Retreat to York

After my Nottingham full-on freak out (which had its bright spots, for example, I saw a red squirrel), we retreated north to York, 2 hours away with a quick stop at Woodall Services for the world's most disappointing Breakfast Bap (even the name promises underwhelm). If someone tells you they ordered the Bap, just leave them in peace, don't ask for details.

It was clear even such a short distance from Nottingham that we had suddenly crossed the accent meridian. The dolorous Billie-Eilish-of-the-North who assembled Stuart's Bap was absolutely indecipherable. I wondered if my Babel Fish were broken but realised that indecipherability was merely a prerequisite for teenage girls working in takeaway all around the world. I certainly can't understand Jenny from Henny Penny back home.

We were so tired by the time we reached York. Stu was tired from worry, and I was tired from walking off my panic episode, and all we wanted to do was rest. But the girl at the York Pavilion would not let us into our room early. Her eyes were large and brown and pretty like a Disney mammal, so we did not use The Assertiveness Skills. We decided instead to go for a light stroll and look at the big churchy thing on the horizon in the old part of town.

The first place we went to was the Walmgate Bar, and were immediately seduced up onto the Roman Wall. Stuart had remembered his Alice Roberts and told me that it wasn't actually Roman. I walked behind him and furtively checked Wikipedia. I learned that Stuart was right, so I did the only thing a husband can do: I informed him of a fact he had just taught me as if I was the keeper of the knowledge all along. Husband goals achieved.

We went for coffee at the Gatehouse Cafe, a precipitous medieval themed stack of rooms and incorporated into the stone. The place was quiet. A girl with a Rosamund Pike accent was reading "Where the Crawdads Sing" quietly. I doodled beneath a tudor window and enjoyed a Gingerbread Latte. It was too perfect to handle. I already can't wait to go back.

A walk through The Shambles of York was mindblowing. In terms of crowd density, yes, it was a theme park. In terms of retail opportunities, yes, it was Covent Garden. But the architecture and structure of the place was invincible; and the fact that the place was so activated actually brought me closer to that numinous sense of ancestry: people have been having fun and shopping here for centuries. This is continuity, not defacement. The authenticity of it caught me off guard. How can I be anti-capitalist when there's so much great stuff to buy?

Dinner at The Lighthorse (Italian food served by a handsome chef) and a takeaway beer from Tesco Express while watching a biographical documentary of Queen Elizabeth ended the night.

We slept like discarded dolls.Read more