York

We had a lovely trip to York yesterday.  The weather wasn't quite as lovely as it's been for the past few days, but it wasn't too bad.  Only one shower of any note, and that was when we were just thinking about heading back to the station to nab a train and go home.  You can't really complain about that.

MBSW, The Builder and I took the bus to Chesterfield and then the train to York.  We were joined on the train by Tabitha and Cally, who got on in Sheffield, and by cousin Jane, who joined us in Leeds.  A good raiding party!

The first place that we raided was the National Railway Museum, which is a short walk from the railway station, is free to enter and which is full (as you would expect) of trains.  We've taken Cally there before but I don't think she remembered.  She was delighted when she walked into the main hall and saw the trains!  I think Matt was quite pleased too.

Jane and Matt admiring trains at the railway museum

Then we walked up to the city centre and had lunch in the Star (where we often do have lunch when we are in York).  We followed that with a potter around the little streets and lanes - and an unexpected stroll through the York Food Festival market. The Food Festival is usually in September so it was a pleasant surprise to find that there was an additional June.

And then it was time for the main event.  The reason we were in York was so that we could all (except Jane) go to Jorvik.  I had pre-booked tickets which meant we could avoid any queues (and ignore the long line of school children waiting to go in!). I think everyone enjoyed their ride around, and the little museum after. William bought himself another wooden sword, this time with a shield that he says I can't use to defend myself.  I will have to rely ion the tickles that so far seem to have been working!

Jane met up with us again after Jorvik and we went for another wander around the city, and to admire the outside of the minster.  Then the rains came and we headed to the station for the trip back home.

And that was where the bedlam started.  The computer reservation system seemed to bear absolutely no relation to the actuality of the reservations.  We didn't have reservations ourselves, because we hadn't known which train we would be catching home.  The train was busy, but we managed to scatter ourselves around so that the children were in sight of the adults.  Jane got off at Leeds. A million people got on, all complaining that we were sitting in their reserved seats, despite the fact that they were marked as available.  So we moved.  And the same thing happened in Wakefield.  And the irritating thing was that we had deliberately not sat in the seats which were marked as reserved. And it wasn't just us.  It was happening to loads of people!

Tabitha's big concern was that she was separated from Cally's push chair by hordes of people and she didn't know if she would be able to reach it when the train arrived in Sheffield.  fortunately she did, otherwise she and Cally would have gone without it and I would have wriggled my way down and taken it home from Chesterfield.

We missed the bus home by *this* much and had a 30 minute wait for the next one.  But it wasn't raining, so that was ok.  It was a good day.  I'm glad we all managed to make it to York.