Leeds and York

With a little bit of time off Liz and I decided to head up north for a few days rather than stick around London. Our choice was Leeds and York. Well actually it was my choice as Liz has seen most of this stuff already. The main reason for choosing these areas are as they are in Yorkshire, where they film the tv series Heartbeat. It just looks so nice on tv!! But alas, the areas that we were in were not where they film the show but further north in Yorkshire in an area called the Moors...however after that little bit of a disappointment I was still able to have a brilliant time.

Our first stop Leeds was really nice, it reminded me of Brisbane where everyone is nice and the pace is alot slower. There really wasn't much to do in Leeds as it was mostly filled with shops. I swear we saw 5 different shopping centres plus the main shopping mall area. Crazy! There were lots of buskers though in the mall which I really liked listening to. One in particular stood out and I'll include a picture as it was just awesome! This guys gets his dog Bess to sing certain parts of the song by either blowing on his harmonica or saying the word love. Awwww :) We also stumbled across these markets towards the edge of the city and they were filled with everything you could imagine, from fresh fruit and meat to gladwrapped teles and VCRs...haha loved it!


We caught a local bus to York on Sunday afternoon and fell in love with York as soon as I saw it. It is one of the oldest cities in the UK being built in AD71. Holy! What I really liked was the walls which still circle the town. We were able to walk all the way around the city on them and had tea in one of the gates, Walmgate which was just fab. York is also home to the Minster which is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the Northern Europe, it is awesome! We spent most of our time just wandering around all the small streets and looking in all the cute shops. York is also apparently one of the most haunted cities and so with this in mind we decided it would be best to go on a Ghost Walk tour at night. Ha! Actually it wasn't at all scary but it was really cool to listen to all the strange happenings that go on in the city. We even went and had lunch at the oldest pub built in 1503 and whilst deciding what you'd like to eat you also can read about about all the ghosts that live in the pub! Cracking. But what would a visit to one of the oldest places in the north be without an afternoon break of scones, jam, fresh cream and a cup of tea.

Snow!

Well, I know it was 2 weeks ago but I thought it best to write a bit about our snow experience here in London. It was so much fun!! What was even better was that we had been at the pub with Emme Sunday afternoon (£3 pound cocktails...how could we leave?!) and both Liz and I were not looking forward to the prospect of work on the Monday but it was our lucky day as there was no work due to the amount of snow fallen. Nice!! haha

We made snow angels and a wee little snowman. I feel ashamed of ours after I saw Emme's efforts with her gianormous snowman but in my defence, my boots were completely wet and my socks were soaked through so a small one was all I could manage. What a sook!!! But I did enjoy playing in it...it is just so pretty.

School that week was awesome...Monday and Tuesday off, Wednesday was a play in the snow day, Thursday I actually had to teach and Friday it snowed again quite heavily. So even though I made it to school before the snow fell, I still only had half a class where we went and played in the snow and then most of my class left at lunch leaving me with 4 children all afternoon. Sweet!

Blasts from the Pasts - January 2009

We had a lovely catch up with 2 old friends of mine from good Ol' Wello Point. Sally and Beth came to London after travelling around for a short stop over and I was lucky enough to have them squeeze me in!