Actually, farewell dear lasagna is right enough. Not that I can eat lasagna myself (nix on the noodles) but in order to keep my computer happy I fed it frozen lasagna every evening. At home I feed it cold packs, but when traveling you have to make do with what you have.
Thankfully it’s not picky and it was willing to eat the same lasagna night after night.
I will kind of miss the lasagna now that we’re leaving London. It served me well.
I’ll also miss this flat:
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| This was my room – the sofa folded down, surprisingly comfy. |
And the pink light that comes in the window at night from the sex shop across the street:
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| Oh, didn’t I mention that? Yeah, it’s that kind of neighborhood. |
I will miss the fact that the pedestrians always come first.
I will miss the magnificent public transportation system:
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| King’s Cross Train Station. |
The one thing I will not miss is the London tap water. UGH. I decided that what it tastes like is if you mixed a teaspoon of milk into each glass. Not enough to make it taste like milk but quite enough to make it taste not like water.
Also, I’m pretty certain that however nostalgic I ever get, I will never, ever miss Tesco.
Last night we did our calculations of: Well, such number of minutes to get ready – such number to get to the tube station – such number for the trip – such number to figure out the train tickets and find the platform – then add an hour in case everything conceivable goes wrong.
This time, however, everything went perfectly, and in spite of leaving five minutes later than we’d intended, we were two hours early for our train. That’s a new record even for us. (I think I mentioned my mother’s obsession with being early for everything?)
During the wait, and on the train, I was able to catch up on writing these da – I mean, these lovely blog posts.
There was even some time left to gaze out the window at the countryside and listen to Florence + The Machine about twice as loud as it should have been.
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| Game boards on the train tables, but no pieces. Anyone know why ‘Clue’ is ‘Cluedo’ in the UK? |
The English countryside looks rather disturbingly like the Skagit Valley where I spent a lot of my childhood – at least as long as there are no buildings in sight. But other than the architecture, the only differences are the subtle ones of hedgerows and barbed wire vs electrical fencing, and a greater number of horses.
When we got off the train we were luckily able to pick up a taxi right down the steps of the station. The driver was a friendly local and he pointed out the sights along the way. The train station is in Thirsk but we’re staying in Boltby, four and a half miles away, which is so tiny it doesn’t have a shop or a post office.
Or, indeed, house numbers or named streets – which turned out to be a bit of a problem.
Thankfully I was able to get hold of the B&B’s proprietress on the phone and through the shaky connection I discerned that we need to go ‘up the hill, past the church, past the field of daffodils and then a sharp U-turn left up the drive.’
I love directions that include things like ‘past the field of daffodils.’
We dumped off our luggage quick while the taxi waited, pausing just a second to retrieve our jaws from the floor when we saw the room and the view. WOW.
But no time to admire it just then – the afternoon’s getting on, so back to Thirsk while things are still open.
Thirsk is delightful. It is, of course, a tourist town (thanks to James Herriot) but having grown up in a tourist town (in the aforementioned Skagit Valley) I’m less likely rather than more to find one delightful. But Thirsk charmed me with the fact that in addition to the expected complement of clothes shops, cafés and jewelers it has three or four shops that sell books; and not one, two, three, four or five thrift shops, but six, any one of which has a better selection than the bigger shops at home. Tourists must leave nice stuff behind.
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| Because ducks cross at duck crossings. Of course. |
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| ‘Sprogs’? ‘Handmade invalid toffee’? |
We spent the most amount of time in a place called Faerie Delights, which is a scrapbooking shop. I don’t scrapbook but my mother does a bit, and when she wandered in the door I followed. And I’m glad I did because if I hadn’t then I wouldn’t have met the wonderful Beki, fellow Doctor Who fan – Hi Beki!
After that everything was closing up so we went across the bridge:
to the Lord Nelson, which I’d chosen strictly because of the name.
We shared a pork grill, which included, let’s see, pork belly, pork steak, sausage, bacon, a ground pork burger, black pudding (she made me give her half – drat!) and some French fries and peas for color. I won’t need to eat again until –
– Well, until breakfast, anyway.
Back to the main street – which contains the town’s single stop light – where we picked up a bunch of groceries at the local co-op. Because taking the taxi back and forth to town is expensive we’re going to eat in as much as we can.
And finally, the view from our window in the evening:
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| This makes the expense of the cab rides completely worthwhile. |
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