Yorkshire adventures with a wheelchair

It's actually an interesting experience pushing someone in a wheelchair, though the person being pushed may not necessarily agree! People fall over themselves to help you; to get out of your way, hold open doors, clear toilets, set up portable ramps and even move whole steam trains to enable you to get where you're going. We are showered with smiles and kind words, children in pushchairs wave to us, people really just couldn't be kinder. Is it just that I look cute and helpless pushing the chair, or is it my charming mobility-challenged passenger who apologizes to everyone for the inconvenience we are causing? Maybe it's the harassed look on the face of the elderly lady trotting behind us. The only disappointment is that no tall dark handsome stranger has offered to whisk me away from it all!

Staying at Raven Hall is like being an extra in an Agatha Christie film. Various Miss Marple candidates sit knitting in corners, and all the usual suspects are there; the retired colonel and his mousy wife, the blonde bombshell with the dodgy-looking husband, a red-faced chap with a shifty look and a large moustache, various strange old gentlemen with walking aids and a couple of earnest-looking foreign girls on a hiking holiday. Ok, maybe I'm letting my imagination run riot. It's actually mostly full of older
couples, grandparents with grandchildren, a family of Swedes and some guys walking for charity, but this place is just perfect for a murder or two!

The hotel stands alone on the cliffs looking across the sea towards Robin Hood's Bay, with the North York moors forming a rugged backdrop to the scene. On the rocks below seals bask in the sunshine, waiting for the tide to come in again. There's a definite feeling of faded grandeur here, combined with solid Yorkshire standards of comfort. With good food, lovely gardens and deep comfy chairs to laze around in, who needs a spa centre and a bit more nightlife than a cup of cocoa in the bar before turning in?
The Cleveland Way runs along the coast right past the hotel providing me with spectacular walking opportunities during my time off duty. I've walked the coastal path to Robin Hood's Bay, a lovely old village nestling in a cleft of the bay. It's only a few miles walk, but involves a certain amount of climbing up and down from the cliffs to sea-level and back again to get the pulse going. The views are stunning along the clifftops and the wind from the sea blows all the cobwebs away. Along the way I passed the remains of an old alum works, which provided alum for fixing dyes in the textile industry for over two hundred years. Apparently, this area had a good supply of the necessary compound aluminium sulphate and also plenty of seaweed and human urine. Probably not a great place for a holiday in the seventeenth century, unless you'd lost your sense of smell!

We drove to Goathland on the North York moors, the village known as Aidensfield in the tv series "Heartbeat", to catch the steam train to Pickering. The station is charmingly old-fashioned, with quaint buildings, picket fences and flowers everywhere. Getting onto the train, however, turned into quite a performance as we had to get the wheelchair across the track to the opposite platform. The train arrived earlier than anticipated and stopped right on the level crossing we were going to use. However, the railway staff soon sorted it; the train was moved on a few meters, we were guided across the track like VIPs, a ramp was produced and we pushed our precious cargo into the goods van! Typically, the whole process was witnessed by a couple of acquaintances from back home, whom we had unfortunately bumped into on the platform.

The journey to Pickering was very relaxing, chugging along at a stately pace through the countryside. After a good pub lunch and a trundle up and down the hills in Pickering, we managed the trip back to Goathland far more elegantly.
The hotel lies between Whitby and Scarborough, both popular holiday towns. Whitby is pretty enough from a distance, with its houses and shops clustered picturesquely around the estuary of the river Esk. However, the shops are unashamedly full of tatt which detracts considerably from the charm of the place. Cobbled streets winding up the hillside might be quaint, but they are not exactly wheelchair-friendly. So after a pit stop at the Co-op we drove up to look at the statue of Captain James Cook on the headland opposite the abbey. Having been to places like Cape Tribulation and the Whitsunday Islands that he discovered and named, it was interesting to see where he started out from. The ruined Benedictine abbey broods over the town beside the Norman church of St Mary. There was a monastery there from Anglo-Saxon times, replaced with bigger and better models through the ages until Henry VIII needed more cash. There's plenty of atmosphere here and in the churchyard, but I'm saving a date with Count Dracula for another night.

We ambled along the sea front on Scarborough's north bay in the sun today, and then sat on a bench to watch the surfers. Very pleasant! On Saturday we're going to the Stephen Joseph theatre to see Dear Uncle before returning home. It's an Alan Ayckbourne revamp of Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and has good reviews.

It's been a good week here, but North Yorkshire gets low marks for its disabled toilets. I've had a lot of interesting toilet-related experiences....however, my lips are sealed!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.2