York - chocolatey wandering

'It is a great art, to saunter.' Henry David Thoreau

It is a well-established fact in our family that I'm the impatient one, the driven one, the one with lists of things to do and times by which they must be done....however...when the muse descends I can happily spend hours sitting in a cafe, reading a book, or meandering someplace interesting outdoors.

The last two days have been spent in York, and it appears the muse of meandering has indeed descended.

The Shambles is a narrow cobbled street with other narrow cobbled streets intersecting it, dating back to the 14th century. Today the area is home to jewellery shops, clothes boutiques, cafes, bakeries, souvenir shops...it's a meanderer's delight.

Any accomplished wanderer (suddenly there are levels of proficiency in wandering?) knows lingering over good coffee is part of the experience. On our first day in York, we stopped here for smooth coffee and amazing chocolatey goodness.

We bought this fantastic hot chocolate pot for Mark & Kobi. I don't generally like hot chocolate (I can't get past powdered chocolate mix being the chocolate equivalent of instant coffee), but this pot uses real chocolate and milk, which is then heated on a stove. It's the same concept as a stove-top coffee pot.

I feel like a whole new world of chocolate has just opened up...plus, it's red and shiny and will go nicely with the coffee pot we bought for 5 euros in a Marseille market.

Today Kobi and I enjoyed a leisurely stoll along York's wall.

(Mark is one of the strongest, bravest men I know...until confonted with having to scale heights in any form. Then he's reduced to an immovable, inarticulate mass. I'm not a particularly compassionate wife, so rather than try to coax him to join us we left him on the street.)

We ambled across the York Museum gardens and basked in the cool sunshine. We were treated to an old abbey which we agreed was splendid.

We experienced pleasure in small things today and were super-excited to see our first ever hedgehog and squirrel.

In York, I did not hurry, rush or charge anywhere with haste.

York lends itself to wander, meander and stroll. To linger over coffee and luxuriate in gardens.

It's the place to rediscover the art of the saunter.