Growing

Just back from visiting my daughter, son in law and granddaughter in London.  E is growing fast... it's over four months since she was born, though being so premature she is effectively at about eleven weeks developmentally.  I try to visit every month or so and I see huge differences in her each time.  She is much more alert now, and beginning to make those endearing little vocalisations and facial expressions that show she is trying hard to communicate.  It melts my heart to see her smile at her mum, looking so excited to see her.

I'm sure she will grow up very cultured....  We visited the V & A Museum to see a lovely exhibition of portraits by the renowned photographer Cecil Beaton, of the Queen and other members of the Royal Family, including his pictures of the Coronation in 1953.  It is of course the Queen's Diamond (60th) Jubilee this year.  Actually, E slept through the photos but she did enjoy the V&A's fabulous Café - which must have the most elegant baby-changing facilities in London!

Word Verification

I have taken the free 'Word Verification Free Blog' button from Beatrice Banks site.  (Thanks, Jack, for pointing me there.)  I've actually been WV free for ages now, as I found the whole thing so tedious and Francisca encouraged me to ditch it.  The new WV process is even worse!

I have honestly not had a problem since.  Blogger's spam filter works well to catch the adverts and the odd comment you'd rather not show can easily and quickly be deleted (and anyway WV won't stop weird or malicious comments if they're written by an individual).  I have comment moderation on for comments on posts older than 7 days - but that's only so I don't miss comments, as I don't get them emailed to me.

To anyone out there thinking of ditching WV - do it!  You won't look back - and the rest of us will thank you!

View from the top

The views from the Yorkshire Wheel are worth seeing, though it's not too easy to get decent photos owing to the amount of reflection in the glass of the capsules.

This is the vista across the city of York looking towards the south-east, with the huge bulk of the Minster obviously being the main landmark.  In the foreground is York's main river, the Ouse.  The bridge you can see is the Lendal Bridge, an iron bridge built in 1863.  It has stone towers at each end; the one catching the sunshine is the Lendal Tower, now a private residence I believe.  The stone buildings on the riverside to the right are, I think, city council buildings - part of the Guildhall.  On the left edge of the picture you can see the Yorkshire Museum, set in a park.

Looking to the north east you see the River Ouse meandering through the vale. The boat is one of the large pleasure boats that ply up and down, allowing visitors to enjoy a leisurely cruise and perhaps a drink, whilst learning more about the history of the area.  I'm not sure what there is to see on the northern side of the city but to the south of the Lendal Bridge the boats give a different perspective on the centre of York and sail on to the Palace at Bishopsthorpe, the Archbishop of York's residence.  At the bottom of the photo you can just see one of the platforms of York's main railway station.

Dizzy

First there was the London Eye and now many of Britain's cities seem to be following the trend for a "Big Wheel" visitor attraction.  Actually I've never been on the Eye (I will, one day) but when I saw the  Yorkshire Wheel in the gardens of York's 'Royal York Hotel', I decided to treat myself to a twirl.  Yes... even though it was windy and the capsules were swaying quite a lot!  They are enclosed, so I didn't fear I'd fall out.

Being so sunny and windy, it was a clear day and you could see for miles from the top of the ride.  York sits in a flat plain - the Vale of York - so that means the view goes on forever.  There was a commentary through speakers in the capsule, but being deaf I couldn't hear a word so I just had to guess what I was seeing.  The most noticeable far-away feature was a large power-station with huge cooling towers, which I took to be the huge one at Drax.  You get a lovely view of the Minster too, of course.

I had not realised til I was writing this blog and Googling as I go (!) that the Wheel is so new - it was only opened just before Christmas, though it replaced an earlier structure in the grounds of the National Railway Museum.

Pictures from up top tomorrow....

Newgate Market

In ancient times, York was granted a Charter to hold a market and the tradition of an open market continues to this day.  Nowadays the market is called Newgate Market and occupies a central position near The Shambles.  It has over a hundred stalls selling fruit and vegetables, fish, meat and other goods (fabrics, haberdashery, you name it and you can probably find it!)  Like any market, it is full of colour and life and, set against the backdrop of York's medieval buildings, it is a really interesting area to explore.

The Shambles, York

The Shambles in York is a famous old street right in the centre of the walled city.  In 2010 it won the Google Street View award for 'the most picturesque street in Britain' and you can probably see why.  It's also said to be 'the most visited street in Europe' - so it's usual to find it thronged with tourists.  It is York's oldest street, mentioned in the Domesday Book (making it over 900 years old).  The buildings you see date from the fifteenth century and are so crowded together that the overhanging first storeys almost look as though they're touching.  The medieval word 'Shamel' meant a booth or a bench and the street was originally a row of butcher's shops and houses, with produce laid out on benches and hung on hooks outside.  Meat was slaughtered there and the road has a central channel to catch the blood and offal.  Nowadays the shops sell mostly gifts and trinkets to appeal to tourists.

Barley Hall

York is jam-packed full of incredible historic buildings like this one - the stunning Barley Hall.  It is a reconstructed medieval house, once the York townhouse of the Priors of Nostell (a monastery near Wakefield) and then home to a Lord Mayor of York.  Until the 1980s the house was hidden within and under a derelict office block.  When the block was being demolished, traces of the medieval building were rediscovered.  Eventually the site was bought by the York Archeological Trust and the medieval house has been painstakingly uncovered, explored, researched and restored.  Approximately 30% of what you see is original, the rest a painstaking reconstruction using similar methods to what would have been used in the first place.  Barley Hall now functions as a museum and venue for events and weddings.  There's interesting information about the archeological dig and restoration on the website here.