Cross stitch kits, Model Railways and Lawnmower Museums, oh my!

Today was Southport day 3 (I keep calling it Stockport--I don't know why).
Luckily we woke up around 9am even though the wakeup call never came through.

We had breakfast in the hotel cafe, which featured these neat lights:


We also enjoyed the "next stop" indicator in the swanky elevator:


And we drove by the public toilets:


Then it was on to the Model Railway Village, which had LGB trains and lots of little buildings. They had a quiz about the various scenes, which appealed to the Amazing Race fans inside us both and kept our interest:



Then we walked and took pix with tulips:


We found a vet for cats only! No dogs allowed!


Free gifts are always great:


We stopped by a store called "Knitting Sootie" (I have no idea what a "sootie" is, though I'm sure Google would tell me if I bothered to look it up) where they sold cross stitch kits. Even though I said I'd never buy an 18 count cross stitch kit again (the squares are so small!), I bought three today because they were too good to pass up:



Then we had another Amazing Race moment trying to find the British Lawnmower Museum. How I failed to take a picture of the sign for the museum, I don't know (there were several). But I took pix of lawnmowers!


And today I learned that there is something called Lawnmower Racing:


And I swear my dad either owns or did own that blue book on Lawnmower Repair:


Plus they had chainsaws too:


I'm starting to fade a bit:


Picture of a grooms cake with a lawnmower on top:


The museum was on the second story of a shop that sells, well, keys, safes, and lawnmowers. They had an audio tour of the museum, which was in three rooms and a hallway. I've never been surrounded by so many lawnmowers at one time. And what I remember most was the smell--it smelled like a garage. But then I started to feel ready to eat lunch. We left and it was starting to rain.

We had to wait at crossing tracks for this to go by:


We had lunch and then played games at an arcade. We were both disappointed that the Lost World game controllers both didn't work (we always play that game in two player mode at any arcade that has it!) We enjoyed the driving games. We played the best 3 out of 5, and I won!

Around 4pm we decided to head home. I navigated and Pete drove. I find the signs to be infuriating. Roadways are not labelled as North or South, East or West. They are labelled by towns instead. The signs are generally not close to the intersections like they are in the US. So if you're jetlagged like me, it's hard to remember if the sign said to go right or straight or off to the left sort-of. I say that because I have never been around so many roundabouts (which are called circles in NJ and rotaries in MA) in my life in such a short span of time. Circles in NJ generally have 4 points but here in the UK they can have as many as 6 or maybe more, I'm not sure...I would find myself telling Pete things like, "you want to take the one that's at 2 o'clock."

But I have learned new town names, such as Widnes (can I get a Widnes? ha ha!)

I took a big nap after returning, then we went to the supermarket to buy salad and pizza for dinner. We worked on our wedding spreadsheet. whee!

Tomorrow is our day off!

Good night!! (I stay up til 2 or later because of the jet lag. I'm not helping that out at all because I wake up late and then take big naps in the afternoon or early evening...)