Another bulk update after technical difficulties and weekend travel:

Saturday:

Up early to carry Shirley’s baggage to the bus stop. My own idea, not her taking advantage of me! And it seemed to make a good impression, for what that may be worth.

Train to York, then wandering around. Seemed to get most places at the wrong time for special events but at least set out a schedule for tomorrow. Found a neat little ‘redundant’ church (Holy Trinity Goodramgate) that hadn’t been ‘improved’ by the Victorians (or anyone else in the past two hundred years). Nary a straight line or right angle in the building.


Sunday

So much for setting up a schedule. When to mass and matins at York Minster (note different order from Christ Church, Oxford!) then got bunged out of the cathedral when I went looking for the chapel that is normally set aside for private prayer. Spent the day wandering the town again. Got to the Jorvik (which was the main reason for heading to York this weekend) but was disappointed to find it more of a tourist attraction than a museum. Visited a dig site on the site of St. Leonard’s Hospital (got to play with sherds of Roman pottery), climbed around in the castle and spent the evening perched on the city wall, watching the sun on the cathedral and writing in my journal (plus a couple of postcards).


Monday

A bit more wandering about, mostly spend reading in the ruins of St. Mary’s Abbey, now the gardens of York Museum, then of to catch the train back to Oxford.

Left York about 25 minutes late due to problems with the train at the previous station. Got progressively later through the next couple of stations, then shut down entirely between Wakefield and Sheffield. And sat there, and sat there. A very modern train, one where everything runs on electricity including the ventilation (windows? don’t open on a modern train -- why would one need to open windows when there is air conditioning?). It got rather close and some of the more elderly folk aboard reached the limits of their medications coping with it. Eventually got a new train hooked up to the original one and were dragged along to the next station. Arrived Sheffield -- slowly -- at 5:35 PM, more than an hour after I was supposed to be back in Oxford. Had to change trains at Sheffield and Birmingham, then that train went out of service and got put on a bus the final 30 miles of the journey. So after nine hours on four trains and one bus (instead of four hours on two trains), I am back in Oxford, too late to find out where class is tomorrow.