Monday

It was Stephen's birthday so we woke up to present opening. Amongst his presents was a huge bag of mini eggs - just how did my cat know that he (and I) loved them?

We decided to have a fairly easy day as we were both suffering a bit, so we went to Whitby. I bought a new pair of walking boots as I felt it was a bit useless having a spare pair that could only be worn with a paper towel wrapping in side, Stephen also bought me (my birthday is a week later) a beautiful Celtic cross pendant with a lump of jet in it (I'm wearing it in the pictures). The morning was so nice we sat on a bench for lunch. If you notice in the pictures that I have a wine glass - its not because I never travel anywhere without one just in case, but because one of the glasses in the house was cracked so I thought I'd replace it with a cheap CO-OP one.

We then went to Sandsend for a walk on the beach so that I could test my new boots. It had started to rain by that time and there seemed to be loads of people in cars reading books. Maybe one day we'll be like that - going for a drive and then because its raining having to sit in the car reading a book because its better than talking to each other. Or maybe it's the more mature person's version of 'dogging', just get into a strangers car and read about it, saves on energy, mess and lessens the chance of catching your death.

Then it was back to the house to get our glad rags on before we went back to Whitby to visit Green's. It was nice to be in posh clothes and real shoes again. Unfortunately I had a bit of a hair disaster as although I dried it straight within seconds it looked like a bad 80s perm. As always the meal and ambience at Greens was fantastic and we had a great evening.

Tuesday

I have never watched Heartbeat (well only a few minutes at the end when I was waiting for another programme to start), but I felt I should go to Heartbeat country so we arranged our walk to 'Aidensfield' , going via Grosmont and along the old railway line. It was a lovely walk - we saw two herons and a field of Aberdeen Angus cattle (including a sweet woolly calf). Finally we came upon Goathland. Now, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I assumed it would be a nice little village with lots of quaint little houses. All I can say the most interesting thing was the sheep - loads of them running up and down the street. (I later watched a bit of Heartbeat on one of the UK Sky channels and thought the sheep were also the most interesting part of the programme).

So, a quick hello and goodbye and we were off again heading back towards Egton Bridge. As the moors were rather wet we did most of the journey along the road - and then it rained (we sheltered behind a tree for a while). We were going to walk along the river bank but the narrow rocky path was so slippery and muddy I wasn't happy even with a new version of Sticky as I had visions of one or both of us falling into the river or onto the rocks below.

According to the map there was a bridle path that would take us off road to give our feet a rest - all I can say it must be a bridlepath for horses with webbed feet. It seemed to get wetter the further up we went until it was almost a river. We then appeared to be lost - well to be honest I pointed out a well worn track and suggested we went that way, Stephen assured me it was totally the wrong direction so we waded through more mud, fought our way through the heather and the gorse and finally found our way to the road and guess what? The track I had spotted originally (the one going in totally the wrong direction) came out a little further up. Anyway, at least my new walking boots were pronounced waterproof.

We had a quiet romantic evening in - eating salad and jacket potatoes (and no wine for me) and playing cards. I also heard an owl hooting in the night which was quite eerie as it was so quiet.