It’s been about three weeks since we went to York, but I guess better late than never. So here is a long and not very exciting story of what we did.
Our trip to York started as a study in how not to travel: rushing to pack, not having enough time to wash dishes (and I hate leaving dirty dishes sitting around even for few hours, let along few days) or to feed the child, printing out details of the wrong hotel.
Luckily I was organized enough to prepare some food to take with us, so Cat got something to eat on the way to the train station (is it strange that she now eats boiled carrots only while on the move and completely refuses them at home?). On the train we were fortunate enough to sit opposite a cute young couple, who I thought totally adorable, especially because Cat found them mesmerising and therefore didn’t require much entertainment from us.
It was on our arrival to York that we realised that I printed out the details of the wrong hotel. And for a change I was thankful for Clive’s work blackberry and soon we were on the way to our friendly B&B. We tried to put Cat down for a nap, but she was too excited about her new surroundings and after 40 minutes we admitted defeat and headed into town. Of course once in the pram she fall asleep almost straight away. We walked around the town admiring the old houses, visiting few shops and finally stumbled upon a bead shop (Bead Hive, 11 College St). See how disorganized we were – I didn’t even have time to google the location of local beadshops before our trip. Of course I got few more beads to add to my growing collection.
At this point our little sleeping angel awoke and turned into screaming monster. She brightened up a tiny bit (or at least stopped screaming) once I picked her up, but was still highly irritable until we got some food into her in a café that was ok, but far from brilliant. It also didn’t have baby changing facilities (but had high-chairs); therefore our next stop was Art Gallery. Of course you know that I wanted to look at the paintings anyway and not just use their facilities. I assumed that well-fed child would be happy to admire pictures, particularly the ones with dogs or other animals in them, while being carried around. In our daily walks she preferred to be carried around to walking, hence I had no reason to think otherwise. And how wrong I was! She decided that walking around gallery, trying to climb the stairs and touching all the walls is infinitely more fun. So my gallery experience turned into brief glances at the painting while trying to keep an eye on her.
Since she was so eager to walk, we went to the park around the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey. The wind was so strong that it kept knocking her over and eventually we were back to carrying her.
After a short walk along the river, we decided to call it a day and headed back to the hotel to have some food (roast beef sandwiches prepared in the morning) and rest. In the evening it took 40 minutes to get Cat to sleep – she was happy to be in the cot, singing and clapping, while I was next to her; but screaming if I moved away. She didn’t sleep very well and eventually ended up in our bed.
Since breakfast was served from 8, we had some food up in our room at around 6:30 and I reminisced about old good times when I occasionally struggled to wake up early enough to make it to hotel’s breakfasts. During second breakfast Cat surprised us by saying pretty clear “Tick-Tock” while pointing at the clock. After breakfast we headed to the National Railway Museum, which was the main reason for our trip.
Cat fall asleep just as we arrived there, so we had one hour of peaceful looking around with many stories and explanations from my husband, who is a total nut than it comes to engines, submarines, trains, etc. One of our friends still has nightmares about spending a day in Science Museum with Clive and almost drowning in all the information. Since I like trains myself, I was happy to have a personal guide. Once Cat was awake she also enjoyed looking at trains, specially the miniature railway set. My favourite was seeing Flying Scotsman being repaired in the workshop.
On finishing with the museum we did a bit more walking around the town, looked at the Clifford's Tower, but didn’t go inside and went back to hotel to try to get Cat to sleep a tiny bit more. You can guess – it didn’t work. So we went out for another walk and of course she fall asleep.
Next morning we had two leisurely breakfasts again and headed back to the train station. Our football curse struck again and on entering London underground we were greeted by a huge football crowd, so had to miss few trains before finally getting home with Cat asleep on my shoulder. She opened her eyes for a second when I was taking off her clothes, but I doubt her brain registered that she was back home. Once she was awake, she was unhappy again until she saw all her soft toys sitting on the window ledge waiting for her.
We keep on talking about having a leisurely nature holiday, but our next one in May could be even more tiring as we will be heading to Japan for one week.
