First a trip to Dorset

We had planned a week long visit to Nigel’s family in the north-east of England to coincide with the Eid al-Adhr holiday in the UAE. Some last minute changes had to be made so that we could attend the funeral of Sue’s Aunty Molly in Dorset.

Molly was the last of a generation from the Liverpool Mooney family. The funeral had a suitably Irish flavour and Sue farewelled Molly with a reading of Yeats’ The Lake Isle of Innisfree. Molly and Jimmy had named their house after the island on Lough Gill in County Sligo, Ireland.

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

After the funeral tears, it seemed appropriate for the solemn occasion to became more of an Irish wake. So a lively family gathering took place in a pub and then a restaurant in Poole followed by several more pubs in Wareham and finally in Jonathan and Claire’s home. It was great to see the cousins together. Lets hope that the next occasion is not another funeral.

Next stop Tudhoe Village. A bus to Heathrow and a plane to Newcastle was cheaper than the train – that has to be wrong! Delays meant a late night pick-up by Sue and John in Newcastle. Thanks guys. Next time remember that Heathrow to Newcastle is not an international flight and we might meet a little quicker in the airport.

Apparently we had missed summer. That’s what you get for visiting during the August school holidays. Rain and wild winds battered the country but we still managed to tour the usual haunts of Teesdale and Weardale with Eric and Christine (Nigel’s parents)

York City

One serious omission from our UK tours on previous visits and from our time growing up there was the ancient city of York. Despite being only 70 miles from where Nigel grew up, we had never visited. With history dating back to Viking and Roman times, medieval streets and a magnificent cathedral, we really wanted to see it.

We booked a hotel literally on the doorstep of York Minster and set off with Eric and Christine to explore as much as we could in two days.

En route we took a lunch stop in Ripon, walked around the large market square and then explored the cathedral.

Informative guides inside the cathedral were delightful. Obviously passionate about the cathedral and its history, we learned from them a connection between Ripon Cathedral and Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland.

Lewis Carroll’s (real name Charles Dodgson) father was canon at Ripon Cathedral and it’s claimed that Caroll witnessed the carving of a griffin catching a rabbit who subsequently escapes down a hole and this was the inspiration for Alice falling “down, down, down” to land “bump, bump, bump”.

Another carving in the cathedral is said to be the Cheshire Cat and yet another is said to be Alice after she ate a piece of mushroom and shrank. Links to Lewis Caroll and his inspiration are also claimed by St Peter’s Church in Croft near Darlington, Llandudno and Oxford – curiouser and curiouser.

The best weather of the week was reserved for our arrival in York. After checking in to the Dean Court Hotel we left Eric and Christine to prepare themselves for a promised cycle tour at 6pm and completed a rapid circuit of the old city centre.

The threatened cycle tour was actually a pedicab tour with York Carriage Awaits. Nigel had arranged this from Abu Dhabi so we were a little unsure what to expect but thought that this would be a great way for Eric and Christine to see the city. We were delighted when they returned an hour later having had a fabulous time with John their pedal powered driver and incredibly knowledgable tour guide.

We spent the hour extending our tour to include the riverside.

The next day Nigel did his usual early morning city tour to capture a few images without people. Strange that there is no one around at 5am!

After a delicious cafe breakfast the forecasted rain began to fall so we finished our York tour with a visit to York Minster.

Built on the site of the Roman fort where Constantine was proclaimed Roman Emperor in AD306. It is the largest medieval church in Northern Europe and its most prominent bishop was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey who became Lord Chancellor to Henry VIII. He was cardinal for 16 years but never set foot in the Minster!

Our tour guide was obviously captivated by the stained glass windows. So we got to learn a great deal about this. The circular insert in the otherwise islamic style, patterned window above was a repair job after a sheeps bladder football broke the glass several hundred years ago.

The cathedral has suffered a number of fires over the years. One was repaired by the Victorians who meticulously replicated the original roof design with one notable exception. Mary breast feeding baby Jesus was obviously too much for the prudish Victorians. Jesus is now being bottle fed.

The Yorkshire Dales

We made the most of the next break in the weather when Nigel’s sister Sue and husband John took us another place we had never been.

The Yorkshire Dales are beautiful and we have explored much of them but Sue and John (and their dog, Holly) are keen walkers and so have discovered many hidden tracks and bridleways that they were keen to share. Today we completed a figure of eight loop above the Saxon settlement of Reeth in Swaledale across purple heather covered moorland and back along the River Swale.

The scenery will be familiar to anyone that has seen the TV series All Creatures Great and Small. The ford with the pedestrian bridge featured in many episodes. Today it revealed evidence of the torrential rain and resultant flooding that had recently created havoc in the area. Rock debris was scattered all around and the road was badly damaged in places. We had driven in on a much longer route to avoid a road closure as a result of a bridge being washed away. The consolation was that we got to drive through the delightfully named ‘Arkengarthdale’.

The high moorlands were unscathed. The heather was in full bloom and the grouse seemed blissfully unaware that we were well past the ‘Glorious Twelfth’ and they were, quite literally, fair game.

Nigel’s phone showed 24.5km walked today so we definitely deserved the beer in The Station at Richmond on the way home. A fabulous days walking. Thank you Sue and John.

Holly never seemed to stop all day. While we rested and enjoyed a sandwich for lunch, she played in the stream. Just for Nigel’s mum, here is a photo gallery devoted to Holly…