So the little tea party arranged for my sister at the home of one of my nieces went off as planned. I caught a taxi to get to the address and had taken along with me a beautiful 30″ high orchid for my sister which I am sure will adorn her room, a hand crafted birthday card bought from an Oxfam shop and a magnum of Prosecco for all of the members of the family to share. This latter proved not to be the best of buys as everybody was drinking tea rather than consuming alcohol during the afternoon and there was no point in opening the Magnum bottle. But we agreed that this could be stored until a bigger and perhaps boozier family gathering perhaps at Christmastime if not before. The party started to break up in the late afternoon as young children were taken away to be put to bed and the adolescents had other things to do so eventually I was transported back to the hotel armed with some extra scones which proved to be useful to me. I was not particularly hungry but made myself some packet soup in a cup which was sufficient for me. I watched some of the Test match on the bedroom TV and then turned in and had a fairly early night, wondering about the next couple of days. After doing some research on the internet, I decided that a trip to York would not be a good idea as the trip to the Railway Museum added an extra mile onto the journey as they are doing some reconstruction work so I decided to go to the small market of Ripon the following day. I am pretty sure that I should be able to board the relevant coach just around the corner from the hotel but I will check with the hotel reception staff first. I spent a certain amount of time messing about to download and install the relevant bus app but eventually decided I would be better off paying the bus driver in cash as the website informed me this this was possible. First I will get a newspaper and then negotiate my way to the point where I can catch the bus if the information provided on the website proves to be accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The joining point for the bus I located after some fishing about. But I was fortunate in that a young woman with her six month old baby were waiting for the bus and as she made this journey regularly and was a Harrogate resident, she was a fund of local knowledge. We chatted all the way to Ripon and then as the bus station was located just round the corner from the principal square, this was easy to find. But as there is a Bank Holiday on Monday, some extremely noisy fairground rides were occupying the centre of the square and to the noise of the fairground rides was added the screams of the children rather ruining the ambience of a quaint market town. I did a complete circumnavigation of the square and found a store that was amazingly popular because not only was it huge but it sold every type of hardware item one could imagine. I located the special charging cable that I know my iPhone 16 deploys ( a ‘Type C’ which is oval and will work whatever direction it is plugged in) and I paid only a quarter of the price that I paid for one in the specialist phone shop the other day. It seems to be working fine as my phone is being recharged as I write and spare cables are always useful to have. Having circumnavigated the square, I espied a little arcade which I suspect (rightly) lay in the direction of the cathedral for where I was eventually bound. Down the arcade was a little independent coffee shop which I was happy to patronise rather than one of the national chains and in which I ordered a bacon sandwich (which turned out to be huge) and a cup of tea which in the event was a teapot of tea containing three cups. So this really set me up for the day and from then on it was quite easy to locate the cathedral which one approached via a variety of short cuts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have visited Ripon cathedral on about three of four varied occasions, the first time being when I was a teenager aged about 17 or 18 and I journeyed there on my Lambretta scooter from Harrogate. I visited with Meg on at least one or possibly two occasions and the last time was an invitation to an impromptu performance by a Russian soprano that an old schoolboy acquaintance of mine had smuggled out of Russia and was seeking to reestablish her career in the West. As I remember she sang ‘Exsultate, jubilate’ in a manner which equaled some of the best performances of which I have heard recordings after which we had a magnificent banquet in a large mansion reminiscent of ‘Gosford Park’ In the cathedral, I lit a candle in Meg’s memory and then went onto study the wooden misericords. Ripon Cathedral features 34 rare medieval misericords in its choir stalls, carved between 1489 and 1494, which are celebrated as some of the finest wood carvings in the UK. The word misericord comes from the Latin misericordia, meaning ‘act of mercy’ and the small hinged wooden ledges allowed clergy to rest discreetly during long periods of standing required for monastic services. Attributed to master woodcarvers of the late 15th century, the seating area showcases intricate, surreal, and sometimes humorous medieval artistry. After my visit to the cathedral, I knew that some heavy showers were forecast for the afternoon so retraced my steps but called in at a local Sainsbury’s to replenish my supplies of fruit and caught the bus back to Harrogate. Then I bought myself fresh supplies of milk and rested on the bed having a quick conversation with my American friend as although we had texted we had not spoken for some days. My niece called in to the hotel for a flying visit and we had a nice catch up until her parking time expired and then I contemplated going out later on in the early evening to my favourite unpretentious but excellent little Chinese restaurant for a meal. In the later part of the evening, I can either choose Paddington 2 or yet another viewing of ‘Murder on the Orient Express’ and I am not sure which way to go as I have them seen them both several times before.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
So the little tea party arranged for my sister at the home of one of my nieces went off as planned. I caught a taxi to get to the address and had taken along with me a beautiful 30″ high orchid for my sister which I am sure will adorn her room, a hand crafted […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8531"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8533,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8531\/revisions\/8533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mch-net.info\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}