from north to south (via Scarborough)

From Robin Hood's Bay - above - such a pretty little seaside village - back to Wimbledon there was a difference of 20 degrees - 53 when I left, 73 when I eventually arrived.  Watching the TV weather forecast, I see that Yorkshire should be sunny tomorrow - clearly I missed it!  Robin Hood's Bay was one of the places that figured in my mother's childhood memories - together with Runswick, it was one of the places they went to on holiday (at least until the money disappeared in the Depression).  I don't know whether they stayed at the Victoria Hotel, as I did, but (built in 1892) it can't have changed all that much.

And then I headed on the bus to Scarborough for a few hours.  Joy certainly went there, too, at least once (there's a photo of her looking very grumpy on a donkey), but it was more of a summer holiday destination for Ray and Don - easily reachable from Leeds by train (assuming the Transpennine Express to be running - it's notorious, these days, and my own train was indeed cancelled) courtesy of my great-grandfather's family rail tickets (he was a railway policeman).  I doubt it's changed all that much in some ways - and today's flat greyness means that all my own images have something of a period tinge to them.

Here's the Grand Hotel - a huge building - flying, I was pleased to see, both the old and the new versions of the Pride flag (plenty of places where one wouldn't get that in the US);

although this is an inventive new innovation - fill this metal fish with plastic bottles, and it'll turn into a sculpture (I saw a mermaid similarly occupied in Whitley Bay).

But the funicular is still there, and working;

and here's another magnificent Victorian building - first a private house - ! - and then bought by the Corporation and repurposed, opening as the Town Hall in 1903.

And here's a maybe Edwardian pub (I'm assuming the Golden Last has something to do with cobblers, but all I can find about it on line suggests that it's staunchly Protestant and Unionist and even holds Orange Day marches).

Scarborough's certainly not lacking in political engagement;

and has a superlative ice-cream shop run by two lively Italians.

And so, eventually, back to sunshine and roses.  But I want to return to Scarborough - not least to go to the Art Gallery and Museum, and look at that Victorian architecture in more detail.