Snooooooo (part 2)

It's been snowing again in London. Above's a pic of Vauxhall park - complete with snowman and dog about to cock its leg and make it a yellow snowman . . .

Oooooop North

This weekend was spent oooop North, visiting my family home in North Yorkshire with Catherine. It was a super nice break - made even nicer by the beautiful weather. Saturday was spent watching the rugby and shopping in our village farmers shop - where we bought some amazing belly pork and beef. Sunday was spent up on the Moors visiting Helmsley, Rievaulx Abbey (in photo above) and the amazing Star pub at Harome. This was followed by a night down our local pub taking part in the Sunday night quiz - where we came a respectable 3rd.

On Monday I took Catherine on a tour of Chris Quigley - the early years. First off we toured through Boroughbridge (the town I mainly grew up in), and then off to Ornhams Hall (the house I lived until I was 15ish - photo above). We then went up to Alterton Park Castle (where my father had a restaurant and museum), onto Knaresborough for lunch and then onto Harrogate in the afternoon (where I was born) - where we had afternoon tea in the uber-famous Betty's (see Catherine in photo above)

We spent most of today (Tuesday) relaxing, and also took a quick trip down to the river at Helperby where, last summer, my dog, Rastus, was saved from drowning by 3 Latvians in a boat . . . We didn't see any Latvians this time, though there were a few Polish people hanging around - no doubt ready to save drowning dogs . . .