Up North

On Friday me and Jamie took a trip 'up North' to Leeds to visit Grace who has moved there for work.

So nice and early we set off to Exeter airport ready to board the plane for the staggeringly long 1 hour flight!

After having most of our clothes removed, our bags rooted through and half of our toiletries taken off us we managed to get get through to departures and board.

As soon as the seatbelt sign went off it went back on and we began our descent into Leeds Bradford. 

Our first stop was Harewood House so Grace could go back to work and me and Jamie could explore the 18th century building and grounds. 

A few photos of inside, that I honestly didn't take as cameras aren't allowed. 

We also visited an exhibition - Marcus Adams: Royal Photographer. On display were photographs of two generations of the Royals during their childhood years.....

As we walked around we learnt how Marcus Adams devoted his career to the photography of children. Then at the end came the shocker of his self portrait....not sure I would want him hanging around with my children....

Next we went to check out the gardens...

and then on to the bird park where we saw penguins...

This dude looked like he was checking out his house and considering some DIY! 

 Or maybe he was considering relocating to get away from the invader heron...

Then on to the headless parrot and the bird with a ball bearing on his head...

 ...they have strange birds up North!

Talking of strange birds, it was time to go back, get ready and head out for a few drinks.

After a ridiculous amount of cocktails in a rock bar we went dancing....if you can call it that...

NOTE: Highly selected photos used! There are much much worse ones which I have been told cannot see the light of day.

The next morning, well afternoon, after we had slightly recovered and had breakfast we headed into Harrogate to have tea at the famous Bettys.

Jamie was slightly disappointed that she paid for an empty cup....

...but the posh tea soon arrived and put her out of her misery. 

The tea apparently tasted really good so she decided to buy some from the shop, however still feeling delicate she failed to see the weights and prices so paid a fortune for a bag of leaves - ooooops!

Afterwards we strolled around the pretty shops....

and then headed to the Yorkshire Dales to visit Bolton Abbey.

And go for a walk in the Valley of Desolation - oo errr!

Where even the sheep looked ruined!

 We found an unusual tree full of coins so I added my own :-D

And then we headed back over the river to leave.

On the way back to the house we stopped off to pick something up for dinner.

Now feeling hungover and after a long walk I was in need of carbs and grease so I did wonder what exactly we were doing in the greengrocers -  even though it was very pretty. 

It turns out we were having turkey salad for dinner?!?! And although I dont eat salad at the best of times it was very yummy, particularly followed by crisps, chocolate and ice cream ;-)

After a quite night in watching TV and relaxing we were ready to get up early (well I'm not exactly a morning person but I was ready-ish) to head into York. 

We saw the place that Guy Fawkes was born.

And looked around the wiggly roads and pokey shops.

We found a bear shop....

...where the abused Charlie bears were back to haunt me.....but luckily this time the bear police were there to keep them under control.

Next we went to the City Art Gallery to have a look around. 

The permanent collection was really good but there was also an exhibition displaying ceramic pots by the artist Gordon Baldwin. I didn't like the pots much and had a much better time reading through the visitor comments book - I wasn't alone in thinking this...

Some were more imaginative.

I was sitting down on the sofa area when reading these, getting annoyed by the video of the artist talking about the pots on repeat, and so this has to be my favourite one....

After going for a walk on the city wall and having a roast dinner it was time to head to the airport. 

We got there an hour before our flight was supposed to leave, so we had plenty on time to use the self service check in machine and have a look around the shops - didn't we?!?!

Well no it turns out we didn't. 

All the compter systems were down so three different flights worth of people were queuing up waiting to be told what what going on. 

There were only about 30 of us but the staff af the airport couldn't organise their way out of a paper bag. With about five minutes left before we were supposed to take off we were getting worried as we still had to go through security, where we were most likely get half stripped, our bags rummaged through and things taken off us.

I went up to ask and the woman at the desk rudely told me that she had already done the Exeter flight manually - oh well er SORRY (sarcastically) it would have been very helpful if you actually told us what you were doing. 

Finally we checked in and headed to security, which didn't go as badly as we thought, although they did have their suspicions that Jamie was smuggling diamonds and checked her stash of Swarovski jewellery. 

Afterwards we had to navigate our way to the gate, via building sites and through closed shops.

Such a pretty airport.

When we finally made the gate a nice lady kindly announced to the whole plane waiting in a queue 'now the last two passengers have finally arrived we can begin boarding the plane' - CHEERS!! I put my head down to avoid the evil glares and noticed the back of the boarding pass!!

Hmmmmmmmmm!!!