Our 3 glorious days in Scotland culminated in a missed train to York. Some shifty ticketeering saw us catch a different train for free and despite the delays, we eventually made our way to the village of Cundall, in North Yorkshire, for Anthony's birthday.
We arrived to find the 'village' is more of a hamlet, comprising just a school, a church, a phonebox, about 20 homes, and our accommodation - the sumptuous Cundall Lodge Farm. The nearest shops and even pubs are in the next village, Brafferton-Helperby, some 3 miles away. (The tale of this town with two names -one saxon, one viking, on opposite banks of the river Swale - is best told here).
The B&B was gorgeous - large, comfy rooms, loads of tea, cake and chocolate on arrival and plenty of recommendations for good local pubs for a meal. After filling our bellies with food, wine and beer we settled down for a long natter with a couple of the locals and discovered that it's nearly 150 years since there's been a Cundall staying in Cundall... and when we wandered back into the same pub the next night, everyone knew who the tall blond bloke from New Zealand was!! We like the north - it's much friendlier than London!
Cundall Lodge also proved to be a great base from which to explore the Yorkshire Dales and Moors. So in the past 4 days then we've seen 2 castles (at Richmond and Helmsley), several battlefields, a ruined priory (Rievaulx), York Minster (from the outside,anyways) and the Jorvik Viking Centre. Life doesn't get much better than this and we can't WAIT to go back. How cool if we could move to somewhere near here....
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