York, Cork and Other Rhyming Cities
This heading is misleading. There are no other rhyming cities we’ve been to recently unfortunately. However, on the weekend of the 23/24 September, I went to York for a work training weekend. I bunked off Saturday night and met James in York city for the night, and then we spent Sunday wandering the streets .
The place we stayed for work was gorgeous. A huge Victorian mansion, with William Morris wallpaper and mahogany pillars everywhere. Admittedly, the rooms were dorms which meant I got practically no sleep (the bunks were like children’s beds and I could barely turn on my side without fear of falling off, but the bottom bunks made me feel claustrophobic, so I resigned myself to waking up every time I had to turn over. In addition, my dorm-mate snored terribly). In addition, it was the first night I’d spent on my own in so long, and it felt so strange. I really missed having James around – I think that’s the problem with travelling together. You get so used to seeing everything side-by-side that having to travel along feels really awkward and unnatural.
The work the next day was mainly discussion-based, and I left in the middle of the afternoon to go find James in the city of York. I was so excited to show him around because I loved York when I was there as a kid. It was similar to what I remembered, but not quite as quaint or fascinating. The Shambles was a lot shorter than I remembered, and the Minster was less imposing. Still, the delight of wandering the many cobbled side-streets, ducking into ancient-looking pubs, buying things from any of the million bakeries – it’s all good!! We ate dinner in a stunning restaurant, low ceiling, exposed and warped beams. It was called ‘19’, as in ’19 Grape Lane’, although amusingly it was once called ‘Grope Lane’ for obvious reasons.
After dinner, we felt bemused and unsure of what to do in York. I don’t think it’s much of a night-life city, and we were both so tired (especially after my lack of sleeping the night before). So we bought a bottle of wine and went back to our B&B to veg out and watch ‘Who Wants To Be A Poundiannaire’.
The next day we visited Jorvik Viking centre (which had been extensively done up since my last visit!). It was all very swish and cool, and a lot of fun. The afternoon was spent wandering the streets and doing some shopping, and then in the afternoon we felt a bit bored with being tourists, so we went and saw ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ at the cinemas (which was brilliant).
The following weekend was the long awaited group trip to Cork. There were 16 of us in total, which always means that at least 1 person is almost going to miss the plane. Unfortunately, this time it was two people, and up until minutes before the plane took off we weren’t sure if they were going to make it! This was particularly worrying because they were the people who had booked everything in their name!! However, thanks to some hard-core running on their behalf, they made it in the plane literally seconds before the gates closed.
We booked two houses – one was a stone cottage on top of a hill, and the other was a beach house a couple of minutes drive from the cottage. James, myself and four others (Louis, Josephine, Laura and Chris) were in the beach house (complete with glass conservatory with stunning coastal views), and the rest were in the stone cottage (Steve, Stace, Jason, Kirsten, Kellie, Tate, Jess, Stephen, Terry and Rick). We spent the bulk of our time at the stone cottage, but that was mainly because it was super cosy and came with an indoor spa, pool and sauna!! It really was the ultimate party house, and encouraged much drinking and merriment. There was even a very inquisitive donkey in the field next to the house!
Friday night involved drinking, Trivial Pursuit, and depressed AFL supporters who discovered we couldn’t view the AFL grand final as originally hoped. Saturday involved finding a pub showing the AFL highlights and watching the Eagles swoop up victory. So, this meant we were drinking from 12pm onwards. When we got back it was time for swimming and drinking a bit more, plus another game of Trivial Pursuit closely followed by a lot of dancing.
On Sunday, because we’d hired cars, we drove to Blarney to see Blarney Castle and kiss the Blarney Stone. I drove all the way, and it felt great. It’s nice to have been behind the wheel again after about 10 months of not driving – it reminds me that I still know how to, and I’m looking forward to hopefully driving again when back in Perth!
We got to Blarney at about 3pm, just in time to wander the grounds, climb the castle, kiss the stone, and then meet everyone else at about 4pm for lunch/dinner in a nearby pub. We were flying out at 9pm, but by the time 9:30 arrived and none of us were on our flight we assumed it had been delayed. Still, we were told nothing until 10:30, when we were finally given a new gate and shoved onto a plane that left at about 10:45. We arrived in London gone midnight, missing the last tube. So we had to catch the bus home, which took 45 minutes to arrive at Victoria. We finally got home at 2:30 in the morning, were asleep by 3am and were up again at 8am for work. I felt surprisingly okay, though, thanks to a lot of coffee and chocolate!!
So! That’s the latest in my life regarding big travel. We have Paris and Belgium coming up over the next couple of months, plus a walking holiday somewhere local (fingers crossed we see badgers and hedgehogs!!).