I am cheating a bit as we are actually in Boston but I felt guilty about not doing any entry during our 2 wks in France, mainly as we were too busy eating and drinking! Highlights included bike rides along canals and pretty villages and more half timbered buildings than I have ever seen. We bought croissants at a bakery for breakfast with coffee at a local cafe where the local men were having their morning glass of wine. At lunchtime there the grandfather, red fa...

Our final few days in Yorkshire included a trip around the excellent York castle museum with its atmospheric reconstruction of Victorian streets and where to my horror i found that so much of what is familiar from my life has now become an exhibit in a museum, not just the 50s/60s living room but the 'new' kitchen we had in Sidcup in the late 80s and the toys the kids played with and our first computer! The weather front had finally reached us and we had a blowy...

We spent Tuesday walking around Ripon as rain was forecast but it never came so we didn't make it into the cathedral although we did make it into a shoe shop, which had an excellent sale on, to grab a couple of bargains! Wednesday we had a lovely day in York in the company of friends who retired there with tea in the historic and atmospheric Gray's Court, scrumptious warm scones with thick cream and jam and a walk on the race course with the dogs to stoke up an ...

After a couple of days in Leeds with Martin's mother we moved on to stay with his brother in Ripon and on Saturday we took our niece Olivia, aged 5 and three quarters, to Fountains Abbey for a picnic and Sunday to the beach at Saltburn. A jewel of a beach with fine silky sand, a big pier for such a small town, with to one side a lovely view of a headland and to the other some factory in Middlesborough belching out copious smoke. Particularly good fish and chips a...

Yesterday we drove up to Leeds to visit family, Martin's poor old Prius groaning with a bootful of cases (well a girl has to pack for all possible weathers up north) and the bikes on the back which ruined the aerodynamics and fuel efficiency. I struggled to reach 60 uphill whilst maintaining economic fuel consumption and was overtaken by an articulated lorry. Felt like a true pensioner. Today we walked around Waterloo Lake in Roundhay Park which i believe is one...