My Yorkshire Holiday - Part III

On the Tuesday of my week in Ripon, an uncle and aunt of mine came up from Sheffield to spend the day with me, something I had been looking forward to very much. This lovely couple are in their early 70s and both very fit and active, mentally as well as physically. Like me, they love to walk - and walk we did!

The original plan was to walk along Ripon canal and the river Ure to Newby Hall. Last year, I'd already been to Newby Hall with my sister (you can see the pictures on this post), but I certainly did not mind going there again, especially since I expected the wonderful gardens to look rather different now in the July sunshine than to what it was like last year in May, when it was so cold we really could not go out without wearing our padded winter coats.
 

Ripon Canal

Ripon Canal

Ripon Canal

Ripon Canal. Some people live on a canal boat permanently, others just rent for a holiday.

Well, it turned out that we never actually made it to Newby Hall this year. The reason? A misinterpretation of the OS map my uncle had with him. On that map, it looked like there was a path along the river and then a place where the river could be crossed to reach Newby Hall's grounds. In reality, the path along the river was there alright - but no way to cross the river except for by boat or swimming, neither of which was an option for our small group of four.

The canal and the river Ure meet at some stage. What you see here is the 

Ure.

It was so warm the sheep were seeking the shade of the trees.

Not much undergrowth at this bit; I could not take pictures at the djungle-like parts, since it was so dense all I could do was move forward and stick to the path as best as possible!

Look at the plants behind me. They are taller than I (5'8''), even if you can't see it properly there.

Finally, the path left the river and lead along some fields...

...and across this vast pasture up to the village.

Instead, we kept walking along the river, the path sometimes so overgrown with huge djungle-like undergrowth that it was hard to detect it, until we reached the beautiful village of Roecliffe. Wikipedia says it has less than 250 inhabitants, and by the looks of it, each one of these lives in a very pretty cottage.

There, we found "The Crown Inn", a five star country pub and inn that has won many prizes - and, as far as we could tell, deservedly so. Their website is here if you want to know more.

When we arrived, it was 1.45 pm, and the kitchen was closed. The friendly waiter told us that the chef had already gone home. Our faces must have been so full of despair (by that stage, all of us were really longing for something to eat - we'd been walking miles in difficult territory and in the heat, equipped with water, yes, but no food) that he took pity on us. We said we didn't want a cooked meal, a slice of bread would be fine or even just a bag of crisps along with a nice cold drink, and he disappeared. Moments later, he returned to tell us that he'd gotten hold of the chef and he'd make us sandwiches, but really just sandwiches, nothing else (which is what we'd wanted anyway).
After a short wait, what arrived at our table was not "just sandwiches", but full meals with salad and freshly made chips - wonderful!

We thanked the waiter as if he'd saved our lives (which, in a way, he had), and after finishing our excellent meal, walked into Boroughbridge to take the bus back to Ripon.

Altogether, on that day we probably walked somewhere around 10 miles. That does not sound much, but one of our group was not used to much walking at all, plus there was the uncertain path and the warm weather people in Yorkshire are not quite used to.
It was an adventure, and a lovely one at that! Sometimes under the huge plants overgrowing the river path I felt like one of the tiny people that populated my childhood imagination, the kind that build houses in large mushrooms and use leaves for umbrellas.

My Yorkshire Holiday - Part II

At the end of my previous post, I said "more to come - Ripon tomorrow". Well, it is not the "tomorrow" from the day I wrote that, but I guess nobody was quivering with anticipation and felt let down because it took me a bit longer to actually write this post.

If you have been following my blog for a while, you may remember that I have family in Yorkshire (namely in and near Ripon) and visit there every year. There have been several posts about Ripon already, for instance this one. Although I do not spend as much time there as I would like to, I feel very much at home in Ripon and could actually imagine to live there - if circumstances were different. But they are as they are, and I love my hometown of Ludwigsburg and my life here (which should be quite obvious from my blog, too).

Ripon's best known feature is, of course, the cathedral. It is huge for such a small city (the fourth smallest in England, and over 1.300 years old), and always well worth a visit, no matter whether one considers themselves a Christian or not.

 Kirkgate is the road leading from the cathedral to the market square:

 The market square:

 Townhall:

The ruins of a small church in Low St. Agnes Gate can be seen in the back of this beautiful garden:

 View of the cathedral from across the river:

 River scenery:

Every time I walk past this very handsome house, I wonder what it must be like to live there. I will never find out, I know, but I can dream, can't I!

Excellent nosh at a relatively new restaurant in Ripon, "The Terrace":  (My main course was a vegetarian Lasagne with goat cheese and a brownie with vanilla ice cream for dessert.)

Box Tree Cottages, the B&B where my sister and I have stayed twice in the past. I can really recommend them; their website is here if you want to know more.

The Leper Chapel, a place of serene beauty I have only discovered last year and really wanted to revisit this time. The website says it dates from the year 1115.

There is so much more I could write about Ripon, and I took more pictures than the ones I am showing you here, but I hope this snippet gives you an idea of what it is like.

More to come - a walk along the river next!

My Yorkshire Holiday - Part I

Last week, from Sunday to Sunday, I was visiting my family in Yorskhire. My mother-in-law lives in Ripon; one of my sisters-in-law and her family live in Littlethorpe, a village very close to Ripon, separated from the town only by a busy bypass.
You will find several posts and pictures from there on my blog; simply type "Ripon" into the search box in the top left corner, if you are interested.

This year, my sil and I dediced I stay at her house instead of Mary's. She is going to be 80 next March, and although I know I am very welcome at her place anytime, it would have been too disruptive to her daily routine.
My sil is a childminder, and her husband shares a dairy farm with his two brothers. He is out of the house from 4.30 in the morning to 9.00 (sometimes later) in the evening; these two are among the hardest-working people I know, and also among the kindest. Their daughter is going to be 20 in October. Last year, she started studying Egyptology at Liverpool uni, but she is home now for the summer. Add me to this busy household, and you're in for a very active week!

For the first time since I've come to Yorkshire regularly (which is almost 14 years now), I've had an entire week of uninterrupted sunshine and temperatures as high as I've never experienced in that beautiful part of the world. Some afternoons the thermometer went close to 30 Celsius - we often have that (and quite a bit more) in Germany, but I can not remember that from any of my previous Yorkshire holidays. It was lovely to get up in the mornings, not having to think about what to wear today in order to be ready for all sorts  of weather; I never needed an umbrella, and most days was carrying my cardy around rather out of habit than necessity.

Let me now show you some pictures of the pretty village of Littlethorpe:


My room for the week, and the view from it.

For the first time since coming to this place, I was able to have a meal outside on the patio! Ted and Dougal are twin brothers, now two years old. I am sure I have pictures of them from last year when they were still skinny teenagers.

St. Michael's Church. Littlethorpe has a village hall and this church, but no shops and no pub.

The former school house, now a private residence.

Oh, and they do have their own mailbox! (This one is for John.)

Many years ago, Ripon had a train station. After the line went out of service, up until last year it was still possible to walk along the old rail track. I had not done that yet and wanted to take a walk there this time, but when I arrived at the field where my sil had told me I could get on the track, I found it fenced off with barbed wire and clearly not accessible for walking. Maybe the embankment has become too dangerous to be walked on; it is full of rabbit burrows, hole next to hole. Instead, I just walked around the pasture along the old track, under close observation from the cows.

Rabbits are everywhere, but most of them were too quick for me to take pictures. These two were not in such a hurry to get away from me, it seems.

And this one definitely was not a rabbit!

More to come; Ripon tomorrow!