Skechers On Tour
So far this year Lynne and I have kept the holidays to a minimum for medical reasons (a few short days in Grasmere - English Lake District) but having been watching the weather forecasts decided to dive in with a five night break in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, this week. We flew with Easyjet and hired a car at the airport.
Lesson One - Mark you are a creature of habit. Europcar provided a Skoda Fabia. Not too great / not too bad and certainly a big step forward from the bad old days when the joke was... "What do you call a Skoda with a sun-roof? ... a Skip".
However, the Skoda was an automatic and in 45 years since gaining my licence, I haven't ever driven an automatic. That includes all 300,000 miles driven in my beloved but now written off Transit van (Gordon, one of the best friends I ever had). I was apprehensive at the prospect of the automatic and in the end my concerns were real as I needed to concentrate... a lot. So, sightseeing-driving around the beautiful island was frankly at times a chore.
To those people that told me in advance that I would get used to it and come to like the automatic... no, not right, sorry! Although there were no tangible problems, no crashes, no scrapes against the island's sturdy stone walls or beautifully manicured hedges, the automatic is not for me and I won't be driving one again anytime soon.
Lesson Two - Mark you are stubborn and headstrong at times. We visited Mont Orgueil Castle. What a fascinating pile of stone defences this place was. I love that sort of thing. It was high and by the time we got up to the penultimate level of the wide stone staircases we were both pretty worn out. And even with my new Skechers my legs and feet were suffering pretty bad from the hangover of Achilles injuries, caving in knees, stubbed toes etc.
Lynne wisely decided to stick at that level - one down from the top, and gently suggested that I might want to do the same. Me being me, though, I just had to get to the top. Yes the single file staircase climb with single rope handle didn't put me off. Idiot! And I've suffered ever since. No doubt it's going to take a further week or two of healing. Even though it's a short flight from Jersey back to Manchester, the Parky's aching legs kicked in, especially after three hours delay. So, I guess it's no more high level castles for stubborn old me. 😉
At Donna Attrill's suggestion in my newsletter titled Call of the Wild (31st May 2026 - CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO SEE AGAIN, I displayed some stats regarding this site and intend to carry own doing that from time-to-time, so we can all see the progress or otherwise. So, here we go...
Open rates remain between 60 & 70% which I'm proud of as it continues at a level that defeats industry averages.
We have 78 members - so that's how many people have actually subscribed. Although it's not exactly a meteoric rise at an additional 4 since 31st May it's real and the suggestion is that those of you involved, like the journey we're on and want to continue.
Unique visitors to the site during the period 15th May to 14th June are 265. That's 10 additional when compared with the previous period. So again people are reading but not always subscribing.
Thank you everyone, please subscribe, it's free. Next newsletter is due by next Sunday at the latest. Have a beautiful, safe and enjoyable week.
Mark