Sunday, April 8, 2012

Day 40: Into Yorkshire

Distance: 8.9 miles
Bronte Sisters: 3 (can you name them?)

Happy Easter from Haworth, the chick lit capital of England! This is where the Bronte sisters pioneered the genre back in the 1840s, and the town has been milking it for everything it can ever since. I haven't read Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, or The One Whose Name I Can't Remember, so the whole thing is kind of lost on me. But even discounting the whole Bronte thing, Haworth is still a picture postcard Yorkshire town, with beautiful stone buildings, rolling green pastures, and brown moorland in the distance.


We started out the morning in another picture postcard Yorkshire town, Hebden Bridge, which Wikipedia tells me is the lesbian capital of the UK. Along with Glastonbury and Shrewsbury, Hebden Bridge is the third English hippie enclave we've hit. Since we live only 40 miles from Eugene (Oregon) this helps us feel right at home. It's one of the towns that we'll come back and visit again someday. The town's main flaw, from a walking perspective, is that it is right at the bottom of a great deep valley, so no matter which direction you want to travel, you have to go up. After walking four miles or so, I took this picture, where you can see pasture on the left, moorland on the right, and you can almost see Hebden Bridge way way way down at the bottom.
On the far right of the hill in the background you may be able to see the Stoodley Pike monument, which was featured in yesterday's post.


Technically we were in Yorkshire most of yesterday, but today was the first day that really felt like the Yorkshire I've been imagining ever since reading all the James Herriott novels in middle school. It's big, open country, with gently rolling sheep covered hills and remote farms. I like it a lot.


There aren't as many cows here as in Chesire, but Dawn did find one to have a nice conversation with. They just love Dawn!


Here's a super cute lamb that was kind enough to pose for me (with his mama). Look how happy he is to have survived Easter!


The day was overcast and drizzly, but we felt just great. The path finding was easy, compared to yesterday's adventures on the moor in the snow, and the drizzle was just misting gently down, compared to yesterday's 40 knot winds driving the water horizontally at us. And while there was a big hill to climb, the climb was gradual and pleasant - Cornwall has conditioned us so that any grade less than 15% barely registers. Since the distance was short, we took our time, and really enjoyed being outside in such a wonderful place.


We didn't bother with lunch, planning instead to see if we could get a fancy cream tea at our fancy guest house. And we did!


Clotted cream is one of the greatest things the English have invented. I could just eat it by the spoonful, but if you just order a big bowl of clotted cream they look at you funny. So instead you have to order things like a cream tea and hope they don't skimp on the cream. They didn't!


We had planned to do some laundry here at Haworth, but it turns out that Haworth is a little smaller than expected and lacks a laundromat. Or much of anything else really, unless it is Bronte related. The house outsources their laundry - so no help there. Fortunately, we carry a supply of Eucalan for such emergencies, and so Dawn did all our laundry in the bathroom sink, and we hung it to dry on the high rails of our four poster bed. She even washed my socks!


Eucalan, for those who don't know, is magic soap for wool. I have a short Eucalan story. One day, I was killing some time in a wool shop by reading the Eucalan package fine print. The corporate phone number caught my eye - strangely familiar. It was the phone number of my middle school friend John Edgar, somehow trapped in my brain for many years! Turns out the company was started by Mrs Edgar, John's mom, and when it got successful they got a new number for the house, and the old number went to the business. When I was twelve, I'd never have imagined that John's mom's soap would come to the rescue 35 years later! Thanks, Mrs Edgar!

Tomorrow, Easter Sunday, is a rest day for us. Well, technically today is Easter Sunday, since I procrastinated on the blog posting. Our next stop is the Devonshire Country House, maybe our fanciest digs yet! Their restaurant is supposed to be the best one in Yorkshire, with four AA rosettes and a Michelin star. I'm hoping it's a little warmer than it has been, so I can show up in my shorts and gaiters look!

Location:Mytholmes Ln,Keighley,United Kingdom

4 comments:

  1. Happy Easter Dawn & Al! Thinking about you both today.

    the clotted cream looks divine . . . . the socks, not so much! hahahaha

    dawn, i love your gas mask. just today there was an article in the world-famous GT on how to tear up your t-shirt to be a gas mask in the event of a nuclear explosion. fyi. perhaps it will at least help with al's socks.

    julie

    ReplyDelete
  2. Happy Easter.
    I'll have clotted cream any day.
    Nice hairdo Al.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Easter you two, I hope your rest days are going to be well rested, and I too love the clotted cream and the strawberries, checked out your next hotel, very snazzy, you might want to forgo the shorts and gaiter look and maybe there's a barber for Al there, and Dawn you must really love Al to wash his socks, too, cool story about the soap, and yes, love the homemade gas mask! Mel

    ReplyDelete
  4. Love the blog, the photos and the tidbits of information. So nice of you to take us all with you on your adventure :) Enjoy your time in the fancy digs.
    Laura

    ReplyDelete