Bank Holiday Fun

I had a really good bank holiday weekend! Normally I feel like these weekends have been a bit of a waste because we spend the whole time at home being lazy.

Not so this weekend just gone! Thanks to Leon being able to drive, we were able to go to Whitby and Helmsley on Friday. We set off early, to beat the traffic. That was successful, so we parked up and went for a wander round. We stopped in “Tea and Tarts” for tea and a teacake in my case. Leon had a bacon and egg sandwich! We headed back up to the beach, but decided that it was too windy for Frisbee. It was pretty chilly with the wind blowing in off the sea. However, we walked the length of the West Beach – down to the pier where the donkeys are. We also looked for crabs, but all we saw were seagulls and some insects. We headed back up the beach to collect our lunch from the car, which turned out to be a bit rancid (despite the cool pack!) so we had our yoghurt and then decided to move on. After a peruse of the map we decided that Helmsley would be nice. We set off out of Whitby with only a small chuckle at the vast number of people heading into Whitby. It didn’t take long to get to Helmsley, and so we parked (eventually) and went to the Walled Gardens. Sadly it was a bit dear to get in to the walled gardens, but we bought a jar of local honey and then went into the café there for a drink and cake. I had some lovely carrot cake. There wasn’t much else to do in Helmsley, but we wandered around the shops and generally meandered about for a while. We bought a book of walks in North Yorkshire which has handy maps. The maps have pubs marked on them! After a non-waffle-shaped waffle cone ice-cream each we got back in the car and headed home. Fabulous day!

So, Saturday came around and we got our gym kit together. Once we’d dropped off Leon’s overdue library books, we headed to the gym for a workout. Having walked around and up more hills than on a normal day on Friday, I found my cardio exercise quite difficult. However, I did almost all of it (must try harder) and then did all of my strength training. We also signed up for Pilates, which should be good. I haven’t been to a class of any sort for a long time, but this should be fine.

Sunday was more of a normal slack day. I did a lot of knitting and some painting. I got a set of “modern art” canvasses for my birthday, which is very cool. I picked three (out of four) of them, and used slightly different colours (we have loads of paints and they came with pink which is very me, but doesn’t match the bathroom!) to make a piece of art which we can put in the bathroom. I intend to turn the middle canvas into a clock – we have the kit needed but I need to make some fancy handles for the time as the ones with the kit are too short.
On the knitting front, I have finished the top border of the needle roll, only about 100 rows to go on the outer part then. On the shrug, I have knitted one arm and I am currently knitting the front and back. It’s asymmetrical, apparently. It’s looking really good, and I should have plenty of yarn to finish it too. Maybe even enough to make something else out of later! We did consider going on one of the walks, but my legs and neck were very sore, so we didn’t.

Monday. I had a driving lesson at 11:30, which went okay. I’m so close to my test date though, I’m terrified! My instructor seems confident though. I managed to do a left reverse and a parallel park without tears.
In the afternoon, after finishing the paintings and hanging out some washing (and the new wool my parents brought, which smells much nicer now) we headed off to the outlet to see if we could find Leon some Daniel Craig swimming shorts. We were not successful. We did manage to buy Sims 2 for me, and three DVDs. (strapped for cash? Me?) Sims 2 is as addictive as the Sims – Bustin out was, but with a more fluid structure to it. There are still goals and stuff, which is good. The game play is better too.

And that was my bank holiday. We watched one of the DVDs, Layer Cake, too. I’m looking forwards to the next bank holiday now so that we can go on one of the walks from our book. One that doesn’t involve “a small scramble”! At least I have walking boots now. I don’t have any sensible shorts though, so if the weather keeps improving that could be interesting.