Our Friends in the North!

Eight days in Yorkshire in mid-April! The weather was not kind to us!
The schedule was based around visiting friends: - old and new.

We stayed four four nights in a pleasant guest house in Bootham. On the first night we met Chris and Penny, and Bob went with them to see a weird Turkish film. Next day we started preparing the bicycles, but even with the few warmer clothes that we could locate in Yvette it was bitterly cold, and Ruth refused to ride anywhere, so Bob went alone. We met up periodically with C and P, and in particular were taken on a mega-tour by car - see below. As we reached the Moors the heavens opened. We took a quick look at Goathland - now a magnet for coach-trippers as it the location for the TV series "Heartbeat", and nearby stopped at a famous pub in Beck Hole. Apart from us there was a stream (!) of very soggy walkers.
Whitby was dry, full and very cold. We did various tourist things, and had fish and chips at The Magpie, and then went to Scarborough.
After York we went to Leeds where it was raining, and we became very frustrated trying to park with the cycles aloft, so we made it a quick stay, including a look at the Merrion Hotel where Bob had worked many years ago. It looked past its best!
Thence to Halifax, where we stayed at a Premier Inn beautifully located next to the canal. Bob's old friend and colleague Rob - not seen for 19 years - walked down to meet us and we spent a wonderful afternoon with him, his wife, two sons, two grandchildren and their mothers; following this up next day with lunch in the newly trendy part of town, where an old street has been covered over to form an arcade.

Our final stop was in Huddersfield. this had been arranged in March when our occasional but regular Fuerteventura neighbours were in residence and issued the invitation. Unfortunately the weather really did deteriorate during our stay, but they also arranged a very full day of touring and dodging showers, including to the Huddersfield Canal, Holmfirth (home of another TV series - "Last of the Summer Wine") and a delightful pub and micro-brewery in Marsden.

On departure day it was raining even more, and we had a rough drive back along the M62 with its roadworks, to arrive back down South. Here are a few shots from the trip as a whole!