Miles were covered quickly in the early hours of the morning as unsurprisingly the traffic was fairly quiet – that and Dan was driving so the pedal was to the floor of the little Ford Focus and the Speedo rarely touching below 80 mph. I was just waiting for the wings to extend and for him to radio for clearance on the runway! It did however shorten the trip by half an hour and we arrived at our destination ‘The MCA Offices’ in Hightown, just north of Crosby by 10am. We are here to obtain Dan’s AB’s certificate, something he has longed for since going to sea at the age of 16. And half an hour later we out on our way, with a piece of paper and one very happy Dan!
After controlling the excited child (Dan) we decided to go a little further north and check out the Fleetwood area, as well as picking up some information from the Nautical college on the Officer of the Watch distance learning course (Dan’s new goal). The rain was now pouring down as we meandered our way up the country, splashing in puddles and almost soaking old ladies on our way, while joking about how the umbrella wasn’t going to stop them from getting wet!
Eventually we arrived at Fleetwood, which appeared a quiet and pleasant little town. But you should never judge a book by its cover or town by its entrance gate, as this was nothing short of a horror film. (Stephen King possibly lived here for a short while obtaining ideas for at least 10 of his books!)
We stopped at the college first as it was sign posted and my navigational skills are not the best in the world! We pulled into the first available parking space near the ruins labelled Fleetwood Nautical College to send Dan on his way to get some his information pack, although imagined him coming back with a ‘welcome to the ruins’ map and other tourist goodies after discovering it really was a historic ruin.
Artist Impression of College
It was the real college, although as our luck goes we arrived right at lunch and everyone was doing just that, the receptionist did however advise coming back in a while – what she failed to mention at the time was she was 15 minutes away from closing the reception desk for the day and no-one would be able to get anything after then!
So we ambled off unknowingly to have a look at the rest of Fleetwood and find some lunch. It didn’t take us long to locate a shopping mall (although we did find the back entrance and somehow completely missed the main entrance? – Possibly something to do with my navigating, but I’m sure Dan’s driving had a hand in it too!) We finally found the car park and bounded off to the entrance gates
It only took a few steps to enter into this bizarre setting and immediately contaminate our eardrums with the worst song in history (Love is all around us by Wet Wet Wet). Quickly joking this off, we continued into the mall. It was the strangest mall I have ever seen (although I haven’t seen many) but looked like someone had started to build a traditional British seaside resort and gave up when they reached the first floor!
Shops stood gloomily under a single side of a building, which had then been painted sky blue (possibly to disguise they were even there?) To add to this setting a seagull had perched on top of one of the roofs and screeched a heartedly seagull screech. Much to my amusement Dan commented on them playing seagull music to add to the scene, until I pointed out the real seagull on the roof, which then took this opportunity to fly away. Barely controlling my laughter I managed to further insult Dan by remarking that maybe it was a mechanical gull and there would be someone sitting on a bench with a remote control somewhere?
We eventually found a food court at the furthest point of the mall with our ears now covered to stop them bleeding from the pain of the awful music, which had now moved to something a little less, but still very morbid! While Dan order, I took the girls to the toilets and noticed a Cash machine located directly outside the ladies – Maybe it’s me but isn’t this a strange place to locate a cash machine? The girls went to the toilet, washed their hands and we headed back to Dan. On the way out I stopped at the cash machine, inserted my card withdrew some cash and card and walked away thinking “That was a convenient place for a cash machine”
Luckily we managed to get some food before three fatties arrived and ate all the food! I don’t normally take to watching people in restaurants, but I couldn’t help but watch the fat boy scraping the mere morsels of food off the cardboard plate. I wondered why he didn’t just eat the cardboard; maybe he was just being polite in public? Unsurprisingly they finished before us too and waddled out of the door. 5 minutes later we left and soon discovered them feeding small pieces of bread to the ‘mechanigulls’ possibly to lure them into their reach and swallow them whole, having not been fulfilled by the 10 course meal they had just bolted down.
Another mournful song was playing on the loudspeakers (Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush – Don’t give up). Do these guys want us to commit suicide!? Maybe they wanted us to leave quickly so they could close up for lunch? And playing all most depressing music in the world would remove everyone…well it worked for us, we practically ran through the exit gate, to the car to get away from the torture!
After discovering the college reception was closed we gave up hope and headed home via the M6…what a big mistake that was…5 miles in 30 minutes, was enough to tear your hair out and it was only 3:50pm! To entertain ourselves and remove the morbid songs of Fleetwood Morbid Mall we sang nursery rhymes and memorable songs with the girls. It was soon discovered that Dan knew the Milky Bar Kid Song and could recited it word perfectly…15 or so years since he last saw it!
Eventually we caught the next service station and thankfully after ½ hour of wasting time in there the traffic had cleared a bit. We finally made it home by 9pm, staggered into the house and straight to bed, which was almost still warm from were we had left it this morning!
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