In which York was trod and airheads are dissed.

Saturday had been planned for a while - a day in York - not a jolly out though,  no, this was serious stuff. We were off to check out the University of York for Youngest.  I, recalling how far we trogged around University of Lancaster for Eldest, thought that it would be a good way to clock up some miles for my #walk1000miles challenge.

I managed to squeeze my much improved and getting thinner ankle into my boot, set up my 'strava' (my mileage logging app) and took my knitting (for in-car entertainment of course). We had to be there for 10am so it was an early start. Wow the weather was foul!  Storm Erik was playing out too and to show his presence he'd kindly tossed down a few trees and branches down along the way (so kind...)

Anyhoo - we arrived in good time despite Erik's truculence. Youngest - usually fairly ebullient was decidedly unsure and chattered nervously however once we'd signed in and started the programme of events he suddenly became very quiet. The talks given were interesting - albeit a little light on information but we had been promised more details in the afternoon as we were to be taken on a tour by existing students where we could chat to them and ask them questions.

What is not very clear are the words on the sign .. it says ..

DANGER - thin ice keep off (must be very thin, the geese were swimming)

I quietly took a look at my 'strava' and saw that the miles were quietly stacking up - I'd reached 3 miles just walking around the campus between the talks. By now it was lunch time, we'd found details about housing and finance among other necessary things and we were suddenly starving.  One cafe later (fresh sarnies and hot tea have magical properties I am sure) we made our way to the afternoon programme. This time we had to meet at the department were Youngest would be based, the students would go and meet the lecturers who'd taken them around and chat to them while we would meet the present students who would give us an insight to uni life.

oh boy.

We walked out. If we had to hear a silly little girl saying .... literally, like, oh yeah.... one...more...*!!*//!! time I was going to shake her...... I have never met more vacuous pair airheads as these two - I did originally write a slightly sharper account of them but felt I needed to retract ... **

What did they take us to see?

Accommodation? Nope
Library? Nope
Anything ? Nope - unless you mean three bars and a hall where they have regular 'soirees' .....

Before you think - but they are young etc - the Lancaster University talks were also given by students and we saw all the varieties of accommodation available, where the library was, the laundry, recycling, dustbins - whoa! What a difference......

Youngest will be happy here.

Any hoo - having turned around and walked away with a ...this is the best bar- literally ... ringing in our ears, we walked to York.

What a breath of fresh air - 'literally'.

We walked through fields away from the university and tumbled into some allotments - it was wonderful peeking into sleeping secret gardens, adorned with winter hardy leeks or kale and hosting the most characterful sheds and lean-tos. The allotments gave way to suburbia then to historic walls and finally we found the river. Full to bursting after Storm Erik induced rains.

York centre, despite it being off-peak season and a rather blustery and cold day was full of folk, so we did a quick yomp through the Shambles and one or two other famous places then returned to the riverine walk.

This too was full of folk but they were all walking with a purpose rather than congregating for shopping or meeting up with friends. Eventually it was time to turn back so we followed another route back to the university - this time through a military training grounds - with the most amusingly appropriate yet different road sign. It tickled me :)

We returned to the uni - back to the pre-arranged waiting place (a warm reception room in the departmental building) and sat and sat and sat. My tired ankle was giving a good impression of toothache and I was ready for home. But no sign of Youngest.

About 3/4 hour after we'd arrived, the airheads and their group of bored-silly parents wandered in and joined us. They looked fed up and cold. The airheads both gave us a sneaky sideways look as they walked past us - pah. I felt vindicated at going AWOL.

Youngest eventually appeared - in his usual languid loping gait - He seen the library.....walked past some accommodation ... visited a few lecture halls and he'd had a very successful afternoon and enjoyed it.

Oh oh oh and my mileage??? A whole 11.10 miles - wow!


Durham Uni in a fortnight... 

** I am saddened that, at this day and age of proactive equality, girls still feel the need to act and appear silly and helpless - I don't want to say 'man up' although until there is a better genderless way to say get a grip (oh - hey - I'll use that one :) ) those silly silly girls need to 'get a grip and man up'.