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Making the best of our holiday in Blackpool dodging the gale force winds and heavy rain, which was lashing against our hotel windows and covering our car with salt. We found a modern shopping centre linked to a multi-storey car park and, after coffee at the Winter Gardens, Daniel and I visited the Lego exhibition as the girls found a play place. To the Sand Castle swimming pool and recreation centre this afternoon as the weather closed the Blackpool Tower and then an evening in our hotel. The government is still fighting the IRA and the postal workers as their dispute escalates. Crew aboard the Karen B chemical waste ship, anchored off France, need a doctor by helicopter to examine their chest and back pains
It was a short night for me as I was awoken in the early hours by gale force winds and rain lashing against our hotel bedroom windows so that I had to get up and close them more securely. What weather Blackpool can have – most unsuitable for holidays really – with the beaches open to the Irish Sea gales that drive the rain before them. We had breakfast and then stayed in the hotel for as long as we could, me reading the paper and keeping the girls happy in the playroom whilst Di and Daniel got impatient and want to leave. We dashed to the car and then drove along the seafront and parked at the multi-storey car park that is linked by lift with the modern shopping centre. Coffee at the Winter Gardens and then Daniel and I went to look at the Lego building block exhibition while the girls went off to ‘Prof Peabody’s Play Place’. The Lego exhibition was quite fascinating and represented so much work in modelling and patient construction.
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Daniel and I leaving our Blackpool holiday for the day to visit home, meet up with Kimbolton School Headmaster Mr Peel and Head of Chemistry Mr Watson to persuade Daniel to take the subject at A-level and then for me to attend the Parish Council meeting for the important dog fouling measure discussion before driving back in heavy rain and squalls to arrive very late.
This morning turned out to be wet and windy in marked contrast to yesterday afternoon and so, after breakfast which we enjoyed, we took the car to the town centre and went shopping in an indoor centre. We had coffee at Boots and a little look round but then, after some time in Dixons, Daniel and I decided to make a start on our visit home. I thought we could have left midday, and this was subsequently born out, but it was probably best to avoid the risk of traffic hold-ups on the motorways as a lot was at stake. Once we found ourselves to be early, we stop the car and I phoned ahead Mr Peel’s secretary and he managed to see us early at Kimbolton School. He is an active headmaster, who is trying visibly to improve the school’s academic performance and width of curriculum. We met and discussed Daniel’s exam results and learnt that he was unlucky to miss out on French but that his other results were no fluke. An ‘A ‘at physics, a ‘B ‘at additional maths are both very good results and evidently his Chemistry ‘B ‘was not far off being an ‘A ‘. Mr Peel concurred with my assessment of Daniel’s abilities and need to specialise on the science side and did his best to encourage Daniel to offer Chemistry and suggested we talk to Mr Watson, the Head of Chemistry, before making a final choice anyway. Luckily, Mr Watson was in school supervising the commissioning of the new Science Block and we got a chance to see both him and the new facilities at the same time. He felt Daniel would cope well with the subject and Daniel was impressed with the new laboratories and so agreed to take Chemistry.