Easter Monday Trip To York

Weather a little dodgy today, so we drove to York. First stop, the world's largest railway museum, the National Railway Museum. All boys got very excited. It is a fantastic place. Best exhibits were a Japanese bullet train:

Officially world's fastest steam locomotive, 'Mallard' (there is some dispute over the real record holder):

The beautiful Duchess of Hamilton:

And a mad, but great looking ad, proclaiming that Skegness was bracing (in which case why on earth would I want to go there):

After the National Railway Museum we went into town. York is one of those fantastically historical towns, which has layers of history each built on top of the last. Founded by the Romans, then added to by Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and medieval Britain, it has historically been one of the most important English towns. It has considerable stretches of city wall and everything is a very walkable, because when it was built there were no cars. We had a look at the Minster:

The tiny Medieval streets, the thinnest being 'The Shambles':

And circled the very photogenic Clifford's Tower:

Before settling upon spending some more time with railways, this time a model railway exhibition near the real York station, before setting off back to Addingham with the feeling that one day is not enough. York really needs a long weekend, or two.

Easter Sunday Dales Walk

Up in the Yorkshire Dales for a week; staying in Addingham. Today we went for a walk around Grassington to get ourselves acclimatised to some walking. Here are a few pics:

It was one of those days when it was bright skies one minute and rain the next. The photo, above, illustrates this rather well.

Sportsman George

Not content with bagging a brace of goals recently for London Rd in a game against Evergreen FC (his first for London Rd) George had a good showing in his first fencing competition.

George has recently taken at fencing at Verulam. He also has a friend across the road, Clement, who fences with the local fencing club. They both went to the University of Hertfordshire recently for a competition; George's first.

There were six competitors and George came a tidy third (Clement came first). As they were leaving the University sports village, the venue for today, Paul, George's fencing teacher said "Well done George, how does it feel to be third in the county?"

I think henceforth we will be finding a few more minority sports and throwing the kids at them to see if we can get a decent showing.