A Quiet Week In Thirsk

I thought I would write about my week in Thirsk. I have to be honest, Thirsk is not the most exciting or spectacular place to visit, but is beautiful and relaxing, and the flat I take in Little Green Mews next to St James' Green is nothing short of perfect. You can see it here

Thirsk is easy to reach by train from Newcastle and if you use a Two Together or Senior Citizen (that is me these days) railcard you can save over a third on rail fares, and then a taxi to the flat and you are set up to do as little or as much as you want.

Public Transport is nowhere near as good as Newcastle or Settle but if you pick and choose you can still use it to visit surrounding areas , but an eighty pound taxi fare to get to Helmsley was a bit over the top.

Thirsk has a lot of great places to eat , especially Bianco’s on the Market Square and the White Horse Fish and Chip restaurant about five minutes away. So you definitely will not starve here , you will probably put weight on.

These are not the only places worth visiting if you want something to eat, check out the Thirsk website here and what you can find on Google . because you are reading this I know that you can use Google.

Although these places are not spectacular , walking and visiting provides absolutely great relaxation and gives a chance to think and be inspired for my writing, walking past the racecourse is not too interesting but walking up to St Oswald’s Church and the Packhorse Bridge close to the A19 is a wonderfully calming amble.

Even walking round the Market Square with it’s clock and knitted post covers is a very pleasant and calming place, although I don’t really drive these days so don’t have a problem parking like some people seem to have an issue with .

The river / stream Cod Beck runs through Thirsk and I often follow this from the weir , through the parkland , to the bridges where the ducks congregate then out to the farmland where you can cross Cod Beck via a rickety iron bridge and then walk up through more fields to come out close to St Oswald's Church.

Since Instagram stopped allowing direct photography and video (well it has on my Google Pixel 2XL) , this means I have to take pictures directly with the camera on my phone, which means they are auto backed up by Google Photos , which means I can easily include them in this story. It is funny how some things can result in hidden benefits.

I really wasn’t sure I could write this , how can you write about something that just has a calming, almost soporific influence on me. There is a James Herriot Museum, The Racecourse and a Thirsk Museum but they hold no interest for me. Although I bet on horses , I find any sport that goes round in circles basically very tedious although Speedway and the Isle of Man TT are my only exceptions to that rule.

Thirsk is just possibly one of the most relaxing places I go to. I could not live there because I prefer not to drive , but it is great for a relaxing holiday for me.

I will be back there and maybe discover things that I didn’t see before like the Pack Horse Bridge. Until the last time I was here I didn’t really know about Cod Beck, although this time there seemed to be a major proliferation in the Duck population of Thirsk.

If you check by Instagram feed you can see a lot of the things I recorded under the hashtags #Thirsk and #CodBeck . My Instagram handle is @mikeydred96