Kul-cha and History

It's Tony's birthday!! Hooray for Tony! Many happy returns to you :-) (Bursts into song .......)

I am accused of sybaritic living!! Or, at least, I am accused of living entirely for pleasure, which is sybaritic living if ever I saw it. (Morning, Robert!) And what is wrong with that, I ask?!?!?!?

It's not true, not really; though I wish it were. I could, after all, write about life in the Salt Mine following the convergence of our department with another. But that would be gloomy, dismal, boring and depressing, so I shan't. I could tell all about one of our prima donnas who has got herself in to a frightful tizwaz over matters of little consequence and which cannot be readily changed and has chucked the biggest hissy fit in the world and gorn orff for two weeks. But there are others from the Salt Mine who read this (G'day Richard) and in any case my thoughts are hardly charitable and Lent is approaching. So I can't tell you about that.

I could tell you of my thrift and frugality in turning a small amount of left over roast pork into a somewhat interesting Moroccan style "sweet and sour" pork and beans stew, but nobody would really be interested in that ( Ian -- it involved balsamic vinegar, lime juice, white honey, ras al hanout and garlic amongst other things and was fantastic -- and extremely frugal and thrifty!), so I won't.

I have eschewed the buses and walk to and from work. Three fare rises in 6 months proved too much for me to stomach. But Lindsey might well accuse me of obsessively feeding my pedometer. She might be right -- more than 18000 steps yesterday :-)

So I am going to tell you about our very educational day yesterday. Full of history, kul-cha, handicrafts and architecture.

We went to York to visit the Vikings. There's an annual 10 day Viking festival and yesterday was the last full day. It is on today but the big events were all yesterday. We went on the train, through threatening clouds, windswept fields and damp, drear looking villages. We were well wrapped up and quite fearless about the weather. Though in fact the rain held off, the wind dropped, and for a time the sun came out. It's just over an hour on the train from Sheffield to York, so we lobbed in just in time for lunch.

We had lunch in the Lendal Cellars by the Guildhall, an old building (the cellars, that is, not the Guildhall) which started out as part of a 14th century Franciscan priory, then became cellars and is now a pub. It has beautiful arched, vaulted ceilings with old, old bricks and is dark and cosy and welcoming. A lovely place for lunch on a cold Saturday afternoon. We both had scampi. I had bought a small packet of scampi and lemon flavoured crisps to keep body and soul together on the train. For some reason this led to a deep craving for scampi for lunch! Very nice too. Then we made our way down to the King's Staithe on the Ouse to look at the longboats. They were quite small as longboats go, but quite cute. There were Vikings wandering around in period clothes. There were Scandinavians selling things from stalls on the staithe. But it was very crowded and the mini-longboats weren't really doing anything very interesting so we wandered off.

There are loads of markets in York for the festival. We are off to visit them. The continental market was **incredibly** crowded. We didn't stay long. The regular street market was quite quiet, comparatively speaking. We ambled about in there and loaded up The Builder's backpack with fruit and veg and meat and chicken. We shall be eating well this week. Then we took ourselves off the the Barley Hall to visit the Viking Market. The Barley Hall itself is stunning. Old and complex and rambling. Some fantastic floors and walls. And loads of lovely traditionally handcrafted things on sale as well. I was very tempted by a traditionally made wooden bucket from Poland (not that I was aware the Poles were hugely active in Viking activity, but there you go). Would have made a fantastic apple bucket. But at £40 it was perhaps a bit steep. We contented ourselves with a wooden egg bowl instead. We relocated to the Dark Ages market in the Guildhall, which I had also never been in before and which is also architecturally quite lovely -- it has massive wooden pillars and a glorious ceiling. A 10th century market with lovely craftworks on sale. There were some fantastic Viking style cloaks made in a soft, soft felt in beautiful colours. I would have bought one if (i) I had happened to have £75 about my person and (ii) I didn't happen to be wearing a big thick jumper, a thick waxed jacket and a fleecy hat so was feeling quite nice and warm! They were made by Freyja. With the J. She was Scandinavian!

I think I had spent most of The Builder's money by this stage so we wandered off to the Museum gardens and into the Hospitium where there was an "encampment" of Vikings. Most of York had been excrutiatingly crowded for most of the time we had been there. The Hospitium was quite quiet. I think everyone else had gone to watch the battle at Clifford's Mount. In the meantime we had a lovely time pottering about peering at people spinning and weaving, others in their "kitchens", some making things. It was all quite fascinating. I am always, but always surprised at how good and varied the Viking diet could be (even if there were no potatoes and no oranges. It's true that I would miss them, and especially the limes; but I wouldn't have missed them if I didn't know about them!). I was especially surprised by the quantity of apricots, though why I can't think. And I am much too profligate with my black pepper. The amount of pepper I put into some of my cooking could have bought you a sizeable village!

As I said, York was very very crowded. It always is, but much more so yesterday than usual. We decided to cut our losses and go home. We might come back next year and stay for the weekend. Even better, for a couple of days during the week -- not so many children darting about! If nothing else it would give us a quiet place to go and recover from -- and to put thpurchaseses. The Poor Builder was getting very heavy shoulders with carting my shopping about all afternoon. It had been, as you see, a very educational afternoon.

It did involve lots of pleasure, too. I am, if not yet fully qualified, a sybarite in practise! I think quite fondly on the notion of living a life devoted to pleasure! The advantage of going on the train is that if one is minded to drink Viking alcohol in the course of the day, one can. Though we didn't, being satisfied with a pint each with our scampi. But we did indulge in a glass or two of wine (me) and beer (TB) on the train on the way back. Very civilised if you ask me.

A nice stroll home from the station, calling in at the linen shop on the way for some new sheets to match the new doona covers we acquired during thweekkn And a nice, gentle evening in which we did nothing very much at all.

Back at work today. It was gloriously sunny first thing this morning. I walked to work through sunlit streets which were strangely deserted. Everything seems so much calmer and spacious on a Sunday morning. Even starting at half past nine seems a pleasant indulgence, whereas starting at half nine Monday-Friday seems an unnecessary rush! It's clouded over now and has started sleeting. The forecast for the next few days is sleet, snow, rain, hail and other exciting weather events. We were lucky yesterday!

There will be feasting in the Mudhut this evening if anyone would care to join us. We have a 75th birthday to celebrate!