A week off work was just what the doctor ordered, so we packed our bags and headed south for some relaxation. We had booked in to Chester for a few days, but along the way we stopped off in Blackpool.

I had never been to Blackpool and I had heard conflicting reports about it over the years. Some people seem to think it’s a poor and distant cousin of the entertainment strips that exist on the other side of the pond, while others swear that it’s the best fun you can have with a bucket, a spade, and a pocket full of copper coins. Well, the truth is some where in the middle.

It’s fair to say that the weather (which wasn’t great) had a negative effect on my opinion, because everything looks better in the sunshine – even those ubiquitous tourist stands. We didn’t go up Blackpool Tower because with the fog we would have been lucky to even appreciate we were a few hundred feet off the ground. Still, it’s England in the middle of October – what more do you expect?

But we had fun walking along the prom, and killed a few hours in a clutch of arcades and attractions that really don’t seem to have progressed much past the 1980s.

Then, as we were leaving, the sky cleared.

Typical.