We spent the last week on holiday - in Thornton Le Dale - a village just to the east of Pickering in North Yorkshire on the road to Scarborough.

It was really nice to get away for a bit of a wind down.  I've been travelling rather more than I like with work recently - I've had 4 trips in the last 8 weeks - 3 to the US and one to Hungary - so it made sense to spend the half term week away to just chill for a bit. 

We rented a cottage that slept 6 (2 doubles and one twin) and we went away with Nancy and Tony.  The cottage was really lovely - about 265 years old, but it had been decorated and fitted out immaculately.  I'd attach some photo's only Emily forgot to pack the camera charger, and so we didn't take any .   In lieu of our own photos, here's the online brochure: http://yorkshirecoast.sykescottages.co.uk/cottages/2001.php

Anyway, there were two bathrooms, 4 loos, a really lovely sitting room plus a fab kitchen/dining room.  Also it gave us the chance to road test our new kitchen as the sink and cupboards were identical to the ones we are currently having fitted.

The village of Thornton Le Dale was lovely - a small river runs through the village, plus it has all the amenities you'd expect - 3 pubs, two bakeries, a general store, two tea rooms and a chocolate shop .  It was also only 2 miles to Pickering, which has more of the same, but on a bigger scale, so we walked there a couple of days too - so we could work off some of the calories gained by lazing about.

We had a couple of trips out to Scarboroough (not all that impressed), Whitby (really fab with fantastic fish and chips), Eden Camp (WW2 Prisoner of war facility, now a museum) as well as the aforementioned trips to Pickering.  the weather was cold but mostly dry - apart from one snow shower and a little overnight rain.  Whilst we were in Whitby, we encountered a rather higher than usual proportion of Goths - our arrival just happened to co-incide with Goth Week, with various music entertainments being available for those who like to wear black.  Why would Whitby be associated with Goths?  I puzzled over this until in the tourist information shop I found out that Bram Stoker wrote Dracula in Whitby.  Now it all made sense .