Yorkshire Trip

I have titled this, and it will henceforth be known as, the Yorkshire Trip, because as it turned out, we saw more of Yorkshire than we even meant to.

Friday morning:

Woke up early and went to the train station with packed lunch in tow. We are very often to be seen out and about with a packed lunch. This one consisted of Cokes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, apples, plums and yogurts. A packed lunch is great for saving money, and is usually better than any sandwich you can buy on the road.

We made it to the train station (King's Cross, of Harry Potter fame) with plenty of time to spare. I get motion sick very easily, so I like to sit next to a window and always, ALWAYS, in the direction of travel. Luckily we purchased our tickets a month in advance (cheaper) and were able to get seats facing forward.

London to Leeds is a journey of about 170 miles, as the crow flies. We covered this distance in about two and a half hours. We've gotten pretty good at waltzing into any British town and figuring out where to go and what to do. We decided to go to the city art gallery and the National Armoury, where all the weapons of the realm are kept.

Then we met our friend Gareth (Philosophy Gareth, as opposed to Geology Gareth who lives in Cambridge) who drove us to his cottage in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales! We heard they, Gareth and his girlfriend Deb, lived in a cottage, but we didn't believe it until we saw it--it's actually a barn converted into a little modern house! And their landlords live on the land too and keep sheep (not as cattle, but as pets). This was real British country life! For the whole first day Matt and I were insanely jealous.

Saturday was a beautiful day. In Britain, the temperature in spring depends entirely on the presence of the sun: if the sky is clear and there is full sun, it is almost comfortable enough to wear shorts and tank tops. If there are clouds, you will still have to wear thermal underwear and winter coats. Saturday was a rare, completely cloudless day. We spent most of the day at a place called Fountains Abbey--it is an old monastic site which was plundered and destroyed during the English reformation, when Henry VIII ordered all the Catholic monasteries to be dissolved and created the Church of England. The ruins that are left now are absolutely spectacular, the best and biggest ruins Matt and I have ever seen. It is difficult to imagine the splendour and majesty of those buildings when they were intact, but it must have been a sight to behold.

Also on the grounds of this site (a National Heritage Site) was an old stately home, which has apparently fallen into disrepair since it was built and occupied, but the gardens and grounds attached to the house are still there and still kept up very well. So we took a long walk around the grounds and water gardens, then up to the deer park which is adjacent to the estate. One must remember that the British live to be outdoors and they love cultivating their environment to be the most beautiful it can be and the most conducive to full enjoyment by people. The grounds are criss-crossed with walking paths. And at one of the grounds was a little tea shop where we stopped for a cream tea! (I meant to take a picture of the cream tea, but I forgot--some day I will make a full post about cream tea, arguably the best meal to have originated in Britain. You will recall that there is stiff competition: Sunday lunch, full English breakfast, etc!)

After the walk, we went to Gaz and Deb's local pub, which was a proper old English pub with dead animals mounted on the walls and eight different kinds of ale. In the evening we went to the nearest village and got a curry, then went to a pub. (A theme is perhaps emerging.)

On Sunday we did some proper hill walking in the dales--this is what we'd come to Yorkshire to see and it did not disappoint. The land is beautiful. It's quite hilly so it's mostly used for sheep grazing. It's not quite lambing season, but lots of lambs seemed to have come early. They were frolicking around with their siblings and cousins, and were curious about the newcomers to their paddocks, but when we tried to walk up and pet them, they scampered off to their mothers.

Monday came around and Gaz and Deb had to go to work, so we decided to take a train to York, a city about an hour north. York was very interesting--after walking around for a few hours, we started thinking of it as 'Cambridge, only better'. It is also bigger, and surrounded by a huge ancient defensive wall which you can walk all around on. For lunch there, we ate at a restaurant offering an irresistible recession deal: half price on all food! So we even got a dessert.

After our day in York, we took the express train down to Leeds to catch our train back to London.

It was a really nice weekend and so nice to get out into the country. We saw a good chunk of the impossibly large county of Yorkshire and saw our friends Gaz and Deb.

As an aside, this weekend, Gaz's mom is being made (and here is the official title) a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire! MBE for short. For her voluntary work. She gets to meet the Queen, who awards the honours personally!