New Walk, York

No real need for an alarm on this mooring as the rowers started to pass not long after 7am. I was up, breakfasted and out of the door heading towards the station a little after 9am.

The sun was out, I crossed Skeldergate Bridge. Should I follow the river on Skeldergate? Walk through Bishophill? Go along Nunnery Lane? In the end I opted to walk along the Bar Walls round to the station, what a lovely morning away from the traffic.

From my vantage point above Queen Street I could look down on the works that have been taking place to remove a road bridge around the outside of the walls. This used to raise traffic above the rail tracks that punched their way through the walls to the old station. The old station was a terminus, no through rail links and soon railway traffic had outgrown the site, it had become a bottleneck so a new station was needed.

Permission from Parliament was granted in 1866 for a new station on the other side of the walls, the first train pulled out of the station at 05:30 on the 25th June 1877, bound for Scarborough. The station took three years to construct and was the largest in Britain, confirming the city’s status as heart of the network.

A group of people stood on the walls, phones out looking down the bank. Was this a location from a film or TV program? What was catching their eye? Well it turned out to be a Vixen and her three cubs frolicking in the long grass on the inner side of the walls.

I hopped on the next train to Scarborough, quite warm from my walk and the sunshine, thankfully I knew things would be different in Scarborough today. As the train approached Seamer the sky had already turned misty and dark. Stepping off the train I was immediately glad of my extra layers, the sea fret was in, no view across the valley and only 10 C! I had time to take a selfie with a sea view so walked up to the Esplanade.

An appointment with my new dentist had called me to Scarborough. A nice lady, not the same chair side manner as Colin in Birmingham had, but maybe that was reflected in his prices, also Scarborough is well known to have a serious lack of dentists, hence having to wait about five weeks for my first appointment. All good, thankfully and another appointment for a clean in a few weeks time.

I picked up something for lunch and then headed to the house, time to check the place over after our last lodgers had vacated and do a couple of jobs. They scored 9 on our lodger scale, loosing a point due to a bin not having been emptied, leaving a light and the second fridge on which was very empty. But other than that all was good.

The garden is in need of some tlc, sadly the gardener we’d lined up never reappeared! But it does mean the bluebells are having a good time undisturbed. Thank you to our lodgers for keeping the strawberry plants watered too, someone else will benefit from then in a few weeks time.

Polling papers for the new Scarborough Town Council had arrived. We should have applied for postal votes, but have now run out of time. Mick will be around for the election, but I needed to get a proxy application in quickly before time ran out at 5pm today.

Meanwhile back in York. Mick headed to Barnitts the stove rope I’d bought was a little chunky for the lower door, so he swapped it for the next size down. A top up shop at Morrisons was done. He also walked up to Castle Mills Lock on the River Foss. Sadly there was a sign on the lock saying it would be closing on Sunday for the rest of the summer for works on the lock. We’d hoped to head up the Foss and see how far we could get before having to most probably reverse back. You have to give at least 2 days notice for the lock, it’s operated by the local IWA. Yes we might just be able to squeeze it in before Sunday, but there are other things, more important things to do before then. We’ll just have to return another year.

I took advantage of there being running water and had a shower at the house, a good collection of shampoos and bits and bobs left by lodgers. Thankfully there was a comb so I could wash my hair, all saving water on Oleanna. I rapidly picked up the fruit and veg that had been left along with the big tin of Danish Oil (ours not the lodgers) and then high tailed it back to the station, just a few minutes spare to catch the next train back to York.

0 locks, 0 miles, 1 closed lock ahead, 0 enough time, 2 trains, 4 foxes, 1 sunny city, 1 fretted town, 1 stove in working order, 1 cat snatching moments on the bank, 1 near clean bill of teeth, 1 quick shower, 3 bulbs garlic, 2 lemons, 4 onions, 1 lime, 5 apples, 7.55 miles walked, 99 minutes briskly, 1 speeding boat, 2 pizzas.