Home Sweet Home: part 3

Ok I think it's about time I explained my choice of title for this series of posts. It's a bit silly really but just go with it. The weekend I took this trip it was 17 degrees, the sun was out (trust me, in the north this is rare, at best), I was listening to Crowded House on my ipod and we were heading to Harrogate, which just happens to be the name of my street back home. Too many home connections to be ignored. Told you it wasn't that exciting.

Ok so, as mentioned, we ended the day in the lovely little town of Harrogate. There wasn't a huge amount to do here, admittedly, but it we were perfectly content just wandering around, enjoying the weather and stopping for a hot chocolate in a little tea room.

This is Betty's Tea Room which is,apparently, very famous. It is also very expensive.

Easter display in Bettys.

Ok I have to explain this next photo. A few months before I left Mum and I were wondering around Myer and I noticed these boxes of tea that were embossed with the brand name 'Taylor's of Harrogate'. Freaky right? As soon as I decided to take this trip to Harrogate I set myself a mission of tracking down the REAL Taylor's of Harrogate Tea. Mission complete. I know it's a terrible photo but I had to rush because I didn't think the shop owners would take kindly to me photographing their merchandise.

A box of Taylor's will set you back about $15 at home; I bought a box here for a measly 1 pound 69 p. Crazy. Shame I don't actually like tea.

I've finally reached the end of my photos. My next post/s will be concerning a rather fantastic weekend in Dubin.

Home Sweet Home: part 2

From the Abbey we headed along the lawn towards the water garden, which looked something like this...

You can see the Abbey in the background on the far left of this shot - we walked along the lawns to a path that cut through the trees in the middle of this photo and brought us out somewhere on the right. We then walked around the lake and took a turn onto what turned out to be a rather steep hill, from the top of which this photo, and the one below, were taken.

Following the path along the hill brought us to the Octagon Tower. There are ten buildings like this dotted around the Studley Royal gardens, unfortunately we didn't get the time to see all of them.

The water gardens themselves were hard to photograph because it was all so flat. Here are my best attempts.

After reaching the exit to the Deer park we headed back to the bus. I couldn't resist one more shot of the Abbey.

Definitely my favourite photo of the day

The final stop of the day was Harrogate but you'll have to wait for part 3 for those photos. 

Home Sweet Home

In the middle my essay-induced stress over the weekend I took another day trip. This time we headed north! I was worried the day would be ruined by typical northern weather but I really needn't have. I think I'm going to split this post into two because I have sooo many photos I want to put up but I don't want to breach photo-overload territory.

The first stop of the day was definitely the highlight. I honestly didn't know a thing about Fountains Abbey until I got there. Turns out I was actually heading to a film location of one of my favourite movies (History Boys). I knew exactly where I was the second I spotted the ruins through the trees.

A very rare photo of yours truly

If nothing else, the photos above show that I have a penchant for sun flares and taking photos through naturally occuring frames. Hopefully they also make you want to visit this amazing place. It really was quite bizarre - we don't have anything like this back home.

After spending a good hour or so climbing through the ruins we headed towards the water garden. Stay tuned for photos!