The quest for snow begins - to a flooded bar in York!

Today was the first "proper" day waking up next to tt. Unlike yesterday I actually set an alarm and got up on time. Giving up smoking is much easier than I suspected it would be. I know it's only two days, but if my dimly remembered statistics are correct, that means I'm actually over the physical nicotine addiction, and it's now just the other nasty chemicals my body needs to forget about.

Had a busy morning, popping into the office to do some last minute stuff before going away for the week, getting a haircut, etc. My back is 100x better since tt arrived but it's still giving me some shit. No news on appointment with physio yet, but it's only been about 4 weeks - we know how these things (don't) work.....

Got home about midday, loaded up the car and we headed off. The destination is Scottish Highlands because tt has not seen snow since she was very young. It features in one of her childhood memories before moving overseas and she's not seen it since. I may be too late already as it's a mild April, but my goal is to take my girl somewhere snowy.

We got as far as York and by then the jetlag was catching up with tt again. When I last flew that route it took me about 4 days to recover properly. We're staying with some friends here in York and all we've done this evening is go to a couple of pubs.

I was worried about staying with this friend as he and his gf are smokers. Luckily it really didn't bother me. Even when we went out to the pub it was fine. Should have done this years ago! While we were at the pub tt and I were telling them about how I'd given up smoking and tt had given up coca cola. But we didn't call it coca cola (who does?!) We just referred to tt giving up "coke".

When I explain it like this it sounds obvious, but can you imagine my suprise when tt got up to go to the ladies and my friends said to me: "So how long did your g/f have a drug problem before she gave up?" I had NO idea what they were talking about!

The pub we went to is the most flooded pub in York and it's very famous. All the furniture, fixtures and fittings are removable so that when the river rises they can move everything upstairs in an instant. There are photos on the walls of canoeists that actually canooed off the river and up to the bar during one flood that was very severe! Was good to take tt to a traditional, albeit, touristy pub. I think she's still a bit overwhelmed by everything at the moment.

Hopefully tomorrow we'll reach Edinborough. Tt doesn't seem to mind my driving which is a relief, there'll be lots of it to come...

Woke up: Home by sea
Bed: York
Done: 230 miles