York, how we love ye!

Hi everyone.

Long time no post!  I will try to do better.  To be honest, this York blog was started awhile back, but I got bogged down in trying to describe everything and didn't like what I was writing.  Well, change of plan!  I will just say that we had a wonderful and fun time in York, and in particular meeting up with our fellow Canadians - Skot, Tammy, Harper, Grace, and Chloe - who helped make our visit just that much more special.  As for what we did and what we saw, I will subscribe to the "picture paints a thousand words" theory and just show you all instead.  York is one of our most favourite cities anywhere, so I hope you enjoy sharing the sights with us.

After our fairly late arrival at our hotel, and after we dined on elk balls (well, meatballs made from elk - what were you thinking??), we headed over to Clifford's Tower, the scene of a horrible massacre, the details of which I will spare you.  Still, at night it looks lovely perched on its own little hill.

 

 

The view from our hotel room, early the next day.  Even though there were clubs below us across the street, the hotel was wonderfully quiet.

What better way to start a day than with a visit to some lovely abbey ruins?  Works fine for us!

Traditional cemetary, you might say...

...or a slightly different take - above ground for the slightly more claustrophobic, I assume.

A beautiful morning indeed.

The following are just some shots of some of the interesting buildings around town.

Your eyes aren't deceiving you - the front of the white building does tend to slope downward.  Taken in The Shambles.

Part of TheShambles, one of the few traditional, narrow streets left in the UK.  It was a street full of butchers and other trades and, in its day, was one rather stinky place!  Much nicer now, particularly if you like sharing space with other tourists.

No lens distortion here - the front really does sag.

For some reason, Rick really likes this place.  Perhaps it is because his initials are RAM.  This is the Golden Fleece.

Don't have anything to say about this, but felt I should write something, so this is it.

This is a private college building.  Last time we were here, you could go inside and into the courtyard, but they are doing some renovations, so no such luck this time.

This is not our hotel, although it looks like a nice place to stay.  It is near the railway station, so ha probably served a lot of weary travellers in its time.

See below for a photo.  York was inhabited by the Vikings for a period of time, hence the Scandanavian name.

Not looking too bad considering it is almost 700 years old!

When in York, it is always fun to remember that you are within a walled city and that most parts of the wall are still walkable.  You can start at one of the original entry gates.

And now...York Minster!!  It is one of the finest cathedrals in existence. 

Patron saints of headless semaphore senders, ping pong players, or discus throwers.  Your choice.

There was a choir rehearsal going on in here.  It was lovely.

We are now in the crypt or undercroft.  I forget the terminology.

A fox.  I'm not sure why, but there it is.

I'm guessing that this is St. Art Garfunkel.  Could be wrong.

The cathedral in golden light.  Amazing.

And so, one day ends and another begins...

Good night to the happy wanderers.

And  good morning to the foggy wanderers.  The two photos above are from roughly the same point on a bridge over the River Ouse (we have heard it rhymes with "ooze."  Lovely.

On our way to the railway museum via part of the walls around the city.

A demonstration of how a turntable works in a roundhouse.

One of the largest engines ever built in Britain.  It was shipped to China and, when it fulfilled its usefulness, was shipped back to the UK.

These two photos show cutaways of parts of the engines in steam trains.  We found them rather impressive examples of engineering.

Some of the older cars will just have to accept that they are downright cute.

No photo can begin to convey the impressive size of this museum.

Gotta love an Art Deco engine!

People!  Here are some photos of our motley crew.

A pub lunch in always good.  Food did arrive.  Honest.

When in England, it is always time for tea.

The three exchangees - Skot, Rick, and Grace.

You must be this tall to board this train.  Harper misjudges.

Lunch underground.  Our group on the left.

And finally, the leftovers.

We are being watched.

We could have provided a real dog to do this job.

Lovely strawberries at the open air market.

At an outdoor cafe.

No engine left behind at the train museum.

Baaaaa!

We are being watched, part two.  Rick discovered strange eyes staring at him from this tabletop. 

Be sure to stock up so you will be healthy, bright-eyed and slim!  

Dougal's Bestest Day Ever!

Hi everyone!  I thought I should tell you about my bestest day ever!

“It was a dark and stormy night…”

No, wait, that is how Snoopy started his stories.  Mine starts on a bright but cloudy mid-morning a couple of weeks ago (I can’t be specific, as I am required to play into the notion that dogs have no sense of time.  Yeah, right).  Anyway, I was napping soundly viciously guarding the house when I heard those magic words, “Do you want to go for a car ride?”  I know how much the guys like to take me for a car ride, so of course I was up for it!  For some reason only known to them, the guys folded the back seats flat, which meant that every time they turned a corner, sped up or slowed down, I slid all over the back of the car.  What jolly fun!!  Yeah, not so much actually, but the guys seemed to find it amusing.

After an inderterminate amount of time (that time thing again), we parked and what did I smell?  Was it the ocean?  Actually, it was the North Sea, which smells suspiciously like the ocean.  With me leading the way off leash, we crossed over some wonderfully boggy and soggy land, over some dunes and finally hit the beach.  And what a beach it was – almost as far as I could see!  This called for some serious exploring so, as the guys strolled along, I ran and ran and played with a Poodle and ran some more, stopping occasionally to even get my feet wet (the water didn’t come up to my willy, so that was ok with me).  Even slightly re-injuring myself couldn’t stop me (some of you may remember my shoulder injury during the great Chihuahua skirmish of 2014 in Surrey as well as the psycho-cat attack after that here in Edinburgh).

After at least an hour (or so those with time sense tell me – wink wink), the guys were tiring out, so I thought it best to get them back to the car, when suddenly I spotted someone acting suspiciously by just sitting still on the sand.  Well, we can’t have that kind of behaviour, so of course I started up a conversation.

“Hi,” I barked.  He ignored me.  “Yo, whatcha up to?” I barked again.  Still, he just sat there.  I began to get closer so that he could hear me better, and finally we had a bit of a conversation that went something like this:

I go “Hi” and then he goes “Go away” and I’m like “Dude, chill” and he’s like “I don’t like dogs” so I go “You just haven’t met me yet.  I’m loveable.  Let me come closer” and he is all like “No, go away” so I’m like “Hey, take it easy bro.  I’ll just run up to you so we can be friends.  You’ll like that, I promise.  Hey, don’t get up and shake your towel at me!”

Suddenly, the guys had hold of me and rather rudely dragged me away from what I am sure could have been the start of a beautiful friendship.  Oh well, his loss.  People!  Honestly.

Off we went in the car again, this time with the back seat put in its proper, upright position so that I could be comfortable and not have to play the fool, and ended up in the town of Dunbar where we had lunch in at a nice restaurant/hotel that allows dogs, as all right thinking restaurants/hotels should do, in my humble opinion.  After a lovely meal of whatever the guys bothered to toss my way (kudos to our server who brought me a nice bowl of water) we wandered through town and down to the harbour where we did some exploring.  My official photographer, Bob, seemed very occupied, so Dad and I wandered about and left him to his own devices.  I can tell you that not only is the harbour very interesting, but it is full of great smells to investigate.  I highly recommend it if you like to sniff.

Finally, we arrived home and for some reason, I can’t remember most of the rest of the day.  I suspect that I may have nodded off for an hour or twelve (who’s to say when you don’t grasp time, right?), but I did have some lovely dreams about what a great day I had. 

Thanks dads!!

While it may not have been sunny, we were all impressed.  Notice the people included for a sense of scale.

Looking the other way.

See, I can get in the water!

A lean, mean running machine!

Check out this beach body!!

I explored this way...

...and that way.

Big beach and bigger sky!

Where we had lunch in Dunbar.

You know it is a good place when they have your favourite tipple on tap.

I made a new friend at the restaurant (nicer than my beach "friend")

Dunbar has a 2 part harbour - very low tide in this part!

One of the many interesting boats in the harbour.

The entrance to the main harbour.  There was a castle up on the left cliff, but not much remains.

View from the harbour.