Beatrice in Blue

BUSY BUSY this month. There are four blog entries since June, A Pram race, a beer festival, a sister visit and a cow. You will need to dedicate some little time to get through everything that we have been enjoying. Hope you are entertained by our July glimpses of Yorkshire. First but not most importantly you may recall from our Cornwall adventure blog entry last month that Gail commissioned a local artist Caroline Walker to paint a cow to match a wall in our front room. I also promised to post a picture for those of you who are in any way interested in such things. After much emailing of changes to the cow and specific colour matching of the background between Gail and Caroline (thanks Caroline) Beatrice in Blue finally has found a new grazing site in our front room.

Noeline, York, Whitby, neighbours, nuns and no more helpers

You will note from this photo that Noeline, Greg's sister, has arrived to see if what we have been telling her about Yorkshire is true. This blog entry is therefore a reference for her family and a quick run through of things we have been doing since her arrival. Overlooking the first couple of days where Noeline was recovering from Jet flu the first week started off with a walk through Wetherby and a quick Sunday lunch in the riverside cafe, Monday off to Thirsk for a browse through the market square, to buy some warmer clothes, and an hour or so looking in the Herriot Museum. We left Thirsk after a spot of morning Tea and went to Sutton Bank on the edge of the North York Moors to look at the best view in England and watch the gliders being launched from the airstrip.. http://www.enjoyengland.com/destinations/find/yorkshire/north-yorkshire/sutton-bank.aspx
We have mentioned in these pages before the Mouseman furniture factory at Kilburn www.robertthompsons.co.uk/ nearby but as it is such a lovely little village and the factory/showroom so rewarding we went there for lunch before returning home. Bumped into our next door neighbour , Liz, who was getting lost in the foothills with some of her walking buddies and had stopped off for refreshments.


Tuesday was off to Boston Spa for lunch and Wednesday we set off for Gail's birthday for a visit to York to attend an auction, have a walk through the Shambles in York, a visit to watch the making of a wonderful sweet in the fudge factory before doing a tour of York Minster.











We also did a tour of Clifford's castle http://www.cliffordstower.com/ where we saw the gardeners doing the lawn cutting in a most unusual way.











The next day we set off over the Pennine mountain range to the upper reaches of the Wharfe river where Bolton priory is located http://www.boltonabbey.com/ . 








A great day out of riverside walking, river crossing,
abbey viewing












and then back to the Devonshire Arms hotel for a sandwich lunch. http://www.thedevonshirearms.co.uk/index.cfm .











Saturday was a day of rest and some prep work for a lunch we had planned with David and Carolyn our neighbours. Gail's plans included a trip up to Newcastle to attend a farewell rage for some of the work staff who were leaving Alliance because the main contract they were hired for was coming to an end. It was a bitter sweet farewell as the team of "helpers" were much appreciated and will be sorely missed in ensuring the day's work runs smoothly.







The Sunday Lunch was a great time with good chat and a rare sit outside as we braved the summer day in defiance of the rather chill climate... we relented later and had the meal indoors.








Monday and Tuesday saw Gail at work so Greg and Noeline headed off to Leeds on Monday and back to Harrogate on Tuesday. Leeds is a great city and a visit to the Queens arcade, Leeds Markets, Corn Exchange, Town hall and a slap up Italian lunch was about all we could squeeze in to one day. The double deck bus trip in and back was a feature of the day as from up high it is possible to have fantastic views of the countryside and people's gardens and grand homes on the way. The day in Harrogate was equally eventful but notably we had lunch in the Old Swan, the Hotel where Agatha Christie hid out while the whole country speculated on her disappearance http://www.realholidayreports.com/hotel_list/Old_Swan_Hotel_Harrogate.html
Wednesday and Thursday were set aside for a trip to the East coast via the North York Moors town of Helmsley with

















it's castle and market square
and on to the coastal towns of towns of Whitby and Staiths, both linked to Captain Cook and despite changeable weather we had a grand two days .









A visit to Whitby abbey was a highlight and a worthwhile couple of hours were spent roaming the ruins and enjoying the scenery. Next Month will include a visit to the Lakes region on the West coast so I am sure we will have a ball there too.





Do read our other adventures this month in the headings below this entry, we had a beer festival , a pram race, a liquorice festival and a cow mentioned previously.


Thursday was a trip to Harrogate , our local victorian spa town known for it's high fashion, conference centre and Betty's cafe where we had High Tea as a late lunch.

Pontefract Liquorice, ladies and a Lancastrian loss

There are two special things about July 12 2009. It was the date of the annual Liquorice Festival at Pontefract and the anniversary of the day we got married.

I won't bore you with a summary of the Pontefract history lessons we got on the day but there are some wonderful facts in this very well written and interesting link; http://www.wakefield.gov.uk/CultureAndLeisure/HistoricWakefield/Castles/PontefractCastle/history.htm

The Liquorice Festival is part of more recent traditions of the town of Pontefract , located to the south east of Leeds now but from the 1300's it ruled over most of what is now west and east Yorkshire and was the most important royal stronghold outside of London. Pontefract is about 40minutes drive from Wetherby.

More recently promoted for it's liquorice (Pontefract cakes are small flat discs of pure liquorice and sugar) but historically known as 'the key to the north' it boasted the largest fortified castle in Europe. This castle was the only one to remain un-breached during the Reformation and War of the Roses and was only vacated after the people of Pontefract, tired of the constant sieges and resultant destruction and disruption to life convinced the Lancastrians to surrender to the Yorkists. As a statement of victory Parliament eventually declared the castle be thoroughly dismantled and today many of the flagstones, fireplaces, carved stones and timbers can be seen re-used in the oldest commercial and public buildings and on the street stone paving of Pontefract town. The space inside the walls of the dismantled castle (barrow) were subsequently used to grow liquorice..... see? It all ties together.....

While the Edward the III's descendants fought the 30 odd year War of the Roses (a family feud to eclipse all family feuds) a key battle was lost by the Lancastrians in 1461 on a blizzard-struck day on Towton Moor some 2 miles from Pontefract castle. But that almost forgotton battle holds something much more important than these blog pages can do honour to. http://forums.canadiancontent.net/sports/76422-towton-bloodbath-changed-our-history.html which includes AA Gils story of his day out on Towton Moor last year does a much better job and is worth the read if only to understand how and why in one day some 25,000 men were slaughtered in battle. Given the relative British populations then and now you need to imagine today the death of a million sons and husbands in one battle on an Afghanistan hillside one afternoon. It equated to about 2% of the entire male population of England at the time. In one day. The huge loss didn't give the Lancasters and Yorkists pause for thought though and the War of the Roses continued bloodily on for 24 years, The links above, even if they are a bit long, are full of information and time lines. (Like the fact that the red and white roses now identified to each side, red to the Lancastrians (north) and white for the Yorkists (south), were not even family symbols at the time of the wars. The Victorians many years after the event decided to romantically so identify the combatants and then went on to use the "Tudor Rose" a red and white bloom as the symbol of the blend of north and south, and so all records now identify this "English rose" and the civil war by the War of the Roses monika. Such is the subterfuge of Victorian historical record)

But on to more fun stuff;

Liquorice is a medicinal base and flavouring obtained by crushing and soaking the oils from the root of a cane-like perennial shrub. Today most liquorice products are sugar with a spray of liquorice essence for flavour, the raw black stuff is bitter and astringent and headily aromatic. The plant sends out sucker roots up to 2 meters before the green shoot pops up as a new plant. Harvest is by pulling up the sucker plant and lifting the root, cutting it off back at the host plant, drying it out, crushing it and extracting the oil. You can see some dried brown root sticks for sale in the shot above. If you want a big liquorice hit you can chew on one. The locals say they grew up chewing sticks...... I have tried it, once.

To say the festival was popular is an understatement and we enjoyed the bustle and happy crowded throng. They don't get many Australian tourists in Pontefract so we received due advice and information and 'I remember when' stories from the locals as we browsed the stalls.

We found a guided tour that the local Heritage group were running and it was a great wandering wonder hosted by real Yorkshire characters. Bernie & Allison (comely wenches) and Tom (playing a legendary character who was slightly hit in the head by a cannon ball in battle and subsequently lived on rain water and dead rats). These were our guides for the two hour tour although there was an old time gaoler and a town crier doing other tours. It is due to them we now understand many more of the links in England's past.

We were taken to the most interesting buildings in town, the oldest a still very active pub, and we went through the remains of the castle, we were lectured about the middle ages, Reformation years and War of the Roses up to the Tudor reign. Allison and Bernie explained the town layout, how the original castings for Lord Nelson, the bronze now standing on the plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, ended up in the Town Hall in Pontefract, (the building in the photo behind Gail).. Most interesting is how, even today it remains a statutory law that a man may sell his wife , for more than a shilling, on a Sunday if he stands with her in the ButterGate in the town Square. The Buttergate is a large stone open sided building with huge arches located in the middle of the town square. It was a Sunday, we were standing in the Buttergate, but it was also our anniversary. I decided to keep her for another year. Or until the market improves.

Down at the castle, which is just a short walk to the town centre, there were more events in action with the local vikings teaching battle skills and ancient living tips. There was a welcome ice cream van and some re-creations of old Pontefract and a diorama of the Towton Battle which is where we spent some time lost in a most passionate and interesting history lesson given by a sensible member of the Heritage group not in fancy dress or playing a character.

A great day out

Wetherby priests, pints, pansies and prams

I had to insert this snippet of a early July summer weekend in Wetherby... July 4-5 happened to be a great couple of weather days. Heck, let me think.... there have been quite a few nice days lately, I think we must be having one of the summers our neighbours have told us about.... Our last two Yorkshire summers were relentlessly dreary and we had thought this was to be our globally warmed lot. But no. The famed English summer has provided us with a number of mainly fine 25 degree sunny days, all in a row, sort of... But I digress.
Pastors and Pints This weekend was special because it heralded Wetherby's first ever Beer Festival. You may recall the Thorner Beer Festival we went to last year(?), with the Morris dancers etc.... The unlikely cause for this Wetherby beer event was the St James Anglican Church. It has been trying to raise 130,000 pounds to restore it's bell tower. I will quote from the Rev'd Canon of Wetherby... In 1839 the foundation stone for the church was laid by Quintin Rhodes the local brewer who "assisted greatly raising funds for building the church" Some 170 years later the current Vicar Mike Cross thought it only right to honour the event by having a fundraising beer festival to repair the ravages of 170 years of Yorkshire weather. The bouncy castles were set up on the lawn behind the church and the senior parish members sold celebratory beer tumblers for 5 quid which got you a glass, half a pint and access. The souvenir glass is suitably emblazoned with the Wetherby Beer Festival 2009 logo suspended over two hands, one pointing to London 200 miles and the other to Edinburgh 200 miles. All rather quaint but I was a bit put off by the sponsor name on the rear of the glass, G Hartley Funeral Services. A cautionary hint to the drivers on the day perhaps.... There were outside tables at the back of the hall, fences and tables around the bandstand and a selection of 23 ales, one Perry (oak fermented perry pears, vat matured) and a powerful but gorgeous apple cider at 6%abv). As I am interested in both ale research and dogs I chummed up with some ale drinking dog owners leaning against a fence under a spreading churchyard oak tree, a bit away from the raucous amplified music. We chatted on about dogs and the various selected ales being consumed, ale tips were observed, comparisons made, extra samples purchased and life issues examined.... A great bonding experience with them all and I became great friends with Meg &, Rusty from Collingham and Gemma and Rex from Linton.......but I can't recall their owners names to save my life....

The crowd was well behaved, jolly and well entertained by a local Jazz singer, a small Traditional Yorkshire brass band, DJ Adam Woods and a rather good singer/(pop) guitarist who was, and I quote, "It's Martin, "Marts" .. fresh from Australian Pubs and Clubs!" I think that was meant to be a good thing. All of the performers were excellent and the crowd responded accordingly, either joining in the singing, not so good, or with ale-rounded applause.

Local caterers provided good bistro style and Indian vegitarian food and to their credit the parish also manned a passable BBQ but the concept of anything resembling salad on a burger is foreign to Yorkshire, you pay a premium for a slice of cheese.. Their sausage and onion rolls were ok.

I took note of a couple of worthwhile T shirt captions on the day. " I'm the designated passenger" and "instant genius, just add ale" both worn by blokes who looked like they have followed beer festival events around the country for some time.
Pansies Primulas and petunias

It is Wetherby in Bloom time and I thought a couple of shots of town would give you an idea of what the volunteers do to win the best in Bloom awards Wetherby has become somewhat well known for. So they say.

PRAMS www.pramrace.org

Every year the local Lions club runs the Wetherby Pram Race which does a lap around town, past our front door and down the Scaur Bank (the permanent photo at the top of our Blog). This year again the traffic was stopped, the Ings carpark converted to party zone and the crowds attracted.

The runners are families having fun, work colleagues, the local cops, kids and some very serious and athletic front runners all of whom took part to various levels of competitiveness and commitment. The group of Grandmums in Tutus followed by Mid aged mums in bustiers french maid outfits were best not photographed unless sensitivities be offended

cops kids

The crowds grew through the day but these shots are before the start as the bands did sound checks, the fun fair pumped itself up and the stallholders laid out their tempting morsels and knick knacks.

I would have taken more pictures as the day progressed, especially of the rock band who were fantastic, playing the great rock classics, and generally of the crowds of folk who turned up. But Gail had the new camera in her bag, she was away for 5 days, and the old Sony finally gave up all pretence of wanting to convert light to digits. Hope you get a sense of the weekend though. This really real summer we are experiencing certainly makes our Wetherby adventure just that much more enjoyable. (2007 and 2008 didn't have a summer)

On my stroll away from the pram race festivities I headed off down the river bank, over the stone bridge and into town to do some shopping and heard a big band in brass crescendo blasting up from the bandstand in the Wilderness Park under the bridge.... I glanced over and saw even more folk lounging and laying around on the grass on the river banks or wading in the river listening to the somewhat calmer music and eating ice cream cones. How idyllic.

A Yorkshire summer weekend to be locked into memory.......