11th November - Walk and lunch in Bradford

When I went down to breakfast this morning I talked to the others and found out that some of them were planning to go to the service at the Abundant Life Church. This didn't appeal to me, so I was pleased when Keith suggested going for a walk instead.We asked the receptionist if she could recommend any local walks and found out that there was a park nearby called Harold Park. I walked down to the park with Keith, Sandra, Christine, Brian and Phil. It turned out to be quite a big park with two lakes. We saw moorhens, ducks and Canada geese. We stopped at the war memorial to take a couple of group photos and then started to walk back to the hotel. On the way we stopped at a coffee shop. We decided to take our drinks outside as it was quite a sunny morning. When we eventually returned to the hotel, Christine said goodbye to the rest of us and set off on her way back to Newcastle. The rest of us then set off for the city centre. It was a good job we had plenty of time before lunch as we got lost in the one-way system and ended up having to ask a taxi driver for directions. We were very pleased when we finally found the Victoria Hotel. We had lunch in our usual dining room. For starters, we had spinach soup which tasted better than it looked (!) The main course was chicken, roast potatoes and vegetables and Yorkshire pudding. I have now realised that in Yorkshire they serve pudding with all meat dishes even though it doesn't really go(!) Over lunch the group who went to church told us about the service. They said it was showy and very few people made the effort to talk to them. I got the impression I didn't miss anything by not going. After the lunch we said our goodbyes and I travelled back to the hotel with Chris C, Andrew and Simon. Thanks to Chris's Sat Nav we had no problems with the one-way system and arrived quite a while before the others. When they eventually returned Kay gave Brian and I a lift back to Manchester. I think the journey was even quicker than yesterday's. In all it has been an enjoyable weekend, but I really needed to catch up on sleep tonight.