What I learned in York..

[lady_schrapnell]

Must be that I've been going about this book thing all wrong. Clearly, I should be limiting myself to a thorough daily dusting, rather than trying to read the blessed things. (I don't know how well this will show for everyone, but the woman in the picture has the most extraordinarily peaceful look on her face - almost preternaturally so.)

Anyway, seriously, steepholm and I had a wonderful time in York, which is a truly lovely place. As usual, I took far too few, and far too silly photographs, but pictures aren't all that good for capturing the lovely wandering, browsing, in-and-out of places kind of time we had. Or at least, not in my hands. I've put a few up regardless, now that steepholm's beaten me to the punch. Behind the cut you can see them, and read a relatively short account of the one sour note in the whole trip, of which/whom there is not a picture - I think the person in question might well have felt he'd have to kill us if we'd been insane enough to want a picture and somehow managed to get one. And could probably have arranged our tragic deaths quite easily!



First, the happy!



Again, I'm not sure how well this will show up, especially as it's a bit fuzzy, but this is the street sign for the shortest street in York - Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate. If it weren't enough to be in a city with such a brilliant street name, the 1505 version meant 'what a street!'



As I said in my Flickr page, the first night we got to York and were crossing the bridge, the picnic tables were actually floating in a rather delightfully cheerful way, as if it were all a big game of Pooh Sticks.



I really liked these - and not just because it was a fun puzzle. (It's real semaphore, and spells out a message. Translation if requested!) This is in the York Minster - which is as amazing as would be expected - and I've just now discovered that these were part of a larger exhibit with 24 sculptures by 14 artists around the Minster.

Here's the second part of the message, for anyone playing along at home:



The not-so-shiny was our fellow-passenger on the train from Bristol to York - he got on at Birmingham, took out a bottle of red wine, proceeded to drink it, and not having any books to read himself (ARGH), looked for an opportunity to get into discussion with us. Which he did, over steepholm's exam marking - but quite pleasantly, even if he was dissing Lord of the Rings. I rather doubt the 'avid reader' I swore I heard from him myself. Anyway, he turned out to be a regimental sergeant-major in the British Army - a very senior rank, from what I gathered. He went from fairly reasonable - airing his (very legitimate-seeming) beef against the army, which posted him for the last 18 months of his 22 years, away from the largest garrison in the UK, where he has four kids and a wife with a part-time job, to Lisburn, Northern Ireland - to not at all so over the course of what came to seem like an inordinately long train journey. By the last hour, he was teaching us the intimidation methods he'd learned on the army training course he'd just attended - though I did get rather a kick out of the picture of steepholm marching into the offices of those superior to him in U.W.E. to use same - and repeatedly challenging steepholm to answer the very simple question of who was paying for the two-week piss-up he and his mates were going for in Germany. For free. With four games of golf thrown in. In case anyone has any difficulty with this question - the answer - correctly given by steepholm the first time it was asked - is 'the British taxpayer'. Whose sole representative at the table steepholm had the misfortune to be.

Another highlight of the 'conversation' was his reply to me about how he'd protect his girls from the kind of behaviour he'd demonstrated for us when they were in pubs - which was that they lived in the largest garrison in the UK - did I honestly think his girls would be allowed out at night? Ever? A bit sad as a comment, given his doubtless sincere - and possibly warranted - belief that the British Army is one of the best-disciplined in the world.

We staggered off the train at York, finally able to indulge in the fits of giggles, but also quite disturbed. I asked steepholm if he'd been mentally composing an LJ post, but his reply was that he'd been toying with the idea of a letter to the Daily Conservative Newspaper of his choice. (I can only remember - of the British papers I never read - that The Times is owned by Rupert Murdoch so must be shunned!) Perhaps the worst of the whole thing is that I wasn't quite brave enough to ask him to shut the hell up for a few minutes so I could check what I was doing on the tricky part of my birthday sock knitting, and had to rip out a few rows when we got to the hotel...



Ooh - and Bettys Tea Rooms - lack of apostrophe not my doing! - which we visited three times - not only my doing - were fantastic.

Ooh number two: steepholm rocks, if anyone didn't know this. We met in the train station in Bristol and as soon as I took my jacket off in the train - he exclaimed 'Why - Mrs Darcy!', in a most satisfying way! (If you don't know what I'm talking about, and care at all - a picture of the cardigan in question - with me ruthlessly decapitated (oh - anyone would have cut my head off that one!) - can be found in my Flickr acccount by clicking on any of the photos here.

Comments

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Wow, I feel sorry for the guy's daughters. Yidge.

The photos are too small for me to see any code (I see stone faintly groined in relief, and reddish dots above) but the idea of it is nifty!

Mrs. Darcy--wow!

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Mrs Darcy is pretty special - and looked very well in the Georgian bits of York (there are a few). I'm looking forward to my socks, though: the first one at least was extremely cosy, and I can't wait for the sequel!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

This makes it sound as if Mrs Darcy were out on her own in York - which, come to think of it, might make a nicely eerie short story! :)

First sock looked very nice on you - no thanks to our friend the RSM or my knitting skills!

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Wow, I feel sorry for the guy's daughters. Yidge.

Yeah, absolutely. Can't get his reported "Daddy, are you drunk?" comment from one of the girls out of my head either. Though I guess it indicates a certain lack of fear. I'd certainly never have been stupid enough to ask my step-father that question!

Oh - with your nautical knowledge you'd probably not have needed to look it up, had you been able to see the saints more clearly. :) It says 'Christ is here'.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Yeah...maybe the girls have his, ah, direct approach to life.

Cool!

[dorianegray.livejournal.com]

Well, I can't exactly blame yer man for not wanting to be posted to Lisburn; my grandparents lived there and I remember it as one of the most deadly dull towns in the world (in every possible way).

[lady-schrapnell.livejournal.com]

Nah - didn't blame him at all for feeling aggrieved about the posting there, as it meant uprooting kids and wife or living separately. But I do have a feeling that your idea of a deadly dull town and his might have been slightly different!