Vacation Day 4

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Today we had a cooked breakfast of boiled eggs and jelly toast. We’d picked up the eggs at a little grocery the day before, and even after spending all day in the back of the bus they were some of the freshest I’ve ever had. The bread was marked down at the Coop for 15p, and was perfectly fine. We made a leisurely start to the day, Naysha even having a bath (after waiting 20 minutes for the immersion heater to warm up, as per the instructions).

We left right after lunch, and headed down to Leyburn to the chocolate factory. It was free admission to a little history of chocolate / how do they make chocolate film, and we could stand and watch two women making chocolates in real life. Very nice, cozy, friendly. And we saved 60GBP over going to Cadbury World. Then came the hard part – the shop. We got each child a shaped milk chocolate (car, dinosaur, etc), and Bob and I picked out a few choice treats for ourselves. Not bad. They temper their chocolate to be crispy, shiny, and smooth.

Next door was a pottery/ceramics factory, but as Bob’s Grandma has one in her front yard it seemed like a waste of vacation time to go in there. As we were leaving the parking lot I saw a violin factory, but we were already committed to leaving, so I let that pass. Our next goal was “the cheese place.” Bob had vivid memories of reading a brochure about it, but we couldn’t find the brochure. He even knew we’d been past it on Sunday, and that it was the same town as the big playground, but couldn’t recall which town that was. So we just went down the road and looked.

The Wensleydale Cheese factory is in Hawes. Tuesday is Market Day. Hawes is one of the places the tour buses go to. Can you guess what’s next? It was very crowded. We maneuvered through the village (the market stalls were up to the very edge of the street, so shoppers had to walk in the street; tour buses trying to pass each other around parked cars…) and found a parking spot at the cheese factory. Half a spot, really, as the BMW was over its line, but Bob let us all out and backed into the space, then exited through the back door of the bus. Good times! We went around to the cheese museum, but (in spite of a sign saying the best viewing time was 10-2) it was closed until 2:40. Hmmm. As there was also a sign up about reduced admission for non-production days, we thought maybe it wouldn’t be that great anyway. There was a shop, but it was SOOOO stuffed full of people we decided to go into town first.

To make it shorter, Bob bought a wool hat, and I bought a Henty novel in a used book store. Then we went back to the cheese shop where Bob, Taryn and I each had a sample of each kind of cheese, and we bought 4 flavors – smoked, pineapple, ginger, and balsamic onion. Then we drove all the way to Bedale to the McDonald’s there. We thought there might be some others around, but without internet we couldn’t find out. On the way back we took a new road through Richmond, and saw a Tesco and McDonald’s on the other side of that town. So now we know. Internet was so slow at McD’s that Bob was barely able to check his email. Anyway, safely home again and wondering about tomorrow.