Having lived in Yorkshire for 35 years I feel that I know it well, I have visited, worked in and holidayed around much of the county. However I have not spent as much time in Lancashire and it has been lovely to spend more time in this part of the country.

We used to joke in Marsden, which was the last village before the border with Greater Manchester and the Lancashire area, that the War of the Roses was still remembered 400 odd years later. That war, which we re-enact one of the battles of at the Tewkesbury event, was between the house of York and the house of Lancaster for control of the throne.

Of course the borders have moved many times so parts of my current trip were once in Yorkshire anyway. It was amusing to be driving in and out of Yorkshire and Lancashire as I travelled around.

I have been staying in Clitheroe at a lovely quiet site just next to the River Ribble. The town has a castle and is very near one of my favourite National Trust houses, Gawthorpe Hall, with its amazing textile collection. It was very hard to resist a 4th visit 😉

Since I have been on the road for about 9 weeks now I have decided to have a quiet few days here.

A walk by the river on a sunny Sunday was just what was needed, time to stop and look at the berries and the acorns, no squirrels to be seen though.

There was a lovely bridge and a little further exploration led to a nice pub with a little sunny garden to sit in.

I did actually go back into North Yorkshire on my second day here as the route I was planning was very fog bound and though I am OK with country lanes it is nice to see where you are going when you really don’t know where you are going!

I headed for Settle and was rewarded with beautiful scenery for a walk around Austwick, where Jacky and I stayed nearly 3 years ago on our first Dales trip.

It was lovely to be there again, following the old bridleways.

There were some very friendly cows!

I have spent the evenings stitching and have now got a nice collection of Christmas ornaments finished. I may make a couple more just for my tiny tree then need to move on to some knitting.

There are 6 of these ones in the picture above, which are for the Huddersfield friends. The ones below are for the rest of the family. All of the designs come from the JBW book I bought last Christmas.

I have also been enjoying sitting in my little reading nook in Katy, I need to try and get through as many of these books as I can in the next 3 weeks!

I have visited a little museum which was very interesting from a heritage management aspect so I shall be back soon with more pictures from that trip. As for the War of the Roses I think both the red and the white rose counties are equally lovely, though my heart will always belong to Yorkshire ! Until next time have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.