The ‘C’ Word

English people are quite bad at recognising that their country of origin is very beautiful. I know this because I am an English person and I frequently undervalue the appeal of my homeland. When it comes to holidays, we usually favour taking advantage of cheap flights into Europe to get better guarantees of good weather (and usually cheaper alcohol too, depending on where you’re going). After all, the English have a terrible reputation to uphold overseas. We’ll be damned if any travelling Englishman tries to improve it by learning some of the local language or by not drinking 8 pints at the airport pre-7am flight. But navigating airports is a pain in the bottom, and I need to see more of the wonderful English seaside. I only made it to Dorset for the first time last year and I was absolutely stunned at how beautiful it is. So, I thought I’d try my hand at some domestic holidaying this weekend. That’s why Anna, Lucy and I booked a little Airbnb in Whitby, a picturesque English town situated on the Yorkshire coast in North England. It is really worth a visit.

I didn’t know a lot about Whitby before visiting it. To be honest, I still don’t know loads about it, but I certainly know more. There is an astounding demand for fish and chips. Usually, you cannot walk for 5 minutes in an English town without seeing another pub, which is true of Whitby too. The difference in Whitby is that the pub will have a huge banner outside it stating that they serve the best fish and chips in the country, whilst being sandwiched in-between two other places which also, somehow, serve the country’s best fish and chips. I’m not sure if there is a recorded statistic on how many individual chips are sold in Whitby per year, but I bet it exceeds the total number of ants estimated to exist in the world. And who gets to eat all of the chips that don’t make it into the stomachs of tourists? The fucking seagulls.

Before I start on this topic – yes, I know seagulls aren’t only in Whitby. I even know that the seagulls in Whitby aren’t the worst in the country… that award goes to the Brighton seagulls, who are absolute thugs. Take the worst animal on the planet and give them the diplomacy of a Londoner being told that they have to wait an entire FIVE minutes before the next tube will arrive, and the result is the scum which is a Brighton seagull. The audacity of these things is off the chart. I saw a Brighton seagull divebomb into a young girl’s portion of chips which were in her hand, knock them on the floor and then proceed to eat the chips as her entire family chased it around in circles. The family abandoned the operation when the rest of its gang all flew in to obtain some of the loot. The girl was off crying to the side by this point… I think she had lost her appetite.

I do have a particular bone to pick with the seagulls of Whitby, though. I’ve been woken up by seagulls every single day at 5am. I’m pretty sure no sentient being would make the noises these birds do at this time if they weren’t also aware of how INFURIATING it is. Waking up to songbirds is one of life’s greatest pleasures and I am lucky enough to experience it frequently at my parent’s house in Cheshire, where I currently live. They have a nice sized garden which contains a lot of bushes and bird feeders, the perfect combination for attracting birds. The nice kind of birds. Seagulls, however, seem to have learnt their morning call from someone who hasn’t stopped drinking for an entire year and has now forgotten how to communicate. In lieu of real words, they have resorted to simply making whatever noise they feel they can vocalise the loudest to disturb the most number of people, in hope that one of them understands what they are actually trying to say. “GAH… GAH… GAH,” they call to each other over their morning coffee (which they probably fished out of the ocean). I know that a neighbouring dog also hates the seagulls because it proceeds to bark incredibly loudly back at them all morning. I can only assume the owners of this dog are deaf because they make no attempt at stopping it from doing so. The dog is on my side, though, so I shouldn’t be getting annoyed at it. It’s the seagull’s fault, Dan. Remember that. Seagulls are the most obnoxious animals ON THIS PLANET. If I had been starved of food for an entire month and someone offered me a plate of seagull, I’d throw the meat straight into the ocean and proceed to eat the plate itself.

Despite being a walking zombie due to lack of sleep, I managed to pull my walking socks up and do a beautiful 7-mile walk along the coast on Saturday morning. We got the bus to a place called Robin Hood’s Bay and embarked on the walk back to Whitby. The weather started out a little cool, making us both panic that we had under-dressed as we got off the bus. That theory lasted about 30 minutes before we realised that we were absolutely boiling already and that it was only getting warmer. Anna tied her coat around her waist but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It just looks so weird. I opted to carry mine for the best part of 5 miles.

Lucy absolutely loved it. For such a small dog, she really can walk a long way. I doubted that she would be able to see the walk through and suspected that we’d have to carry her some of the way. We didn’t! There were a few firsts along the way too; the first time she met a lamb up close, the first time she stepped onto a beach, and the first time that she saw the sea. She did not like any of them. At one point, we encountered a lamb which had managed to get through a fence and was on the walkway. It seemed quite distressed and (what I assume was) its family were on the other side, also panicking. They weren’t doing a good job of helping it resolve the issue. As we approached and decided we needed to assist, Lucy went into meltdown mode. She had no idea what it was, but she wanted Anna and I to know that she was not happy about it being there. Lucy has met sheep before, but they have always been far away or on the other side of the fence. I didn’t realise that she took confidence from fences separating her from other threatening animals – it actually makes me think that she’s smarter than I give her credit. I had to pick her up and turn away from the lamb to try and stop her barking and crying whilst Anna opened a metal fence and encouraged the lamb through. The lamb did so and then the entire herd ran as far away from us as possible. We like to think that we earnt ourselves some good karma from it. A couple walking slightly ahead of us totally ignored its plight.

The walk ended in Whitby. There are the remains of an abbey on a hill overlooking the town. It’s called Whitby Abbey, for some reason. Next to it is a brewery that serves pizza. We decided to call into it and have a pint and a pizza to celebrate. It had just turned 13:00 and we felt accomplished. The second we sat down, Lucy passed out and wouldn’t be stirred (other than when there was pizza on the table – you could get her heart to start beating again by waving food in front of her nose). It made for quite a cute sight and a few people came over to chat to us about her. She couldn’t have cared less and would only briefly open her eyes to give us ‘the stare’ if we were moving her too much or being too loud. The brewery is lovely – I’d really recommend doing the coastal walk and finishing in there. We didn’t go into the ruins of the abbey; It cost £10 to enter the site and we could see it from our table in the brewery anyway.

Another thing I’ve learnt about Whitby is that apparently, it has an association with Dracula. I haven’t read the book or seen any of the films which I assume exist, so I’ve only read what the relationship is about on Google. There are 199 steps up to the Abbey that he walks up in the novel, and they are now famous because of it. I didn’t count the steps myself but I’m willing to concede to what the legend says. There is Dracula merchandise in all of the gift shops and a museum called The Dracula Experience. People go Dracula mad in Whitby. Anna told me to strike a Dracula pose as we descended the stairs from the abbey. The one day that I didn’t wear my cape and fangs to go out walking – how frustrating. I didn’t manage the most convincing image and I’m pretty sure no one would ever guess I’m trying to be Dracula from what I am doing. If I’d just had chemotherapy it would have been better as the process seems to wipe any colour from my face for a day or two.

On Sunday we decided to drive to Newcastle as neither of us had ever been there. It’s another hour and a half north of Whitby. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. After spending the morning Googling ‘what to do in Newcastle’, I established that the main things were to walk the various bridges over the river and enjoy the quayside. Ok, not really, but that’s what someone suggested on a random forum when someone asked ‘what can I do with a few hours in Newcastle’. We decided to park South of the river and walk over one of the bridges, then find somewhere to eat.

As we made our way over The Tyne bridge, I suspected that we had over-anticipated just how good walking over a bridge could be. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t groundbreaking either. It is essentially a dual-carriageway with a pavement next to it but elevated from the ground. You did get a nice view down the river and into the city, but it wasn’t amazing. In Philadelphia, I used to regularly run over The Benjamin Franklin Bridge. That bridge was much higher, and pedestrians had their own separate walkway which went above the level of the traffic – a much cooler bridge experience. I always did my hill repeats on it.

As we approached the north side of the bridge, I noticed something laying on the ground. Lucy ran towards it with purpose so I assumed it was food. I pulled her back to inspect it closer. To my surprise, it was a used tampon. I didn’t see it on TripAdvisor, so I’m assuming it wasn’t a piece of shock art or a historical artefact. We took the executive decision to not let Lucy anywhere near it and proceeded to the quayside. Quite an introduction to the city. I’ve never seen Geordie Shore, but I assume it is a result of that show somehow.

We spent our few hours there walking around and getting a feel for the city. Neither of us ate breakfast, so we wanted to find a nice cafe quickly. The one we chose didn’t end up being very good. Hunger defeated logic. All of the food was overpriced and the quality was poor. I’m not going to name it as I’m not writing the blog to critique restaurants. Lucy seemed to enjoy herself, though. After incessantly crying because she was on the floor, I decided to pick her up and have her on my lap. She’s well behaved usually but she had been sitting in a car all morning, so I think she was a bit restless. We hadn’t walked around very much at this point. I was eating a cheese and tomato croissant when all of a sudden, Lucy lunged and ripped the top half of the croissant off and wolfed it down. The table next to us were in disbelief and couldn’t stop laughing. A woman on another table just looked horrified, but she looked that way before Lucy nicked the croissant; she didn’t seem too enamoured by the small amount of space inside, the pushy waiting staff or the large, overambitious menu options. Inside my mind I agreed with her, but I doubled down and ordered plenty of food just so I didn’t leave hungry AND disappointed. I had nothing but admiration for the move from Lucy. The croissant was quite average so it wasn’t a huge loss. I also wouldn’t usually order a filled croissant – why mess with something that is already perfect? I think Lucy wanted to teach me a lesson. Lesson learnt. We left feeling full but disappointed. The rest of our time was spent walking around parks and looking at some of the local sights. The only time we recorded anything was when we saw The Angel of the North from the motorway on the way home. It isn’t as big as I thought it’d be, but it was still cool.

We got back to Whitby at about 17:00 and chilled out for an hour at the Airbnb. The sun was fully out now but it was still a bit cold. As it is our last night here, we wanted to go into the town for a while. We headed back out and went to a dog-friendly beach by Whitby harbour. We figured out how to make Lucy like beaches – show her that you can dig in the sand without consequence. Lucy is a big fan of digging. My dad, however, is not a fan of her digging. He is forever shouting at her for ruining the flower beds and digging up bulbs to chew on. Of course, knowing that she isn’t meant to do it only makes her enjoy it more, comme stealing croissants or trying to eat tampons off the street. Once Anna encouraged Lucy to dig and she realised it wouldn’t get her in trouble, she fell in love with the beach.

So, I’m finishing this blog post off whilst sitting in the Airbnb on our final night here. My family got me a voucher for Airbnb my birthday – what a lovely and thoughtful present from them. We tried to book a few different weekends away but had to cancel, either because I felt too ill or because other medical issues got in the way. It is nice to post all of these pictures and videos and reflect on the past few days, knowing that I’ve successfully got out of my bubble. I like my bubble, but it is so beneficial to break out of it occasionally. We’ll spend a bit of time walking around the town tomorrow morning and give Lucy another run around on the beach, then we’ll make the two and a half-hour drive back to Cheshire before the evening rush hour hits. It’s been great, Whitby. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again in the future.