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We’re on HOLIDAY. For three days at least, but the Fringe sort of counts (for the kids anyway).
We’re staying in York for the next three nights and stopped off at Mother Shipton’s Cave on the way down from Thirsk. The water is particularly mineral heavy and can petrify an object left under it in three months. Phoebe got a drop on her hand and spent the rest of the day worrying she’d turn to stone. The idiot. That, of course is my dream. Maybe when I am dead they can hang me from the ledge and I can finally have my dream to join the ftones realised.
Ernie really wanted to visit the broken down castle opposite the cave, because he was convinced he might find weapons there. He has got very into instruments of war and later told me he wanted a real suit of armour, a real sword, a real gun, a real cannon and a real cannon ball. I think this sort of thing fascinated me as a kid too and I haven’t turned into a serial killer (I need to murder a couple more to get that honour) so it’s probably not a sign of anything. We needed to get going, but once in York we were able to take him to Clifford’s Tower, which didn’t have any spare old weapons lying around in it, but had some vertiginous staircases, soaked with rain water, so that made the experience exciting. I joined English Heritage whilst there, which took ages and so I hardly saw anything, but I can now go to Clifford’s Tower for free any time I want, so suck on that.
Having seen a sign outside, we attempted to explain why 150 Jews had chosen to kill themselves in the tower rather than give themselves up to the mob of York people who wanted to rip them apart in 1973. Oh sorry, no 1190. That kind of thing would never happen nowadays.
It turns out it’s hard to explain racism and illogical hatred to children. Which given how illogical they are, shows how fucked up adults can be.
Then we went on a merry-go-round because that’s the kind of juxtaposition that being a parent throws up. I am glad I live in the 21st and not the 12th Century.
It was a good start to the holiday season though. The kids were well-behaved and we did some stuff and went with the flow. It took a little while to get them down to sleep in the Air BnB, but we did it in time to watch the latest Better Call Saul, before we collapsed into bed.
Tomorrow we’re going to see how chocolate is made and then going to the Jorvik Centre to see what Vikings smelled like. The Tales of Robin Hood and the Oxford Story may have fallen by the wayside, but the Jorvik Centre still goes. It’s my favourite kind of entertainment, travelling round in a slow moving transport looking at animatronic dioramas. I haven’t been to one for ages and I think my previous trip to the Jorvik Centre predates this blog by many years. I hope one day their will be a museum celebrating all the different animatronic dioramas that there have ever been. And then ultimately a museum of all the animatronic museum museums.
York is ace though. Really looking forward to the next couple of days.
