John Lennon you mean? What, THE John Lennon? What was he wrong about? Well I’ll tell you.

In one of his most famous songs he told us that Strawberry Fields would be forever, but when my brother and I got there this morning we found out that it was actually demolished in the 1970s. That in turn was replaced by another building, which has now also been demolished, and the site is now currently being redeveloped by the Salvation Army as a Youth Centre and “visitor experience.” At least the gates were still there – or they were, at the time of our visit.

What do you don’t see in that picture is the “Magical Mystery Tour” bus which muscled us out of the way so that the 50 people on board could crowd around the gates and block our view of it. We had to wait until the bus beetled off to wherever it was it was going next before we could have a good old neb at the gates ourselves.

Alan’s train home wasn’t until 4 pm that afternoon so we took the opportunity to go back to see the statues on Crosby beach. For me I think they were the highlight of the visit, and I make no excuses for publishing another photograph here.

Some people might see this particular fella as a metaphor for life; stuck in the sand, going nowhere, while the world passes him by. That is, if you’re a pessimist, you will see it that way.

I’m more of an optimist, so after I dropped Alan off at the station, we said our goodbyes, and I drove home. All the way up the M6 I was thinking “Well that was fun. Now where are we going to go next year…?”

I bet you can’t wait.