Grand old town of York

We said goodbye to Edinburgh and the others and headed back towards London. There was one minor delay as we waited for the AA because The Other Half left the lights on in my car and the battery was dead. He is now officially banned from driving my lovely Puma.

But the AA man arrived within about 30mins and clamped a big battery charger to my engine and we set off. We even managed to dump all the tins and cans we accumulated over the week in a recycling place.

As we headed south, the distant hills looked so romantic with their snowy toppings but fortunately the roads were perfectly clear. We drove over to Lindisfarne as the tide was out but it was far too cold (and we had such inappropriate clothing) to get out and explore. It has been added to the list of places to visit.

We stopped in Durham for a sarnie about 3pm. It is also a lovely looking town and is also now on the list for a return trip.

And now we are in York. I love York. If we could leave London town job-wise, I would love to live here. But it is a long way away from all our friends and family. Maybe we should move to Bath instead!

We tried to find the restaurant which we really enjoyed last time we came here, The Rubicon, but it is now a tacky theme place. Our other favourite, Alley Cat, was closed so we ended up in a place called Oscars, which was OK - big meals, cheap prices and seating outside with lots of outdoor heaters.

All these lovely compact olde-wolde cities outside of the big smoke seem so more attractive places to live than London, mostly because they don't stink and you can walk everywhere.

I have never lived anywhere but London in England so I don't actually know what it is like to live in the sticks. But as much as I love the east end too, the air is so thick and smelly and full of nastiness, especially where our flat is, that I would like to move. A conundrum indeed. Especially if you take into account the grass is greener factor.