I started the week with a trip from Scarborough to Whitby. Our original idea was to hike from Scarborough to the quaintly named town of Robin Hood’s Bay but we worked out the distance (it was a long way) and decided against that. Then we decided we would take the bus to Robin Hood’s Bay and hike to Whitby. But when we looked at Robin Hood’s Bay… cute as it was, we weren’t sure it was worth the detour. So in the end we took the bus all the way to Whitby with no hiking.
The last time Husband and I were in Whitby, it was November and it was 20-some years ago in the time I refer to as “when we were courting”. Whitby in the bleak of a wind-and-rain whipped November is a very different experience to Whitby on a sunny bank holiday Monday. We enjoyed walking around the town despite the huge crowds. The town has a cute olde-worlde seaside town feel to it, at least a street or two back from “the Front” it does. The Front had the standard strip of penny arcades, fish and chip shops and ice cream parlours that make up the seaside strip of any British seaside town.
Still, the bus journey there and back gave me time to scratch out my words for day 1 of #1000wordsofsummer. Writing with a pen! In a notebook! How terribly analogue!
On our way back to our AirBnB in the evening, we stopped at the pub on the corner of our street to have a final holiday drink. We ended up staying for over an hour as we got caught up in someone’s first date that wasn’t going well. She’d already called a friend in to come and provide moral support and she and her friend were happy to bring Husband and I into the conversation in hope that the date would get the hint and leave. Which he didn’t. At least not before we did.
We left Scarborough in the cold of an early morning sea mist on Tuesday and arrived into a pleasantly warm York. We could have gotten off our Scarborough train, waited seven minutes, and then gotten onto a London-bound train, but our cautious natures (“What if the train breaks down?”) meant we didn’t want to risk the short connection, so we spent an hour in the station at York. This gave us the chance to have a small brunch and then – with still more time to spare – a quick half in the very pretty York Tap pub.
To save weight in the luggage (which was full of books), I wore my hiking boots home. Boots I hadn’t needed to bring, in the end, as we did not do any hiking! This was most unpleasant on a hot day. And on arrival in London I rushed to change out of my long sleeved shirt and jeans into something cooler only to realise – my summer clothes were still in storage!
Yes, we came home to a different season. Just like that it stopped being wintry and started being summer. The sky changed overnight to that pale faded far away colour.
I’ve gone from wearing tracksuit pants and fleeces and needing to be wrapped in blankets in my home office to having the window open and wearing shorts.
Also on the day we arrived home I got my 2nd Covid-19 vaccine done. It was not the same feeling as the first time – and in fact there was not the same crowd as the first time – but I still felt a little emotional. No side effects this time though! I was tired at work the next day but any day back after a holiday will be tiring so I’m not blaming the vaccine for that.
One thing I’ve noticed since we were away is that the garden has gone berserk. I need to weed, need to mow the lawn, need to cut things back. All this sun after so much rain and things have gone wild. Including the weeds. But flowers too. My new snapdragons have flowered, and after two years waiting, I have the first peony flower! But where is the time for gardening?
My time has been taken up by other things, like:
- Laundry – I think we did eight loads in the days after we got back. And there are only two of us in the house! But the hot sunny weather has been ideal for drying so I am going through the house looking for things to wash, like all those winter clothes and accessories that I can bundle away into bags and boxes and put into storage.
- Jigsaws. We started one of the 1000 piece jigsaws when we got back and finished that in two days, so we opened up the 1500 piece puzzle and started that. This is taking slightly longer…
- Writing. #1000wordsofsummer has been running for a week now and I’ve got a total of 8000 new words written which feels like a major achievement for someone who hasn’t written anything much at all for the past months.
- Work. Yes, back at work and as ever trying to achieve a balance between getting stuff done and not letting work take over my life.
Things that have not taken up any time this week include:
- Cleaning. We were away for a week and I can see dust is accumulating around the house but I lack the enthusiasm to tackle it. But as ever, I figure if Husband doesn’t see the dust and isn’t worried about it, why should I?
- Exercise. Despite the hot sunny mornings which would have been ideal for running in the park, I have been lying in bed thinking “I should get up and go running” rather than actually doing it. That should change next week because I realise I have only got two weeks to get fit for our hiking trip to the Peak District at the end of the month.
Tales from Tobhamhor 