Home to Drax Sports & Social Club

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Home to Drax

Motorhome Journey from Home to Drax for Yorkshire Folk Dance Weekend

Today we set off from Home in Lancaster to begin an epic trek in our Hymer B544 motorhome. We are approaching 10 years of travel in this particular Hymer, we have worn out a set of tyres driving over 60,000 miles, most of which has been in Europe. This Hymer is left-hand drive, having been imported from Germany where it was originally registered. This trip is different, we begin with a weekend of dancing English Folk Dance plus some Contras and Set American Square dances with well-know callers Liam Binley and Lynn Render, this is a well-established weekend event held at the Drax Sports and Social Club adjacent to Drax power station.

When the event at Drax finishes we take a short drive to Hull to catch the overnight ferry to Rotterdam. It’s always interesting to pass through Rotterdam for me; I designed a lot of the computer control system that originally controlled a large plastic-making plant at Rozenberg nearby. That was a busy time commuting from Manchester to Den Haag, I used to bring coffee and cheese back for the family in Manchester. A strange existence really, living in hotels and working in an English-speaking office, but as soon as we left the office nobody spoke English. Needless to say I soon started to learn Dutch, or Nederlands. That was a long time ago, but it sparked an interest in languages that has stayed with me. In practical terms even a few words of a language can be really helpful.

On one occasion I was in a filling station in Spain when a driver came in asking, in English, for directions to his holiday accommodation. He spoke NO spanish and the cashier had very little English. If you are going to travel away from the main tourist centres – and that’s what we do, then learn the basics of the language. While talking about languages it’s worth mentioning that if you visit Portugal, don’t begin a conversation in Spanish and expect a reply, few people in Portugal speak Spanish despite the proximity of the two countries. If your English is not understood try French, it seems to be understood by many people in Portugal.