Yorkshire

We have just returned from a trip to Yorkshire.

Natalie, Tim and myself travelled up on Sunday morning and we left Whitby on Wednesday morning.

Whitby, on the East coast, was home to my great-grandfather when he was young. We attempted to find out more about him through a local Whitby heritage society. Hopefully they will come through with the goods.

Aside from travelling around Whitby and taking in fish and chips and a few local ales, we travelled through the Esk Valley (which is home to the local river, the Esk) and a place called Goathland. This is better known as Aidensfield from the TV show 'Heartbeat'.

The weather chased us home yesterday. Firstly we headed for York. Spending almost two hours there and seeing such things as the York Minster, the ruins of the York Abbey (Henry VIII has alot to answer for, but more on that later), and various other historical buildings we made it back to the car just as the heavens opened.

We drove out of the rain as we headed south to Sheffield. But by the time we had completed our late lunch the rain was getting heavy in the city of Tim's grandfather.

Leaving Sheffield, we drove through heavy rain on the motorway as we headed south. At times visibility was down to well under 200m. This was partly due to the heavy rain and the spary from the cars on the road. We eventually drove out of the rain just north of Rugby.

All in all, however, the weather has been very kind to us and we have enjoyed the first part of our summer holidays. Over the coming days we are travelling in and around London and taking in the first home game for the new football season at Queens Park Rangers.

Henry VIII
What was wrong with Henry VIII? As we found out while touring around the once magnificent Whitby Abbey, When Henry decided to pull away from the Roman Catholic church, we also decided to have every abbey in England valued. This allowed him to ransack and pillage the valuables from the abbeys and kick the monks out. He did this at both Whitby and York. All that's left today are ruins which only give you some idea of how impressive the original structures were.