Day 5... The Road Warrior

Our host took us up to the car rental place this morn, (talk about a full service b&b!) We nabbed our  Volkswagen Golf and headed out.  

The wrong side of the road is an odd place to be.  Only gave us 2 tense moments, but the really weird thing is not having a good feel for where the far side of the car is.  This lack of perception made your position in your lane difficult to figure out .  I adapted soon enough we motors on down the road.  The gps on our phone was really valuable.

Got Sheffield about 12:30 in the afternoon.  We met Stewart Mitchell, a custom knife maker and visited his shop.  It turned out to be quite a history lesson. He is located in a place called the Portland Works, which was made in the 1800's by a man who had the idea that the different knifemakers should all have the ability to work close to one another. So he built a single facility with separate shops which he rented to each of the difference makers. One man specialized and blades another in sharpening another and handles and so on and so forth.  Now they were all right next door to one another.  It was the first place of its kind and it's the last one remaing. 

Stainless steel was invented in Sheffield and the very first stainless steel cutlery was made at the Portland works. Try to find that in a guide book somewhere!   Our favorite thing, travel off the beaten path. But wait, it gets even better.  He guided us to the shop of a gentleman named Trevor Ablett.  He has been making knives since age 15 when he left school  will be 70 next month.  I had the honor to purchase a knife from his hand in his shop, what a great day!  He shares a shop with a  gentleman name Reg who  specializes in making Bowie knives.  Reg started at age 14 , and turns 80 next week.  They work a minimum of 5 days a week 8 hours a day sometimes longer like they always have.  Amazing Master Craftsmen, and here we were chatting with them!

Upon leaving we motored up to york making our way to our hotel , the Bloomsbury.  After checking in we had just enough time to walk into York find York Minster and enjoy the beautiful evensong service at evening .   Afterward a curry special dinner at a local pub restaurant along with delicious English chocolate pudding , filled up and we headed home.  Yes by this point it was awfully dark, pretty cold,  rainy and windy but we didn't care!