Spring lamb (and mother)
The weather thoroughly spoiled us over Easter. Surprising, really, as spring bas been cold and wet so far.
We took the train up to Darlington on Thursday night, straight from work, leaving the cat and chickens in the care of the neighbours, and spent until Tuesday morning in the countryside before commuting back to London for work.
We packed in so much. On the Friday we went to Richmond, where we walked around the cobbled main square and down by the falls, and then motored over to Barnard Castle for tea in the Bowes Museum, which still has one of our family heirlooms in its collection.
I’d seen it from the outside as we drove past it when we stayed in Consett almost two years ago. It looks like a French chateau, externally, and that’s impressive enough, but inside it’s a whole other world with a grand staircase and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, and that’s only in the entrance hall.
On Saturday we headed into the Dales proper, revisiting many of the places we stopped by when we stayed in Yorkshire last August (how the time flies), clambering over boulders on river beds, jumping over dry stone walls, hunting out the youngest lambs we could find in the fields…
The Dales
But we didn’t spend the whole weekend in the Dales: we visited some old family haunts in Darlington that I haven’t seen in 25 years or more, or not at all as they were my grandparents’ houses, vacated years before I was born.
On the Monday we went to Durham, a city I have always wanted to visit, and although we really only looked around the cathedral (internal photos forbidden) and walked along the river, it was good to be able to say I’ve finally been, and have reason to go back and see the rest.
Durham
It was a sharp contrast to the sights we saw on our journey there. If you go straight from Darlington it’s about 20 miles all told, but instead we drove through the industrial heartland surrounding Middlesborough. Not nice, but very interesting. One of my earliest memories – perhaps my earliest memory of all – is of being taken around the steel works by a family member when I was maybe two and a bit as I was still an only child at the time. At the end, as we left, I was given an absolutely lethal spiral of steel shaving with razor-sharp edges to take home as a souvenir. Needless to say mum put it in her handbag to ‘keep it safe for me’ and it was never seen again.
We did briefly break the car when the gear stick came off in Andrew’s hand, leaving us stranded outside Kettlewell. It looked for a while like we were in for a three hour wait for the AA to come and pick us up, but after retreating to a coffee shop with excellent teacakes it somehow fixed itself, much to our mix of relief (that we’d get home) and disappointment (that there would be no more teacakes for us).
It was a great weekend, and a brilliant start to the season, and for once the trains didn’t spoil any of it. We rode up on the East Coast Main Line, with all the free wifi and regular trolley service that entails, and it ran to almost perfect time.
What a shock it was to get back on our scummy commuter trains yesterday evening for the 30 miles home it takes an hour and a half to cover after work.
Ugh.
