Road trip up North - UK trip Part 4

So on with the next part of recollections of my trip.

After a few weeks of celebrating my mum's birthday and meeting up with childhood friends I had plans to take a bit of a road trip. Mum was cruising off somewhere warm to carry on her celebrations and I decided to hire a car and see where it took me.

First though I had arranged to meet up with a friend that I hadn't seen for 20 years. Unbelievable really. We met in the city for a coffee and 4 hours later we were still in the same spot! There was a lot of catching up to do... Her laugh was just the same and it transported me back to being about 14 where we would stay up late after the Banwen Friday night discos discussing the details of the night....

As much as I truly loved every. single. second of being with the people that I saw, I also knew that I needed to re-charge, and the best way for me to do that was to enjoy my own company. The dominant introvert part of me was yelling for me to stop, so I listened.

So it was off to M&S foodhall to indulge in some fancy pants ready meal for a night in. The first quiet night for what felt like an age...

I then had time to organise my drive up the motorway to my other "home". 

My childhood and teenage years were spent in Wales but most of my adult life I spent in England. I did some study in the Midlands, worked for a short while in Doncaster, then I lived and worked in the Potteries area of Staffordshire. I commuted to Leeds for a number of years before settling in a little market town in North Yorkshire and working across the county. 

There were many very happy years in Yorkshire and I consider myself very much 'at home' when I'm oop North!

So the first stop on the road trip was Leeds. My drive up was perfect. With my Spotify playlist blasting, I sailed through the M5/M6 Birmingham traffic and cruised through Cheshire. (I knew I was in Cheshire as every other car seemed to be a black Range Rover!) It even stayed dry on the M62 - that's a first!

I was meeting two friends for morning tea and one of these friends had moved from Brisbane back to Yorkshire. The last time I saw her she was expecting so I was rather excited to see little A for the first time. 

As is the case with good friends, morning tea turned into lunch (thank you V) and then it was time to get back on the road heading to Lancashire. 

Now that I'm living on the doorstep of a city I find that I do miss the rural landscape of the countryside. I'm lucky enough that my friends back home let me stay with them to indulge in country life and enjoy their wonderful views.

Good food, good wine, great friends - I couldn't have asked for more....

Being back with A and W was so relaxing, comfortable and familiar. They gave me such a lovely welcome and again, within 2 minutes there was a cup of tea in my hand and I felt that I had just popped in to say hi. 

We took the dogs for a walk around the woods behind the castle at the top of the High Street. Yes, I took all of that for granted before I moved away. There really is a castle at the top of the High Street where I used to live.

Stanforths pie shop was closed but looked just the same. I sometimes used to take Sibs in there after school pick up and get some ham off the bone for school pack up sandwiches. She always managed to sneak a bit to eat on the walk back home up the hill.....

I returned to work when Sibs was about a year old and she went to a Nursery in the town. On the way home after picking her up we used to drive down the road alongside the castle wall and there were sheep in the field just to the side of these cottages in the photo below. Every single time they were pointed out by Sibs who just used to call them "Mehs". Yes, the mehs were still there....

The photo on the left below was the view out of my office window when I worked in the town. Lucky I had to stand up to see out of that little window, otherwise I'm sure many an hour would have been lost!

So many memories. 

I think Skipton and the dales will always have a little bit of my heart.

Special friendships. UK trip part 3

Here's another snippet of my time back in my homeland.

After topping up the vitamin D, I headed back to Wales to spend some time with close friends. 

I feel so lucky, so incredibly lucky that I still count my school friends as my close friends. We may not see each other for a couple of years yet we fall back into such a familiar chatter of conversation that as cliche as it sounds - it just feels like yesterday that we were together. 

They are my cosy jumper and favourite pair of jeans friends.

The kind of friends that are always there, albeit thousands of miles away....

Those friends that you just feel so comfortable with.

The friends that are in all the photographs over the years. 

A few of these special people I have known since Nursery days - that would be when we were 3 or 4 years old! Not worth thinking about how long ago that was...! Others, I spent those crazy school days with and some of us carried on to crazier days at Uni together. 

So it has become a bit of a regular event that when I find myself back home we organise a get together. Four of us had managed an afternoon catch up the previous week (that was the tea, wine cocktails, back to tea afternoon I mentioned in an earlier post) and we planned a larger gathering for the bank holiday weekend. 

M has hosted these gathering on quite a few visits and this time it was from her new place. M made the move across the border to England to study and then began her working life in London. Some years later Wales called her home and she moved back. At first the family lived just outside the city and then more recently they have moved to a property with land. It's a dream place.

The minute I drove past the pub and up the lane I loved it. Not hard to see why.

spot the happy dog playing in the water bath.

Griff the dog came to greet me and he was in absolute heaven with so much space to run around, fences to jump, chickens to watch and sticks to carry. 

The kettle was immediately filled and placed on the Aga and the inevitable observations were made on how much the 'children' had grown. I use the word 'children' loosely.... they are beautiful young ladies.

It struck me during this particular afternoon that in the couple of weeks that I had been away from Australia I had almost exclusively spoken Welsh. I had reverted back to my mother tongue without a second thought. That was a lovely thought.

As the afternoon moved into early evening more and more people came and sitting around the kitchen table was the place to be. Nothing changes does it? More and more bubbles were poured, stories shared and phones passed around to scroll through photos.

Conversation was easy. We moved from family and friends updates and working life into the benefits of supermarket home delivery! At this point someone pointed out that this was rather a "middle aged type of topic" so we quickly changed the subject! That was possibly the time that there was a moment of madness when four of us girls decided that it would be a good idea to have a go at a dancing thingy with the Wii. Actually, in hindsight, I'm pretty sure that I had nothing to do with the decision and I just found myself in front of a screen, holding a white control in my hand and singing (rather than dancing) to 'Fame'! 

I think the under 18's in the house were in awe of the fact that we still had the moves....or maybe those looks were them being a little horrified at the sight of so much jigging and giggling!

The most worrying thing is the fact that it was all captured on video! It took a few attempts trying to re-watch the footage as the tears of laughter were blurring my vision! Please let me never see the sight of my behind like that again!!

Then it was back to the kitchen table....

Towards the end of the night we made it to the sofas. It was cheese and biscuits and singing time. My lovely talented friends had recently been on TV and I was treated to a showing of the programme. Biases aside - they were flippin' marvellous!

Next morning it was wellies on and I had a walk around the farm. I had already mentally moved into the barn next door to the main farmhouse when I was told about the potential for conversion...!

As we continued with the walk there was a funny moment when it was pointed out to me that I did not need to keep my eyes down as I trudged through the long grass - there were no snakes to look out for! 

So with another great weekend under my belt I left with some fresh hen eggs and a head full of wonderful memories to tie me over until next time. 

Diolch am noswaith arall o'r cyfeillgarwch gore. x