I currently have the best of both worlds. I moved in June to a village on the north west outskirts of York, with the city on one side, and open countryside on the other. It takes me literally only 5 mins by train to get into the city centre. 
The number 4 from Acomb to the university and Science Park is the poshest bus in York. It is called the FTR which immediately made me think farter. But no, the letters ftr are actually a reference to the FuTuRe of travel.
I have been hibernating. Right through the tail end of last winter, right through summer and most of autumn. Then for some reason I decide to tentatively poke my camera through the back door in the middle of a rainstorm. 
Today's photo is of our blue bag and green box, provided to householders in York for our fortnightly collection of recyclables. What could that have to do with exciting news? Bear with me, it's coming.
I posted a misty Knavesmire photo not so long ago, but went back to take more. Here's one of them (click on the Knavesmire label at the bottom of his post if you want to know more about it from my previous entries).
Make way! I am going to London today! I need to be there to attend a luncheon at 11.45am, and will, I hope, be boarding my train at 8:12am.
Just when the last lot of snow had just about cleared, it's done it again! My daughter gave a huge sigh when she saw it, and told me; "School is freezing when it snows and some of the stricter teachers won't let us keep our coats on in the class room." Thermal vest for her today then :-D
The army recruiting team were in York for the recent residents' festival, with a climbing wall that moved on a conveyor belt sort of set up - so you could climb and climb but never get to the top. It could be tilted forwards and backwards to vary the gradient too.
In the centre of York is a pub called the Roman Bath, named as such because the steam room of a Roman bath house was found underneath it in the 1930s. The excavations have been turned into a small but very interesting museum, and last week I went for a look.
I liked this model of the fortress and stood here for a while working out where everything was. That's the main gate at the front which was in St Helen's Square, and the tower on the front left must be the multangular tower. I think the square building in the middle is about where the Minster is, and I think the bath house must be that barely visible building on the front right, just peeping out from behind the wall.
LJ enjoyed trying out the replica armour, shields and helmets in the museum. He found out that a centurion's helmet is very heavy!
This was going on for a large part of Saturday morning at the Residents' Festival, with various bystanders lured out of the crowd to don a Sumo costume and wrestle. I should have volunteered. It would have been a good way of keeping warm. Live coverage of events was going out on Minster FM.
There's a Facebook group I've been enjoying recently, called You Know You're From York When ... and number one on the list is "you meet up at the fountain." Above, is The Fountain. No-one meeting there on the day I took this pic, Monday at around 10am. It was way too chilly!
So after dissing the York bus only a few days ago, I went for a ride on one. An open topped York bus. On the freezing cold last day of January with the snow blizzard that was about to hit York already making itself felt in the air. 
This is the view looking up Bishopthorpe Road, from my morning bus stop. Continue up the road this way, and you go past Terry's and to the village of Bishopthorpe ("Good Morning Archbishop Sentamu").
This is the view looking down Bishopthorpe Road from my bus stop. Continue this way, and you'd go past the Southbank shops (Pig and Pastry, Millie's, hooray!) and into town over Skeldergate Bridge.
This weekend it was the York Residents' Festival, and I'm afraid I'm going to be grumpy about it.
On the first day of the month, the City Daily Photo blogs participate in a theme day, and this month, it is "paths and passages." I couldn't possibly not participate.
I felt like a twerp taking this photo, and I don't really know why. Maybe it was because it's not exactly a place where people normally stop and take pictures. They just fly through the barriers (just behind me here) and on to wherever they're going. Taking this, I did have a bit of an audience of puzzled ticket barrier "help" men behind me who probably wondered what the hell I was doing.
Above is York City Station on a wet January morning. In a few hours, I shall be there, setting off on a day trip to Leeds, where I'll be meeting my old school friend in the Art Gallery Cafe. We haven't seen each other for a few years now, as she's been living abroad for a while, and is only here on holiday in fact - so I'm grabbing the chance to catch up. It will be great spending some time in Leeds with her. It's home town to both of us, and a place which has changed immeasurably since the days of our mispent youth!
There are quite a few bus stops for the York City Sightseeing Bus along my normal morning bus route. The buses run all year round, have a running commentary, and you can get on and off as much as you like. Unfortunately I won't be reporting back about whether it's any good, because it costs £10 for a ticket, which only lasts 24 hours and seems to go where my normal bus goes anyway :-D 
I was in the village of Bolton Percy yesterday, about six miles to the south of York. It is a quiet little backwater and in parts, is one of those places where it seems not a lot has changed for centuries.
Here it is. The multangular tower. A rather nice piece of Roman architechture left in the Museum Gardens, once at the corner of the Roman military fortress of York. The small bricks at the bottom of the tower are the Roman ones. The top part with the larger bricks is from when the tower was rebuilt during the medieval period. 
Here it is from the other side. You can see the difference in brick type more clearly here, that upper part with the "windows" being the later one. The red stripe in the Roman built section looks decorative but was apparently to cement the structure together 
Rowntree Park is just near our house. I took the kids there yesterday afternoon, along with their friend and they played happily for ages in the playground. Then I looked round to find the lake and sky were pink, and managed to quickly grab this shot. The park closes at dusk, and the park keeper was already on the way over to us to say time up, jangling his keys, as I took this. 4.40 pm, if you wondered!
My youngest son Little J is not particularly into historical stuff, unlike my eldest Erik who loved it when he was this age. Above is Little J on Saturday, pictured thwarting my attempt to photograph the location of the Praetorian Gate - the main entrance into the fortress of Eboracum (York) established AD 71. He had just bought a new game for his Wii with some Christmas money, and wanted to go home and play it. So he decided to pogo around me and my camera in protest.
Here is the same location, St Helen's Square, without Little J pogo-ing into the photo. The road you can see between the blue and black shop fronts there is Stonegate, and follows the line of the original main road into the fortress established by Roman soldiers who built the first city of York, all those centuries ago (there was nothing here before the Romans' arrival, at this strategic meeting point of two rivers, the Foss and the Ouse).
Nothing left of the Romans' gate here now, but five minutes away in the Museum Gardens stands a multangular tower that was part of the fortress's defences.
Ruby: Would you like to go and see it?
Little J: Oh, all right then! But can we go home, soon?
Ruby: Look, I'll do you a deal. If we can go see the ruins, we'll watch Mr Yellow juggling for a bit first.
Little J: Done!
When belting into York Station to catch a train, it's always a relief if it leaves from one of the lower number platforms, as you know the platform is right there near the staion entrance.
I was very pleased with myself for wearing my posh ankle boots to go to London in yesterday. That's why I photographed them at the station, while waiting for my train. Look how the chewing gum splodges on the station floor match the pattern on my skirt. I didn't notice that when I took the picture, but it's actually quite cool.
This is the view through our back bedroom window, taken just now at 5 to 9 am, Southbank, York.
A leaflet came through the door this week about the disused Terry's factory, seeking our opinions as nearby residents on the amendments to the council's brief for would-be developers.
Terry's is currently owned by the developer Grantside, who bought the factory in 2006 for £26 million. They put in a proposal to turn the place into loads of homes, a luxury hotel, offices and workshops, but the plan was thrown out by the council's planning department.
So the amended brief from the council says the developers may submit proposals for: a high quality hotel, conference and leisure facilities, shops, restaurants, and specifies that the development must benefit local people and have a "communal" feel.
I've been trying to get my head round it for a day or two now. It isn't stated on the information given to me why the last proposal was chucked out, and how the amendments will prevent that happening again - which surely, it the key piece of required information here. I think, if I remember rightly from what I read in the paper at the time, the main reason was the traffic congestion that it would supposedly cause in the area. I can only assume this must have been because there were too many homes planned as part of the last proposal (?). Why am I having to assume things? It would be nice if it was all made a bit clearer After all, this article in the Press yesterday tells us:
"It's one of the biggest and most crucial developments in York's recent history - and now the people of the city are getting their chance to reshape its future!"
Communicate to us clearly about it, then!
After residents have given their opinions, which we have until Feb 22 to do, the brief will be revised, and presented to the council's planning committee in March or April, according to the article in yesterday's Press. Then I suppose Grantside will have a look at it and submit another proposal. If they can still afford it, and if they aren't too p*ssed off by now.
Today in York, it is one of the most miserable days imaginable. Dark, cold, windy and raining hard. I just got drenched on the school run, and am now warming up with a cup of coffee while looking through the photos I took of Little J playing hockey for York City Under 10s yesterday in Halifax. We had sun, and lots of it, hooray!
This piece of graffiti is on Bishopthorpe Road. Look at the photo below, to put it into context. 
Building with whopping great hole in roof. Tree leaning over it in an aggressive stance. Did the tree actually inflict the damage? Or was it another tree, now gone? I really don't know, but one thing's for sure: Tree 1, Building 0!
The bus ride is nearly over. We stop at York College of Law while an early student gets off, and then continue on up Bishopthorpe Road, to Bishopthorpe. Since thorpe means a place in Old Norse, I guess "Bishopthorpe" means the place of the bishop. In fact bishops have been living in Bishopthorpe for centuries. And one still does. Not just any old bishop, either. This is an Archbishop.
The bus is going fast, but here comes Bishopthorpe Palace ... "Good morning Archbishop Sentamu! How are you today?"
"Are you up yet? Have you cleaned your teeth yet?" 
"Or are you in your office already? Good-bye!"
