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Happy new year one and all, welcome to the twenties, at last a sensibly named decade again. Today to blow off the cobwebs and welcome in the new year, we headed for a wander around RSPB Fairburn Ings Nature Reserve. In addition to providing some fantastic views, it also gave me a chance to try out my shiney new lens!

The weather was bright and sunny, although a little cooler than the last couple of days, but still pretty perfect for a wander. We were pretty excited about the prospect of seeing a kingfisher and happily, were not disappointed with a couple of them flitting about. After a few attempts, we even managed to get a couple of half decent pictures.

There were plenty of birds about and we had a great day. I highly recommend a visit if you're ever in the area. Enjoy the photos.

Following the usual Christmas rush, we decided to have a little break, and so, now we find ourselves in a nice flat in York. We're actually right in the thick of it, only a few minutes walk from the town centre and pretty much opposite the Minster. We arrived on Sunday, just at sunset, and had a lovely sunset view of the minster from the lounge windows. Having settled in, we moseyed around York city on Monday, walkign around the city walls and pottering in the shops. We then went in the minster itself, a superb architectural construction - there was a short queue to get tickets and then we had a good wander round, taking lots of photographs and utlimately treating ourselves to a splendid replica of a gargoyle in the shop. It's hilarious!

Tuesday dawned a little cloudy. Ben went out quite early to catch a view of the minster in the frosty morning, and then cam back for breakfast. By the time we had got ourselves organised, the sun had come out and it was really quite a lovely day. We decided to head over the the castle area - we went up Clifford Tower for some views of the city and then went across the square to Fairfax House, which was really interesting, with glorious ceilings!

After a quite stop at Caffe Nero for a drink and a cake, we went over to the National Railway museum and were almost blown away by it - I'm not sure why, buut I'd anticipated glass cases full of memorabilia, but in fact, there were lots of actual trains! Amazing! There was lots that were only there to look at, but there were also many that you could go in. It was superb, and - for a free museum - absolutely superb!

And then, it was new year. Happy New Year, everyone!

Mery Christmas

Another, grand house, another Christmas. Today we went to Christmas at Castle Howard, after stopping nearby at the rather fabulous Durham Ox. When it came to it, we decided that Castle Howard was a little better than Chatsworth.

The decorations and rooms seemed a bit more emersive, there was a particularly crazy room with an upside down Christmas Tree. The weather remained much better today and we had a good walk about outside with some blue sky and sunshine before heading on to mums to finish off the long weekend. All in all nice way to get started with Christmas!

We found ourselves with a three day weekend just before Christmas and decided to make the most of it with a trip north. The plan was a drive up to Derbyshire on Thursday night before visiting Christmas at Chatsworth. We bought our tickets a few weeks ago and the drive up was fairly straightforward. We were booked into a Permier inn, which is only about 10 mins away from the house, making the journey in the morning pretty easy.

We arrived for opening just before 11 and were suprised to see how busy it already was with the main car park already close to full. There were a lot of people about, we think perhaps there were earlier tours before the pblished opening time of the house? Our tickets were timed for 11.30 so we started to head in, before being asked to check the camera bag. The cloakroom is fairly straightforward with lockers taking a £1 deposit, so we dropped off the bag and headed back towards the entrance.

There was a short queue to get in, but  the tented area in which we were waiting was decorated up with model planes and hot air balloons, so there was plenty to look at. The theme this year was "around the world in 80 days" and as travelled between each of the rooms in the house, they were decorated to represrnt a different country. The decorations were very impressive and emmersive, with particular highlights including the Moroccan room and the Chinese and Japenese rooms. There were some really pretty decorations which we had hoped to find in the shop, but although they stocked some, they didn't have some of our favourites. We managed to have a bit of a walk around the outside, down to the bottom of the lake to see the house and fountain and through the grotto. The weather initially was nice with some blue sky and sunshine, although as we started to get back towards the house, it did start to rain a little.

We stopped in the cafe for a bit to eat and a drink before heading off towards our next stop, just outside York for a visit to Castle Howard tomorrow. We're stopping in a place called The Durham Ox, which is really nice, we have a nice little room that forms part of the old barn, but is only marginally smaller than you might expect a holiday let to be. We took advantage of the large selection of te and coffee and had a little scoff of the free Yorkie bar. We had a very nice dinner in the restaurant before calling it a night. We woke up very early this morning (5am) to were ready for bed by 9pm.   

Today, we headed into London town. Having bought a voucher on Groupon for a deal at 'Fatburger' in Camden, we went directly there to have lunch. We hadn't been to Camden for a long while and it was quite busy when we arrived. But it was only a short walk to the restaurant and it was decidedly quieter there, so we settled in for our burgers. The burgers were fairly good, with a good meat-bread ratio and some nice pickle additions. But the chips made it - I had Cajun curly fries and they were really crisp and spicy! Yum! We were full up pretty quickly, so we went for a gander about Camden, wandering into the market to have a mosey about. I don't think we'd been into the actual market before - at least, not for many years - but there were some interesting items on sale and a lively atmosphere. We also stood on the bridge watching a couple navigate the locks on the canal which was quite exciting!

From there we went into Wetherspoons for a tea, as it was quite cold and we needed a pick-me-up. We sat nursing hot drinks for a while and then made our way across town. It was very busy out and about - so many tourists wandering about! We ended up going to the Natural History Museum, and we had a little look at the ice-skating out the front, and the pretty lights! We then thought we'd go in - there was a couple of hours until closing - and we hadn't seen the newest addition of the blue whale skeleton hanging in the main hall. Plus, there's the dinsoaurs... 

As usual, everything was pretty awesome - the building is a work of art in itself! We wandered a bit, looking at the blue whale from all different angles, and also at a huge segment from an ancient sequoia tree, dated as 380 million years old... Pretty impressive! From there, we headed into the dinosaur exhibit, taking in all the fossils and information. It was still pretty busy everywhere and we were getting tired, so we headed out - it was closing time anyway. We looked round a bit more, taking in the lights and atmosphere, before heading to the tube and making our way home.  

Happy new year everyone. We went bowling on new year's eve but upon our arrival it turned out we had gone to the wrong place. Hollywood bowl were very good though and transferred us across rather than making us go to the correct centre. We hadn't played for ages but had a fun couple of games - I even managed a couple of strikes! We did a bit of shopping before heading back to finish off the side table that we made on Sunday. We did actually finish it on Sunday, but decided it was a bit tall so it needed a bit more work. It's our first experiment with copper pipe and uses one of the old table leaves for a top. We're pretty pleased with it really. We had steak frites for dinner which has become something of a tradition before seeing in the new year with fireworks on the TV and outside.

After a bit of a lie-in today, we headed out to National Trust Polesden Lacey. It was very busy and we were told as we queued in the car on the way in that both the main and overflow car parks were full and it was one-in-one-out. In reality, it turned out there was loads of parking (although we were directed in to a bit where it said no entry). We started with some lunch at the cafe, which, despite being very busy, seemed to be working better than most National Trust cafes we've been to and shared a cream tea and a sandwich. We decided to have a wander around the garden which was typically bare for this time of year, though we were impressed by the clever touches that included a Polesdon monopoly game that you could play and over by the bees, mini stockings as "even the bees have been caught up in the Christmas buzz".

We also got timed tickets for the house, going in for the last entry at 3. It was decorated up for a 1930s Christmas with at least one Christmas tree in each room, and an impressive tree in the entrance hall. There was lots to see including some amateur dramatics with several actors dressed up in period costume performing fictional scenes from the time period with some talk of the abdication of King Edward. We finished off our visit with a wander around the shop, before heading home for a bit of New Year bake off on the TV.    

Merry Christmas everybody. I hope you've all had a wonderful day and are having a nice relaxing evening.