Exploring Scarborough
When it threatens rain on the east coast there’s only two places to go, North to Scarborough or south to Hull. Today it’s Scarborough’s turn. I woke at around seven after sleeping surprisingly well, considering that I’d reduced my meds a little last night, and headed straight for Filey Country Park. Anyone who follows me on social media knows where I was going, the superb little cafe that’s attached to the caravan site there. They served me my usual fare of bacon and eggs and a sausage roll (home made and fantastic) while I spent a relaxing hour reading.
Unfortunately I developed a migraine while I was there, which makes for a tricky decision, I could go back to bed and try and sleep it off, basically righting off the day, or I could take the bundle of meds that normally works, but leaves me fuzzy headed and with a strange kind of depressed feeling. I decided on the latter option hoping that plenty of exercise would ward off the depression, it mostly worked. Next stop was the southern cliffs of Scarborough where I have a spot that allows me to park for free and affords a fantastic cliff top walk into the centre.
What makes Scarborough so good on rainy days is the excellent selection of cafes for reading and writing, although my favourite by far is Esquires in the Brunswick centre. It’s a lovely, lively, bright open space and I stayed there for just over an hour writing up my 3 month retirement report. Then I decided to brave the weather and walk around the headland to the end of north bay. This is one of my favourite flat walks and it didn’t disappoint. On my way back I decided to get my cardio workout in for the day by climbing the cliff path up to the castle, which is where I’m writing this diary entry. I’ve been to Scarborough a dozen times, but I’ve never been to the castle as I generally dislike paying for attractions, the castle though turns out to be worth the money for the views! Sadly I was the only person in the cafe, which made it a strange solitary experience, a bit like sitting alone in a strangers living room, so I decided to write this post. I’m heading back into Scarborough centre soon, to do a bit of shopping, maybe buy a magazine and pop back into Esquires, before heading back to Filey.
I’ve decided to upgrade my giffgaff tariff from the £15 to £18 plan, which adds an extra 2GB of data for just £3 as well as additional calls, essentially making it unlimited. Now that my phone works so well at Filey and since my iPhone 6S will be by far my fasted internet access device it makes sense to tether everything else to it and not put a SIM in my iPad anymore. The end result should be saving about £7 a month and getting more data and more flexibility. The only downside is that I will depend more on my iPhones battery, but I’ve picked up an Anker battery case at 60% off retail, which should pay for itself in 3 months.
The walk back to the car was glorious, the rain clouds had cleared and the sun was peaking through the blue patches, but there was still plenty of fluffy cloud action going on to make for an interesting sky and probably a great sunset, but I was weary. By the time I got back to the apartment I was ready for a nap, in the end I only managed 15 minutes, but it helped.
The weather is great now, I’ve just had dinner and I’m looking forward to my evening walk, talking to Debbie which will be topped and tailed by episodes of Fringe. I might even get to walk on the beach by moonlight!
The photo shows the view of Scarborough’s south bay, taken from the viewing platform on the castle wall.
