Mr Gill's Blog: A day out at Silloth

Looking across the Solway

Light hearted and good fun.

On Friday night I took part in a quiz at the Golf Club, this was in aid of the heating fund at the Parish Church. Our local Minister Scott McCarthy was the Quiz Master ably assisted by his wife Jane. I was teamed up with Avril Grieve her husband Robert (better known as Jinky) and Kate Turk who runs the local day centre. Kate, Avril and I have been Quiz partners a few times now with some success but this wasn't to be the case this time. There were some novelty rounds which were fun and caused some merriment, but non more so than when Scott was asked to repeat a question he repeated it with the answer. The night was maybe a bit light on numbers but it was light hearted and good fun.

We treated ourselves

On Saturday Mrs Gill and myself had a run out Whitesykes garden centre to pick up some bags of potting compost and come away with a few extra plants much to Mrs Gill's delight. After coffee and toasties we headed for Gretna Gateway to see what bargains we could pick up in the almost latest fashion styles. In the evening we treated ourselves to a Chinese carry out and I watched the final two episodes of the excellent French drama I have been watching over the last six weeks.

Meeting up with Carlisle Active

On Sunday morning I headed for Carlisle where I was meeting up with Carlisle Active (Mencap). A trip to Maryport had been organised with the intention of doing a coastal walk. We set of in the usual high spirits but the further west we got the heavier the sky got and the threat of rain was almost inevitable. Sure enough by the time we got to Maryport it was getting pretty wet. We bundled everyone into the Aquarium cafe on the dockside for a coffee break and to decide what too do. On re-emerging it was obvious the weather wasn't going to get any better so Susan Harper who runs Carlisle Active made the decision to return by way of Silloth where it was looking a bit brighter.

A walk along the sea front

Sarah & Sean

When we arrived at Silloth the weather had taken a turn for the better so we found a spot with a few picnic tables and sat and had our packed lunches. After everyone had finished we set off for a walk along the sea front. This was done at a leisurely pace as there were different levels of mobility within the group. As I hadn't seen some of them for a while it was nice to catch up and find out what they had been up too. Sean Liddle told me he had recently abseiled down the Civic Centre building in Carlisle along with 34 others in aid of Mencap. This a difficult feat for anyone, but when you take into account that Sean is virtually blind and has some mobility problems it was indeed a courageous achievement. He said he raised over £250 for his effort.

"now it's only me and the seagulls"

On return we stopped at the ice cream van that had appeared on the sea front. I had quite an interesting chat with the vendor. He told me he was the 4th generation to have sold ice cream in Silloth and his family having once owned four shops and cafes and could hardly keep up with demand. He said this was in the days before Mr Beeching took the decision to close umpteen lines all over Britain. "now it's only me and the seagulls".