Weekend in York - the pics spam.

[curiouswombat]

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 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 -



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



Now - D-d and her aunt -



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





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.

Comments

[melegyrn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the pics-loved them all!

For some reason, your pictures of the Dales left me homesick and a bit weepy feeling. Well, it was not a good day at work. Anyway, it's strange as I only visited York and Riveaulx Abby, but fell in love with both. I've love the Dales, of course, Ever since All Creatures Great and Small, which I watched religiously.

My memory tells me that the couple who operated the B&B I stayed at in the Lake District (many years ago) moved to Hawes where they had bought another B&B...

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

We have seen Jervaux Abbey a couple of times on this trip - Riveaulx is a bit further east than we are tending to travel - the whole area is gorgeous though.

Hawes is a nice wee country village - with quite a few B&Bs, but if you are ever in England again I'm sure you'd be able to find them if they are still doing it. And you would love the area - especially the number of birds we have seen.

[melegyrn.livejournal.com]

I'll have to start saving my pennies! I'd love to come back someday.

I was too timid when I visited before to attempt driving. This time I'd love to rent a car and explore the Dales to my heart's content.