According to my daughter and son-in-law, there’s an old Chinese proverb that says that guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days.
According to our friend Kalba, it’s Benjamin Franklin who coined exactly the same phrase.
Either way, received wisdom is that nobody can put up with house guests for more than a very few days without losing their patience, their good humour, and the friendship.
Our Ariegeois friends have just proved all that wrong. They stayed ten days, and it was wonderful. Though pretty exhausting, it was nothing but pleasure to spend an extended period with friends whom we value, but see far too little, and a fantastic chance to showcase Yorkshire – or a tiny portion of it anyway.
In my last post, I did a whistle-stop tour of our first few days together. Here’s how the rest of the holiday went….
Knaresborough, with its wonderful 19th century railway viaduct spanning the River Nidd…
An obligatory coffee-stop at Betty’s, Yorkshire’s most famous tea room…..
A meander round the Valley Gardens in Harrogate…..
A trip to the fantastic geological outcrops of Brimham Rocks…
A day when our friends more than paid for their board by taking charge and getting our wood delivery for the winter shifted and sorted……
An evening with Ripon’s Wakeman, who since AD 886, has ‘set the watch’ to guard the citizens, sounding his horn at 9.00 p.m. every evening – every single day, whatever the weather, whatever the circumstances…..
A trip to York…..
A day in Whitby, fishing port, tourist destination, jet-mining town, and home of Dracula’s author, Bram Stoker…… Oh, and we ate fish and chips. Of course.
And that’s only the headlines.
From Pyrenees to Pennines 
The perfect guests – and a gorgeous series of places to visit. Bet they’ll be back next year!
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Maybe not next year, But soon, I hope.
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les frenchies ont l’air de s’éclater: beaux cieux, beaux rivages et des amis très chers.le bonheur! Il tarde de voir plus de photos. Mais tout de même Christine, quelle gourmande!
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C’est vrai, nous avons passé de très bons moments…. et a Betty’s, il faut goûter, on ne peut pas rater. Christine et Max ont pris de jolies images. Demandes les voir!
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What a wonderful 10 days. Did your guests have a highlight?
I read your post without my glasses and thought at first you’d had an evening with Rick Wakeman! X
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Highlights? Maybe Whitby and Runswick Bay, and Saltaire. They just loved Salts Mill and its history, as well as Bingley Five Rise Locks. And the Dales, the Dales……
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What a great mix of town and country, commercial and natural highlights! I think those rocks look fascinating and I love the tradition of the Wakeman–is that a Ripon thing specifically or do other towns do it? I like having company to give me an excuse to go out and re-experience some of the highlights of my region–I tend to take those things for granted otherwise.
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Yes, guests are a great way of rediscovering familiar treasures, aren’t they? And the Wakeman is quite unique, and a special feature of Ripon life. You’d love Brimham Rocks. You’ll have to come and explore.
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Staying with friends and visiting Whitby – what more could guests want! It’s such a beautiful part of the world.
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It is. Apart from the seafront itself, which is a bit of an Amusement Arcade fest….
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And there was me thinking the quote was Nancy Mitford! Looks like you had perfect guests and you were superb guests – and all in need of a holiday!
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Actually, we’re the ones in need of a holiday. It was great…. but exhausting.
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The best guests are those that will help to shift wood! I am glad you have had a lovely ten days with good friends. That is what makes life good and you have made memories for all of you.
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Are you good at wood shifting…? 😉
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I’m not sure I am good at it, but I do a LOT of it. 😉
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I’d have guessed Mark Twain. You’ve caught Yorkshire at its magnificent best, as ever. We’re just back from 3 glorious weeks in A-V. I think there are real similarities between all 3 of my homes, Yorkshire where I was born, the Ariège where I go for R&R and E Sussex where I live most of the time. The older I get the more I realise that I can’t really be doing with cosy countryside but need wide open spaces and here in E Sx the sea is close and you don’t get many wider spaces than that.
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Quite. The sea’s great, but at its wild and craggy best. Definitely no golden strands for me. And as for countryside: the wilder the better. Give our love to the Pays d’Olmes.
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