Today is a typical gray rainy day in Yorkshire, but over the weekend we enjoyed glorious warm sunny weather. On Saturday morning we went into Harrogate to view a couple of apartments, I mean flats. One was just too dark and grungy to consider but the other was really lovely. It is situated across from the Stray (a 200-acre park) and within walking distance of the city center. It has a huge kitchen and living room, plus three large bedrooms. The problem is: there is scant storage space (only one closet) and no yard. We are negotiating for the use of a garage in the back, which might make this place workable for us. In the meantime we are also considering some farm cottages. The location would be more remote, but it is so pleasant in the countryside here. We know of a couple of cottages that are only 5-10 minutes from Brad's office and about a 15-20 minute drive into town. We'll need to make a decision soon, but it is agonizing now dealing with these options.

On Saturday afternoon we made our usual visit to Pocklington to visit with Ginger who is doing just fine. On the way back we stopped in at a Designer Outlet mall just off the main road from the kennel. There were lots of American stores (Levis, Famous Footwear, etc.) represented as well as many British stores (Marks and Spencer, Whittard Tea), but most of the stores were rather small with limited selection. Oh well, if we ever have the hankering to hangout in a huge mall we now know where to go.

On Sunday we drove towards Ripon to pay a visit at Fountains Abbey, a National Trust heritage site. The National Trust was celebrating its birthday so admission was free. Fountains Abbey was a medieval Cistercian monastery. Only the ruins of the abbey remain now, but Fountains is the most intact ruin of all the medieval abbeys in England. It was a breathtaking sight: noisy swallows were swooping in and amongst the gray stone walls and vaulted windows of the abbey against a backdrop of shimmering green hills, blue skies and powder puff clouds. We decided to join in the free guided tour given by a National Trust volunteer. Our guide is a pensioner who is a self-styled medievalist and he regaled us with many descriptions of life during the Abbey's founding and heyday. Basically, life was grim. The Cistercians took a vow of silence. The lay monks (recruited from the peasantry) did most of the work around the Abbey starting at the ungodly hour of 3 a.m. and continuing until sunset with breaks every hour or two for worship. They received only two meals a day consisting of bread and veggies. The choir monks were the educated members of the monastery and spent most of their time in worship and study. It was not possible for a lay monk to advance to the position of choir monk. At least twice a year all monks had to submit to a session of bloodletting, a practice believed essential for good health. After the bloodletting session the monk was able to spend two days of rest in the infirmary and received meat in addition to the bread and veggies. It is easy to imagine now why a monk would agree to such treatment! Even though the Cistercian order did not allow "unnecessary" ornamentation in their structures, I found the soaring stature of the ruins rather beautiful and marveled at the strength of the men who built the abbey, considering the squalid and deprived conditions under which they lived.