Writing, fatshion, me: Anniversary Trip to North Yorkshire

On the Wednesday of our trip, my mum and stepdad left at about 10.30. They had planned to come for five nights which was of course fine, but they obviously didn't have to rush off in the morning because we were still staying there. So we had some breakfast and we helped them load their car, and then they went.

First of all Lee and I went to Rosedale Abbey which took quite a while to get to, and turned out to not be worth it at all. I am sure that I've been before and found it a really cute village with little shops and stuff, but we could only find Rosedale Glass. It's a working glass factory and their pieces were absolutely gorgeous, but expensive. We couldn't find any other shops so instead, we went off to Goathland. I have been before but it must be thirty years ago and I don't remember it. Having been, I wouldn't say it's worth a special trip. It's tiny, for one thing. For another, the street parking is for twenty minutes only and the car park there is like a fiver for all day which is fine if you want to stay all day but not so fine if you only want to be there an hour or so.

So we stayed twenty minutes. Fine, whatever. There's a row of shops so we went into those. One of them was selling golliw*gs which......... is a choice. There was even a sign that said 'This is not offensive!' I'm not sure that they get to decide if it's offensive or not. The sign also asked you to not take photos, which totally reads to me like they known it's wrong, they just don't want the controversy over it.

So. We didn't spend anything in there. They're all cute gift type shops but we're trying to not spend much money. I did buy some butter tablet for me and for my mum. It turned out to be really nice and I should have bought more. We looked at a tea shop for something to eat but mindful of the parking restrictions outside we decided to just go.

Goathland is known as the place they filmed Heartbeat, so it's got a lot of that stuff about. The train station was used in Harry Potter, too, so there's a lot of that about too. I took some photos, but forgot to get one of the garage in Heartbeat which operates as a cafe. We ended up going to The Inn on the Moor for lunch. It's a lovely country pub and the staff were all lovely. I had a hummus and falafel wrap which was absolutely delicious.

We drove to Grosmont and found a junk shop which had all kinds of wonderful things in it. Lee bought some kind of video game something, I can't remember what. I got four books for a pound each! Bargain. We went into the Co op next door which had some frankly weird things in it. We needed a few bits and we got pasties for tea. Then it turned out that the steam train was coming through again, so we decided to stay and watch it. Tons of people were doing the same which was nice. There were a few very excited small children.

We got ice creams from the shop at Grosmont station. We then went over to Egton to book a table for tea the following day. We had had The Wheatsheaf Inn recommended to us so we went. It's a small pub but the menu is good, so we booked a table. We sat and had a hot drink each; Lee's was a ridiculous hot chocolate with marshmallow skewers, and I had a coffee. It was nice to just sit, honestly. We headed back to the cottage after that to relax for the evening. We watched a film and had bits for tea as usual. It was a restful day!