After arriving at our friend's house and finding that she, Fiona had gone to Amsterdam we camped outside because her house sitter, Linda let us in to use the "facilities", Internet, shower, and the kitchen. William cooked a three course dinner for us, the garlic bread was a hit. Linda then invited us to her friends farm for an educational visit. So we went down a couple of narrow lanes and arrived at a small old English farmyard. Pigs, chickens and sheep running round. After a very long chat outside Sue showed us her milking operation. It's a bit fancier than ours her eighteen sheep were all well trained and they would walk up onto the platform so she could milk them with here machine. We need one of those Dad!!!
She then showed us her milk and cheese room and told us stories of her experiments, some have worked like her home made pasteuriser but just like us she has made a few batches that went to the pigs.
She told us about her little business. The sheep milk is sold at the farmers market fresh, frozen or as cheese!! She even sells lamb, pork and poultry which she raises on the farm. A real entertaining sight was a cuckoo hen brooding piglets in small stone building.We had lunch and a cup of tea and then had a walk around the farm. Maddy loved the chickens. By now it was early evening so we'd spent a little longer than planned at the farm so we decided to find a park and go to sleep.
The next day we began our first of three days at Alton Towers Theme Park. We got a map as you do and then found our way to one of the new roller coasters Sonic Spin-ball where we sat in cart and went around a track while our carriages spun separately.For three days we explored the whole park and many rides 3-6 times no wonder we were sick of them at the end. Because Maddy and Johanna were to short to go on some roller coasters and Dad gets severe motion sickness we sometimes split up and Mum,William,Thomas and Anneke went on all the big roller coaster and Dad and the girls found some of the gems of Alton Towers like Berry Bish-Bash where you shoot people with soft balls out of air guns. Here we had some family wars.It was great fun.After three days we learnt the tricks to minimize Que time we did the popular rides in the morning and evening and went in the single rider ques which they used to fill up carriages when they had uneven groups. Some of our favourite roller coasters were Oblivian a vertical drop roller coaster, air a roller coaster that felt like you were flying because you sat facing the ground on your stomach and Nemisis which went upside down with lots of corkscrews. Thirteen was a wicked new roller coaster that we could all go on. You went down a track through the woods into a dark room and suddenly dropped twice.So remember if you go down to the woods today you better not go alone. Even though it is summer here it isn't really hot but we still went on some wet rides. The conga river rapids were a wet and bumpy ride and the flume had plenty of drops as we went around in our bath tub. After three days of rides we were rollercoastered out and headed back to Chinley. We are now enjoying a few days with Fiona, Nigel and Flossy before we head for a big week in London.
The Nieuwys.
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