The Way of the Wombat

This is the first post about what I got up to once I moved from Coventry down to London. D-d flew in to London City Airport and met me at out hotel in time for dinner on Sunday evening. We were staying at The Radisson Blu Vanderbilt about 3 minutes walk from the Natural History Museum, 5 minutes from th V&A, and about 15 minutes from Kensington Palace. We got a really nice bed and breakfast deal which included an Oyster Card with £10 on it (extremely useful for travelling on the tube), afternoon tea, and free entry to Kensington Palace - which had been on our to-do list anyway.

So on Monday we went down to breakfast (and as I mentioned in the short post made at the time, got scolded by the waitress for not eating enough!), and then walked to Kensington Gardens, and thence to the Palace.

Under the cut are pictures of the gardens, and a few taken inside, but none of the costume ones- I will post those separately tomorrow as it would, otherwise, have been a very long post.

So - we walked towards the palace, and I got the weird sensation that it was... too flat...( Read more... )

And so - tomorrow - dresses, lots of dresses.

Steam train trip - part two...

So we didn't do much during our break in Edinburgh except potter along Princes Street and spend time in Princes Street Gardens - but I did take some pictures to prove that we'd been there - including some of one of my favourite water features.

( A couple of train close-ups and some pics of Edinburgh )

Then we made our way back to the station to be on the platform before the train came in, as there was a plan for S2C to be able to visit the footplate before we had to take our seats. We waited... and waited... and it was almost time for the train to leave and still it hadn't arrived at the platform, which was now crowded with all of us who were due to get back onto the train, and fifty or more steam enthusiasts with their cameras at the ready.

Fortunately there were two of the gentlemen from Pathfinder on the platform with us. They were in constant touch with the staff on the train as the story unfolded. There was a problem with the water supply at the railyard outside Edinburgh and they weren't able to fill the tender with enough water to get the engine down to Berwick, for the first watering stop! They had tried various different things, the water company were trying to mend the fault, the fire brigade had volunteered one of their water tenders, but it only held about 10% of what was required... The train was likely to be about an hour late - we might as well all go and have coffee.

We headed for the Costas which is inside one of the station buildings. And it was as I sat waiting for my coffee to cool that I glanced up and found I was looking at ( this )

One of the things dougalsservant and I decided we should do on our holiday was travel on the famous Settle to Carlisle railway line. This line travels through some beautiful scenery, over viaducts and through tunnels - but was threatened, some years ago with closure.

We finally got to do this on our last day, after the visit to the falconry centre. We decided not to travel all the way to Carlisle, but to do the most scenic part of the line and travel as far as Appleby, and then get the next down train, about ten minutes later, back to Settle. Although it didn't quite work out like that...

( stations, views, and a viaduct )

In other news, we celebrated S2C's birthday with chocolate cake before he went to bed for the day - yes, he was at work last night, and is at work tonight.

And in even more other news I have been viciously kicked by a plot bunny. I am currently writing short pieces, set in the Returnverse, using the Schmoop bingo prompts. Except that I woke up about 3 am on Sunday morning with an almost complete Lord of the Rings fic screaming itself at me - and like Pure Morning it is insisting that I write it, the whole thing is sitting in my brain and refusing to let me write anything else. And it starts with me killing off one of my favourite characters! But I am going to have to write it...

Here are a few more pictures of our break in North Yorkshire - mainly pictures of the small market town that we were just outside. As usual I was drawn to the churchyard...

( Hawes )

We did get out and about and further afield, too. Under the next cut is a picture of ( Castle Bolton )

We decided not to go inside, because we were on our way to another small market town, lower down Wensleydale - Masham. Masham has two claims to fame - the Theakstons Brewery and the Black Sheep Brewery. We chose to visit the smaller, family run, Black Sheep. The family who run it are Theakstons... The bigger firm was taken over by a large brewery chain, and one of the family members decided, after a couple of years, to leave. After a couple of years he came back to Masham and set up a small brewery almost next door to the original, which he named Black Sheep as he was something of the Black Sheep of the family...

Then, in 2003, the other branch of the family bought back their original brewery - so Masham has two breweries, next door to each other, owned by members of the same family!

The tour of the brewery was interesting - and led by a lady who really knew her stuff. There was a good cafe, where we each chose the warm salad topped with bacon, duck and black-pudding - and very tasty it was too, washed down with glasses of very decent ale.

I have more pictures yet - we visited a falconry centre, and travelled on the famous Settle to Carlisle railway as well...

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 - ( click for the pics )