Mum & Dad in the Yorkshire Dales

I had a list of things that Mom (AKA Mum) and Dad told me they wanted to do and places they wanted to visit whilst (oooh, fancy British word usage alert!) they were here. As you can tell, we kept them quite busy! 

We did have some down time in between visiting hither and yon - one afternoon we went to the famous Betty's  Tea House for afternoon tea. Betty's is luckily very close to my house, and 99% of the time has a line of people waiting outside and the line can stretch down the street. Low and behold the day I took my parents to Betty's, there was no line! Dad had a manly meal of smoked salmon rosti (salmon on a yummy potato pancake), and Mom and I had all the dainty girly things. 

Afternoon tea at Betty's 

Another day we took the train into York. We visited the York Minster and toured the Bedern Glazier's Studio where stained glass conservationists are repairing a lot of the medieval stained glass windows of the Minster. For hundreds of years, when the windows would break, glaziers could only add more lead to hold the broken glass together. Over time, there was more lead than stained glass, which left many of the windows unrecognizable. The conservationists are removing the "newer" lead strips and fusing the medieval stained glass using new glass bonding techniques. They are documenting everything and are etching undetectable (to the lay person) information into the stained glass so that future generations will know what was done, when, and why. Below are a few of the completely restored window tablets which were on display. 

A restored stained glass panel from the York Minster 

An interesting detail we learned on our tour is that the conservationists working on the windows, although gloved, are susceptible to lead poisoning. The male conservationists must get their blood tested every six months while the women must ever three months. Yikes! 

A restored stained glass panel from the York Minster

Mom really, really wanted to see the Shambles in York ever since reading about the medieval street in the Rick Steves' travel book. The Shambles in one of the oldest streets in York with buildings on either side that are as old as the street. The Shambles is very quaint and the buildings lean into the street and towards each other (or slant a little to the left/right). The one thing Rick Steves didn't mention is that the street is very, very short. When we turned the corner to view the Shambles, Mom asked "Is that it?" I laughed out loud as I knew she would be a bit disappointed. We walked down the Shambles, took a photo or two, and three minutes later we were on our way.

Walking the Shambles

And yet another day in Yorkshire was spent visiting one of our local manor houses. We toured the handful of formal rooms as well as the downstairs area where the servants worked and lived. As is true with most of these types of properties, no photography is allowed inside the home. But I think the back yard was much more picturesque, anyway!

Harewood house's back yard / formal garden

Harewood house's formal garden

In manor houses it was common to have a formal garden directly behind your house, and a much larger "deer park" behind the formal garden. The deer parks were (and are) still meticulously maintained, and this one is quite breathtaking. 

Harewood house deer park