York Minster

We had the luxury of another late start today as all we were planning was exploring York in more depth and in particular visiting Clifford’s Tower.

After some calls back home, a lazy breakfast, searching for lost sun glasses that eventually turned up and a couple of other false starts, we felt like we were ‘losing the plot’ this morning as we eventually emerged into a grey, slightly bleak day. A very light drizzle soon gave way to an overcast, cold day….
(Just checking the weather forecast we noted that the temperature reached a maximum of 15 degrees here in York on the first day of summer - identical to the temperature back home on the first day of winter in the middle of the night🤔)

I had downloaded an audio guide to historical York and we set off to follow this from start to finish. 22 points of interest and 9km later we had completed it, having learnt a great deal more about its history spanning Roman, Viking and Medieval periods.

Of particular interest was observing the place (Clifford’s Tower) where antisemitism culminated in the attempted destruction of all Jews living in York in 1190. This was one of the worst massacres of Jews in the Middle Ages and in a case of history repeating itself, the Jewish community of about 150 that was finally trapped by an angry mob inside the Tower eventually chose to take their own lives in a fashion almost identical to what had taken place at Masada just over 1100 years earlier.

A little shopping also took place during a wander through ‘The Shambles’ which has been a shopping precinct for about 1000 years. It was called The Shambles because it is the street where the butchers plied their trade (cf. 1 Cor. 10:25) and the buildings still in existence here date back to the 1300’s.

We made it back to the apartment mid afternoon for some late lunch and reorganisation of bags etc.

Last night, in the expectation that today was going to be a pleasant, mild day I booked an evening river cruise - I had a foolish, romantic vision of a lovely, balmy cruise with the sun glinting off the water in the late afternoon with a suitable beverage in hand.

The harsh reality was of shivering by the dock in the bleak, overcast conditions waiting for the boat to arrive; mentally estimating that there appeared to be insufficient seats for everyone to be inside the covered lower deck and that some would be exposed to potential hypothermia on the open top deck; and that this, unfortunately could necessitate pushing aside elderly, feeble folk and young nursing mothers so as to be able to rush to a coveted seat in the enclosed cabin.

Fortunately, this plan did not need to be actioned because a few locals in shorts and t shirts CHOSE to go to the upper deck because, hey, it IS the first day of summer and they were going to treat it accordingly!
The cruise was somewhat informative but underwhelming and as we disembarked an hour later alongside the crying baby and restless teenagers into the frigid, gloomy evening I couldn’t help but wonder why I willingly subjected ourselves to that.

Loss was much more gracious about it than she needed to be….Read more