Whitby......Jet

I have had a desire to visit Whitby for a number of years, ever since I read about Whitby Jet and Victorian Mourning Jewelery. I had a little silver brooch inlaid with which I hoped was jet and filigree silver flowers containing little seed pearls. So I brought it with me on the chance I was to get the opportunity to travel to Whitby. (plus I love Heartbeat, but that has absolutely nothing to do with it!!!).......
'D' and 'V' set off at 7am Sunday morning and hit the motorway! (that's us ready to jump in the car)WOW!!! I love driving over here! sitting on 130km and that was only in the middle lane!.. Not sure of where we were really going, thought we better stop at one of the services, grab a coffee and a map and take off again. We went through York (Clare, I did not know we would do this and I could have seen Gabi!!) amazing to see the wall and hear the history as much as 'D' could tell me. We were on a mission, no time to stop and walk around unfortunately, as it would have taken a day, so we have perfected the "Drive By Shooting" ... any hints or advice with this technique will be willingly shared! As we did stop in the middle of the street at times, we were on the look out for police and hoped we would not be arrested! I shot turrets and broken tumbling fortress walls, Tudor houses which had sunk in the middle, original thatched roofs to old cottages such beautiful old buildings and simple gardens surrounded by lush green trees. Absolutely gorgeous.
Then suddenly we were in the moors district with sparse vegetation and green gullies where little homesteads were nestled out of the chilling, fierce wind....what's that in the distance??.....The Abbey of Whitby on a hillside, we had made it!

We made it to Whitby by 12pm just in time for the sky to open up and misty rain to wet us through! ...that was half the fun! But.....we nearly cried! There were so many people (tourists) and the quaint seaside town was huge! And there was not a Jet Jewelery shop in sight, all we could find were numerous op shops, real estate agents and clairvoyants!!! Hell! what were we going to do now.....? walking on further we came across the Whitby Bridge over which we trod and found on the other side, all the restaurants, jewelery shops and speciality stores you could imagine. BTL! (Maddy, Shay&James, here are yr postcards!)
After our lunch we closely examined the older jet in the shops and more contemporary jet jewelery. ...and no, my brooch was not jet but onyx, so i bought myself a little pendant of jet to remind me of Whitby. Then the sun came out and what a beautiful day it was, though very windy. The Abbey on the hill was remarkable as well as the cemetery with the amazing view of the the North Sea. When we left we felt that our trip had been most successful and we were thrilled with our visit to Whitby, England...home of Heartbeat!!!
On our way back to Denham, we drove through Manchester for a cup of tea with 'D's' old friends. Unfortunately we didn't make it to Liverpool, my Dad's hometown, (next time!) ..and arrived home around 11pm! A long day ....