DINNER AND ONE HELL OF A SHOW

Another fine day weather wise and activity wise.  Brenda and I started out for a little quilt shop called Raggy Robin.  Finding an address is hard around here.  The street names aren’t marked very well and sometimes the numbers are nonexistent.  So using the GPS finder on my phone, we walked down the street and then said we had arrived – but nothing – walked up the street and said we had passed it.  Finally, we wandered down into an old building complex and a man asked if he could help.  We told him what we were looking for and he said Yah you found it – it’s over in the corner.  Sure enough it was.  We went in to find a cozy little shop with a few offerings.  They do an on line business too.  The shop owner was fun and after buying a few things, we were on our way into town to go up to the cathedral and castle. 

The cathedral and castle are magnificent huge old buildings built in the late 11^th and early 12^th century.  So they are very old.  Much of the cathedral was closed today because of church services for Good Friday and then again will be closed on Easter Sunday.  We were invited to join the church service, but declined.  We wandered around where it was open taking pictures and peering through keyholes.  I started peering through keyholes as the docent told me to be sure to look through as it was Professor McGonagall’s classroom in the Harry Potter Movies.  The cloisters (secluded walkways) of the cathedral were also used for a lot of the school scenes when the students were walking between lessons.  As it turned out, this was a highlight for me!  As for the old castle, one can only enter the castle on a booked tour.  We weren’t interested in booking a tour, so we just enjoyed it from the outside.

After we came down from the top of the hill, we wandered around the town and found a cute little spot called Cafedral (a play on Cathedral I am sure).  We had a most delicious scone with jam and clotted cream and a latte.  It was very good and our English treat for the afternoon.  This morning we had a sumptuous English Breakfast..so I guess this evening we will finish off with fish and chips.  Wow – good thing we are leaving tomorrow to go to the Netherlands.

More walking was in order so we went down by the river and discovered that there is a little boat that goes up and down the river on a little tour.  It was only an hour long and was quite reasonable to do, so we climbed aboard and had a little float up and down.  Along the way we saw a fellow on a paddleboard with his dog.  Dogs are allowed everywhere – grocery stores, restaurants, pubs…we have seen them all over.  On the walk by the river, several were off leash. They are very well behaved and not bothering anyone or any other dog.   While traveling on the River Wear, we saw some great views of the town, buildings and bridges.  It was such a great relaxing float.  After we disembarked, we took another wander over one of the bridges and circled around the back of the town.  It really is quite lovely here. 

Time for dinner and yes – fish and chips it is.  Oh my goodness – little did we know that we were in for dinner and a show!  Girls and women of all ages, shapes and sizes have flocked into town wearing not much.  Brenda was busy taking pictures out the window of the restaurant and we were giggling and laughing.  There was a couple about our ages at another table laughing along with us.  They told us this was nothing – wait until the really hot weather…