I am so tired.
I’ve been off work for the past two weeks and rather than relax and take it easy, I’ve been busy trying to pack as much fun as possible in to our ‘staycation’. It’s so rare that we’re all of work / school at the same time that we really wanted to make the most of it. We’ve been to Drayton Manor and Haggerston Castle so far and have planned a trip to the Metrocentre tomorrow and the Legoland Discovery Centre on Saturday. As well as these trips, we’ve been exploring our own area quite a bit and discovering new places to visit nearer to home.
We live in an area of the North East which is known more for its industrial background than for its beauty and culture….
…. But we know better, especially after the last few weeks 🙂
Today we drove to Whitby and had a lovely afternoon exploring Whitby Abbey – despite the almost gale force winds on the top of the cliff! It’s a beautiful place on the cliff top and the kids loved playing pirates and princesses and imagining what it would have been like in the olden days…. Master Frugal even commented that it looked really old – ‘it looks almost as old as grandad doesn’t it?’. I don’t think I’ll be sharing that gem with Grandad though lol. He may not appreciate being compared to an Abbey built hundreds of years ago!
We spent a day in Saltburn which is only about 10 minutes away from us and had a walk on the pier, a play in the amusements and a ride on the scary inclined tramway, which takes you up and down the cliff side from the town to the promenade.
For a bit of culture, we took the kids to see Tenemos, the new giant sculpture that has been built/erected/sculpted/made (not sure what the word is to describe how this giant basketball net type thing came to be) near the Riverside football stadium. It’s 110m in length and almost 50m high and cost an massive £2.6 million to erect – it’s supposed to signify a better future for the area. Not sure it was worth all of the money, especially in this financial climate but standing underneath it is actually quite impressive. As expected, the kids got bored quite quickly so the culture session didn’t last long before we moved on to the Wacky Warehouse!
Never one to give up, I forced more culture on the kids in two of the free museums in the area – Kirkleatham Old Hall and The Dorman Museum, there’s so many activities for the kids that we spent hours there enjoying the culture without even knowing it – and all for free.
So now can you see why I’m so tired?
Anyway, the moral of this story is to go out and explore your area – there’s so much to do and you don’t need to spend much money to enjoy it.
Middlesbrough Skyline photo courtesy of FreeFoto.com
