Friday, March 19, 2010

North Yorkshire

For my recent birthday, Gemma hired a car with the idea of going somewhere, possibly Bletchley Park. In the end I decided not to go there, but rather have a drive up into North Yorkshire. We set off reasonably early in the morning after a head-shaving disaster was narrowly averted. Fairly quickly we were off the main roads and heading toward Whitby, through the stunning North York Moors National Park.

At Whitby we swung down the coast toward Robin Hood's Bay, a little gem of a village that winds down the cliff to the beach below. We had a very chilled day poking about on the beach looking in pools, looking for fossils by the cliff and then walking along the clifftop. When we drove into Whitby we were struck by the contrast and quite appalled at the number of people there. We only stayed long enough to get some cash out and then jumped in the car and drove to our ultimate destination, the Fox and Hounds at Ainthorpe. We'd booked a room there the night before, so rolled up late afternoon, checked in and enjoyed a pint.

After a bit of a rest in the room -chilling out at the seaside is an exhausting business, we went back down into the bar and settled in for the evening. And a nice evening it was. Well kept ales and a very lovely meal made me rather happy.

We'd worked out on the previous evening that Andy and Jo were only about 20 miles away so we set off on the Sunday morning to meet them. Unfortunately for their patience but fortunately for us we went the wrong way down the road. This led us on a very circuitous and winding route up and down hills and down tiny roads past tiny farms and villages. Eventually we managed to orient ourselves, with rather more luck than judgement and reached the place we were meeting them. We drove out to a couple of pubs, one of which we had lunch in, somehow managing to squeeze in amongst the Mother's Day diners.

So overall a very nice and chilled out weekend. Thank you Gemma.