Loooong Half Term holidays... Scarborough

It's Friday. But it feels like the half term holiday is stretching on forever.
This is obviously a very good thing. Perhaps it's because we've done so many things this holiday?

Over the last few days we've been down to Birmingham, headed out and about to Helmsley & Rievaulx Abbey and discovered Molly doesn't really do camping.
But she does quite like youth hostels now. Our friends who are up in the area this week had booked into Scarborough Youth Hostel yesterday and the two families had a fantastic day on the beach. Or, at least the kids had a lovely day on the beach. The grown ups spent time in the castle and in the coffee shop.
Louise and I left Molly at the youth hostel and had a lovely meal in Scarborough. It's one of those places with a split personality. Of course, it's got the chav ridden, fish & chips and sticks of rock shops just like any big seaside town but there's a more attractive and inviting part of Scarborough as well. Obviously the beach is a major draw, sand and sea and children is something that never goes out of fashion after all. But venture along the seafront and after the gaudy amusement arcades fade away you suddnely get a glimpse of what Scarborough used to be. A gorgeous collection of ornamental gardens, sculpted walkways and grand hotels. Memories of a bygone past and absolutely beautiful.

Molly had a good night in the youth hostel as well. So good, that we've now lost her for the day as she's headed off to Flamingo Land for far more fun than we could offer her.
We're going to meet up with them all later tonight for a meal and tales of our exciting days. No doubt hers will have been far more exciting than ours as we were waiting in for the plumber to come along and look at the shower pipe problems. And he arrived almost on time, took one look at it and decided he'd need to come back next week to do the repair properly. On the plus side, it seems that finally we'll be getting a proper repair sorted. But it's really annoying to realise yet again, that workmen increasingly seem incapable of actually carrying out a job on the day they come round.