Rotten Tomatoes

I'm a bit annoyed, really. I was trying to add some pictures to this post. But for reasons that God only knows, blogger is thwarting my every attempt. It doesn't seem to matter that I have done everything correctly. Grrrr! As it is, all the pics are on facebook.

Anyway, moving on. I woke up this morning after having slept for 11 hours! That is a record for me. I am relieved to discover the secret to a good night's sleep. All I have to do is stay awake for 34 hours, travel across the continent, then across the ocean, get hassled by customs agents, and drink a Guinness, and I will sleep straight through the night! I only woke once, at 6:30 am for two seconds before falling right back to sleep. I usually wake constantly. So, I may be able to sleep through the night every other night, from now on... Or, maybe not.

This morning after a quiet breakfast, the couple I'm staying with right now, Steve and Rita's daughter and granddaughters came over and we all went to shop at Asda. Asda is almost exactly like WalMart. They did grocery shopping and I bought a hair straightener. Why? I'll tell you. If I don't blow-dry and straighten my hair, it becomes a living mass of frizzy puff that attempts to swallow my entire head. It really does. A living monster... Rita's a dear and gave me an old hair dryer she didn't need any more, so when I showered yesterday, I was able to partially tame my hair, but only partially. After Asda, we stopped by a pet shop, then came back to the house. I immediately plugged in the straightener. My hair is now more subdued, thank God. I'm sure that, if left to its own devices, once it had finished off my head, it would begin attacking anybody that crossed its path.

Once my hair was sorted, we went to do a little tour of the surrounding area. We visited Horwich, Rivington, and drove through a bit of Bolton, where Steve and Rita live. First we went to a little church and had a look 'round. The building, like most in the area was hundreds of years old, and had a little graveyard with some quite old stones. Very pretty. Then we went to the Rivington Barn. This barn is a very old stone building, with a vaulted, wood beamed ceiling. The legend is that it was built out of the remains of an overturned Viking ship! So cool! My Viking blood got a bit excited to walk through it. :)

Next we went into the village of Rivington. It was about three buildings in total but quite lovely. It had a little Village Green, on which were the village stocks... Now we had already seen some stocks in Horwich. I had posed with my hands in them and everything. I was a bit surprised to see another set so close. Once we finished walking around Rivington, which, let's face it, didn't take long, we drove back toward Bolton. Steve pointed out some points of interest. He took me to see something called The Headless Cross. We just pulled up next to it as it was right on the road... And right next to it... Another set of stocks. I mean, really! We only traveled a total of a couple miles, and saw three sets of stocks. It made me wonder what kind of people I was surrounded by. The descendants of some very unscrupulous people by the look of it. And just think of the number of rotten tomatoes that must have been chucked around here. All the villagers taunting the prisoner... Deary me!