York or Lancaster?

Literal wars were fought over these names – I’m going to say York this time, merely because that is where we were off to after we visited Blenheim and Chatsworth.

We hit the road leaving our motel at Chesterfield, armed with jam donuts. We went straight into York and hopped on a city boat cruise that took as along the River Ouse. Our boat captain was really lovely and chatty, and it was awesome seeing the old battlements that are still there along the river banks. And the flood mitigation… Highly interesting, but I don’t think I’ll live that close to a major river, thanks… She says from the top of her literal mountainside house – what scares her I wonder?? 🤣🤣

We then took a walk through the York Museum Gardens – speaking of which, how amazing are the gardens in England? I have a brown thumb, I can grow grass and that’s all I need to since I keep horses, but I’d love the talent that these gardeners have. While we wandered through the gardens we saw the ruins and a little pop-up that had some owls and falcons which were beautiful to see.

After a little while in York, we decided to head out to see the ruins of Pontefract. I’m not going to lie, I was a little underwhelmed after the spectacular outing that was Tintagel, but it was still cool. I loved the little speaking displays that you had to wind up to power the speaker that then read you interesting facts about what ever it was you were looking at. The history of the fortress itself is fascinating. So many huge historical figures are connected to it, including Mary Queen of Scots, Richard II, and it is also allegedly the place where Katherine Howard began her affair with Thomas Culpepper…

We had a beautiful little farmstay B&B in Leeds, we really loved it there. It was a converted barn, and there was a gorgeous pupper named Duchess there that was just the cutest.

The next day we had lined up a visit to Harrogate for a spot of antique shopping – which was, of course, awesome. We found Mrs Weasley’s dress shop, and I picked up a ridiculously long strand of pearls to add to my growing collection. We had (yet another) GREAT pub dinner before adjourning to our digs for the evening. The following day would take us out of England.