Blogs from Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom, Europe

The wind of yesterday when we were travelling has died away and the day has dawned looking very promising to be out and about. After breakfast Gretchen got the washing done and hung out on the clothes line to take advantage of the sunny weather. She was sure it would be nicely dry by the time we got back from a trip out in the countryside that Rhona was about to take us on. We drove up to the Chevin Ridge, the highest point around the Leeds area at 282 metres above sea level, and stopped at the lookout known as Surprise View. Rhona said that on a clear day you can see York Minster away to the east. However, today, although it was fine there was a haze that meant that anything that far away ... read more

Geo: 53.7996, -1.54911October 11th, our 47th WeddingAnniversary! Can't believe so many years have passed but we are loving life atthe moment and are still happy in each other's company. We left Filey after breakfast, around 9-30am. Drove the 5miles into Scarborough. It was another clear day but the wind from the east wasicy so it was a cool morning. We parked down near the beach and set off toexplore this popular seaside resort. There were hundreds of people here asthere was a 10k run along the coast road organised by the Scarborough AthleticsClub. We walked past the Grand Hotel, which lives up to its name in both sizeand architecture, and crossed a pedestrian bridge and made our way down the hillto the Spa Theatre and pavilion. We have jokingly spoken about this trip as our“Antiques Roadshow” ... read more

Travel day today, back through Leeds towards London. We broke up the journey at a place called Rheged – a village in the hill. It has a huge carpark and tour bus area but it was a bit of a mystery as to why. It has an outdoor playground for sunnier days, an indoor one for little kids and a 3d cinema but the rest is just a few shops and a couple of café restaurants. Apparently it is some kind of Cumbrian heritage centre as well but we didn’t see anything like that. Em enjoyed the indoor playroom and since it was pouring rain we had some lunch and drove on. The road winds along the edge of Ullswater which was beautifully scenic and over the Kirkstone Pass with its stunning vistas, to Windemere. We ... read more

Today we all met up with Mel’s cousin Nicola and her kids for a picnic at Fountain Abbey. It is the ruins of an amazing old 11th century monastery with large sections of the structure still standing. A couple of French guys were flying an 8 rotored heli-drone with a camera around the abbey which they said was for filming the Tour de France in a couple of weeks. There is one section of the ruins where kids can go climbing all over the remains of the walls and Em had a great time running around. We had a picnic lunch amongst the ruins then went up to the playground at the top of the hill before heading back to Nicola’s new house in Harrogate for afternoon tea and more fun for the kids playing dress-ups ... read more

The day dawned with great promise with a clear sky although this didn’t last long and cloud soon appeared and covered out the sun again. Such has been our experience of most of the week we have been in the UK.However we need to remember that this is now autumn and the days of the short British summer have passed. The temperature though was a bit warmer than it had been and there is now an absence of any breeze which will take out the wind chill factor when we are outside. Janet and Stella joined us for breakfast again before Rhona called around to take us to Pudsey station for the short train ride into Leeds while she then went on to take Janet and Stella to the airport as they were due to return ... read more