Long Weekend in Harrogate – Saturday

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Looking out of the Band B window, it’s another rainy-day ahead!

So, a lazy breakfast followed by the short walk into town armed with our big umbrella. The plan today is to buy Ann a new fountain-pen as a belated birthday present. It’s not as cold as yesterday, but it’s still raining!!!

Success, we saw a nice Waterman’s fountain–pen in Jesper’s, a local stationers – we just need to get a broad nib for it, and it’ll be sorted. But that proved to be quite tricky in itself, requiring the new pen to be sent to France for ‘repair’!

We then took a short walk to the Pump Museum followed by a very short walk around the local Valley Gardens. 

We spent the rest of the morning looking around the shops in Harrogate and decided to go for a carpet picnic as our lunch, courtesy of M and S. So, after the uphill walk back to the B and B, the sun came out…just as we got to our room – doh!!

We vegged-out in our room, took a short doze before getting ready for the wedding tonight.

6.30pm Time to leave for the post-Wedding event. Once again, the sat-nav earned its keep by getting us there – I don’t think we would have found The Mansion (in spite of it being a pretty well-known venue) if we’d relied on just a map! Parking was difficult, but we did managed to find a space in one corner of a small car-park nearby.

Wow, what a spectacular place! It had recently had an extensive refurbishment, and it really showed. David ushered us up the elegant staircase where we met Delyth, who looked gorgeous in her dress, and Val, who looked every inch the ‘proud Mum’. We joined everyone else in the main room – there were already around 100 or more people chatting and enjoying the venue- everyone seemed to having such a good time.

Later, the Band arrived – and they were superb!! (who were they?) – Keyboards, lead and bass guitar, drums and a female lead-singer whose powerful voice made the place really rock! (even if you were sitting at the back like us!)

Ann and I had a dance – amazing!! – and managed NOT to trip over my two left feet! 🙂

Food was served in an innovative way – Paninis followed by chips (in handy little cardboard containers)..and then some more paninis…followed by some more chips. This was so much better than the traditional wedding buffet, and everyone seemed to be enjoying them. I tried to resist the chips (I’m supposed to giving them up for Lent), but the temptation proved too strong!

David introduced to John and his girlfriend Beck. We have seen John for a few years and it was good to catch-up.

At around 10.30, we finally caught up with the Groom, John and then said our good-byes to the others. We had a trouble-free journey back to the B and B.

It was a great evening and we really enjoyed ourselves