The Last of Yorkshire (in a manner of speaking)

 

On Friday we had the great pleasure of lunching with two of my fellow alumni from the Leeds Trinity Victorian Studies M.A.; and that's going back a long way. We went to Piccolino's in Ilkley where I met up with them a couple of years ago, when I made my first post Covid trip to Yorkshire. I have to say the food and service was not as good this time as last, but we were all there for the company and so we didn't complain. A friendly waiter offered to take a photo of us all, and we must have been enjoying ourselves as we were the last to leave from the lunch service. 

While we were away we had had a cry for help from son no. 2 as the handle on the front door of the Glasgow flat had given up the ghost and he didn't know how to fix it. So we had to rejig our plans for Saturday somewhat, and set off really early. This was so that, as previously arranged, we could see my cousin who lives on the coast in Northumberland, take a side trip to Glasgow to fix the door handle and still get to our Inverness hotel at a reasonable hour.

It was therefore a packed day ( and an expensive one as, in addition to buying a hack saw and a handle it turned out we needed a drill as well). I say we, but you know, I never go near a power tool, it was all down to the OH. It was lovely to see my cousin and her husband, last encountered at my mother's funeral in 2004, and honestly it was like it had only been yesterday. The handle got replaced, I got some time with son no 2, and we got to Inverness in good time.

The following day we'd arranged to have lunch in Dornoch with a friend from the M Litt I did at UHI, which is more recent than the Victorian Studies MA but still a while ago. She has just started a new job as head of humanities at a large secondary school near her home and some of the stories she had to tell about school life made my hair curl. She was looking well on it though and it was, as always, a delight to see her. 

And after lunch we made our leisurely way up to the north coast and caught a ferry back to Orkney. We'll be here now until the first week of December, and I'm already crossing my fingers very very hard that we will get away because the weather has  caused huge disruption to the ferry services over the past few weeks and we're only just into autumn. Both companies have been cancelling services left right and centre; today is Thursday and they're already saying there will be no service from today until at least Saturday and the weekend is looking doubtful...maybe the end of  November will be dead calm?