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Follow the Brown Signs Blog - June, 2012
The Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 31: Looking awful, badger watching and frog squashing
June 19, 2012
Day 31 and the Olympic torch continues its journey from Middlesbrough all the way down the coast to Hull, making just one detour from the coast inland to Pickering. I love this corner of the world, The Mose and I have been to the Scarborough/Witby/North York Moors a few times and done a lot of brown signs around there. We found a great fake-brown-signed camp site in Robin Hood's Bay and stayed at the legal-brown-signed youth hostel in Boggle Hole where every dorm is named after a shipping forecast area...Read more >>
The Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 30: Michael Caine and the slag
June 18, 2012
So it's day 30 and we're jogging with our imaginary Olympic torches on a big backwards "S" route from Durham down to Middlesbrough today. Looking at the map Blackhall Colliery caught my eye and became, for reasons explained below, my destination of the day.
Whenever I go to places that have a significant industrial history I find myself getting totally beguiled by them. Industrial heritage sites aren't the kinds of places you'd expect to be beguiled by, they're not exactly romantic and are usually bridges, massive machines, mines, factories and...Read more >>
The Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 29: ‘ello, we’re the Romans (to quote Eddie Izzard)
Another very quick shout out today for a brown signed attraction that lay along the Olympic torch relay route from Newcastle to Durham on Saturday. I'm tres behind with my alternative torch relay because apparently when your restaurant might or might not be closing you still have to work doubles on one of the busiest days of the year (Father's Day) and pretend you haven't run out of food when you have, look professional, smile at people who are furious at you and try not to run downstairs and kill...Read more >>
The Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 28: I might not believe in God but I really like monks
June 16, 2012
I've been slack. I'm only just writing yesterday's Olympic torch relay blog today. Life and work have been doing their best to get in the way of my metaphorical jog around the country holding an Olympic torch, trying not to set my hair alight and veering off the road whenever I see a brown tourist sign. Here are a few of the getting-in-the-wayers:
- The restaurant I manage may or may not be sold, so yesterday was spent oscillating between being in and out of a job and feeling stressed about what in God's...Read more >>
The Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 27: Grace Darling. The End
June 14, 2012
This blog is going to be the quickest blog ever, for a few reasons:
1) It's my birthday today
2) I spent most of the day in the garage because my car sounds like this when I drive it: Car near death experience
3) I'm out being busily t-total in an hour or so (I'm not even joking).
So today's brown signed destination has been chosen from the Olympic torch relay route from Edinburgh to Alnwick and is The Grace Darling Museum run by the RNLI in the coastal town of Bamburgh in Northumberland. This museum...Read more >>
Follow The Brown Signs Torch Relay Day 26: Royal escapees and doggy walks
June 13, 2012
So today is our last full day in Scotland as the Olympic torch bearers carry the flame south from Dundee to Edinburgh.
The live location tool showed me that the torch was just coming up to Kinross, where there's also an interesting looking blue trianglish splodge on the map, so I homed right in to have a closer look. The triangle is actually a loch called Loch Leven which is an interesting destination in itself. It has seven islands, one of which is home to Castle Leven whose most famous prisoner...Read more >>
The Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 25: Love/hate relationships with flying, ghosts and war dogs
June 12, 2012
So we've started the journey south along the Scottish East coast today from Aberdeen as we spend our penultimate full day in Scotland. The torch goes inland on a little loop around the Firth of Tay and finally on to its destination, Dundee.
About 40 miles south of Aberdeen is the coastal town of Montrose. A quick scout of the area through the medium of t'internet got me interested in the place and especially in an attraction called Montrose Air Station (I am yet to feature an air museum on this torch...Read more >>
Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 24: Hopping on a brown signed tour with Queen Victoria
June 11, 2012
The Olympic Torch leaves the Scottish islands today and gets flown back down south to Inverness, it then makes its way through some of the most mountainous and spectacular scenery in the United Kingdom to Aberdeen, on the east coast of Scotland.
My destination today lies just on the boundary of the Cairngorms National Park which was established in 2003 and covers an area of over 2500 square kilometres. The area was designated a national park to help preserve and protect the natural landscape and is therefore a haven for lovers of the outdoors,...Read more >>
Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 23: Predictable post on cutie-pootie puffins
The Olympic torch travels north from Inverness to the Orkney and Shetland Islands today, then back south west to the Isle of Lewis where it finishes it's journey in Stornoway. Finding a brown signed destination was hard, being at work the whole time and the fact it was a Sunday meant I couldn't just get on the phone to the tourism office in Shetland and ask for their help.
Instead I found myself on Google Street View pulling the little orange man off his stand and onto the little roads around...Read more >>
Brown Sign Torch Relay Day 22: A quicky but a goody
June 10, 2012
The Olympic torch makes it way up the gorgeous west coast of Scotland today as it crosses over the Highlands to the north east, travelling from Glasgow to Inverness. Watching the live coverage and seeing those surroundings is making me go a bit weak at the knees quite frankly, just a tad jealous of those torch bearers at the moment.
The Mose and I drove all the way up to Inverness for New Year's Eve a few years ago on a spontaneous we're-depressed-with-London-so-we're-flicking-everyone-the-Vs-and-going-to-Scotland road trip (the kind of road trip we're...Read more >>