It has been a lovely day.
We woke up slowly this morning first of all to bird song, and then after a while to the sound of traffic as the world around us came back to life. It was wonderful to have had such a lot of sleep, and after coffee and dog emptying and pottering about the camper van feeling pleased to be on an adventure, we were bright eyed and chirpy, and left the camper in a car park and went into York on the Park and Ride bus.
This was an adventure all by itself. We are not often users of public transport, which tends to be a bit unpredictable in the Lake District, and our inexperience showed. We managed to pay the driver, but another passenger had to run after us with our ticket, which we had forgotten that we would need. The road went past the York military base, and we saw lots of beautifully neat Army houses, and then of course the great river and the city walls: and we had a lovely view from the higher-up seats at the back and watched the world bobbing past with great interest.
York was lovely. It was ace to wander round looking at historical things and feeling smugly middle class: because of course everyone knows that this is what the middle classes do on their holidays, they look at old things. We sat at a table in a little oak-timbered corner and had coffee and cake, and watched the market going on around us: and we wandered about and looked at things until I was light headed with it, there were churches and little alleyways and cobbles and interesting old buildings all over the place.
We didn’t have time to go and see the museums, disappointingly, because York has a Victorian street that I would have dearly liked to go and gaze at, but there were lots of curious little shops, which I loved and Mark thought were interesting, and Oliver found more boring than he could find words to express, although to his credit he tried very hard.
Unsurprisingly we spent all our money. On the way back to the camper we popped in to Penhaligon’s, because I have been saving up to go for ages , and it is one of my very favourite shops: and we bought lovely lavender hand wash, which is so rich you only need a tiny bit, and which leaves my hands smelling fragrant for ages: and my favourite bluebell perfume. We were the only customers in the shop, and whilst we were chatting to the man on the till we mentioned that Mark’s beard oil had been knocked over and spilt, which had been dreadfully upsetting. He was shocked to hear about that, and said that since we were such good customers he would give us the tester bottle to replace it: which he very kindly did.
This was very generous, because beard oil is really expensive, and smells lovely, and lasts for ages if you don’t stupidly spill it, so we were surprised and very grateful, and bought lots of soap to show how pleased we were. We tried some new perfumes, but didn’t buy any, although we liked a men’s cologne which had a gorgeous scent of limes, and regretted afterwards that we hadn’t bought it, but not to worry, at least now I have got a reason for going back again soon.
Eventually we made our way down to school for Lucy. The coach had just arrived when we got there, and there she was, sunburned and blonde and sleepy, and one of the teachers stopped us as we were hauling her luggage away and told us that she had been a credit to us, and we should be proud, which made her grin with smug satisfaction and us gape with surprise.
We we loaded her suitcase in to the camper, although Mark pointed out that it was an awful lot lighter than it had been when she set off, and she said that she supposed she might have lost some things. I haven’t got round to opening it yet, so I haven’t worked out what we have still got, but it is an awful lot slimmer, so probably not very much.
We met her grandparents for a pub lunch in the pub up the road from school. Normally I am horribly snobbish about pub food, on account of the determined effort to be middle class: but the food in the White Swan is ace, and they serve loads of it. We were starving, and shovelled up enormous platefuls of chicken in smoky sauce, and fresh fish in crisp batter and then pudding with lots of cream, and listened to stories of Lucy’s adventures.
Fortunately all the British youths in the Ardeche seemed to have come from somewhere with an incomprehensible and scary accent, to Mark’s relief, so she hadn’t really wanted to talk to any of them. She had been canoeing and climbing and trekking and mountain biking and learning archery, and she was happy and pleased with herself and exhausted.
We were exhausted just listening to her, and after lunch we parked the camper van and we all had a little sleep before we set off for home, and for work tonight.
It has been a brilliant couple of days. Holidays are wonderful.
I would like to go again.
