Wonderful York... with a few surprises

 Every now and again we writers need to lift our heads for an injection of inspiration. And what better place to do that than in the beautiful city of York.

We have just spent a few (very hot!) days staying in a great pub right on the city walls. It even had a beer garden which looked up at York Minster.



The Lamb and Lion, Higher Petergate, York

Despite the heat, we enjoyed exploring the city using an old guide book we'd bought on another visit back in the dim and distant past (scarily, about 24 years ago!). We weaved around the narrow streets and up and down the snickleways - the alleyways and passages which link them. They have such marvellous names. The Shambles is well known but there are others; Jubbergate, Ogleforth, Finkle Street,  Mad Alice Lane (apparently poor Alice Smith was hanged here in 1825 for... well... for being mad) and, my particular favourite, Whip-ma-whop-ma-gate.

We walked the walls, honoured the visiting steam engines of The Great Gathering at the National Railway Museum, took a trip back in time to the age of the Vikings at the Jorvik Centre and climbed York Minster tower to gaze across the roofs of the city. 

And just when we'd seen everthing we'd expected to see, we saw something we hadn't expected....

... a hedgehog trotting along the street! Priceless.