This is Paul aka Husband and Reuben aka Son. After a long battle with cancer Joy died on 29th November 2018. We are so devastated and lost without her. She was everything to us and things are very hard at the moment. She is greatly missed. In time we would like to pick up the…
Another half-term treat, we went from all things robotic to discovering dinosaurs at Event City in Manchester. This was heavily promoted but I hadn’t given it much thought until reading a review of its Birmingham stint, was intrigued and decided we had to go. I am a bit of a sucker for these immersive live-action…
Posters on buses and various adverts around Manchester have been announcing “The Robots Are Coming.” Our attention was grabbed, we wanted to find out more so headed to the Museum of Science and Industry. The Robots Exhibition was at the Science Museum in London, it has moved now to Manchester and will be here for…
We took a trip to Liverpool on a gloriously mild early autumn day. My dad was visiting so as a treat we decided to take the famous ferry across the Mersey. The River Mersey is so iconic, played a huge part in shaping the character and fortunes of this great city and a trip on…
It seemed like only five minutes since the summer holidays but in the blink of an eye half-term was upon us and school was out again. For various reasons we weren’t able to travel anywhere too far, we settled instead for some local(ish) days out, the first of which was at Portland Basin Museum in…
We were always big fans of Heritage Open Weekend in September – in the days before Son, Husband and I often went to London for the weekend and got to explore some incredible places open to the public only at this time. Amongst them we got to mooch around Westminster Hall, the office of the…
Having explored the stunning mansion that is Harewood House, we quickly grabbed some (delicious) lunch in their cafe then headed outside to explore the very extensive grounds. There are acres of gorgeous gardens set in a Capability Brown landscape – a lot to see. Son perked up again after food and water and was most…
Sad to be leaving our Staithes cottage, we were also mighty excited to be seeing Son again after his week at camp. We left in good time for the drive to Harrogate, our plan was to collect him and then spend the day at nearby Harewood House. Our journey was good, we arrived to find…
We passed through a little village called Hinderwell most days on our Yorkshire explorations.One of those places you drive through en route to somewhere else – that is until we spotted something strange going on. On our first day a rather stern looking police officer caught our eye… Each time we drove through more and…
Our plan for this (unusual) sunny day was to hire bikes and cycle the Cinder Track. This former railway line runs between Scarborough and Whitby and promised a flat but scenic cycle route. We hadn’t brought our own bikes on this trip and when I happened to glance at the bike hire place the evening…
We could not have picked a more perfect base for our Yorkshire explorations than the sleepy, quaint and utterly gorgeous village of Staithes. It was a lucky coincidence the cottage that most suited our (last minute) needs happened to be here. Staithes was never on my radar of places to visit, I’m glad we inadvertently…
A short drive from Ravenscar to Robin Hood’s Bay, I remembered this place fondly from my childhood and was more than keen to return. We parked at the very top of the village – driving here is not recommended – and then set off to explore, downhill all the way. A steep but lovely descent…
Browsing the touristy leaflets in our rental cottage, I came across an article about Ravenscar, a tiny place just beyond Whitby described as “the town that never was.” They had me at that, I wanted to go and see it for myself. Today it is no more than a hamlet set on spectacular cliffs. In…
Having explored all the nooks and crannies of Whitby we found ourselves back there the very next day. Just a brief stop as we were in town to catch the steam train. This heritage railway run by volunteers takes you through 24 miles of Yorkshire countryside to Pickering. We easily located the quaint ticket office…
Our plan for the rest of the day in Whitby was just to wander and go where the fancy took us. The old town area is possibly my favourite part. Clustered around the 199 steps are a maze of narrow cobbled streets, tiny alleyways and loads of shops selling black jet jewellery, a minor gemstone…
joy loves travel 