Traditional Yorkshire Architecture...


or not quite. This fabulous French chateau is the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle - excellent collection of virtually anything you might want to see. Including the excellent mechanical silver swan - 230 years old and spectacular to watch. Except you can't at the moment as it's in bits being refurbed but you can watch the guys working on it which is fascinating. Anyway, I was doing museums instead of walking because it rained all weekend. All weekend. And the picture I took of the museum was grey and depressing - so I nicked the one above from the museum's website. And of course I get back to Cambridge yesterday to find it raining - and of course it's still raining. Cheery eh?

So, Thaxted for the last time. I just had to post this perfect portrait of a village scene that can't have changed for hundreds of years. Sorry the crappy phone-cam can't do the scene justice.

Am in the magical Yorkshire Dales for the weekend, one of my uber-favourite places in the UK and the happy lack of www access means I'll be doing constructive/healthy things instead of sitting at a screen. I normally stay at a very cool pub, the Tan Hill Inn, but they've become less friendly and way too expensive so I'm trying out another - I'll no doubt let you know how it works out. Have a great weekend folks.

Still in the same place. Just walking around and we came across this house and saw that The Planets' composer Holst had lived here. Crazy - what was he doing in sleepy old Thaxted?? Bizarre what you can come across in the middle of nowhere.

Today we're in Thaxted - about 20 miles I guess from Cambridge. Thaxted is unbelievably quaint in a chocolate-box way and the centrepiece is the Guildhall above - work started on it in 1390. It looks in need of a little help now actually ;p Read all about the Guildhall here The whole area was very rich from the wool trade and many of the local towns have great medieval and Georgian architecture - none quite so beautiful as Thaxted.

Newmarket; about 12 miles from Cambridge - Home of Racing. In the rain. I grew up about 1/2 a mile from this course and yet somehow I absorbed absolutely no knowledge of horses whatsoever. Nada. Niente. So we now go racing occasionally and I use pin-sharp inspiration to pick the winner. By that I mean I actually use a pin to pick it. As all horses look alike to me I can't tell you which horse this is (I think it might be With Interest) but it won for me adding to a profitable day - I made 70% return on my stash over the course of the day. I'll leave the romantics amongst you to assume I took £1000 and the cynics to think I took a tenner.... ;p