The York trip was one of those brilliant ideas Ma and I have sometimes. She was driving to Scotland for a holiday and said that she was thinking of breaking the journey and from there a plan evolved. I’d come up with her on the Thursday and we’d spend Thursday and Friday there. On Saturday, I’d get the train back to London and she’d drive up to Scotland.We didn’t count on me being miserable with cold. We left my flat about 10am on Thursday and arrived at the hotel about 2pm. We found the Askham Top park and ride into York and wondered around a bit. We found York Gin shop and bought some snacky bits for dinner. We got back to the hotel about 5-ish and that was me pretty much done for the night. The next day, we were up early and did the park and ride again. This time we had more of a walk around. Clifford’s Tower first and my top tip is don’t go and walk around the top of it if you have a stuffy cold, I got very dizzy and had to come down almost immediately. Medieval spiral staircases are not fun for me at the best of times (I felt down a set when I was a teenager) but navigating them whilst dizzy is even less fun…From there we walked to the Minster and to The Treasurer’s House. The garden is beautiful and the house is odd in the best way.It’s a contradiction of a house, it was bought by Frank Green in 1897, and was originally three houses, Green ‘restored’ it and he wanted it to look as though it had been there for a while and had gone through change. So there is a completely inauthentic Great Hall, where a copy of a Van Dyke of Charles I sits about a table owned by Oliver Cromwell’s aunt.Green was rich and very odd (he didn’t like to see his servants or any dust, so every individual coal had to be wrapped in paper. He also used to inspect the drawers in the kitchen at night and pull everything out for the servants to do again if they weren’t arranged to his standards! It will come as no surprise to learn that he never married! The House was the first given to the National Trust with it’s collection. It was really interesting and I’m glad we got to see it.After that, we wondered about a bit more and I bought a new shirt (I managed to spill coffee and egg yolk down the one I was wearing!) and Ma needed to buy wine for her holiday with the ladies so we did that and then as I was flagging, we went back to the hotel. I was in bed at 9pm (again).

We didn’t get to see as much we would have if I hadn’t been full of cold but York is a lovely place and I really want to go back and do some of the other stuff we didn’t get to.