The Call of the Sea

With a morning of sunshine, the sea was calling, and our redoubtable friends suggested a visit to Staithes and Whitby with an initial detour over the north moors to Danby to see the Moors National Park centre with its Art gallery and coffee shop.

Then it was on to Staithes, one of the prettiest harbour towns, with houses huddled and jumbled at the bottom of a very steep hill with a ban on visitors cars descending. The views from up top are of red roofs and chimneys with brooding cliffs behind,all leading down to the sea.

After a recce of the harbour and narrow cobbled streets, Lady Carole and I stood at the top of a vertiginous hill to sketch the view. She is an artist and confessed too late that it was extremely difficult, especially for an amateur novice like me. Nevertheless I persevered to produce a page of scribble while enjoying the exercise.

Having clawed our way back up to the carpark at the top, we continued on to Whitby which was busy enough to compete with the Royal mile and Princes Street during the Festival.
We declined this year to climb the long staircase to the ruined abbey and plumped instead for a fish supper at the Magpie restaurant on the shore. It is the equivalent of the highly acclaimed fish restaurant in Anstruther. It did not disappoint.

Despite the Met Office variable weather forecast, we had no rain and much of the time, sun ; yet another action packed day.