Letting it slip

With so much time to spare I've been reading over our 'gap year' blog and enjoyed it so much it seems such a shame to stop, so here goes.....

Outside it is bitterly cold and The Green is encrusted with icy nuggets but the gritters have been out early and the roads are clear with their orange stain. The snow is here in Richmond still and I have used the snowman and child I fashioned in our back yard to gauge how cold it is each day. I have looked at him through the kitchen door since Saturday when he was at his best standing proudly with his boot button eyes (olives standing in for coal!) and carrot nose and buttons. Six days later and he is still there with his contorted body and grotesque child at his side together with his nose and buttons!

Inside, the bulb collection I bought to replace the cyclamen killed by the previous icy spell, have all flowered and I get to breakfast with the somewhat surreal image of Narcissus, Iris and dwarf tulips smiling at me from their plastic basket - Spring will come!

On one of my forays to the numerous charity shops I bought the most hideous plate - much to the delight of the shop assistant who had a bet on to who would buy such a horrible thing - and am undecided who will be the recipient of my prize (I think Carys and Lydia will fight for it so maybe I should give it to Jack!).

A Heritage Day

Friday 29th July, we visited the Swaledale Museum and the Boro to watch Juninio make a cameo appearance for the Boro.  We went to the Museum to get a look at what they had on the our ancestral Keartons.  They did have an archive available on appointment, so that's for another trip, but we did see this and wondered if this was a relative (Cherry Kearton, not Pat the Horse).

Juninio had lost his legs, but could still do a job, once he had the ball.  Took this on the way out, seems to have a few Boro landmarks in it, old and new. 



The public art is "A pair of tights and two rings ... Temenos", Anish Kapoor's installation.  Looks like this on a sunny day, from a different angle (are those trees behind it, in Port Clarence, surely not).

Reroofing

This week all the tiles are coming off the house, and new ones fitted, so the weather has been unseasonal.  Between storms and squals we have managed a bit of walking, bussed to Reeth and walked back along the coast to coast path, and around Leyburn on a walk I think I remember doing with Grandma Briggs, (but surely it was too far. ed).

This is near Marske

and this near Bolton Hall



It was a field of solid clover, all in flower smelling of honey.  The smell took me straight back to Acre Rig in Peterlee (a trip of 40 miles and minus 50 years) where the green in front of the house smelled the same.

Yorkshire Museum

It's billed as "Yorks best tourist attraction", at £7 each we were expecting great things (we were promised new interactive displays, audio video spectaculars etc), but on the way in we overheard a typically enthusiastic Yorkshireman in the lobby say "it's got bloody less in it now than it did last time I was 'ere 20 odd year ago". It's still a county where value equals quantity, as we found out when we got fish and chips last night.

More Yorkshire, less baroque

The Italians are not the only ones that adorn their churches with intriguing faces.  This is on a little church near Kirkham Abbey, thankfully it’s not Baroque.  The other side of the door is adorned by what could be her Husband.

We got round this circular route without a soaking, unlike a couple of days ago when we went up the Wainstones.



We should know better than go for a walk when Glastenbury is on.  Lydia's there, working the morning shift (collecting litter and grooming the mud I guess).

York

So here we are, checking out York, is it still the place for us?  In a recent BBC survey of the country's bast places to live, the criteria used were as follows;
1) Life expectancy
2) Quality of the schools
3) Quality of the Diet
4) average disposable income
5) proportion of school leavers going on to higher education
6) Unemployment rates
7) proportion of white collar, blue collar jobs
8) Crime rate

For our purposes, we've tweeked this slightly
1) Quality of the local pubs
2) proximity to Premier League football (when the Boro get promoted)
3) proximity to the sea-side/national parks
4) transport links
5) Quality of the fish and chips
6) has it got a Waitrose (Bunty insisted)
7) Quality of the charity shops (I seem to be losing control of this list)
8) Average rainfall/temperature/sunshine (well .. you can't have everything)

Arras and The Ferry

The last night we were in beer drinking country so we bowed out with a couple of large Leffes, and Moules et Frites.  Marvelous

And the old workhorse got us to the ferry without a murmer