a few missed turns the GPS finally got us to within a couple hundred yards of the targeted store. We parked and started walking using the iPhone Google Maps app for our walking guide and sure enough the distance kept clicking down from 200 to 150 to 80 to 20 yards from the store, The Wool Sak.
The store clearly had plenty of wool, it was all over the place, all colors, all types, surely they would have exactly what Sheila wanted. The proprietor clearly saw us coming, she knew in a flash that we weren't locals, big surprise.
Sheila's asked for some help in selecting local yarn and though the owner didn't laugh, she did sigh and give the story of Scottish wool.
Seems that the store along with almost all other stores doesn't stock Scottish yarn as it is too expensive for the general customer base. The miles and miles of yarn that was in stock came from other places in the world, the Middle East and Northern Africa apparently being large producers. So basically there was no Scottish yarn to be had. The owner indicated that there were still a few artisan type producers but their products were generally marketed via the Internet. It was a nice conversation and an interesting story but an unsuccessful mission.
We resumed our trip south finally entering England along the M74 near Gretna.
The traffic was again heavy today, especially in the area of the larger cities, no surprise there.
At Stoke-on-Trent we found our hotel, The Upper House. It was a large estate-farm type house that had been converted to small hotel & special event service.
Though the hotel was highly rated for the area there were a few surprises on arrival. We had made our reservation early in the morning but somewhere en-route had received a call from the hotel staff apologizing for not having the room we had reserved but not to worry, they would have a very nice "king room" for us on arrival.
We checked in and were given our room key and up we went to the first floor and though it was a very nice room, it was actually already occupied. Fortunately the guests are away from the room as we opened the door and quickly noticed clothing and a child's stuffed bear on the bed. Needless to say we returned to the front desk and after much concern and talking by phone with what I assume was the manager, the clerk found us a room and we were off to the 3rd floor. This room would work but first we would need things like towels; a chair to sit on would be nice as well. In the end the clerk did as best as he could, we had plenty of towels and we had a chair; with that we settled in and all was well.
There's a relatively interesting history to this estate but we'll touch on that tomorrow.
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