After a two and a half hour drive, a huge ‘John Smiths Todcaster Brewery, and signs for ‘Xscape’ – which seemed to be an indoor ski slope, came before a large ‘Welcome to York’ sign at 12.51pm; and once in the city – the Premier Inn we were booked into became visible, and we tried to work out how to get to it, turned round a couple of times, found it, and arrived at 1.06pm.

As the receptionist said no rooms were ready – we went over to the Beefeater restaurant next door, and in there, a toddler in a highchair was waving a giraffe toy around, and we had a look at a ‘Mini Map of York’ grabbed from a shelf at reception; the toddler continued to wave his giraffe around, the family left and appeared to be strapping him into a car seat by 2.20pm; we went back over to the hotel (and it was pouring with rain) and were given our room key. Up in the room, we considered how to get to the city centre, went downstairs again and asked a receptionist who recommended a Park & Ride bus and casually waved her arm and said it was just over there – and we began walking along the side of a very busy dual carriageway. Several roundabouts and a bridge over a river later we realized we were lost, Mum asked at a petrol station – and they said it was 5 minutes away, I got my phone out and we navigated via Google Maps, saw some sheep in fields, made it to this Park and Ride place and got on a bus at 3.20pm.

Its route went under a 10ft 9 inch bridge, a 12ft bridge, passed the York Royal Mail delivery office, it was a very bumpy bus, and when we got off outside York Minster were several wedding photographs being taken; and inside we were told our tickets would be valid for a year (and I saw ‘Little Explorer’ red backpacks available). There was a large board mentioning a ‘Great Organ Project’, a tiny ‘Chapel of St Nicholas ‘, an Astronomical clock (which said above it ‘As Dying and Behold We Live’)…

…and the ‘Chapter House’ – a big octagonal shaped room with enormous stained glass windows and 800 year old doors, and a tiny toddler was wandering around with her hand held by her mother and making squeaking noises and clearly enjoying the echoing sounds they made. In another corridor were several statues of men on plinths lying on their backs, 1 of them had a lion next to his feet, another statue of a Bishop (Richard Sterne – Archbishop 1664 ->1683) on a plinth reclining on a cushion had a tiny statue of a baby male angel/cherub either side of him (and was apparently the great grandfather of the author Laurence Steine), there was a model of the SS.Vale of Pickering boat, loud singing began coming from somewhere at 4.15pm, and there was a gift shop – with 750 piece jigsaw puzzles, York Minster Teddy bears, t-shirts saying ‘Beholdeth the new Apple I-Abacus’, and ‘Does anyone knoweth the WiFi code?’, and various rubber ducks in church clothing.

Back outside – a woman was singing, John Hull Fudge & Toffee makers had cinder toffee in its window, there was a shop called ‘The Cat Gallery’ – with a Cat It Design Senses Super Roller Circuit, a Senses Feeding Maze, and a lot of squidgy cat soft toys (among other things); outside again was a Fudge Kitchen, a man playing an accordion, a ‘The York Roast Co’ was selling ‘Yorky Pud Wraps’, there was a horse carousel – and then a York Chocolate Shop, which we went into and saw guided tours of the place on offer, nibbled a cookie and an ice cream beforehand, and then squished into a lift with 7 other people.

Up on the next floor – a very tall thin bloke told us about the place, and began by asking us what chocolate we liked (I said I liked really dark chocolate), and then he told us Rowntree’s was bought by Nestle in 1988, and Rowntree’s invented KitKats, fruit pastilles, polo mints, and the company set up with Rowntree Macintosh invented Quality Street, and then we were all given a tiny piece of dark chocolate with a few coco nibs on the back (which nowadays don’t appear because of how long chocolate is stirred for (Lindt stir theirs for 72 hours). Then we were taken into a dark room to see a film about the history of chocolate – and that began with the Aztecs and how precious cocoa was to them, we were all given tiny pots (about 1 inch tall and 1 inch wide) of chocolate mixed with chilli, warned not to drink it all in 1, and then the film continued. The recipe arrived in England in 1650’s (Mum drank a lot of it and coughed and sneezed), the next room and film mentioned Mary Tuke – who began the business, gave it to her son, and then it was bought by Henry Issac Rowntree; Cravens – and their humbugs, Rowntrees and Polos, Kit Kats, Aeros, and Smarties, Macintosh and Quality Street (among others) were mentioned, and apparently there are around 250 flavours of KitKats in the world. In another room we were told that the KitKat used to be the ‘Rowntrees Chocolate Crisp’, and Smarties used to be ‘Milk Chocolate in a Crisp Sugar Shell’. Today 3 billion KitKats can be made per day, he asked us if we’d ever tried buying a KitKat, biting both ends off and sucking hot chocolate through it (and said ‘trust me – you haven’t lived’), and said Cadburys were the first to bring in Easter eggs in 1875.

Then we were taken down some stairs and shown the ‘seeding process’ – with beans smashed into cocoa nibs (which we were given some of to sample) and pressed into butter, vegetable oil is used (rather than palm oil – which used to be used) and powdered milk, and we were given some tiny little 100% dark chocolate pieces with no sugar in and warned it was very strong (I quite liked it), and then given some with sugar in to demonstrate what a difference sugar makes (and he mentioned someone who came in with a Yorkie from 1974 and asked if they could eat it). I went round photographing the information boards, before we were taken to a table to make chocolate lollies, given little plastic bags positioned on trays in front of benches, they had a large dollop of chocolate piped on to them, and we were told to sprinkle stuff from bowls on to them (dark chocolate sprinkles, foyantein, strawberry blossoms, and candied ginger) while they set. We were shown a demonstration of production (and the girl sat on the chair next to me cracked her knuckles) which involved chocolate being poured in to moulds and then poured out again to give them a coating, and then a bit more being put over the top (the filling was passion fruit) – we were given them to eat, and as we were the last tour group of the day we were invited to take the whole lot.

It was 6pm by then – and outside, the smell of fish and chips was very strong, there were a lot of Harry Potter related shops, a hat shop, an American sweet shop, some blokes doing some excellent bongo drumming, we sat down at a bus stop and saw a woman staggering along with a mostly consumed bottle of rose’ wine, and then the bus appeared, and we got on it at 6.45pm. When getting off 10 minutes later, I spotted some rabbits bouncing around and nibbling grass in a nearby field, and we walked along the roadside for 20 minutes and got back to the Premier Inn at 6.55pm.