York.

Carl and I went away to York for the weekend last weekend. We left home at about 1.30pm and arrived at our destination at 8.15pm! Yes, we travelled on a Friday, but even I wasn't expecting such an awful journey. We hoped to arrive at 7pm!!

All was well...at first. We kept our ears peeled, listening to Radio 2's travel updates...hearing that the M25 was more like a car park than usual! Luckily we didn't have to go that way. The first nightmare (which I usually miss out when telling the story) is our near death experiences on the M1. The first one was us driving along in the 2nd over taking lane when an idiot in a new 57 reg car pulled out in front of us. When I say 'in front of' I mean 'if Carl hadn't put the brakes on, into the side of.' He obviously has no idea what mirrors are for, and when Carl beeped him (to say 'Oi, we were there!) he decided to slow down! So we pulled in and let him get on with it. A bit further on, we were back in the 2nd overtaking lane when suddenly everyones brake lights went on. There was smoke, squealing tyres and we missed the car in front by millimetres! We think it was the idiot from earlier, pulling in front of people...and if it wasn't, we like to blame him anyway!! We got going again and heard that the M1 was backed up for miles, so we got off to take an alternate route....which was all fine and dandy until the stretch of road that goes onto the A1...where we sat for 90mins...most of it with no reception, so it wasn't until the last 30mins we could phone the B&B to let them know we would be late...only to discover the cutting off time was 7pm and no one would be there to let us in! Luckily, the lady we spoke to was lovely, called us back and said she'd leave the key with the landlord of the pub next door...phew!!

So, after all this we finally get to York. We parked up in a public car park (the B&B one was full due to our late arrival) and headed off to find food. We were hungry, miserable and had bad heads! Great start to a weekend away. Carl fancied a curry, so off we went in search of a curry house. We passed a takeaway, minutes from the B&B and headed into town. After an hour of walking around, we decided to go for the takeaway and steal borrow knives and forks from the B&B. On arrival, I notice the sign says restaurant and takeaway...something that wasn't clear when walking the other way! So in we go. The food was OK, but I was feeling pretty awful, so we took the rest to go in a doggy bag. No sooner had we got outside I felt really sick. We got as far as the car park before projective vomiting...twice! At this point we decided to just write off the day and go to bed, hoping for a better day on the Saturday!

Luckily it was a much better day! After a yummy breakfast and lots of tea, we felt ready for the day ahead! We went to the Minster first, going up the tower (where we could see our B&B), in the understudy/crypt and exploring the Minster in general. On our way out, via the gift shop, we heard a strange noise outside and went to investigate, only to see York being invaded by Romans! They were having some kind of show in the market place and were marching about advertising it. We then went to find somewhere to have lunch. Being picky, I wanted somewhere that wasn't a chain or fast food, and wasn't horrendously busy. After walking around for a bit, we found a little cafe and had more cups of tea and lunch. In the afternoon we went to the Jorvik centre, which I enjoyed. Carl went years ago, when it first opened. We went in the car around a Viking village and looked around the museum. We then had a stroll along the shambles, popping in the shops and trying not to but things! We then decided to pop back to the B&B and drop off our purchases before finding somewhere else to have a cup of tea. We had seen a tea room earlier that seemed very popular as it had a huge queue outside. It was called Betty's Tea Room (or something similar!).The queue was a bit shorter now so we decided to go there. We queued for a while, but managed to get in a bit early as we were a couple and the queue in front were in larger groups! We had teas with finger sandwiches, scones with cream and jam and a selection of mini desserts all served on a silver 3-tier tray. Very posh! The sandwiches were delicious (smoked salmon and chicken! Not together though), the scones were nice, although the cream and jam made it a bit sickly for me so Carl had one and a half! The mini-desserts were lovely too! It was then back to the Minster for a Ghost Walk, via a pub for a quick drink! When we arrived the place was heaving! We weren't sure it it was all people for the walk, or people outside the Minster having a go on the 'light-art' (microphones rigged up to lights to when you shout into them the lights on the Minster change...it's better than I have described it!) About 120-150 people were for the ghost walk...being Halloween weekend it was rather busy! We walked around parts of York, being told Ghost stories. The guy doing it was brilliant. He had a way with words and managed to arrange everyone so they could see and hear him. After that we booked our dinner at Cafe Rouge before having a drink in another pub. Dinner was delicious and all in all we had a fabulous day!

On Sunday we had breakfast and left at 9.15am, worried about the traffic and not wanting a repeat performance of Friday. Our journey home only took 4 hours, so we had the afternoon and evening to chill out, and get ready for the worktops to be fitted in the kitchen!