Spring Staycation - Part Two

Following on from my last post, Mick had some holiday to take from work at the end of March so we decided to have a staycation. I wrote about the days out we had during the first part of the holiday in my Spring Staycation - Part One post. 

We'd now reached Wednesday and we visited somewhere very familiar to us, Haworth. We just love this village which was the home of the literary sisters, The Brontës. The Parsonage where they lived is now a museum which houses the largest collection of Brontë items in the world. This is the dining room where Charlotte, Emily and Anne did much of their writing. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and Agnes Grey were written in this room and it's believed that Emily died here, on the sofa. Haworth itself is a picturesque village with a steep, cobbled main street where many independent shops can be found.

We had planned to take a walk along the canal at Five Rise Locks later in the day but we'd had snow flurries in Haworth. In fact, I think we had all four seasons in one day as it also rained, was extremely windy and the sun put in an appearance too. We put our walk on hold but I wasn't too disappointed as it gave me the chance to visit Knitters Paradise at Coldspring Mill instead. Of course, I didn't leave empty handed.

On Thursday we visited Ripon. We always enjoy looking around the cathedral and on this particular day, the students from Ampleforth College were rehearsing for a concert they were performing later in the day. It was lovely hearing the beautiful piano and violin as we wandered around.

There's a Thursday market in Ripon so we had a look around that and I managed to pick up a few plants for the garden before we continued on our journey to Masham, mainly so we could visit Theakston's Brewery and stock up on some of Mick's preferred tipple.

We'd booked tickets to an artisan market which was being held in the grounds of Harewood House for the Friday. We've visited this particular market a couple of times before but I'm sorry to say that this one wasn't very good, there were much fewer stalls than previously, but these events allow us to explore the grounds too so it didn't really matter. Tickets can be upgraded to include entry to the house but we didn't bother with that. Afterwards we called into the garden of remembrance to take flowers for my mum as the following day was the seventh anniversary of the day she died. I was pleased to see that the roses we'd taken for my dad the week before were still going strong, plus the tête-à-têtes we planted were flowering too so there was plenty of colour.

On the Saturday we had a trip up to Richmond, a friend was exhibiting her artwork so we went to support her. We made the most of the jaunt and had a wander around the town. In the distance you can just see Culloden Tower, built as a folly to commemorate the Hanoverian victory over the Jacobites at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. There's a Saturday market in Richmond which we had a quick look around. It's been many years since I've visited Richmond Castle, it's somewhere I'd like to see again but sadly, that wasn't the day, it was blowing a gale and was bitterly cold, despite the sunshine and blue sky so that's still on hold.

We had planned to visit the Yorkshire Dales on the Sunday but the weather forecast was for heavy rain and wind with gusts of up to 50mph, definitely not the weather for a gentle stroll. Instead we took ourselves off to see the John Atkinson Grimshaw exhibition at Leeds Art Gallery. Born in a back-to-back house in Leeds, he was a Victorian-era artist known for painting nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes. It's many years since I've visited Leeds Art Gallery, it's actually very rare that I venture into Leeds these days, but it was well worth the trip. I'd seen the exhibition advertised and was keen to see it so I'm glad I got the chance.

Mick was back to work again on the Monday but I'm sure you'll agree that we packed plenty into his time off. There are so many interesting places we're able to visit on days out, town, coast, countryside, art, literature, science, history, nature, we've got it all going on. Aren't we lucky.