Cruise on the Ouse

We chose York, to celebrate our 45^th wedding anniversary and the 50 years since we first met. A boat on the river was just the job for starters – sedate, peaceful and reflective, apart from some inconsequential ramblings from the bridge, via the PA.

What a funny old place this city has become. When we first stayed, decades ago now, it was so quiet – Minster, Shambles and cultural walks. We could find nowhere open on a Sunday evening – no live music, not even a film to watch. We even struggled to find a welcoming pub!

Not anymore, because this warm, summer Saturday was race day, wedding day and stags’ and hens’ day. The men were all over-dressed and the women often the opposite. The railway station was a deluge of suits and colourful dresses, so much so that they had devised a one-way system to empty the trains of their potential merry-makers via temporary ticket barriers, backed up by extra high-viz staff and watched over by a substantial police presence, in what is normally - and thankfully - open access from concourse to platform.

Two further old timers were also imminent. The Duchess was on time and looked to be in fine fettle under the roof in bi-directional platform five, before making a dignified departure for the seaside. The Scotsman was late in and was then dragged out of the station at the tail end of the formation behind the diesel that was rostered to return the special to London, and before we had had a chance to renew our acquaintance or take a photo.

Fifty years ago, Chris and I were both still at school. On Saturday, a gentleman of similar age to us, but kitted out in full school uniform, including cap and haversack, and with short trousers revealing some rather serious looking varicose veins, passed us on the riverside path leading to the Lendal Bridge and again in the adjacent Museum Gardens. For a moment, it felt like “All Our Yesterdays,” but, no doubt, he had his own reasons. I know that If I’d worn my hair as long as his wig was, I would have been sent home from my grammar school to get a haircut.

We were not quite finished with bizarre, though. Entertainment on our packed evening train southwards was provided by a hen that had become separated from the rest of the brood. In black party dress with added sash, she spent the journey as far as Doncaster trying to persuade train staff that she had not only lost her ticket but that she really wanted to go to Newcastle. It was not clear whether she realised the essential geography of her situation, or if it was all part of an act of subterfuge. The guard wasn’t buying into it either - but, in the end, she had to!