Yorkshire Day

The 1st of August is Yorkshire Day, as some of you will know from other blogs, such as Neil's. This year, we were of course still in Ripon on that day, which turned out to be very windy but mostly sunny at 21C (69.8F).

We needed some groceries for the rest of the week, so our first outing was to Aldi's, followed by one last lunch at Oliver's Pantry, taken in their sunny back garden.

Back at the cottage, we rested for a while before having coffee/tea on the bench in front of the house. Next was a quick trip to the bookshop, where my sister bought two more books she had seen there before but had not yet decided on buying.

Shortly before 5:00 pm, we walked to Littlethorpe where my sister-in-law A and her family live. It is only about 35 minutes on foot from our cottage, and much of it is rather pleasant, through Ripon first and then across the bypass and along fields.

A is a childminder, and by 5:00 her young charges were all gone. She was expecting us for a cup of tea, and we were joined by her daughter and her (the daughter's) boyfriend. Her dog was also with us - Ruby never barks, looks at you adoringly whenever you pet her, and is no trouble at all.

A's husband was still out working (he and his brothers have a dairy farm, looking after 500 cows if I remember correctly), and we never got a chance to see him during this year's stay.

Eventually, we walked back to the cottage for our evening meal. I also chatted to O.K. via facetime for a while. 

So far, this year I had not yet been to watch the Hornblower. I won't go into detail of the ceremony - you can read that here when I first wrote about in 2012. Maybe you remember that my sister and I were friends with George Pickles, former Hornblower, who sadly and unexpectedly died last year (only about 4 weeks after we'd met up with him and his wife).

Anyway, I knew that tonight was my last chance to see the Setting of the Watch, and so I quickly walked to the market square a few minutes before 9:00 pm.

A surprisingly large number of people was gathering around the obelisk; maybe not so surprising considering that it was a) Yorkshire Day and b) some people were probably still in town from the weekend, which had seen the St. Wilfrid's Parade and other festivities.

The bells from the cathedral announced 9:00 pm, and a bearded, dignified man in the familiar Hornblower uniform stepped across the square towards the obelisk. He looked at the group, made a tiny bow and introduced himself: "Hello, my name is Patricio, and I am your Hornblower tonight." That was unexpected - but in this day and age, the Hornblower does not necessarily have to be a Yorkshire man (or woman).

His English was flawless; only with certain words one could detect a hint of what I took for a Spanish accent. He performed the Setting of the Watch just how it should be done, and very briefly recounted the history of this tradition.

Then he announced that he was now going to leave the "stage" for the Mummers who had been standing nearby. They were still in town from the weekend (St. Wilfrid's Parade, again), and I remembered them from 2016, when I posted about them. I am no fan of Mummers and would have preferred the Hornblower to say more; usually, the Hornblowers ask the crowd where they are from, and stand ready for photographs etc. But in this case, the Mummers had precedence, and I went home only 10 minutes or so after I had come.

Never mind - I did get to see the Hornblower, and in this small way, marked the day as Yorkshire Day for me.