Wednesday, 12 June, 2019

After a full English breakfast of eggs, back bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash brown and a pot of coffee we headed downtown to walk the walls of the City of York.

The weather forecast was for cloudy and rain in the afternoon. We had a great morning slowly meandering around the City Walls. The City of York originated as a Roman City and the walls were created for protection.

We stopped for a coffee half way around and sat in one of the gate towers. This tower was rented out for families right up until 1957. It was the most complete of the towers with bastions, gate and a top floor. On a good day you could sit outside with your coffee and ‘guard’ the City.

It also had a garderobe. A garderobe is the equivalent to an “outhouse”. They look like an external chimney but they have a “drop zone”. The name comes from the French ”regarder” to look. Basically look out (watch out) below.

The walls are not complete all the way around the City. Some of the walls were destroyed and not reconstructed. However, we were able to connect the local roads to get back onto the next section of wall with the help of locals, who recognized that we were misplaced.

We finished our walk of the walls at Clifford’s Tower. The Tower is part of a Motte and Bailey castle. The defending army and population could retreat to the Bailey. As they held the higher ground they could protect themselves. They usually had sufficient foods for a short siege period. A sad part of the history of the tower was when the Jews of York were persecuted. March 16, 1190, one hundred fifty jews ‘escaped’ to the Clifford Tower, they were surrounded, the walls were set on fire, they were about to be tortured, possibly raped to prevent further persecution they committed suicide.

The City has lots of little alleyways, we sometimes got misplaced, but as I know the old City (from a past life) I was always able to find our way.

We had a large, late lunch in the Golden Fleece, which is reputed to be haunted by five ghosts. We kept moving tables because we could not find a level table the floors were all sloped.

We wandered about during the afternoon and through “the Shambles Area”. The Shambles street is so narrow the second storey of the house you could reach out and shake hands with your neighbour across the street. I used to love this street, unfortunately it was used to film Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter series. Almost half of the street has been taken over by Harry Potter wizard shops.

Because of our large and late lunch we popped into Marks & Sparks (Marks and Spencer’s) and bought some sandwiches to take back to our B&B.

Tuesday June 11, 2019

Joy took us to the train station in Derby, for our train to York. We were there early at the station and the train rolled into the station. We had reserved seats and settled down for the two hours trip to York. About 15 minutes into the trip, we were told to move from our coach as the lighting was not functioning properly. We had to move forward four coaches, what a pain. However, we chatted to nice people on the train. Shelley chatted to an elderly couple from Doncaster going to York for a little break. I chatted to two touring cyclists who were heading up to the north of Scotland from Glasgow. There route was mostly gravel roads, I hope the weather improves for them. Fortunately they were staying at B & B’s at least they would have a hot shower and a warm bed at the end of the day.

We took the bus from the train station to our B&B then headed into York for a little wander around.

We are staying about 10 minutes walk from the Minster, it is going to be my landmark for finding our way back to the B & B. The Minster is such a beautiful building and quite jaw-dropping when you first see the magnificence of the stone-work.

We had a nice soup and sandwich for lunch and carried on having a wander around the streets and alleyways of old York as well as wandering a little around the newer area. Shelley wanted buy her son a nice flat-cap. We found one that she really liked made of Harris Tweed. I modeled them in the shop for her, I am convinced the sales person thought we were nutters, but we don’t care.

On the way back to our B& B along Gillygate we found a nice little pub where we stopped to have dinner. They had a nice Chicken, leek and mushroom pie with mashed potatoes and vegetables for 10.00 pounds. I asked how large the pie was – the landlord said there big and motioned a pie the size of a bowler hat. We decided to share our dinners as the portions are so large. The pie was more top hat shaped. There was plenty of food for the two of us and really tasty. We had a couple of glasses of wine and then headed back to the B&B where I started to catch up with the blog.

Monday June 10, 2019

Once again the birds woke me at the crack of dawn. Nikki and Chris left on their vacation to Anglesey, Wales – big hugs all round.

Our plan was to visit Bakewell, another lovely market town and then spend time with my nephew and his partner Caroline. Joy was to be our tour guide for the day and Caroline my nephew’s partner was going to be the historian.

Joy drove us through Chatsworth Estate which is an Estate owned by the Duke of Devonshire. The gardens are beautiful and are usually open to the public for free. This particular week-end the Royal Horticultural Society had their Garden show at Chatsworth, the price to enter was 38.00 pounds per person. We photographed the grand entrance and the house.

We carried on to Bakewell a lovely market town and the market was in full swing. We had a lovely wander around and treated ourselves to new bags.

Shelley tried the famous Bakewell Tart and didn’t like it. Joy bought one so that we could share it for dessert. We stopped in a pub on our way to Wayne and Caroline’s. I had my first beer of the trip. Unfortunately the weather was wet and drizzly, we didn’t stay too long in Bakewell.

We carried on to Wayne and Carolyne’s they live in a Village called Stoney Middleton. which is near the village of Eyam. We could have walked over the hill to Eyam, but it was cool, wet and windy.

The Village of Eyam is famous for being a “plague Village”. In 1665, Eyam was one of the first Villages in Derbyshire to be struck by the Plague. A haberdashery shop had ordered cloth from London and it arrived with rat fleas on it who infected the lady of the house. Within days people were dying from the plague. The rector of the church held a meeting and it was decided to quarantine the village. On the outskirts of the village there was a mound where the people of Eyam would leave money and their shopping list for the people of Stoney Middleton who providee them with food and necessities.

Some of the houses have plaques outside in their gardens indicating how many people died from the family.

There is a ‘Pilgrim Walk in this area – not quite the Santiago de Compostela, it travels from Illam to Eyam incorporating a lot of the Saxon churches and plague villages. Part of the path is from Stoney Middleton that we could have taken and seen the ‘mound’.

During the summer a lot of the villages in the area have well dressings this is to commemorate the quarantine of the villages and the survival of people. They create beautiful flower friezes.

Carolyne was amazing with the information on Eyam, she has discovered lots of interesting stories which she told us with great gusto.

After Eyam church she suggested we go to Tideswell Church. The Tideswell Church is again an old church dating back to the 1200. This church had knights and their ladies buried inside of the church.

One of them had damaged  arms and the other had lost his legs. Wayne and I were giggling “she’s ‘armless”, “He’s had a few too many drinks – he is legless” We had to leave the church in case we got struck by lightening.

By 6:30 we were fading fast and headed home. We finished off leftovers from the buffet and had a relatively early night.

Sunday June 9, 2019

Got to love time changes. I was awake with the birds singing outside of my window, I checked the watch – still on Canadian time, as was my phone. I decided to go back to sleep until I heard someone else get up.

I heard Chris getting up so I jumped in the shower and headed downstairs for breakfast. Shelley was already downstairs and it was only 6:30!

We decided to go for a walk up to the Town (not a village) while everyone got up at the normal time on a Sunday morning.

Wirksworth is an old Derbyshire Market Town with lovely sandstone brick buildings. Shelley is such a joy to travel with, she is so enthusiastic about everything and is so pleased to be here.

As we wandered through St. Mary the Virgin Church yard, I noticed one of the wardens looking at the notice board. I ran over to him and asked if we could go inside. The Church was going to have a service at 9:30. Oh dear I hoped he didn’t think we wanted to join the service. We could go inside as the church is open to visitors during daylight hours. Obviously during church services you wouldn’t wander around. We had a good half hour to view the inside and the beautiful stained glass windows which some were replaced in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The warden told us a little about the history. The original building was built in the 9^th Century but most of the present day church was built in the 13^th Century.

After we got back to the house, we had another coffee and then Joy, Wendy, Baz, Shelley and I went to “The Woods”. When my Mum died she requested that a tree be planted in her memory. We requested “No flowers, donations to the tree fund”. Enough money was raised for us to plant 9 trees. One from each of the 6 children, one from the Grandchildren and great grandchildren, one from Mum\’s  friends and from my Dad. They were tiny saplings when we planted them and now they are beautiful trees.

The Woods are a green burial site. After Dad passed his ashes joined Mum\’s. It is a beautiful peaceful place.

They have a beautiful quiet area, with a fabulous piece of art – the Dandelion.

We went back to Nikki and Joy’s house, where Nikki had prepared a buffet lunch to feed the 5,000. Perhaps not the 5,000 but definitely enough to feed the family with lots left over.

It was great to see all my nieces, their hubbies and the great nieces and great nephew.

Shelley was amazed by all the different accents. I had forgotten that we would have a few different accents for her to listen to. My nieces are from Nottinghamshire, Joy has a Derbyshire accent, Baz (my brother-in-law) has a broad Stoke accent and Nick (Lyndsey\’s hubby) is from Liverpool. I wish I could download an example of all these accents but I can’t. Of course, the funniest was when someone mentioned Shelley’s accent, who didn’t know she had one.