Hi, one of the questions that we're often asked when we are at our 'other' home in Luxor is, "Why don't you have a short sea-side break in Hurghada?"
Here's the simple answer:
This is a stretch of beach at Seaton Sluice, which is about a half hour's pleasant drive from where we live in England. If I'd turned around, it's about the same length in the other direction too. Hurghada couldn't hold a candle to this! (Colloquialism: To hold a candle to = to compare favourably with.) That concrete block to the left of middle of the picture is a tank trap, when we used to go there, they were spread all along the beach to make sure that if 'Jerry' ever managed to land, he wouldn't have been able to get his tanks off the beach! I expect that this solitary reminder has been left for posterity.
This is where sister Susan and I spent many a lovely warm day in our childhood, along with our glamorous mam in her red ruched swimming costume, her mam and dad, and of course our dad too! We've loads of photo's from those long lost days, a lot of them have the 'car-of-the-moment' in them as well, which was always a Vauxhall Velox. We had three Velox's consecutively, the first one was FT ????, LS 5317 was the second and the final one was XTN 370.
Yes, that's LS 5317, at Seaton Sluice, and that's 'yours truly' sitting in the boot, where I'd been purposely posed with a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale in my lap! It must have been about 1954 or 55.
Dad usually drove very quickly, and I remember sitting on the front armrest in the middle of the bench seat, seat belts hadn't been thought of then !
It's a great beach at Seaton Sluice; the sand isn't too fine, so it's easier to walk on than that at South Shields. The sand dunes are tremendous for all sorts of fun and games and I've never seen the beaches crowded like those that we see on the telly, on the South coast.
Although it's been a bit overcast today, the temperature has been OK, and even though there was a bit of a wind at the coast, it was still very pleasant. After our stroll on the dunes and the beach, we had a slow ride further up the coast to Blyth. Then we cut across country, ending up in......Morpeth! There were several market stalls scattered about the square, and I was surprised to see this one:
That's right Dear Reader; the Shewermers were £4.50 and even the Falafel was £4!! (Like 45LE and 40LE!!!) Oddly enough, we gave it a miss, and carried on to the Cuwick Manor Tearooms, where we were, thankfully, still in time to select from their luncheon menu, how fortunate!
Ooooh, the choices! We eventually plumped for the Pan Haggerty for me:
Here's the simple answer:
This is a stretch of beach at Seaton Sluice, which is about a half hour's pleasant drive from where we live in England. If I'd turned around, it's about the same length in the other direction too. Hurghada couldn't hold a candle to this! (Colloquialism: To hold a candle to = to compare favourably with.) That concrete block to the left of middle of the picture is a tank trap, when we used to go there, they were spread all along the beach to make sure that if 'Jerry' ever managed to land, he wouldn't have been able to get his tanks off the beach! I expect that this solitary reminder has been left for posterity.
This is where sister Susan and I spent many a lovely warm day in our childhood, along with our glamorous mam in her red ruched swimming costume, her mam and dad, and of course our dad too! We've loads of photo's from those long lost days, a lot of them have the 'car-of-the-moment' in them as well, which was always a Vauxhall Velox. We had three Velox's consecutively, the first one was FT ????, LS 5317 was the second and the final one was XTN 370.
Dad usually drove very quickly, and I remember sitting on the front armrest in the middle of the bench seat, seat belts hadn't been thought of then !
It's a great beach at Seaton Sluice; the sand isn't too fine, so it's easier to walk on than that at South Shields. The sand dunes are tremendous for all sorts of fun and games and I've never seen the beaches crowded like those that we see on the telly, on the South coast.
Although it's been a bit overcast today, the temperature has been OK, and even though there was a bit of a wind at the coast, it was still very pleasant. After our stroll on the dunes and the beach, we had a slow ride further up the coast to Blyth. Then we cut across country, ending up in......Morpeth! There were several market stalls scattered about the square, and I was surprised to see this one:
'Papa Ganoush.......Middle Eastern Street Food'. Freda got her eye on the board:
That's right Dear Reader; the Shewermers were £4.50 and even the Falafel was £4!! (Like 45LE and 40LE!!!) Oddly enough, we gave it a miss, and carried on to the Cuwick Manor Tearooms, where we were, thankfully, still in time to select from their luncheon menu, how fortunate!
Ooooh, the choices! We eventually plumped for the Pan Haggerty for me:
Pan Haggerty
A tower of delicious Pan Haggerty topped with bacon
brittle served with the finest locally produced
Gold Award pork sausage from Moorhouse Farm
and a softly poached egg
£6.50
And Freda decided on the Lindesfarne Chicken:
Lindesfarne Chicken
Tender Chicken Breast, golden sautéed potatoes
served with fine green beans and a honey
and mead jus
£8.95
Being a dutiful wife, Freda left me a forkful of her chicken and potato, with a little of the honey and mead jus, just to taste; it was superb! Really, I cannot possibly do justice to the excellence of these two meals by trying to describe them, they were absolutely astounding (and that's not over-egging the pudding, honestly!).
Dining at Cuwick Manor at weekends is becoming a habit! It's such a shame that we've only got a few weeks left before we travel back to Luxor. But never mind, eh? At least we'll be able to buy falafel for a few pence again!
See ya!
My very first NEW car was a Vauxhall VX4/90, a manificent machine,with overdrive in the top 2 gears, it used to be great on the autobahns, then. I was lucky being in the forces, I got it completely tax free, being in Germany, and thanks to the NAFFI
ReplyDeleteMany times I drove from Hameln to the UK, with several mates and their kit
I used to drop them off at the hook of Holland and they made their own way to the UK
We used to get a great trip with the ferries then, FREE for soldiers to get too the UK, 4 times a year (most of us never went home that often)
I travelled a lot around Europe those days in it, hence I dont have the desire to travel around there now
Nice to see I wasant alone with my love affair with a good old Vauxhall
Hi Derrick, so you're back from South America, eh? I well remember the VX4/90, with its twin Zenith carbs. I had a repair customer with an FB VX4/90, it was the powder blue one with a red flash. Although he was an old man (probably about the age we are now, lol) he had never passed his test. He just kept on driving on a Provisional licence, unaccompanied of course!!!! He'd have probably been shot nowadays, or at least Tazered.
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