Jubilee Holiday: Monday

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Crikey, what is that yellow circular thing in the sky?

With the sun shining, today, we’re off on the 20ish mile drive to Harrogate. Roger did the driving and we were soon there, looking for a place to park. How appropriate, the first we saw was the Jubilee multi-storey!! All parked-up we headed for the town and went our separate ways with browsing in mind. The town wasn’t particularly busy, so that made the browsing a lot easier!

First stop for us was Costa’s, not especially for its coffees, more for the free wi-fi! With drinks in hand we headed upstairs and found ourselves a large table with enough room for drinks, a Kindle, a NetBook and my Smartphone!!! Four blogs, seventeen emails and two editions of the Daily Telegraph later, we were both up-to-date with all our bytes. It’s certainly been a challenge since we arrived to find a stable, regular and reliable connection, but with more and more places offering wi-fi (sometimes even for free!), it’ll no doubt become even easier to stay on top the myriad of electronic communications that chase us.  Of course, I could leave it all until we get back – but who wants to go home to hundreds of emails and a week of out-of-date newspapers!

Back to reality and it was now time to trek over to M and S. Shirley and Sal’s M and S voucher (my reward for designing www.junolearning.com) went in a flash – thanks girls!, when I spotted a rather nice all-weather top coat – we also took advantage of being there by replenishing the provisions for tonight’s meal.

The view from Table 11 at Betty’s

Then it was off to meet up with Roger, Jane and Oliver in the queue for the iconic Betty’s. Unusually, the queue was quite short and we were soon being ushered to our seats ready to sample the delights of the menu. It’s certainly not the cheapest place to eat, but the service was faultless and the food double-yummy.

Suitably stuffed by their food and prices, we headed out of the town towards Boroughbridge and the village of Aldborough. There, we stumbled upon English Heritage’s Roman Site, and whilst small, contained a lot of Roman bits-and-pieces and a couple of stunning mosaic floors.

3.30pm: Then it was time to journey back to the cottage. The sun was still shining, so with the shopping un-packed, Ann and I ventured out to the small area opposite the cottage, (where a couple of picnic tables had been helpfully sited), to soak up some rays –  and some tea!

Feet-up for the rest of the evening (after the obligatory evening walk around the grounds).

Not sure what we’ll do tomorrow – the weather’s so changeable here, it’s probably wise not to plan anything that relies on being outside!!!