Easter in Yorkshire part 1 - Jorvik Viking Centre!

01/04 - I had a dentist's appointment this morning, which turned out to be completely pointless - all we got done was to reschedule another appointment for the 23rd. I hung around Fulham Road until noon so I could go to Mexicali for enchiladas, then I headed into town to start my many missions of the day. These involved firstly getting a doll for Olivia, Kelly's niece - the previous one was lost in the move. I picked up a tiny Baby Born doll from Argos, which came in a MASSIVE box, which I then had to carry around for the next few hours. Next stop was to try and get some new shoes to replace my ailing Nike Dunks, which my Dad bought me in the autumn of 2002. This mission nearly failed, until I let myself be persuaded of the awesomeness of a (frankly flamboyant) pair of blood red high-tops by the man in Size?. As I was on a bit of a spree, I then went to Oxford street to see if there was anything else I fancies. No.

I was very early for the train, so I had a cheeky double cheeseburger as I knew dinner was a long way away - when I met Kelly I found that she had bought me an "emergency pasty" to make sure I didn't get hungry (which means grumpy) on our 2 hour train ride together. This turned out to be a bit more than 2 hours, as we sat outside Peterborough for an hour due to some unspecified problem. All this meant that by the time we got in, Kelly's Dad had decided it was too late to do anything for dinner, so we popped to Tesco and got some stuff to make a quick one. Howie decided that, rather than just letting us cook for him, he would grab something easy and microwavable, in spite of our protests,

This meant that when we got home, Kelly and I had venison, chilli and merlot sausages on french bread with roasted vine tomatoes, accompanied by a goats cheese, rocket, apple and onion salad. Howie had a sweaty paella. I think we made the better choice. Also I should note that it was only half past 8, so I am not sure why Howie had decided that this counted as 'late', especially as we then sat up and drank a couple of bottles of wine until about midnight, when we went to bed and Kelly's stepsister arrived, who then stayed up drinking more wine with Howie until about 0245.

02/04 - We got off to a late start today, eventually heading into York around 1. We started with lunch at Betty's, a tea-room which is apparently a York institution. Kelly neglected to mention (or indeed notice at all) that Betty's is a Swiss tea-room, with raclette and gruyère all over the menu. I have had quite enough of Switzerland recently, so I went for the Welsh rarebit.

Betty's Welsh Rarebit

Next on the itinerary was the Jorvik Viking Centre, the main reason I was excited about York. Upon entering the first thing one notices is the smell, which I suppose must be authentically Viking (smells rather of middens and unwashed animal skins). The main bit is a ride, somewhat akin to a horizontal chairlift from the future, during which you have commentary from speakers in your seat, which occasionally converses with animatronic vikings. I loved it.

Apparently these three were having an argument about dinner.

This chap was, umm, I can't remember but my chair had a chat with him.

This fellow was on the loo - may I remind you there were smells.

Howie picked us up and took us to dinner, which was in a pub called the Pipe and Glass (the recipient of East Yorkshire's first and only Michelin star). For a reason that I have forgotten, Kelly's dad has little or no sense of taste or smell. I wonder if I would have treated five people to such a delicious dinner if I had lost my sense of taste - would you take people to a gig if you were deaf, or a film if you were blind? Maybe those are fatuous comparisons, but I couldn't help feeling bad that he couldn't taste any of the amazing foods we were enjoying. The meal was amazing, I had the fried rabbit rissoles followed by the fillet steak, which was one of the best I have ever had. Kelly had the monkfish cheeks with kipper veloute & something else fishy, and a side salad about a yard long. More wine was drunk, along with some cider brandy to finish - this had such a strong flavour that it got through Howie's taste barrier and he declared that he liked it.

Kelly's fish dish and yard of salad

My perfect steak