I'm a genuine believer that birthdays are good for you.... the more you have the longer you live and that's a good thing. It's why you should always make the most of them, you can have your birthday eve, your birthday and your birthday boxing day and the rule is you have to spend the 3 days enjoying yourself as much as possible.
Last Saturday was my 48th birthday and I decided to spend it in Whitby with my sister Lucy and my friend Gav.
Whitby is one of my favourite places, I never get bored there. For a small town on the North Yorkshire coast, there is always so much to do and yet it's lost none of its charm.
There was a small error on day one, it turns out the place we were staying wasn't booked until the Friday, so as we drove up the A64, Lucy was frantically trying to find us somewhere to stay. Fortunately we hadn't taken the dogs with us, so we were able to find somewhere.
We ended up staying at The Stables, which was lovely and we'd never normally have stayed there, so we decided to see it as a surprise bonus!
It was Steam Punk weekend whilst we were there and so there were lots of people dressed up in amazing outfits. What I love most about Steam Punk or Goth weekend is that everyone just gets along, whether you're there to fully embrace either festival, or you just happen to be there, everyone embraces it. Those that are there in their fabulous outfits are more than happy to pose for photographs and there's something really incredible about seeing the Victorian outfits walking through the shambles, or climbing up the 199 steps or mooching around the Abbey, it makes you feel like you've gone back in time.
The plan for the weekend was that we would go into full on birthday celebration mode, it was mine on the 27th and Gav's on the 28th. We decided we wanted to do lots of fun things, but also chill and that's exactly what we did.
It was also a chance for me to start ticking things off my "50 Things to Do Before 50 List"
These things were on our list for the weekend.
Eat ice cream
Eat fish and chips
Go to the "Dracula" play at Whitby Abbey
Go on the Sunset Cruise (this was on my 50 list)
On our first walk into town, Gav and I ticked number 1 off the list... not sure it was Slimming World friendly, but it was delicious! Ice cream fans, mine was a scoop of strawberry and one of biscoff, Gav had the strawberry and rum and raisin. This sort of thing is important to ice cream lovers.
We also ate fish and chips and had the most amazing seafood platter at the Fisherman's Wife, which is one of my favourite restaurants in Whitby.
In the afternoon we headed to Whitby Abbey where Time Will Tell Theatre Company were putting on a production of "Dracula". If you're heading to Whitby over the summer, then I can't recommend going to see this enough. It's on until the end of August. It is honestly hilarious, there's 3 actors in it, all playing various roles and it's one of those things that works for adults and children. You follow the play around the Abbey. Everyone who was there was so engaged with it that it was amazing.
My favourite person was a young boy who was so invested in the legend of Dracula, that he kept putting his hand up to ask questions, his dad kept making him put it down, saying to him, "it's a show not a lecture", but I loved seeing how excited he was by it all, to him all the characters were real and for the afternoon he was a vampire hunter hanging out with other vampire hunters. I'm willing to bet that if his parents are there for a week's holiday, they'll probably end up going to see it again before they go home.
In the evening it was time to tick the first thing off my "50 Things to Do Before 50". Whitby Coastal Cruises have started doing Sunset Cruises and I really wanted to go. Some of the people who've done them have seen dolphins and mink whales and the thought if seeing these beautiful creatures in the wild, made me happy.
It is of course weather dependent, but we'd had such beautiful weather that I pre-booked for us to go. It's sod's law that a couple of hours before we were due to set sail the heavens opened.... but the showers soon cleared.
It's not expensive, it cost us £9 each, children under 14 are £4.50 and the trip lasts about an hour and it's totally worth it.
Because it had been so lovely during the day, I didn't bother to take a jumper, but there's throws onboard you can use, so I wasn't too chilly.
The trip was everything I wanted it to be, the views of Whitby were lovely, the sunset was absolutely stunning (Not that I think my photos do it justice) and we even got to see a couple of porpoises playing in the sea.... it was the perfect ending to the day and means it's one down.... 49 to go!
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