Market Day in Skipton and the Garden Party at the Vicarage

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The weather is giving that impression of improving more each day.Its not that it has been wet,apart from our day in York,but just that it feels it is starting to warm up a little.
Skipton,which is the largest town,in the immediate area and about 12 miles from Settle reportedly has the biggest and most diverse market in the North Yorkshire Dales so we thought we had better look it over.
As expected the town was busy with both cars finding parking space and people wandering the area close to the main street where the market was set up.
All you had to do was follow the Saturday morning crowd and you would find the main street and marketplace.
The stalls were set up both sides of the main street and offered a wide range of goods and fresh produce and meat.
There were some good bargains in jams,biscuits and chocolate and our shopping bag was almost full before we had hardly started!!
Unlike the Settle Tuesday market there wasn't a fishmonger or bakery stall so we found shops on the main street to see what was on offer.At the bakery we brought a fresh(still warm)loaf of brown bread and cakes for afternoon tea(if they lasted that long!!).And a little further away was the "best Pork Pie shop in the country" with award winning pork pies for sale.We hadn't tried a pork pie yet so brought a small one to share for lunch and a larger one that we would heat up for dinner when we arrived home after a planned trip to Liverpool tomorrow.I am nor sure Gretchen was that keen on the idea of a pork pie but she relented and said she would give it a go.
When a shower of rain came over while we were still milling amongst the stalls we ducked into the local town hall that had been turned into a flea market although the stuff on sale was of good quality.There was a guy there selling sporting programmes especially soccer and cricket ones that were dated back over the last 30 to 40 years.They didn't have prices on and it looked like everything was negotiable.
Once the shower had passed it was back out to the market and the last stall we passed were selling all sorts of sweets including boiled raspberry sherbert and heaps of other varieties that we used to know and love.I was happy with 100g of the raspberry sherbert while Gretchen got a quota of chocolate eclairs.Soon after as we were about to leave Skipton we passed a confectionery shop where Gretchen spied aniseed balls in a jar.She couldn't pass those and came out with another little white paper bag with 100g of a sweet she hadn't had for years!!
Then it was home for lunch and because we were home in time and ready we went onto the Garden Party at the Giggleswick Vicarage!!We were expecting a Vicar of Dibley affair but it was a bit more tame than that but a pleasant experience mixing in with the locals raising money for the local C of E.
The vicar was out and about amongst his flock and involved in the afternoon to the extent that he set up the sound system for the children of the parish to perform a series of country dances.We were thinking while al this was going on that kids of 10 or 11 in NZ would be reluctant to be involved as these children where but we guess that is the difference between living in a small village and a city.The kids had put a lot of effort into the dancing and they all looked like they were enjoying themselves and the audience got in behind clapping to the beat of the music.
We had a cup of tea and scone and jam with cream and felt part of the scene and purchased some homemade jams for our travels.
We had been invited by Dorothy(Arthurs partner) to her home at Bentham about 20 minutes away for supper so we set off to join them around 5pm.
We had a very pleasant evening sharing stories of our travels and enjoyed very much the lamb roast that Dorothy had prepared for us.One of the things we usually find we are hanging out for when we are away from home is a roast meal and Dorothy's was just perfect.
We had covered quite a bit of ground today with 3 separate events to keep us busy and we were ready for bed with the thoughts of our planned trip to Liverpool tomorrow.

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Comments

[Rin]

Look at you two, living like a couple of Poms in the countryside...doing your shopping at the market and going to garden parties at the vicarage! A lifestyle you could get used to??