curiouswombat: (camera)
curiouswombat ([personal profile] curiouswombat) wrote2010-09-21 10:57 pm
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Weekend in York - the pics spam.

I travelled over to England on Saturday. The crossing was pleasant, the drive to York was likewise, and D-d and I had a very nice meal together that evening.

We had planned to make the most of the York Food Festival on Sunday, and so pottered around the large tented area and ate so many samples that we didn't need lunch... We were leaving plenty of room for later in our tummies as we had tickets to attend a champagne afternoon tea in the official mayoral residence, the Mansion House.

We expected, as this was part of the food festival, that it would be a very, very good afternoon tea. It wasn't.

It was interesting to see inside the mansion house, and we found out that we got to have tea in the presence of the mayor and the sheriff (no, nothing like the US law officer of the same title!), but the food was disappointing. Whilst the sandwiches were perfectly nice, the cream for the scones was insufficient and over-whipped, the plain cakes were very basic supermarket bought, and the fancy cakes were identical, supermarket basic grade, cup-cakes. No variety, and not even up to the standards of Tesco's middle of the range cakes. Such a shame.

The champagne was OK though.

Anyway, under the cut are a couple of pictures taken then, and a few others. We spent the evening at the Kate Rusby concert and it more than made up for the afternoon tea - a lovely concert, she has a wonderful voice, and is such a delight to watch.

On Monday I booked out of my hotel, and then met up with MiL and SiL whose round-Britain travels had brought them to see York and D-d. We made our way to D-d's favourite local pub and waited for her to finish her morning lectures and meet us for lunch - which was very, very, good. There is a picture of her and her aunt in the set too - you can see why S2C says D-d looks like his sister.

Then I left the three of them to drive the 65+ miles up to Hawes in the North Yorkshire Dales where I am now sharing a cottage with my friend D from Sky aka [livejournal.com profile] dougalsservant. The last two pics were taken on the journey up.

Photos from the area will get posted later!

So -

The interior of York mansion house - impressive surroundings for a less than impressive afternoon tea -

Mansion House interior

We did get to see the sword used in ceremonies by the mayor, dating from 1416 and originally a proper, battle, bastard sword -

York mace ans sword

Beside it is its scabbard, the scabbard containing the sheriff's sword, and the ceremonial mace - which weight an awful lot!

Here is a close-up of the engraving on the sword -

sword

Now - D-d and her aunt -

D-d and her aunt

And a couple of pictures taken near Masham, to give you a taste of the lower dales -

Lower Dales 2

Lower Dales 1

There will be some pictures of where we are, higher in the dales, in the next post. Along with some of visiting wildlife.

But that's it for now.
gillo: (Castle on a grey day)

[personal profile] gillo 2010-09-21 10:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Are you in Hawes proper? The dairy is worth a visit, and has a nice tea shop. Lots of Wallace and Gromit memorabilia too IIRC.

[identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com 2010-09-21 11:01 pm (UTC)(link)
Simonstone - about a mile further up towards Buttertubs - too small to show on most maps. We were in Hawes today - we didn't get to the dairy this time, but might well, in passing, over then ext few days.
gillo: (Drill hall Picture)

[personal profile] gillo 2010-09-21 11:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Buttertubs is well worth the drive. Many years ago now we stayed in Muker with the girls and our friends [livejournal.com profile] katexxxxxx and [livejournal.com profile] muttley_mutter. Beautiful area.

And you can't go to Wensleydale without eating cheese, Gromit!

[identity profile] curiouswombat.livejournal.com 2010-09-22 08:56 am (UTC)(link)
After we shopped in Hawes and went to the market we went up over Buttertubs to Muker yesterday - today we are thinking Black Sheep Brewery...