Seven go to Yorkshire

Last month, seven of us rented a lovely converted barn in the pretty village of Settle, right on the edge of the Yorkshire dales. On the cards: a bit of walking, a bit of boozing. Compared to some of our previous breaks, our Yorkshire walks were pretty gentle (not that I'm complaining). Starting off from Settle we took a detour through the most picturesque village I've ever seen, before cutting through the fields and onto the limestone pavements. We looped back to the path and took a very scenic route back to Settle where we descended on the pub for some local ale. Afterwards, we stumbled back to the barn to eat ALL the pizza in Yorkshire, drink all the wine and play a lot of games, one of which I've got to share with you as it had us laughing till our stomachs hurt.

We've been calling it the animal game but who knows what it's actually called. Each player writes down the name of an animal, folds the paper in half and puts it into a pot. Someone starts by picking out, at random, one of the animals and saying it out loud to the group. Everyone has 7 seconds to draw the animal (or do the best job they can) and the person who called the animal picks their favourite and the worst drawing and they are set aside for later. The beauty of this game is that 7 seconds isn't long at all so it doesn't matter if you're a good drawer or not, you just need to get the basic shape and some distinguishing features in. (Of course the real joy is if someone picks an animal not everyone has heard of: case in point, my friend's narwharl :) haha!) The game continues with each player getting to pick an animal out of the pot. At the end when you've got all the favourites and all the worst ones, the group votes an overall winner and an overall loser. I'm not sure why (probably something to do with the booze...) we've taken to drawing the losing illustration on whoever drew it. Anyhoo, it's a great game, I'd love to know if any of you have played it before (and if it's got an actual name)!

The next day we were all a little worse for wear. After a big fry up we headed off to Malham for a very pleasant walk to Janet's Foss, a pretty little waterfall and pool nestled amongst the trees. The lads decided to have swim which was brave given that the water was icy and also because a fair-sized walking group was looking on - one of whom had binoculars!

We rounded off our Yorkshire trip with some pub lunch (pie, followed by sticky toffee pudding = heaven) before the long old drive back to London. The Yorkshire dales, as I hope the pictures show, was stunning, I only wish we'd had more time there!