Moor and sea

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On Friday we walked in Fryupdale to Danby Castle which sits in a strategic position overlooking the River Esk valley in North Yorkshire. In the 16th century it was the home of Catherine Parr who, after the death of her husband  John Neville, became Henry VIII’s last wife.

Today we walked the beach from Marske to Redcar. The tide was well out and, searching for evidence of a petrified forest, we instead came across a large ammonite fossil in Salt Scar Rocks.

Eighth flag

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Arrived yesterday in God’s own county. We had a Yorkshire welcome with bunting, a Union flag and the White Rose flag hung in lights over the fireplace.

It does feel good to be on the road again visiting family and friends.

Light

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We drove up from the south to the north east on a lovely spring day. Roseberry Topping, the local hill, was stunning in the evening light. It felt good to be back up north.

Spent the late evening at the Riverside in support of Middlesbrough FC in their 3-1 win over Cardiff. Come on Boro!

Bletchley Park

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We spent the best part of a day exploring ‘BP’, the Buckinghamshire estate and site of Britain’s top-secret world of WW2 Codebreaking.  The mission of those working there was to crack the Nazi codes and ciphers. The most famous of the cipher systems to be broken at Bletchley Park was the Enigma.

It was mind stretching trying to make sense of how Enigma was broken with the help of the genius of such mathematicians as Alan Turing, whose life and work was recently portrayed in the film The Imitation Game.

It was good to know that WW2 hostilities were shortened by at least a couple of years through this project.

Spring

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Took a stroll along the canal and through Campbell Park to a labyrinth we have walked a few times over the years. We passed a stand of snowdrops and some wild primroses alight in the low winter-spring sun.

It is good to be back in the UK but strangely it feels as ordinary as just the next day in the next place.