A Flying Visit to Whitby

On February 16th, Mr H and I took our first ever day trip together. First-ever. We have been together three and a half years and this is the first time we have gone anywhere outside our normal localities, apart from our flying overnight visit to Edinburgh the day we got married. 

Whitby is somewhere that both of us have previous memories with and ties to and we've planned to go together for literal years now, so with Mr H's birthday approaching and me gaining a tiny bit of confidence to leave my house since starting at Cats Protection, we decided to have a day away. 

I had convinced myself that with it being midweek (a Wednesday) and still in winter, outside of school holidays, it would be a little quieter but unfortunately not!

After a hellish, bladder bursting, stressful traffic situation meaning we'd been in the car for over an hour but we were actually only 10 minutes from home rather than having almost arrived, followed by the worst game of toilet hunt and a big diversion, we got there around 11am rather than the planned for 9.30am. We parked up and walked straight toward the other side of town and up the 199 steps.

By the time we reached the steps, I had to take my inhaler before even starting up them. Not because I am unfit, but because I have asthma and need to wear a mask at all times when in public, which doesn't help my already difficult breathing! Just a quick note here, if you are going anywhere where there is a small footpath, steps, or the like, please keep to one side and walk with the flow of people rather than against it. It is so stressful to come face to face with people when there is no escape from the situation. It isn't difficult, should be common sense and is just general good manners.

Anyway! Once we climbed to the top, we arrived at St Mary's Church. This church is where many of my ancestors were married! From my 5x back to my 9x great grandfathers and mothers lived in Whitby and so with them being married there I wondered if perhaps they could be buried there also. That span of time covers 1649 - 1798 so it could be likely judging by the dates on other graves. We spent a while looking at as many headstones as possible but between the extreme weathering which has all but dissolved a vast majority of them to the actual weather turning on us and plastering wet hair over our eyes we didn't have any luck. I did take a lot of photos in the graveyard because if you have been here before you'll know I love them, but sadly I lost the files before I was able to edit them. I am gutted!

After our time at St Marys, we took a quick peek at Whitby Abby from the outside (too many people and much money to go inside) then headed back down the steps. We took a flying stop at Whitby Glass, chose our Lucky Ducks then continued over to the other side of town again. 

The final stop was Whale Bone Arch. I took a few photos and as there weren't many people around, I set up the tripod to try and get our monthly portrait. Then a lovely (and I use that word with extreme sarcasm) man ruined my day by being rude and we left, heading back towards the car and home.
Therefore the photo above is actually a cheat. Of course, it's obvious that it is edited but we actually took a photo in our back garden and I edited it onto the photo of the arch. Originally it was going to just be a normal edit and then I thought where and when could we be ghosts more so than in Whitby?! 

Until next time...