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Those well-meant plans to pack on Friday night didn't amount to much, and Saturday morning saw us gathering our things together.
Stephen had his two usual soft bags, plus his camera bag, his video recorder bag, the laptop, and an attache case full of computer bits.
I had two overnight bags, a backpack, a camera bag and my bassoon. Then I found a stack of leads that I'd labelled up and forgotten about, so they went in a spare supermarket carrier bag.
My hiking boots and jackets for both of us went in the car along with the aforementioned stuff. It fitted better when we put the back seat down!
It wasn't until we arrived in Yorkshire that I realised that I'd left the Rocket blower brush home. Stephen had brought along a CCD cleaning device off a magazine cover, so I hope that works, as the chance of going for a whole week without getting any dust sticking to our camera sensors is remote, going by past experience.
By the time everything was loaded in the car, it was nearly 3pm, and with the AA suggesting that the journey to Yorkshire would take four and a half hours, I didn't like our chances of getting to a supermarket up there to stock up with food. However, we made good time on the roads, and were really fortunate not to get caught up in any traffic jams (although we did see one tailback of southbound traffic) and we arrived in Ripon a little after 7pm.
I had thought that the A1 (or was it the A1(M) at that point?) was the Ripon Bypass and that we would be coming into Ripon from the south end and would pass close to Morrisons, but the Ripon Bypass is actually the A61, and as we'd been on the A1, our route into Ripon wasn't the one I had in my mental road map. We found ourselves in the centre of Ripon, and not being sure exactly where we were, we pulled into the first car park we saw and tried to get our bearings. We actually found that we were very close to the centre of Ripon and that Sainsbury's was on the other side of the car park, so we went into Sainsbury's for a few necessities.
Then we had to figure out where we needed to be in Ripon to follow our instructions to the cottage in Grewelthorpe! That resulted in a false start and a trip round the one-way system, but eventually we found the right road. There was some doubt in our minds about how many turnings we'd passed, but we'd counted something a bit too minor as a turning and thought we had arrived and nearly turned into the wrong farmyard!
When we found the right place, the directions round the driveway worked perfectly and the cottage looked just like its picture. We picked the key up as we'd arranged earlier and let ourselves in and switched on a light, and found that there were scones with butter and jam to welcome us, plus flowers on the table.
There were quite a lot of doors for a small cottage. On entering, there was a door on our left, which turned out to be the bedroom. The bed was covered with a beautiful quilt, and when we turned it back, we found two plain and two embroidered pillows beneath. There was matching embroidery on the duvet cover. The bed has a metal headboard with white drapery behind it. There's a purpose behind this: at some stage this cottage must have been part of the rest of the barn conversion, and behind the white drapery, there's a locked door.
There were two further doors from the bedroom: one led into the ensuite bathroom and the other concealed the hot water tank and airing cupboard. There was a curtained-off area which is set up as a walk-in wardrobe.
From the living room, there is an archway through to the kitchen. There's a curtain to pull across this to keep the heat in the living room. There is a further cloakroom opening off the living room. It's as big as the bathroom off the bedroom, but doesn't contain a shower, just a washbasin and a loo with a wooden seat.
There is a locked-off stairway at the end of the living room. When I saw it, I was surprised, as I knew that the cottage was all on the ground floor, but all became clear when I saw the it was locked off.
Stephen dined on beef stew and dumplings, while I dined on sweet and sour chicken, both courtesy of the cook-chill cabinets at Sainsbury's in Ripon. The heating was working better in the living room than the bedroom, so we weren't in a great hurry to go to bed. I think the cottage wasn't let the previous week and the storage heaters, although switched on, had not reached full strength, as the cottage was much warmer the following day.
Once we got down under the duvet, we were warm enough, and I didn't know anything more until the next morning, although Stephen said that he was a bit wakeful.
More from our October 2007 holiday in Yorkshire: Yorkshire Holiday Travelogue - 7th October, 2007
Back to Yorkshire Holiday October, 2007 - Travelogue Index
Autumn Holiday in Yorkshire & County Durham - October, 2007 - Travelogue Index
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Last Revised: 22nd October, 2007.