Harrogate, Holly and a Whole Lot of Fun!

Hi everybody, welcome back to a brand new blog post! I hope you’ve had a lovely week, I certainly have and so I will proceed to tell you all about it! I’ve been very lucky this week, and although I’m not really sure if I believe in ‘luck’ as such, I’ve definitely been spoiled by people and good fortune this week! I spent the day in Yorkshire again one day this week, visiting my grandparents who stay near Harrogate regularly, and we had a wonderful day filled with activities! If you haven’t ever been to Harrogate, it’s a very quaint town, very neat and pretty with beautifully kept flowers and lots of green space. The shops there are very well kept too, and by that I mean that there are numerous shops with stunning and innovative displays in the windows, and I don’t think I have ever seen a boarded up window or shop in Harrogate. There is a bit of a running joke on how to pronounce Harrogate, be it ‘Harrow-gate’ or ‘Arragut.' How do you pronounce it?

My grandparents picked me up from the train station and we headed for coffee and cake at the dog-friendly Waterstones cafe, with Holly in tow, of course! I had a scrummy hot choc (shocker) and a deliciously sweet cinnamon and pecan slice. (Would definitely recommend to those with a sweet tooth!)

After a leisurely stroll back to the car (via some very pretty clothes shops) we then headed to the Mercer Art Gallery, where at the moment there is an exhibition on Isabel Alexander, a very talented artist alive in the 1940s who had a wide range of artistic subject matter, including botany, coal mining in South Wales and children’s books. It was fascinating to see her work on the coal mining in South Wales, alongside each piece there is a brief description of the painting and in what context she painted it. I learnt a lot from the images and their descriptions, about the lives of the coal miners and also some of the hardships they faced. It was definitely an enlightening experience, although I must say that some of the pieces were truly saddening and really put into perspective how lucky we are today.

The rest of the gallery was hosting a collection of works that have been bought or donated to the gallery, and there was a range of different styles, eras and artists. The exhibition is called 'Friends Forever,' and it was very interesting to see such a range of styles displayed.

From there we went onto Fodder, a fantastic establishment offering local produce and gifts to buy, as well as a fantastic cafe. Three guesses why we were there… you got it, we went there for the food! The company Fodder itself began with a simple idea, they wanted to help local farmers and producers sell their stock and allow consumers to be able to access all the great stuff they had to offer. From this, they developed a food hall and cafe, where all the best food and drink from across Yorkshire can be found. All the profits made from the establishment are donated to the Yorkshire Agricultural Society too. If you’re interested in learning more about Fodder, head on over to their website! It's a truly innovative idea, with a massive choice of all sorts of fantastic food and gifts, and to know the money I spend there is going somewhere advantageous to local people is amazing.

For lunch, I went for the soup and a sandwich option, delicious homemade mushroom soup with a red pepper houmous (I never ever know how to spell houmous, hummus, humous, houmus...??) sandwich (and of course some of Nana’s chips…!).

After lunch and a quick meander around the Fodder shop where Nana and Pops bought me my new lovely sheep mug, we headed back to where they were staying for a cuppa and a little chill time and for Holly to have her lunch! It was then time for walkies, so off we went to a gorgeous little town called Ripley. Ripley is a very picturesque little town, which has been the home of the Ingilby family for over 700 years. They reside in the Ripley castle and manage the town, and in the nineteenth century, one of the Ingilbys tore down the village and remodelled it after an Alsatian style town, which is possibly why it is so beautiful. The other thing Ripley is renowned for is their esteemed ice cream, which we of course had to sample, just in case! It’s truly a lovely place and so I took some pictures to show you all.

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So that was my adventure to Harrogate, and then the very next day, I was invited to another exciting day of fun. This requires a little bit of context, however, so let me dive in! My friend Peter, from university (mentioned in last week’s blog post) suffers from type 1 diabetes, as does his younger brother David. His Mum does a lot of fundraising for Diabetes UK and so I was invited to a charity Easter themed coffee morning to help raise money and awareness for the charity. The charity do fantastic work in researching for a cure to diabetes as well as helping those who suffer from diabetes to cope with the disease, as well as raising awareness about it. This is a very important aspect of the charity's work, since I think there are a lot of misconceptions about diabetes. I know that I certainly believed a lot of them before I met Peter. For example, I didn't really know much at all about type 1 diabetes, I (wrongly) assumed that type 2 was all there was. Type 1 diabetes develops when the insulin-producing cells in the body have been destroyed and the body is unable to produce any insulin, and type 2 diabetes develops when the insulin-producing cells in the body are unable to produce enough insulin, or when the insulin that is produced does not work properly (known as insulin resistance). Type 2 is the most common type, and is caused by genetics and lifestyle choices. Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune condition, which means that your immune system attacks healthy cells by mistake. These are only very brief summaries, because I'm sure I could dedicate an entire blog post to this topic, but for now I will leave you with a link to their website if you do want to find out more! (or even donate to Diabetes UK if you're feeling generous!)

www.diabetes.org.uk

(Pictured below are Peter and his lovely Mum, Lorraine)

The coffee morning was great fun, with lots of games, a raffle, a tombola, a guess-the-name-of-the-sheep, a guess-how-many-eggs-are-in-the-jar and many more. I managed to win myself an adorable sheep friend by guessing his name - Ewebert! Here he is with my new mug from Nana and Pops...A rather sheep themed week - you can take the girl out of Wales...!

Peter's Mum's event managed to raise over £250 for the Diabetes UK, which is absolutely fantastic! I've asked Peter if he wouldn't mind writing a little passage for my blog post about the subject of diabetes, so here we go:

As Rachel said, there are a lot of misconceptions about the different types of diabetes and the causes of them. For example, a lot of times, through no fault of their own, people ask me if I should be eating something that I am, or if I'm the 'low type' or the 'high type.' Depending on a range of factors, my blood sugar can be too high or too low, and often can be both at different times in the same day. Hopefully though, with more awareness events happening and great friends like Rachel writing blog posts about it, some of this misinformation can be cleared up in the coming years!

Thanks Peter! That's all I've got for this week folks, so thanks so much for reading and I'll catch you next week, Rachel x