Durham...

[bellybabe]

...anyone recommend a reasonably-priced, good hotel? And anything to do there, apart from the cathedral? We're running a workshop at a conference and our travel and accommodation expenses are being paid, but we don't know the place at all.

[Porty]

.. We're running a workshop ....

What's your record for maximum time between workshops?

[Poppy]

Are you still going? Or have you been? I've found a leaflet at the ancestral pile if you are interested?

[bellybabe]

Thanks, but we've been! And quite a trip it was too. Our workshop was a great success, judging by the feedback we got ("Best part of the conference" - woohoo!), but the fun started after that.

I left other half in charge of booking a place to stay, for once...and once only. It was five miles out of Durham, although after the taxi driver got lost, it was more like ten, and he didn't stop the metre even though he got lost! If we hadn't been claiming expenses we'd never have paid it... In the car I said "It is a hotel, not a...pub...isn't it?". "Oh yes. Well, a B&B, but a nice one." Yes...well. I saw it first, and said, "It's a pub."

But not just a pub. It was a "Hotel and Country and Western Club". Luckily, it wasn't country and western night. Or other half would never have returned alive from Durham. It had ceramic shire horses, ceramic soldiers, and horse brasses lining the walls. And Christmas lights outside. And football on in the bar, with a lot (well, as well as we could guess, not being able to see through the smoke) of drunk men watching. I was hot, tired, and hungry, stuck in a C&W club/dingy pub, in the middle of nowhere, with nothing to do.

So we set off to the next pub, which had a nice conservatory for dining, and OH went in to ask if we could eat there. "Well, love, normally you could, but you can't, because the chef's walked out. Just ask the lass behind the bar about it...he's her husband." I ran outside with the drinks, leaving pregnant-with-twins woman with her pint, and watched the bairns play with her son, who said to me, "My dad comes here every single day to get drunk. But he takes me to McDonalds." O-kay. At which point the ice cream van went past playing The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. I kid you not. I looked around expectently for tumbleweed.

Back at the ranch, mine host showed us an aerial photo of the area, to point out nice places to take the kids for a walk. "If you go up the hill, here, and along here, towaards the farm, you can go and have a look. See, they're building new houses, so you could pretend you want to move here and go and look round them! Or if you want a different walk, over here there's a ruined mine, where loads of men were killed in an accident. Kids'll love it."

Yep...Durham was quite an experience.

[Poppy]

Bet you wish I hadn't asked, BellyB!! Bringing back all those bad memories of the 'B&B'. Sorry!!

[scossie5]

Was the place 5m out of Durham called Royston Vasey? What a great tune for an icecream van.

[bellybabe]

No, Scossie, but it might as well have been!

However, Royston Vasey ()actually the village of Hadfield) is actually two miles from my ancestral home. My best friend from school was actually in it, playing "Bakewell Tart" , and my old mechanic was in it, and lots of other familiar faces. And a good few ex-boyfriends live in "Royston Vasey"...