York

So I went to York! I’ve never been before and it was as pretty as I thought it might be. We weren’t there long and there are loads of things I want to see; York Dungeon, Yorkshire Museum, have a proper look around York Minster, take a riverboat trip. I’ve tried to persuade Jay to go before but he doesn’t want to for some reason 🙁 I loved all the ancient buildings and narrow street, a proper old city.

I’m always amazed by massive old cathedrals as well; Notre Dame is the most impressive one I’ve seen so far. But I always think about how they built these things, about 1,000 years ago, when they didn’t have JCBs, mechanical cranes, scaffolding etc. It’s nothing short of amazing. Here are few photos of York Minster, which I took on my iPhone 3G, so not the best camera in the world.

Isn’t it an amazing building? This one is the city wall, which used to go all the way around the city to keep invaders out, including the Scots apparently! Most of the wall is still there, which is pretty cool, and you can find your way around pretty easily by following the wall. Most of it doesn’t have this fence, it’s only where it crosses a road. The rest of the time it’s just open, which is quite scary when it’s icy. You can also see the minster in the distance.

And this is York castle, which is a lot smaller than I was expecting. And a goose.

Sadly I forgot to take any photos of actual people, lol. There were six of us out of 12. The three people who actually live in Yorkshire didn’t even turn up! Shocking. Especially as we had people coming from the Netherlands and Switzerland. We’re already planning our next reunion; Cambridge in the summer, so we can do a bit of punting.

Our sheep arrived! The star decoration that Jay ordered is a lot bigger than we thought it would be; about eight inches across and I thought it would be about three inches. Now he’s wishin we’d bought the bird decoration instead; which is the one I wanted in the first place! What do you reckon, does the star look too big? The reason for it being there is so you don’t forget the sheep is up there and light a fire while the chimney is blocked!

I feel really bad for these cats I’m feeding. As they’re half stray, they live outside and the weather’s been terrible lately. Freezing cold, blizzards and blowing a gale. They have kennels, and the ‘owner’ has given them clean blankets and covered the kennels in cardboard and tarpaulin to insulate them which is better than nothing. She’s just sent me a text to say she’s ordered heated pads for them as well; I think they’re being spoiled!

Tonight I did half an hour on the treadmill, 40 sit ups, stretches and weights. This time I’m determined to keep it up! Now we have a treadmill, I can’t use the bad weather as an excuse for not going for a run (which I definitely would have given the blizzards we’re currently experiencing.) I’m determined to lose a stone (14lb) by the time we go to Florida in October. That should be doable, I hope. I’ve never tried to lose weight before so it’s going to be a challenge. Now I’ve made it public, I have to do it. So here’s my start and I’ll let you know each time I lose anything! hehe :o)