Leaving Harome this morning, we set the satnav for home and noted the estimated time of arrival was 1.11pm. The suggested route was an interesting one: Not the usual drive through Helmsley and down Sutton Bank to the A1, or the same way as we’d come. Instead, we were directed through a series of villages towards York, from where we’d go a bit further before joining the A1 further south.

Interesting.

At this time of the day we didn’t encounter much traffic, though a little further on from here we found ourselves behind a livestock truck. The driver was probably local though, for he was wasting no time in getting to his destination.

That was the village of Hovingham. Seeing the name on a signpost yesterday brought a clear picture of the village green to my mind. I felt sure it was a familiar place, feeling fairly sure that it was the home of the Duchess of Kent’s family - a quick google proved that to be correct - and I thought of my mentor and swimming coach friend who had taught the Duchess to swim when she was a child.

Driving around this area holds so many memories.

A bit further on, the other side of Slingsby , we found ourselves driving along a long straight road adjacent to Castle Howard. I took a few photos but with a bumpy road and the odd rain drop on the windscreen to focus on, my pictures are none too good! What is interesting though, is a YouTube video from someone’s dashcam that I came across - even though he was driving in the opposite direction from us! So, imagine this whole thing backwards and you’ll get the idea !

It was a spectacular ride, in true road trip fashion.

The “punctuation points” of monuments along the way deserved a closer look than we were able to get by simply driving past. I made a mental note and will try to remember to revisit this route next time we’re here.

Whilst my Hero refuelled the car, the name on the banner in front of me said everything of where we were. Ebor is the shortened form of the Roman name for York, Eboracum, and around here it’s one of those names that crops up all over the place. We’d turned onto the A64 from Castle Howard and just across the busy trunk road from here lies the small village of Flaxton, where I completed my teacher training with a final teaching practice at the tiny school there. Not far from there was another village where I’d done some teaching practice too - my very first time in a classroom had been at Strensall, just a few miles north west of here. It was all a long time ago and though the names on the signs were familiar, in reality, everything was very different.

For the next twenty or thirty miles, the standout name on the signposts was Hull. From here, driving south, all roads heading in an easterly direction lead to Hull and once we joined the A1(M) we were both driving on very familiar territory indeed. The topic of conversation was a string of reminiscences for us both then and we smiled as we shared a few stories.

We passed the junction where another Gill, my college friend’s parents lived, right by Ferrybridge Power Station, which prompted me to trot out the old story of a night out with her, when two young men bought us drinks and began a conversation,

“What’s your name?” “Gill”

“What’s your friend’s name?” “Gill”

“Are you sisters?” to which Gill replied, quick as a flash “Yes, our Mother liked the name”

One thing is sure, driving along a familiar route like this makes the journey seem so much shorter, although at times it was like driving through the events of my life - just a bit further down the M1 was where we lived before we moved to Gloucestershire and when a van from Cowes, Isle of Wight pulled out in front of us, I began to think this was all becoming a bit spooky.

We were keeping an eye on the time and both decided that we’d rather keep on going and didn’t need to take a break. As soon as the South West appeared on the signpost, we felt we were getting there, anyway.

It’s been a great trip. Perhaps it’s not what we would have chosen, but we didn’t feel like going through all the palaver necessary to travel further afield and actually, it was a chance to revisit old haunts and discover new ones.

As we opened our gate and pulled into the drive, we noticed it was 1.12pm. A minute later than scheduled!