The Hottest Day

Tuesday of this week was, as most of you will know, the hottest day on record. Even here in North Yorkshire we had 38 to 39 Celsius (information based on the weather app on my phone as well as Look North, a local news program on TV).

What to do on such an extremely hot day? Not much, that‘s for sure! As we are on holiday, we can of course do as we please, which makes things much easier.

We left the house straight after breakfast and walked to the cathedral, being among the earliest visitors for that day. The huge old building with its thick stone walls kept relatively cool inside, which was exactly why we chose that time for our first proper visit of this holiday.

The Saxon crypt now has a light and sound installation. The need for such installations is debatable, but in this case, we watched and listened, and quite liked it.

We also looked at all the information, drawings and maps of a proposed new community building next to the cathedral, something we are certainly going to follow with interest over the months and years to come.

The tourist information was our next stop; we like to browse the little shop with Ripon and Yorkshire themed items, and look at the leaflets and books for inspiration. Much to our pleasure, a lady we‘d met years before was on duty - and she remembered us!! We had a nice long chat with her, and she wrote down directions for us for our planned trip to Newby Hall next week.

After that, we went into one or two shops before stopping once more at Oliver‘s Pantry for lunch. Almost all afternoon was dedicated to a nice long siesta - really hardly anything else we could do. Many shops closed early that day, and of those that were still open, several had set up trestle tables outside their front doors with paper cups and jugs of water for any passers-by.

Clouds and the shade of trees were making our garden the best place for our tea, consisting again of salad, savoury pastry from the baker on the market square and a glass of well chilled rosé.

Some time after 8:00 pm, we set off on a brief evening stroll around the block. Sleep was hard to find that night, with our rooms being very warm and the old sash windows only opening about half way up. But again - being on holiday means one can have a nap in the afternoon, so losing a few hours of sleep during the night is not really a problem.