Time Flies

It only seems like a few weeks ago that I was flying up to York for the weekend to celebrate Jen's 30th, and it's her birthday again already. I drove up this time, on Thursday, and for once I got a really good run; it took less than 4 hours to get there. Which may or may not have been due to the fact that I was flouting the speed limit :).

On Friday we went to Harrogate, which is only about 20 miles from where Jen lives and only 40 miles from where I was brought up, but I can't remember the last time I went there; it must be easily 20 years ago or more. We spent the morning in the Turkish Baths, which was basically a series of steam rooms, ranging from warm through hot to very hot, plus a freezing cold plunge pool. The 'warm' room was just the right temperature for the two of us to sit and chat, then we jumped into the pool (and jumped straight out again - brrr!) every half-hour or so to cool off. Lovely!

We went for lunch at Betty's, Harrogate's other famous landmark. We had afternoon tea, which in hindsight was possibly a bad idea: there was a lot in the way of desserts and not a whole lot of savouries, but it was still delicious. We were amazed at the number of all-male groups eating there - it's most definitely a girls' restaurant, and I would have imagined any men who went would have been taken by their wives/mothers etc, but there were plenty of male-only business lunches going on, and even a couple of builders at the table next to us. We did a bit of window-shopping after lunch, then drove back to York.

Saturday was a fairly slow morning, but we did manage to make it to Cafe Concerto, one of my favourite places to eat, in time for lunch. Then we made our way over to the pottery painting place (I've really got a thing for it at the moment!) and met my lovely friend Sarah who'd driven down from Stockton to meet us. We spent the afternoon painting pottery (surprising, I know) - Sarah and Jen did mugs; I did a square plate. Again, I didn't spend any time beforehand thinking about what design I might paint, but I did find a Mackintosh-style rose to copy. I spent far too long on it and Sarah & Jen were finished well before me, as is apparently becoming the pattern on these occasions. In fact, I still had a big chunk of the plate in the top-right corner that was untouched, but we had run out of time and I noticed a sign on the wall saying 'we can add a clock to any piece for £5', so I asked them to do that ;). And seeing as it isn't 17 August and I do actually have the glazed, finished article, here's a picture.


I was a bit disappointed in the paint coverage of the lines - it was really difficult when the paint was wet to tell which parts had been covered once, which twice and which more than that. Plus the tick-tock of that thing is LOUD! Still, it goes perfectly with the decor in the spare bedroom, so it will live in there.

Saturday evening Jen had the girls round for drinks and nibbles, so we spent the rest of the afternoon preparing for that, then on Sunday, Jen's birthday, Mum & Dad came down and we all went out to lunch at a great little pub. We had a very lazy afternoon back at Jen's before I left at around 18:00 to drive back home.