22nd March 2010, a Monday, as luck would have it.
Today was a driving day. Packed and loaded, we set off around 10 in the a.m., and headed off to our first stop of the day – the rather well-to-do town of Ilkley, near Leeds. We stopped in on the lovely (and swanky) Bettys Tea Rooms, a famous Yorkshire establishment. The loose leaf tea was delicious, the food was good (J was the only one of us who was disappointed with our order – his hot buttered pikelets were not particularly hot, and more like flat round crumpets than mini-pancakes - CLEARLY SOME KIND OF ENGLISH DEVILRY), and the selection of cakes was too good to pass up.
Back into the car, and after a bit of driving around to see if we could spot D’s uncle’s old home (we could), we drove off to our second destination of the day – Salts Mills, in Shipley, Bradford. The building has been converted into a gallery space, and hosts a permanent exhibition of the works of David Hockney (‘a local artist’, as one of his pictures proclaimed), as well as a large book shop, restaurant, a history of the mills exhibition, and several other shops and services. We had lunch in the restaurant (menu designed by Hockney, of course), and then headed down to give closer inspection to a very interesting little shop we had passed on our way in – The Early Music Shop, “the world's largest source of early and historical musical instruments” – with a special emphasis on recorders - they had a whole wall covered in recorders of various shapes, sizes, colours, keys, styles… J felt, as a recorder player (recorderist?), thoroughly vindicated! It was an awesome shop.
After this, there is not a huge amount to tell. M took over the driving from D, and we headed onto the motorway, and arrived home around 6:45. After a delicious but simple soup for dinner, we spent the evening catching up on e-mails and other internety type things. It was, all in all, a grand weekend, by gum!
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I'll start this with a quick apology - these entries were a bit rushed, in order to get them done before the holiday is over!
23rd March, a Tuesday
Another day, another blog about walking and food! Now with bonus added friends!
We had a bit of a lazy morning, before heading off to Paddington to meet our friends I and J, who were over from Bristol for a gig. We met for Yum Cha at Pearl Liang, and managed to get there before the lunch-time rush. Despite the deliciousness of the food, our experience was somewhat marred by the fact that of the 3 apparently 'vegetarian' dishes that J ordered, 1 contained pork, and the other was made in chicken stock. Also, when the staff cleaned our table, they also managed to clean away my London A-Z, which I only noticed as we were getting ready to leave. I eventually got it back.
We crossed London to visit Abney Park cemetery - recommended as one of Britain's 500 best wild places! We walked through rain along a canal, until a detour due to construction work took us in a big circle back to Manor House tube - where we had started!
Passing a large castle containing an indoor wall climbing centre, we crossed Clissold Park, past the deer enclosure, and sat for a cup of tea/hot chocolate as the rain lightened, and eventually stopped. It was here that J overheard a discussion of childbirth alikening it to "doing a 6lb poo". It was enlightening.
Turning into Stoke Newington Church Street - the swank end of Stoke Newington, obviously, we found the cemetery, and lo, it was awesome. I don't have time to write about it now, so here, have a bunch of photos.
We PTed home, and ended the day with a delicious curry, ordered online! Its the future!
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Speak to you when we're back in Australia!
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