Caught!

Ugh...don't you just hate it when you get caught out!

I said yesterday there was an amusing tale to be told about our visit to Whitby Abbey, well here it is.

Having got up pretty early, as we always seem to when we camp, we headed off for the Abbey. I think the early hour was perhaps the cause of our not being quite as compis mentis as we should have been but upon arrival.

Now bear in mind here that Fletch had been here before, there had been no admission fee then and we genuinely didn't know if one was chargeable these days.

The Abbey sits atop a hill and is surrounded by a low stone wall. There was apparently (to us at least) no obvious point of entry and so we began walking kind of aimlessly around the perimeter until we came upon a stile that 'appeared' to be the route into the Abbey.

It seemed simple enough and in our still sleepy state of mind we cheerfully scrambled over said stile........and bang into 'Fiona', a froustly faced English Heritage official who was somewhat less than amused at finding two individuals, who are old enough to know better, trying to sneak in without paying, like kids to the movies! Ack!

I did try to explain but it was pointless, she had her mind made up and her mouth set in a thin line of disapproval and all I achieved was to make myself feel more like a naughty school child than I did already. To make matters worse, when she escorted us to the official entry point it was a very large metal shuttered affair that we couldn't understand ourselves how we has managed to miss, let alone convince Mrs. Frousty face!

By now I was feeling more than a little indignant that it had been a genuine mistake but that the more I tried to explain the less she believed me, so of course we did what you do in these situations and payed up and looked happy.....though we weren't. In usual fashion English Heritage wanted a small ransom for entry into something that one could see no more of on their side of the wall than on the free side but baulking at payment would merely have confirmed her suspicions and there was no way we were going to give her the satisfaction at any cost!