Thursday 14th September

There are times when the geography of the place you live in is a worry.  We live in a basin, an old lake of many millions of years ago.  Surrounded by hills, the Howardian Hills to the south, our Vale of Pickering is the drainage sump for the hills and North York Moors.  The fact of the matter though it is beautiful and I captured this not so good photo yesterday when we went to deliver a monthly village leaflet to Hill Top Farm.  Farms around here are often to be found on the small hills that surround the area, as are churches of course.  A delightful lady called Rosina lived  in the farmhouse, and a small bungalow for the MIL sat some distance away.  As we drove down the farm track we met the owner of a rather more substantial mansion, must get the history of this house, it looks like it could be the manor house.  He was off to look at his horses in the fields below, and as I had seen the fencing and buildings go up for his horses not so long ago I now know just one more facet of village history.  Anyway he was very friendly and discussed the architecture of  this 18th century house, which I note sits above the old rectory making it even more likely that this was the 'big house' of the village at one time.

Flooding in Normanby and why according to an old account.  The last flood was 2007, and people had to wade through the water to get to the Sun Inn, actually not quite true it flooded in the same dip (outside our house) a couple of years ago!

The view from Hill Top farm