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So Matt had another really bad night and was feeling quite bad this morning, such a shame, what to do as I don't think drugs can fix it?

Hutton-le-Hole

We got up, packed up and then headed onto the high street for breakfast, we had seen an interesting independent bakers which looked good yesterday and thought we would investigate for breakfast today, mainly because they had some great looking sausage rolls in the window and my boys both love sausage rolls.

We arrived and chose our breakfasts: sweet chilli sausage roll for Matt, cheese pasty for Tom and beans on toast for me.  It looked good, but Matt reported that the sausage roll was too spicy for first thing in the morning, and the coffee wasn't very good either.  Oh dear.  In fact we then went to the railway station to say goodbye to the trains and Matt had to run to the toilet.  Oh hum, not a great start to the day.

We headed back to the car and set off back home.  First stop was Hutton le Hole, which Malcolm had recommended to us.  It was a gorgeous little village set in a hollow with a tiny stream running through it.  We did our usual house window shopping deciding which we would have and came across a little craft centre with a chocolate shop in it - so I headed in for R&D purposes.  Lots of interesting hollow chocolates in different forms (one of which I recognised - my motorbike) they sell much cheaper than me, but then I paint mine with edible paint and they don't.  Nice to see what others do and the price in a shop.

Ravens at Knaresborough Castle

We then headed back to the car and drove to Knaresborough.  It was only 45 miles away but it took us about 2 hours to get there, due to small windy roads (Tom felt a little queasy), sudden closed road with no diversion at Thirsk which led us to going round and round in circles trying to get to the road out: we could see it, but every road we went down was a dead end.  Got there eventually, but words were said!  Then we had very very slow traffic in to the town itself.  We arrived weary and frustrated. On the plus side, we found a car park down by the riverside: 90p for 4 hours parking which was a huge bonus.

We went for a walk, headed up the cliffs to the castle from which we saw a Scot Rail train cross the viaduct (not sure why a Scot Rail train) so all the delays had been worth it - we saw a train.  Knaresborough is famous for is viaduct and rightfully too - it is very handsome: it has crenelations and arrow slits.  On reading the history of it - this is actually the second one, as the first one fell down just before it was opened.  Caused all manor of havoc, polluting the river, causing river levels to rise and a right mess!  They obviously started again and made a very very resilient structure - it is all commanding.

The viaduct and the River Nidd

We walked around the grounds of the castle, saw some rather naughty ravens who had been tethered after a spate of nastiness: stealing cameras and phones, abusive language, chasing children etc.  We headed into the rather nice town centre for some lunch - lovely smashed avocado on sour dough for me, a tea cake for Matt's fragile tummy and a smoked salmon and cream cheese bagel for his nibs.

We then walked down to the riverside and along the banks back to the car.  We came across Mother Shipton's Cave, but didn't go in this time.  We need to come back to do Knaresborough some justice.  We headed home after then.  I drove this time as Matt wasn't looking well.  It was slow.  Took just under 2 hours, most of which was getting through Harrogate.

So a lovely week away, feels like we've been away longer, just a shame Matt wasn't on form.