Hello world

 On 13th September 2011, Tim and I packed our bags and drove to the beautiful city of York. We stayed at 23 St Mary's:

It was the kind of place that Americans and Canadians think all British houses are like, and at breakfast we were literally surrounded by a million Americans-slash-Canadians all exclaiming how charming everything was and sitting on the flowery cushions and enjoying not enjoying the Marmite. 

The night we arrived, we went for a walk around York Minster, and I stretched my camera's picture-taking ability to the max with moody, excessively yellow pictures. It did not enjoy it. 

I did.

But I have decided I need a new camera.

But it may need to wait until I purchase a new bike, as my old bike has definitively died. First of all, the front wheel thought it would go bendy bendy. But that was fine. I just had to steer a bit more to the left. All the time. And then the brakes thought they would stop working so well. But that was fine. I just had to brake kind of ahead of time, which was excellent for my time-management skills and all that kind of thing. And then the front mud-guard thought it would fall off. But that was fine, I just tied it up with some string temporarily while I tried to buy a nut to fix it again. But while I was looking for a nut the whole front bit of the bike decided it did not enjoy going in any direction other than straight on and that was Not Fine and I realised that it was time to Say Goodbye to the bike and now bike is Gone. 

Anyway that is a long aside to say that I probably do not have enough money to buy a new camera at the moment, even though I think it is probably one of life's Essentials, and no doubt John Lewis would include it in its Essentials section if it had one, like Waitrose's Essential Raspberries and Essential chickpeas and Essential coconut cream and all the other things that are Essential to basic living....apparently.

ANYWAY, these cheered me up the next day:

 Look at the size of them!!!

Look how happy they are! Happy to be EATEN.

Slightly taken aback by the sheer number of golliwogs on display. Are they not racist now??? Are they some kind of post-racist? Just not sure about them.

This made me think of the Square Sweets that Look Round in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Even though they are not Square. And they are not exactly looking round. But they look like they might be!

The end.

Then we went for a walk along York walls. This is Tim demonstrating how manly he is and how he is about to vault onto the Wall.

York is a truly beautiful city and we did some cultural things as well as look at pastries, and eat roast pork sandwiches, and force Tim to try on tweed (ok, that wasn't a 'we' thing, that was just me. He looked terrible, by the way. He was right. But DR WHO LOOKS GREAT. HOW WAS I TO KNOW.)

Below is an example of a Cultural Thing. York Minster! 

Isn't it beautiful? And Tim and I looked for the statues of the Kings described in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell with their 'hair like in curl-papers', who when they became animated started scolding each other and trying to look taller.

That evening, we drove to Worcester by the light of a beautiful full moon, down some beautiful country lanes. Worcester is very lovely, and we felt we were definitely in the South now, even though very recently we would have been sure Worcester was far further North than either of us would have comfortably gone.

We also visited Worcester Cathedral, where we saw King John's tomb.

And Prince Arthur's too, which was in a very beautiful little chapel. 

We spent some time exploring Worcester's Tudor Heritage. By which I mean we played Nine Men's Morris in a small museum designed for children. Through our game, several museum staff came up to peer at us, and when we left, a good number asked us cheerfully if we had enjoyed our game. It clearly doesn't get played a lot.

Tim was White and I was Black. He won, but only because I let him. Obviously.

We drove to Bristol that night and played Obstacle Ping Pong with my sister, and attempted to park the car around an obstinate curve, while my mother watched me. The next day we drove down to Tim's house, via Bradford-upon-Avon, which is near where Ashley lives. We spent so long playing with his rabbits in the garden we missed lunch, and had to have afternoon tea instead. More luck for us! Ashley took us to some fantastic tea-rooms. The Americans in York would have loved this one.

The boys weren't really dressed for the occasion.

Oh my.

After a lovely stay at Tim's and being thoroughly fed and watered by his parents, we went to Lancing the next day, where Tim was due to give a talk on Medicine at Oxford. Lancing is the kind of school that Other People go to, and I snuck around, feeling very touristy, taking lots of photos.

I met several of Tim's old teachers, and we had the usual conversation about which school I went to, because everyone mistakes Clifton High for Clifton College, and then I have to do the awkward explaining bit about how I'm not as posh as they think I am. 

But it was fine because we got to have school lunch. School lunch! It was very good actually, much better than I remember my school lunch being, and was hugely nostalgia inducing. School lunches, like hospital corridors, all kind of smell the same.....

Like Proust's madeleine, only sloppier.

That night, we drove to Oxford where we met up with Rich and Kieri and had a great time at Tingeaid. It was amazing to see the other medics again, really really nice, and of course though Tingeaid was not as good as our Tingeaid was, it was pretty damn good. Personal highlights include "Don't want to be a GP" set to Backstreet Boys' "I want it that way" and a particularly tasteless song about Dignitas set to Grease. Genius.

We drove to Coventry that night and stayed in a Premier Inn, which was a character-building experience. Very exciting and grown-up! In a way. And the next day, we drove all the way up to Whitby, through some amazing scenery. And Tim got to experience some Whitby fish'n'chips from the Magpie Cafe.

It was daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn gooooooooooooooooood.

Did some cultural stuffs. 

And enjoyed some good Whitby street names.

All too soon, it was time to go back. 

We had a frenetic week last week, with a lot of very ill patients, very stressful and sad. But the week is over soon, and yesterday the beautiful weather drove us to Tynemouth, where we swam in the North Sea. 

Tim wimped out after a brief dip (but he did do a couple of strokes) but I loved it - the water was great! Ruth - I missed you! And, you know, after the intiial 10 minutes of agony, well, it was barely painful at all!

Next time on the blog - my 25 before 25 list.........time to have an update and a move on I think.....

Love!

xxx Connie