Well, we arrived in Manchester airport and we got through customs without a problem. The police in the airport had guns, but we were even more impressed in Singapore because we saw one with a machine gun. Granny and Grandpa met us at the airport, and we had a real surprise because our other Grandpa had come too.
We got on a train to get to York which took about and hour.
Since we got to York, we have had lots of fun and been pretty busy. On the first day we helped Grandpa with his bees, going to some of the hives and taking off some honey. We had to get dressed up in beekeeping clothes, with a big white hat and veil which attached to the suit (they were very big and pretty hot). When we got back we put to combs in a spinner to get the honey out.
We explored Grandpas garden which has lots of fruit and vegetables. We picked strawberries, raspberries and peas which were yum. He also has toads living in the pond. By the end of the long first day we were all very very tired and I fell asleep while having my dinner.
The next day we went to walk around the big walls that go all around the city. Some of it was built in Roman times on a steep little hill and was covered with slits so that the archers could defend the city. We came to big city gates , called Barr which had portcullis that would raise to let people in. Some had two of these so the enemy would go into one, but then would be trapped and they would fire arrows at them and pour boiling oil. We saw lots of information about the about Romans and some of the old kings who use to stay in York like Henry the 8th an Richard the 3rd.
We also went to Cliffords tower which is part of the original York Castle built in Medieval times. It was built on a lager mound so that it gives a great view of the surrounding land to make it easy to spot the enemy. The hill is the one in the song about the Grand Old Duke of York, who’s 10,000 marched up and down.
We went to the Museum gardens in the City centre and took some nuts to feed the squirrels. We took the wrong type of nuts so as well as attracting squirrels we also got covered in hundreds of pigeons which was very funny and cool.
On the second day we visited York Minster which had great big stain glass windows. We saw the Rose window, which had burned down and had to be re built. We went onto the big alter and saw lots of statues of old people who where buried there. There was someone playing the organ, which had some big organ pipes. If you looked carefully there was lots of faces and gargoyles carved into the stone walls. The Minster was bigger than you could ever think and the towers and ceiling was so incredibly high.