North of England Video, 27th April - 28th May

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North of England, 27th April - 28th May (By Ella)

WOW ! Our five weeks in England have been crazy. We have had fractured arms, cinema trips, been on crazy roller coasters, had missing luggage, found vegemite in the local supermarket, seen deer run across the road, had thousands of shopping trips, been to Wales, seen badgers, had family and friend reunions, and met lots of friendly and funny Northerners.

There are a lot of things that are different between England and Australia. They have Walkers Crisps (Yummy !), chips and gravy, mushy peas, oven done steak, fat bread, lots and lots of pubs doing food, fields full of farm animals, Primark, scary playgrounds, fast driving, lots of different breeds of dogs (narrowing our search), bigger boxes of cereal, cheap clothes at Primark and lots of old houses and cottages and green countryside. And the weather isn't very good.

We stayed in Shaw, Oldham Manchester at Daisy Cottage with my Aunty Zoe, Mark and my cousin Ciaran. Connor, who is at Westminster University, also visited a couple of times.

Manchester became famous during the industrial revolution. My Great Grandad started a business H.Sheard Ltd, and my Grandad took over the business which was a transport business, moving yarn between the various mills. The town of Shaw was full of cotton mills in the early 1900s.

Daisy Cottage was built in the 1700s and we stayed upstairs and had our own bedroom and bathroom.

Conservatory, also school classroom

One of the first places we visited was to surprise Grandma and Grandad. Grandma cooked us lots of meals and our favourite was the oven done steak.

We did lots of walks and visited lots of places:

High Crompton Park:

Dunwood Park:

Around the fields, near Shaw:

Saddleworth Park:

We had a fabulous day at Alton Towers which is a really fun them park with awesome rollercoasters. Amy and I went on 5 of them, including one which had a vertical drop.

Mum grew up in Sheffield and we had a couple of trips to see where Mum grew up and to meet some friends.

Mum's old house

1 hour away from Shaw

We did a number of sidetrips - Liverpool, Llandudno, Lake Windemere ….. And Oldham Athletic's last game of the season against Peterborough!

Liverpool:

Llandudno:

Summit of Mount Snowdon !

Windermere:

.... Grandma and Grandad's hotel

Our Youth Hostel...

One of the best things we did was have our own tour by Mark of Manchester City football and training grounds. It was huge - and very different to what you see on the TV !  It wasn't just a normal tour as Mark took us everywhere - there were even massive pictures of Melbourne and Sydney since Manchester City bought a club in Victoria. Mark is travelling to Australia with the team soon.

Anna got Christened on Whit Sunday (24th May) at St Pauls Methodist Church in Shaw. It is the same church where I Christened in 2005. Anna's Godparents are Connor and Ciaran (in England), and Tim (in Australia). In the evening we had a celebration dinner, with cake, for Anna at the North Star pub.

Dad surprised Mum, Zoe and Mark with some great tickets to see Take That, supported by Ella Henderson. The show was at Manchester Arena.

A couple of days before we were leaving for Spain, Amy fractured her arm whilst doing a handstand.

The five weeks in England went so quickly. We had a brilliant time and it was great, after hearing all Mum and Dad's stories, to see where they grew up.