Sunday, 28 February 2016

A Tea shop walk

Now I quite enjoy walking but not up hills such as Ingleborough or the Old Man of Coniston - no, I prefer a more gentle one along an old railway track or stream but best of all on a cliff top or beach. It's even better if at the end there is somewhere to have coffee and cake or maybe a glass of wine! Sometimes I can orchestrate a walk to include somewhere I've read about and want to visit and that was the case on Thursday. For a long time I had wanted to visit Teatime Vintage


a tea shop on the Baslow road out of Sheffield. I had drooled over the very delicious cake pictures that appeared on their facebook page and the vintage goods that decorated the tea shop so all I needed to do was to find a walk that was nearby. This was it. Unfortunately there is no way of printing the route (which would have been useful as we went wrong a couple of times) but along with our OS map and what we remembered from seeing it on the tablet we managed to roughly follow it.


We started by walking through houses till the public footpath sign was visible which took us down to Totley Brook and through the woods






It was very pretty but extremely muddy in places 


We crossed over a bridge



and then on reaching the top of the wood realised we had gone the wrong way so had to go back down through the mud - 'Going on a bear hunt' came to mind at this point
Never the less we continued through the woods



 till we came to the footpath over the fields


back towards Totley


 where we then walked through the old village of Totley, passing Totley Hall



an infant school built by D'Ewes Coke Esq of Totley Hall in 1827



 and some rather nice cottages


As we walked down the main road we could see the tearoom in the distance.


Going through the door we were greeted with a big hello and a lovely smile from the owner, Julie. Here she is painting the sign just before they opened in December.


The cakes immediately caught our eyes


Lemon cake, brownies or scones - well I would have liked all three but we choose the lemon cake and a scone. 


The lemon cake was the nicest I had ever tasted, light as a feather with gorgeous lemon buttercream filling and I think there might have been some lemon curd in there too. Here it is earlier in the day

The scone again was light and buttery served with jam and cream (and if you're thinking I had both, we shared). There's nothing like good home baked cakes. 

There was so much to look at whilst we were eating


I rather fancied the whisk (I think that's what it had been) upcycled and turned into a light fitting.


aprons and dresses (sorry about the blurred picture)


The box shelves on the wall reminded me of those David put up in Charlotte's kitchen.

What a great end to our walk. I shall definitely be going back and especially look forward to taking Charlotte and Becky there as I know they'll love it.

Well we are off to London in the caravan on Wednesday, a theatre trip, street food, museums and markets - oh and maybe some shopping!! xxx

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

Finally pictures and time to show them!!

Was it really 10 days ago that I got up early to write a new blog and found that the camera had been left at Beckys? What is happening to time?
But back to the blog that didn't happen 10 days ago. We did what we have done for the last 2 years at the end of January - taken the caravan to Bridlington for my birthday (I have somewhere in mind which is a little more exciting next year). We set off a day late to avoid towing in high winds and arrived to blue skies and sun on the Thursday morning. A quick 'set up' and we were off and out to follow the 'Town trail' around Old Bridlington which also happens to be where the new Dad's Army film has been filmed. We downloaded this


and followed it all round the old town. To be honest we didn't get very far in the beginning as we got talking to the owner of the Pack Horse pub in Market Street and made a mental note to go back for a drink at the end of our trail - (and in fact the smell of food was too hard to ignore when we went back that we had a late lunch there)


There are some lovely buildings 




The red and cream building on the left below was The Marigold Tea Rooms in the film


looking like this inside


but in reality was just a very dismal office!

If you look carefully under the Royal Oak Inn sign you'll see a Warmington on Sea brewery sign


 This shop (still with it's Jones butcher's sign)


  looked like this in the film


and the black fronted shop became


this

Image result for the marigold tearooms bridlington

but I digress, back to some of the other lovely buildings



We had a laugh at this one


behind the boards some serious renovations were taking place.

There was just time whilst the sun was still out to go and park by the harbour and have a quick walk along the North front




and back to look at the boats




The rain and wind forecasted happened during the night and by breakfast on Friday the sun was out again. Deciding to go further afield we made our way up to Whitby and to the Abbey.







 what views we had. 

Making our way down we went up and down alley ways


till we found this



Here is the entrance on Church Street

Image result for sanders yard, Whitby


Coffee and a scone was most welcome.

Leaving Whitby we travelled further north to Sandsend - a place I had holidayed as a child. The sun was still shining so we worked our way down to the beach and walked along.






Lots of lovely cottages were holiday lets, and we photographed several with the idea that we might hire one at some point








We took note of the cafes




 and pub/restaurant


It really is a delightful place.

But we'd not finished for the day, from Sandsend we went to Falling Foss.  (Link to a circular walk is here)


I had a very vivid memory as a late teenager of a house - un-lived in, that was in a wood and near Little Beck or May Beck called Midge Hall. As we walked down to Falling Foss I could see a house which I thought could be it. The more I thought the surer I was and yes, a sign back up at the car park indicated it was indeed, Midge Hall



otherwise known as Falling Foss tea garden, unfortunately closed for the winter but I had found it!
By this time it was getting dark and cold so we retreated back to the van. 

Saturday was my birthday and we had blue skies again so after breakfast we had a long walk on the south beach at Bridlington and returned to the Pack Horse for a very good lunch. To end the day we had a bitterly and I mean BITTERLY cold but very brief walk from the car park at Flamborough Head to the headland





A piece of cake and a Bailey's coffee was in order once back at the caravan!!

We were incredibly lucky with the weather, especially after what it had been like the previous days. So the van is put away but not for long as we are off to LONDON in it. My birthday present from my lovely children is afternoon tea at the Bluebird Restaurant, Chelsea - I can't wait xxxx