On Your Mark!

Bikes, bikes, and more bikes!!!

Another way North Yorkshire decorated for Le Tour is by spray-painting a junk bike (usually yellow, but sometimes in the other jersey colors), and strapping them onto their business, home, tree, what have you. 

Typical Tour de France decor

Here's a random bike across a river in Knarsburough. Please note: the bikers didn't come by here, it's just the home-owner's way of feeling involved and showing their spirit. So many bikes were used as decoration, I honestly don't know where they all came from! 

Bike over the river

A bike and bunting on a village square pub.

Bike and bunting near Blind Jack's pub

A tiny bike next to a tiny, yet decorated, shop window. (And next to a second floor half-door that opens onto air?)

Wee yellow bike and Le Tour window display

Even churches got into the spirit! 

Bike on a church wall

And pubs well out into the countryside.

Bike on The Welly wall

Here's a tiny King-of-the-Mountain bike on a village pharmacy wall. 

King of the Mountain bike decor

And right next door a rather whimsical flower-power bike. 

Pedal Power bike display 

The oldest sweet shoppe in England displayed an old-timey penny farthing bike. Note the garlic and baguette on the bike to honor the French :-)

Sweet shoppe penny farthing bike

Another bike in a village centre.

Village centre bike

More wee bikes.

Another King of the Mountain bike

Leader in points and yellow jersey bikes

Look! Up in the tree! In the graveyard! Yet another bike!!

Bike and bunting in a graveyard tree

And when a shop doesn't have much display space, they still make it happen! 

Sideways bike in the dales

Thankfully, the closer we got to the actual event, the less windging was heard. As you will see in my future posts (or have already seen if you are my Facebook friend), North Yorkshire put on one heck of a Grand Départ and a good time was had by all!!!

Yorkshire Prepares for the World to Watch!

North Yorkshire was positively electric during the run-up to its hosting of the Grand Départ, the first two days of Le Tour de France. Yes, there was plenty of windging (complaining), but by and large, the closer the event came, the more people prepared and got excited. Towns and roads where the tour would pass through, however quickly, fixed their roads, slapped on new coats of paint, gave their towns an all-over good scrub, and decorated. 

T-Shirt Bunting

In the village of Knarsburough, school children decorated white t-shirts which was then strung up as bunting all through the village center. 

Stores ordered specialty decals for their window displays. I loved this mustachio'd, beret-wearing French cyclist. 

Store front decal

In our town's main square (day one's finish line), an old tree was cut down and the stump left in place, carved, and will be on display for as long as possible. 

Eiffel Tower

Yorkshire Rose and Fleur de lis

Le Tour date

Ummm... Something to do with Le Tour

In York (day two's starting point), yellow bunting was strung along many of the city centre's shopping district streets. 

Town centre bunting 

And my favorite knit shop helped out in the cutest possible way. They worked with the North Yorkshire burrough councils and the local knitting contingency to create wee jersey jumpers. The pattern was free and fairly simple, so tens of thousands of the wee jersey jumpers were strung up as bunting all along the racecourse.

Le Tour jumper bunting

Yellow jersey is worn by the overall leader of Le Tour

Green jersey is worn by the cyclist with the most points 

White jersey is worn by the overall best young team member

Red-polka dot jersey (and my favorite) is worn by best mountain climber, aka: King of the Mountain

More Le Tour jumper bunting

Here's a short video about the knit bunting, created by Sky Television (a cable company who sponsor a cycling team).

Swanky Swinton Park

One of my American friends recently moved from the UK to Japan. Before she left, she wanted to go to as many places and see as many things as she could. One of those places was a small manor home less than an hour from our town that is now a hotel and restaurant. She had never been, so she corralled me and another of our friends, made reservations, dressed in appropriate attire, and headed out for a fancy "ladies who lunch" lunch.

Swinton Park

As we drove up the winding driveway to the estate we saw a few white deer, a sure sign that we were in for a treat! The manor house has been a home, a school for girls, dormitory-of-sorts for children during the wars, and is now a hotel, restaurant, and culinary school. I have my eyes on their "Tastes of India" cooking class coming up. 

Care for an Afternoon Tea?

The rooms inside were immaculate and very, very quiet. Us American ladies had to keep our giggling and boisterous nature in check! The dining room had only two other parties with plenty of empty tables scattered throughout the room. However, when I called to book a 1:00 lunch, they said they could only accommodate us at 1:15. We thought it was a bit strange, but the pageantry in presenting each course made us realize they couldn't provide the same service if each party had arrived at the same time. I mean, this is a place where the maître de put the napkin in your lap for you, for goodness sake. Fancy! 

Asparagus Velluté

My starter was asparagus velouté. I still don't know what velouté means, but it was damn good! The plate/bowl arrived with four sprigs of asparagus, several small croutons, and some sort of mint gel-cubes. One of the servers then poured the green liquid over the top. And it was over the top!

Pork and amazing other stuff

My main dish included pork prepared three ways, a few small gnocchi, butternut purée. And some roasted veg. I wanted to lick my plate clean, but I did as best I could whilst remaining a dainty, well-heeled lady. (I hope I fooled 'em all!)

Chocolate hazelnut deliciousness

Dessert was some sort of chocolate mocha ice cream hazelnut heaven. We were all stuffed up to our necks after dessert, but weren't quite ready to leave. We retired to the tea room (see second picture, above) for some tea/coffee where they brought us yet another plate of truffles. 

A gal could get used to this kind of pampering... And then have to buy larger clothing! 

PS my friend is now in Japan enjoying coffee in cans, sake, and squid jerky and trying to decode kanji using her phone's app with limited success.

Yorkshire Goes Hipster! Pop-up Diner Dinner

Last year a local farmer's daughter came home on summer break from culinary training and talked her dad into turning their unused barn into a pop-up diner. The diner was so popular last year, she made it back this year for round two of the Hay Bale Diner, her one-month, weekends-only diner on her parent's farm. A bunch of us had heard how good it was last year, so we booked ourselves a table and had a grand old time!

Barn turned diner

Upon arrival, we checked in at the barn and had a quick look around the barn. The atmosphere and weather couldn't have been better or more gorgeous. In the picture below, the school on the hill is a private Yorkshire day school that is supposedly quite fancy. To me it looked like Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry! 

View from the pop-up diner

Five ladies (three of our guys are behind their partner's right shoulders) from our group enjoying the elderflower cordials everyone received as a kick-starter for the evening. 

Pre-diner elderflower cordial

The inside of the barn was super-cute, done up in gingham, bunting, and old timey candles. 

Getting seated for diner

And of course there was wine!

Some of our table mates

While we were still milling about outside, we enjoyed an amuse-bouch that was delicious, but I completely forgot what it was. The main course included scrumptious pulled pork, and apple slaw that was the best slaw I've ever had, a pork dumpling, and spinach. Each bite was delicious! 

Dinner - YUM!

The dessert was a dark chocolate brownie with cherries, a cherry sorbet, and a salted pistachio brittle that was crazy delicious. I could have eaten my weight in that brittle!!

Dessert - DOUBLE YUM!!

The view from the barn was nothing short of amazing, even after sundown. I certainly hope the culinarily-inclined farmer's daughter returns next summer - if Bill and I are still in Yorkshire, we will definitely return! 

End of night view from barn turned diner

Mr. Darcy, Mr. Darcy!!

The day after our adventures at Royal Ascot, the four gals decided to stop off at Chatsworth House to break up our multi-hour drive home. Chatsworth House is an incredibly large country estate owned by the Cavendish family, who are the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. 

You may recognize Chatsworth House from the picture below, as it was immortalized as Pemberly in the BBC production of "Pride and Prejudice" starting a young Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. It was more recently used in the BBC production "Death Comes to Pemberly", a story (I think) about Elizabeth Bennet's (now Mrs. Darcy) n'er-do-well brother-in-law who is suspected of murder most foul. But I digress....

Chatsworth House, AKA Pemberly

It was a beautiful day, so we took a short walk around the garden before heading indoors for a tour of the state rooms. Like many of the historic manor houses throughout England, tours of Chatsworth House are conducted through a portion of the house, while a majority of the house remains as private use for the family. 

Grand hall

The grand hall was pretty darned amazing. In most of these historic houses, the grand entrance was a show of wealth, opulence, and style. I just loved Chatsworth House's grand staircases, intricate ceiling, and massive fireplace

Bird's eye view of grand hall

Another bird's eye view of the grand hall

The picture below is of one of many similar looking bedrooms we toured in the house. This particular room was special, however, as it housed the prisoner, Mary Queen of Scots, for a short time while she was in the area. Pretty swanky prison, if I do say so myself! That said, we all know how it ended for Mary, so she didn't have it that great in the end...

Prisoner Mary Queen of Scots slept here

The picture of the library didn't turn out so great, but this room (which we couldn't enter) looked amazing. The volunteer said the family actually still used this room quite often. It looked so cozy - I could totally see myself getting lost in a book or playing Words with Friends on my iPad for hours in there! 

Fancy schmancy library

And no manor house is complete without a 20+ person dining table with solid silver candelabras! 

Formal dining hall

After touring the state rooms we went outside for a stroll in their formal gardens. I have found that England is mad-crazy for ice cream and you can purchase the stuff at nearly every historic site, event, theater, or... well, you get the idea. We each picked up a "99p Flake" which is soft serve ice cream in a cone or cup, with a flakey chocolate stick shoved into the ice cream at a jaunty angle. The strange thing is it always costs more like £2 to £3, depending on if you get a single or double, so I don't know why it's still called the 99p Flake!

Formal gardens

We strolled around the formal gardens for about an hour, finishing up our 99p Flake and catching some rare vitamin d.

Second water feature within formal gardens

And then we had to hit the road and head home, completing our three-day extravaganza of fun. 

Up close view of water feature

...And They're Off! Short Video Clips from Royal Ascot

I took a few videos while we were at Royal Ascot that I thought may be fun to post. While it definitely doesn't feel the same as being there, you at least get the idea of what it was like during the race day festivities. 

The video below is of the finishing stretch of the Gold Cup race; the winner gets something like £500,000 and a gold cup, presented by the Queen herself. This is the race I won £3.60... on a £4 bet. The betting kiosks definitely have a good thing going for themselves!

After the sixth and final race of the day, attendees are encouraged to rally 'round the bandstand and sing along to the oldies but goodies. Union Jacks and songbooks were handed out, and although we saw a lot of people streaming towards the exits, our taxi wasn't scheduled to arrive for another 45 minutes. Therefore, we snaked our way through the crowd towards the bandstand and had us a right jolly good time! 

My British friends were astounded that I had never heard this song (below) before. Have you? Perhaps it's an English pre-school song that never made its way across to our neck of the woods. 

Now this is a song everyone should know! 

The crowds were still singing when we got a text from our taxi letting us know it was time to go. Sadly, we made our way towards the exit. But I will never forget this a once-in-a-lifetime adventure!! 

If we're still around next year, I may try to talk Bill into going to Royal Ascot... he'd look GREAT in a morning suit and top hat! :-)

Fancy Ladies at Royal Ascot!!

The day of Royal Ascot arrived!! My friends and I got all dolled up in our fancy dresses and bespoke hats and caught our taxi to the race course. 

A bespoke hat!

Once we arrived, we got ourselves a table, some champagne, betting forms, and proceeded to research the horses for our picks on each race. Oh, and people watching; we did lots & lots of people watching! 

Champagne and race forms

We took a moment to pose for a group shot before heading into the racecourse area to stake out our area for the rest of the day. 

Fancy dressed ladies

On our way into the racecourse, I got a good photo of one of the lawns with all of the decorations, people, and festivities. What fun!

Bunting, festivities, and fun

Right on schedule, the royal procession began. We had great "seats" (standing room only, but up on risers) - I still can't believe it, but I saw the Queen of England (in blue), her husband, the Duke of Edinburough (seated next to her), and Prince Harry. Princess Anne was also in the procession, but I saw her later, and only from the back. Everyone sang a rousing rendition of "God Save the Queen," and I honestly got goosebumps. 

The arrival of the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh, and Prince Harry

Once the Queen arrived, the race day officially began! I took the photo below of the crowds just before the first of six races. It really doesn't do justice to the amount of people who were there that day. It was PACKED!!

The raceway was very, very crowded!

I lost £2 on each of the first two races. In fact, my picks came in dead last on those two races. D'oh! I skipped betting on the 3rd race, and placed a split bet on the 4th and biggest race of the day, the Gold Cup. I bet £4 - £2 to win and £2 to show - my horse came in second place, so I won a whopping £3.60 on my £4 bet - woohoo!! 

After the Gold Cup race, we popped out of the grandstand and high tailed it over to the winners circle in time to see the winning horse and jockey honored by the Queen. 

The Gold Cup winning horse

The Queen hung out in the winner's circle for a solid ten minutes. We watched her chat with a bunch of other royals and royal hangers-on. Prince Harry came out for just a minute and hammed it up, it was a royal good time! 

The Queen of England