I had another week away last week – not as far away as Greece, and not to somewhere as hot as Greece either. I spent a week in North Yorkshire.
Until last week, somewhere just off the M42 South of Birmingham was the furthest North I had visited in the West, and just North of the Thames was the furthest North I’d been to on the Eastern side of the country.
We went up on Sunday night for a family party (a 290th birthday party…I have lots of relatives) up on the North York Moors before heading to Malton on Monday where we stayed in a cottage for the rest of the week.
The family party was interesting in more ways than one… It was Mum’s cousins, plus my second cousins, and their children and lots of other relatives. We went up – taking tents and sleeping bags with us. I had to sleep in a tent in the garden! :|
I have never slept in a tent before. I have always avoided sleeping in a tent even in good weather. The weather was not good. It was a cold, wet and windy day/night high up on the North York Moors.
Actually, I didn’t get that much sleep. Dad and I stayed up until gone 04:30 on Bank Holiday Monday morning – we were in the kitchen – next to the warm Aga cooker – chatting with (let me get this right)…my second cousins once removed (my second cousin’s children, roughly the same age as me).
When we did get to bed, I must have spent at least an hour lying awake before I eventually managed to get to sleep. And then we got up and went back inside at 06:30.
We drove to our cottage in Malton on Monday afternoon where we stayed the rest of our week. On Tuesday/Wednesday, Dad and Corrie did 24 hours fishing at Welham Lake near Malton. Tuesday being the only good day that week, Mum and I drove along to the coast to Hunmanby Gap. The tide was just about at high tide but there was still plenty of space on the beach to sit on, so we had a picnic lunch and Mum even swam (I, meanwhile, stuck my big toe in and complained it was cold).
Wednesday was very wet – we collected Dad and Corrie from their 24 hours fishing at midday and then went to the Eden Camp museum in Malton – its a museum located within the grounds of a WWII Prisoner of War camp, and there’s a lot of stuff about the Second World War there.
Thursday was another rather dull day. So: We had a walk around the village at Hutton-le-Hole, and then we met up with Mum’s cousin Clarissa in Lastingham, and had lunch at the local pub, the Blacksmiths Arms. I enjoyed the Yorkshire Hotpot – chunks of beef and potatoes inside a Yorkshire pudding. I like Yorkshire puddings. Does anyone know where it is that they grow Yorkshire puddings?
We then had a walk up on the North York Moors, not far from Rosedale Abbey. It was very windy right at the top, but the views were very good. We then decided to head down to the coast – we wanted to get Dad and Corrie to the beach.
Unfortunately, although it was Sunny, it was very windy and it was high tide. The sea had come right in: there was no space left. The sea was also very gray. There’s a photo of me which we took, with the sea in the background, me in a massive black coat. Less than a month beforehand, there was a photo of me which we took in Greece, swimming in a very calm sea at Drepano.
We came back home on Friday – but as it was Sunny we managed to stop at the beach on the way back. Mum and Corrie swam. I put my big toe in and (again) complained that the water was too cold. On the way back, we took a slightly different route back to the motorway… and we stopped at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor for lunch before we got on the M62 and headed back down to the South.
It actually only took 2 hours to get from Holme-on-Spalding-Moor to my Grandmother’s house in Worcestershire, where we stopped for a cup of tea and some cake (we had brought a few things at Holme-on-Spalding-Moor’s bakery – rather cleverly named the ‘Holme Made Bakery’)!
It was an interesting week in the North of England. And now we’re back at home and Corrie’s back at school, the Sun has come out and its quite warm here in Cirencester. What is wrong with the Great British Weather!??
FH.
