“I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:

It vexes me to choose another guide:

Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;

Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.”

The Brontë Sisters

At 8am I presented myself at mum’s room where scrambled eggs, toast, tea, coffee and orange juice had been laid out for us. We breakfasted then I showered and packed my bag. As I packed, I realised I no longer had the wool hat Cath had knitted me for Christmas. Somewhere, perhaps the chippie or the Prince Albert, it must of come out of my bag when pulling or packing layers.
Today we were to be given a wee tour around the West Riding by David and Jackie, the parents of my friend Dan.  They collected us from the CO-OP car park opposite the guesthouse and we found a more legitimate car park before heading to a tearoom for coffee. After caffeination we hit the road winding up back into the Pennines and along to Haworth where the Brontë Sisters penned their gothic masterpieces. We found a park and wandered down the steep main road. The pubs weren’t yet open, so we poked around a boutique chemists that was full of aromatic bath salts and finely sculpted Knick knacks all perfectly positioned to draw money from the passing schools of Heathcliff attracted ladies. I suspect if one wanted the morning after pill or hemorrhoid cream one would be out of luck however. David departed to go get the car to meet us at the bottom while we walked down the hill. After a fairly long wait he appeared with a smashed wing mirror. The tight vertical lanes had collected another scalp.

We drove on through Keighly, I looked out for Timothy Taylors but didn’t see it , and down onto the flat of Yorkshire. TV and having only visited the Calder Vally last time I was here had tricked me into thinking Yorkshire was all hills, here though was flat expanses of farmland much like southern Britain. Our destination was Otley where my dad’s cousin Christine was to have lunch with us. We got there a little early so we found a park near the Horse and Farrier pub which is owned by Brew York and had a beer. Then it was round the corner to the river for lunch at an Italian restaurant called Buon Apps. We were joined by Christine and my cousin of some remove Damien.  There was an element of tension here as I knew David and Jackie needed to be home before dark and the lunch was taking the pace you would expect of a rare meeting of distant family. Luckily a plan was hatched and after we were dropped to a nearby train station where we could travel on to York leaving Jackie and David free to return home on the outskirts of Leeds. As we travelled to York it became clear that for the first time this trip my schedule was going to fall over. The day’s plan had been pretty optimistic as we were meant to be jumping on the train to Leeds to see Zak Avery after checking in to our guesthouse in York. I messaged Zak and cancelled that night , including cancelling a Bundobust booking, and rescheduled Leeds for the next day.

After booking into our guesthouse, one in a long line of early 20^th century guesthouses originally built to service the football field that once sat at the end of the road, we got an uber into the heart of the old walled city. Our target was the Blue Belle, which is a coveted and glorious tiny Edwardian pub in central York. As we entered a lady and partner were leaving the back room and she said “if you are quick you will get our seats”. Sure enough we did. Sometimes I have the luck of the devil. We were soon installed with pints of delicious best ruby mild and packets of crisps. A gentleman next to us chatted about this being his local, about New Zealand, about how the rest of NZ feels about Auckland, about how the rest of Britain feels about London. In essence a great pub chat. His mate sat mostly mute beside him. The fluid nature of seating in a tiny pub pulled them away from us so conversation shifted to between us. Mum told me how when she was here in the 70’s she came to York with a touring darts team. “You were a darts groupie!” I responded, “YES” she readily agreed.
We moved on in search of food. Wandering through the tiny lanes we came across what is known as The Shambles. These are tiny lanes from the middle ages where the buildings all lean out towards each other closing over one like the trees in a forest. We came across the town market and there we found the Thornbridge pub the Market Cat. We found a table and pizza and pints were ordered. Both beer and food was excellent. Unsurprisingly this was a more modern pub and being a Friday it was busy. Mum mentioned that this seemed a lot more like the pubs back home and she wasn’t wrong. As we were eating a group of 20 something year old Sikh gentlemen walked in, “over here pal!” one of them shouted motioning to a piece of vacant bar real-estate in a broad Bradford accent. Boots hit the brass runner; pints appeared along the bar.

We decided to walk back to our guesthouse taking in the Minster and the sights and sounds of York at night as we went. We hadn’t made it back to Leeds but we had had a great day.