Catching Up

Cross Stitch at Pockerley Manor


Vintage Advertising at Beamish Museum

Yikes!! It's been a month since I made any entries in my blog. It seems that when I do have time to futz around on the computer, flickr gets my attention first and I've let my blog fall by the wayside. Ironic, as I signed on to flickr so that I could upload images to my blog. But flickr has proved to be so much fun while it appears an effort to keep up with my blog. Well, I'm gonna try to keep them both going for a while longer and I may add some post dated entries to fill in this long gap.

We had a leisurely long weekend. On Saturday, we took a stroll through town. We had lunch at the Ginnel Cafe -- it's been a while since we've seen Charles, the amiable proprietor. Later, we stopped off at an antique store near the Old Bell Tavern. We have often admired the items in their display window (vintage door knobs, mail slots, lamps, candlesticks. Lots of brass and cast iron goods) and enjoyed browsing through the shop, though it was a bit cramped. We went to the Gascoigne gallery to view the Turner lithographs and etchings on display. Fabulous work featuring Yorkshire landscapes and landmarks. From there we went to the Mercer Art Gallery to see what they might have on view. This month (I believe they change the displays monthly) they had a show on portraiture and a small exhibit of a local artist, Nerys Johnson.

We decided we'd cook sausages, peppers and onions on the grill to celebrate July 4th. Trouble is, you can't find a good Italian sausage anywhere in Harrogate. You can't even find a bad Italian sausage, for that matter! So we settled for Masham sausages from Farrah's, one of the few British sausages that we like. Brad left to take the sausages home, while I headed over to Waitrose to pick up the other ingredients. I stopped off at an art exhibit at West Park United Reformed Church, but the work was a bit dull.

On Sunday we went to Beamish Museum, an open air museum north of Durham. The weather was sunny but windy and cool. The museum features recreations that demonstrate what life was like in the north of England during the 1800s and early 1900s. There is a street from a town in 1913, made up of buildings from other locations that have been reconstructed and furnished to authentic detail. There is an 1825 manor house, a 1913 colliery village complete with an actual mining tunnel. You can walk from one location to another, or you can hop on one of the vintage trams or omnibus. I really enjoyed looking at the original vintage advertsiments that adorned the trams, buses and buildings in the 1913 town. Touring Beamish took most of the day. It was too late to start grilling when we got back home so we stopped in at Drakes for some fish and chips.

Monday got off to a dreary start -- gray and rainy. We decided to check out the Shogun exhibit at the Leeds Armouries Museum. It was billed as a "major" exhibition with items never before displayed outside Japan. Though the show was very tastefully displayed the collection was rather paltry. Only a few suits of armor, one kimono, one Noh mask, two swords and then lots of uninspiring scrolls and folding screens with battle scenes painted on them. We did see an interesting demonstration on Samurai armor. Two westerners, dressed in traditional Japanese clothing, demonstrated how a warrior would put his armor on. We noticed that the Japanese armor did not give as much protection as European armor of the same time period. The Japanese armor was made up of pieces of lacquered iron that were sewn onto padded cloth. There were many gaps between pieces of iron and the iron itself was not that strong or heavy. After our museum visit we headed home in plenty of time to begin our little barbecue. Everything was very tasty and we had enough leftover for dinner tonight.