Category: Travel
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A few things: York, the bicycle and the IPCC
I spent the morning wandering around central York today. I took my last walk down the Shambles, sat and enjoyed a pot of tea at one of the cafés there and generally felt a bit teary about saying goodbye to my fair city of York. Then I transported our living Christmas tree to a friend’s…
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Falling in love with inanimate objects
My last precious days in York are flying by. We have a crazy couple of weeks in store as we must now pack up six months of our lives and condense them into three suitcases. This is not going to be easy. On top of that, we have to empty our rental property. We could…
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The Yorkshire Dales from the Settle-Carlisle Railway
Yesterday we finally made the trip to Carlisle through the Yorkshire Dales on the Settle-Carlisle railway. I have been wanting to take this train journey ever since we arrived and I have Bill Bryson largely to blame. Here’s what he said about it in his book, Notes from a Small Island: The Settle-to-Carlisle line is…
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Scarborough New Year’s Day Dip
What kind of crazy person goes swimming in the North Sea in winter? My sister-in-law, that’s who. Yesterday, we went to Scarborough on the North Yorkshire coast, to join the New Year’s Day Lions Club fundraising dip. Ben’s sister swims every weekend in Lake Geneva so she is well-trained in icy dips. I thought about…
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A day out in Nottingham
We had a superb day yesterday. Our hosts took us to see some of the sights in Nottingham the first of which was Wollaton Hall – an Elizabethan mansion completed in 1588 and since 1926, home to the city’s natural history museum. Natural history museums are always interesting places to visit, especially for children, but…
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Geocaching in Nottinghamshire
We are visiting friends in the countryside of Nottinghamshire and it’s lovely. I’m never quite sure whether I’m a town mouse or a country mouse. I love the city with all its lively energy but then I come to the countryside and I love the peace and the beauty. I think I will be forever…
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Viking poo
The photo below is an exact replica of a 1000-year-old Viking poo found beneath the city of York, or Jorvik as the Vikings called it. This poo and real ones (not replicas) can be sampled (held rather than eaten) at the Archaeological Museum in York, called Dig. We took the children there today and it’s an…
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Yorkshire’s Winter Wonderland
I stacked it (stack it = Aussie phrase for fell over) big time at the outdoor skating rink today which is at Yorkshire’s winter wonderland. It’s a superb rink by the way and much fun was had by all. But I got a little bit overly confident in my abilities and tried one of those…
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Winter sports are the best
We went to Newcastle for the afternoon. It started off badly: there was rain, the children wanted to go home and we had nothing planned other than to walk around in the rain for a couple of hours before going back to York. But then things changed. First we ran into someone famous: Then I…
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Clifford’s Tower
Finally, after almost all of November on my own, I have my husband back and I’m very happy about that. I have a lot of respect for single parents and for parents where one of the couple spends much of their time travelling. I will only be on my own for about a week this…
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Quality of life in York
People in York are shocked when I tell them how much I love living here. Why is that? There’s an assumption that life is better in New Zealand and Australia so I’m going to challenge that assumption with this blog post. Quality of life is partly subjective and so the things I love about York…
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Bristol
We have come to Bristol for the weekend to see some friends. Bristol is a very cool city. Where Edinburgh is perhaps a little too perfect, Bristol is a little rough around the edges in an endearing sort of way. A bit like Glasgow. There’s some good cycling infrastructure here too. Bristol is famous for…
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Edinburgh
Our last stop before returning to York is Edinburgh. Edinburgh is magnificent. Bill Bryson wrote about it in his book, Notes from a Small Island, but he painted it in a slightly unfavourable light. His objection, if I recall correctly, was that Edinburgh is full of all the same high street shops that plague most…
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Geneva
Another day, another city, another sister. This time we’re in Geneva visiting Ben’s sister. I have never been all that fond of Geneva because it has somewhat of an exclusive feeling to it. It also seems to be full of banks and shops selling expensive watches. Something that they do very well here though is…
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How the richest 1% live
Global wealth has risen considerably over the last 10 years but this wealth is spread unevenly. The richest 1% have more than 46% of all global assets and the richest 10% have more than 86% of wealth. Here’s a neat youtube video which graphically illustrates this inequality. So what do the 1% spend all they…
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TukTuk Azur
My sister and her partner run a Tuk Tuk business in the South of France around Antibes, Cap d’Antibes and Juan les Pins. Today we got our first ride in one of these three-wheeled contraptions. They are electric, nippy and very, very cool. The electric motor makes them quiet and environmentally friendly but the best…
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Where am I?
I am here. Why is there a shower on the beach? Is this not the strangest sight ever? It’s not the presence of a shower that I find odd – I like to be able to rinse the sand off as much as the next person – it’s the placement of the shower. After you’ve…
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York Minster with kids
We finally got around to venturing inside York Minster today with two small children in tow. Yes, it is beautiful and magnificent, but unlike other cathedrals we’ve been in, York Minster has hands-on activities for adults and children. There was this thing inside (called an orb apparently) that looks a bit like a cancerous growth,…
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Soccer and cycling in York
Every Saturday morning, Daniel plays soccer. He is 6 years old, mildly autistic and has Tourette’s syndrome. We have tried many extra-curricular activities for him before, including soccer, but he never enjoyed any of them. But he loves the soccer coaching in York because it’s run by the mother of someone in Daniel’s class who…
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