Stones, Cows. and Other Wonders (Lynn Kerstan)

Back to blogging (or trying to after ongoing major computer messes) with one of the final posts about my "I'm still alive!" England trip last October.

By the day Alicia Rasley and I left the "cottage" we'd shared for a week with three writer friends, we had exchanged the overlarge, ostentatious, maddening Mercedes for an itty-bitty Ford Focus. The car rental people were clearly thinking, "Crazy woman." Who rejects a free upgrade to a Mercedes?

That would be me. It took the better part of a cherished touring day to make the car-trade in Newcastle, but knowing we'd be spending the next few days in the Land of Narrow Roads, I was a desperate woman. The picture shows our first destination. Two of our cottage-mates were specifically targeting stone circles on their trip, so when I told them about Castlerigg stone circle in the Lake District, they changed their itinerary and arranged to meet up with us there.

Needless to say, Alicia and I got lost on the way. And here's where we wound up. I promptly dubbed the place Cattlerigg. To this day, we have no clue where we'd landed. But as we wound 'round and 'round on a windy rural road, Alicia spotted some ruins. A church or tiny abbey, we guessed, because there were no markers or tourists to enlighten us.

That's the wonder of traveling in England without a sense of direction: you can't be sure where you'll end up or what you'll see. The Ruins of Whatever were okay as well, given their setting in the middle of nowhere. But we were mesmerized by the adjacent pasture filled with very Zen cows and their wildly, wonderfully different coloring.

Eventually, after a sign directing us to Castlerigg sent us on a meandering but gorgeous drive on a lakeside track nearly buried under fallen autumn leaves, we made it to the stone circle. Mirabile Dictu (one of about five Latin phrases I remember from two years of Latin classes, meaning something like "wondrous to say"), our friends were still there. It was a glorious sunny day, and the Seekers of Circles had found themselves at one of the earliest stone circles in Europe.

The thirty-eight stones of various sizes, spread out in an open field and unfamiliar to most folks, date from about 3200 BC. By contrast, scientists in 2008 dated world-famous Stonehenge to 2300 BC, nearly a thousand years earlier.

We stayed at Castlerigg a long time with the handful of other tourists and stone-circle fans who knew to go there. Sharp-eyed Natalie directed our attention to the paragliders, barely visible to our eyes and not at all to my pitiful camera, as they wheeled and soared above the mountains in the first picture. Then we set out for the nearby town of Keswick for a terrific pub supper and a good night's sleep at the Goodwin House B&B.

No, I am not a Druid. Why do you ask?

The Bowes Museum: A Love Story (Lynn Kerstan)

After the miserable odyssey in the Yorkshire dales (reported last Friday), I mentally swore never to set tire there again. The very next day Alicia Rasley, Judith Stanton and I climbed into the $#*&!* Mercedes and headed out for Teesdale. So much for my oaths! But our destination, the lovely town of Castle Barnard, was only half an hour from our cottage, and we had good reason to dip our toes back into the dales. NYT Bestseller Jo Beverley, whom I “met” online way back in 1992 and have admired, respected, and liked ever since, was staying in the area and suggested we join up for lunch and a tour of the Bowes Museum.

As you can see from the picture, it’s a pretty spectacular place. But how did this French-style chateau filled with an amazing collection of art and antiquities come to be in an obscure, rural area of north-east England? As it turned out, we later discovered, this was the perfect place for four romance authors to get together. Like so many good things in fiction and real life, the Bowes Museum began with a love story. The bastard son of an English earl! A French actress in a Parisian theatre! A fortune spent to bring art to the local people of Teesdale. You can’t make this stuff up.

Well, yes we can, and we do. But in this case, the story is both compelling and true. Also sad, despite the remarkable memorial the protagonists did not live to see completed.

John Bowes, born in 1811, was the only child of the 10th Earl of Strathmore and Mary Millner, a commoner. Although they lived together for many years, the earl didn’t marry her until a few hours before his death in an attempt to secure the inheritance for his son. Court cases ensued, and while John was not recognized as heir to the Strathmore title, the estates passed into his hands. A good businessman, a sportsman (he bred four Derby winners), and a lover of the arts, he spent a lot of time in France and even bought the Theatre des Varietes in Paris. Good for him. But what's with those facial whiskers. Really, what were men thinking back then?!

Josephine Coffin-Chevallier, fourteen years his junior, was an actress at the theatre and also a talented painter who shared John’s passion for art. They married in 1852 and immediately began to amass a remarkable collection of paintings, ceramics, textiles, and furniture. But the children they longed for did not appear, and as their hopes for a family diminished, the idea of a different legacy took root. They resolved to create a world-class museum in the coal-mining, sheep-breeding area of Teesdale so the local people could have access to the all beautiful things they’d loved and collected.

Both John and Josephine were deeply involved in plans for the building itself, and Josephine laid the foundation stone in 1869. They also launched themselves into a virtual orgy of acquisition, purchasing more than 15,000 items for the collection between 1852 and 1874. But in that year, Josephine died and John lost his heart for collecting and the museum project. The building continued, though, and seven years after John’s death in 1885, the Trustee-managed museum opened to an enthusiastic response from the public. It continues to thrive, and deservedly so.

I had never heard of the town or the museum before Jo Beverley spoke of them, but I will never forget the day we spent there. After a morning combing through the ground floor exhibits, we enjoyed a lingering lunch in the café and had to hurry upstairs to snag a spot for the daily 2pm performance of the Silver Swan, which lasts a grand total of about 40 seconds. Created in 1773, the swan is an automaton purchased by John Bowes a hundred years later and has become the emblem of the museum. Mark Twain saw it at the Paris Exhibition in 1867 and wrote about it in his book about his travels, Innocents Abroad:

“I watched the Silver Swan, which had a living grace about his movement and a living intelligence in his eyes—watched him swimming about as comfortably and unconcernedly as it he had been born in a morass instead of a jeweller’s shop—watched him seize a silver fish from under the water and hold up his head and go through the customary and elaborate motions of swallowing it....”

Like Mark Twain, I was fooled by the swan and thought he had indeed seized a fish from among the metallic fishies undulating in the shallow waters and swallowed it. In fact, the fish was in the swan’s throat all along. The machinery powering the automaton brought the fish forward when the swan went hunting for lunch and let us see it in the swan’s open beak before the bird tilted back his head and appeared to swallow. As P.T. Barnum noted, a sucker is born every minute. And for once (other than a sense of humor and our mutual concern about adverb abuse) I have something in common with Mark Twain! For Jo Beverley, the swan inspired her to give her most famous character (Rothgar) an interest in automatons, one of which played an important part in her “Malloren” books. For writers, just about everything of interest we do winds up in our “research” or “inspiration” files. This is a good thing.

I could have spent another two or three days at the Bowes. But all too soon it was closing time so Alicia, Jo, and I bade farewell to the gargoyle on the terrace while Judith snapped a picture. Then it was back to Arrow Cottage where I confessed to having changed my mind about the Yorkshire dales. I can hardly wait to return . . . so long as I’m driving a smaller, less fancy car.
And to John and Josephine Bowes, wherever your spirits may be: Thank you for the glorious gift you gave to the people of Teesdale and to all of of who visit there. To me, your love story and your generosity have been a true inspiration.

The Long Way 'Round (Lynn Kerstan)

A “dale,” I have recently learned, is a valley. I suppose everyone knew that but me. I’d have guessed something like rolling, grassy, sheep-studded hills. As opposed to a moor, which is open, rolling, infertile land. In Yorkshire, to my undiscerning eye, the moors and dales looked pretty much alike, and both were exceedingly beautiful. Or so Alicia tells me.

As we settled in the car and prepared ourselves to leave Fountains Abbey, I asked if we had to go back through Ripon. Nice enough town, mind you, but with twisty, crowded, confusing streets. After studying the detailed four-miles-to-an-inch map book, Alicia said we could take a road that went the opposite direction but curved to eventually join up with the route to our destination. Tuesday is market day in Hawes, which is practically in the middle of nowhere, and we wanted an authentic rural cobblestone-streeted market-town experience.

I agreed to the revised route without looking at the map, which I later came to regret. But no one was at fault for what lay ahead. Alicia and have have a No-Fault Travel Policy. We do out best, mostly, and if we screw up for whatever reason...oh, well. Besides, we had no reason to be apprehensive. For the first hour, the narrow road curled around lush grassy fields, flirted with burbling streams, and slipped through tiny villages you’d miss seeing if you sneezed. Throughout our trip, Alicia was on a mission to find the ideal village for a six-month stay, in part a dream and also a serious goal. If not for its remote location in Nidderdale, the lovely Pateley Bridge (shown above) might have taken the prize.

But soon after, the road began to rise into the hills and all I saw was a narrow pavement with a stone wall or a treacherous rocky gully or a precipitous cliff to my left. Or all three at once! The picture shows perhaps the only stretch of unthreatening navigable road that didn't have me in a state of near panic. Yes, the road was sometimes empty, save for us. But most of the time a vehicle had the audacity to come from the other direction. Let’s just say this dale road ain’t big enough for the both of us, cowboy. Not with me in the #&*@* Mercedes, terrified I’d scrape the purty silver paint against the rock. Invariably I slowed, snuggled as close to the wall as I dared, and let the interloper speed by.

As you can imagine, we weren’t making good time. Even when I was alone on the road, the blind curves held me to about 20 mph, if that. Which naturally annoyed the locals in smaller cars who swept down on me from behind and practically fornicated with my back bumper while insisting with hand gestures that I speed up. Nah gonna happen. Blind curves ahead. But the cars were too close for me to slow and pull over out of their way, and the drivers were too stubborn to back off, so they had to wait for the rare straight opportunity with no traffic coming at us. After a couple hours of this, I was tense, irritable, and No Fun to Be With.

Now and again Alicia would point out something special for me to look at, but my gaze was riveted on the road. I did perk up when she mentioned the signs offering sheep farms for sale. I could pull over, write a check, hand Alicia the car keys, and raise sheep! Better than getting squashed like a bug on the Road of Death. Oh. If you’re wondering why Alicia didn’t share the driving, that was my fault as well. For one thing, she wasn’t listed as a driver on the rental agreement. And for another, bad as I am when navigating killer roads with edges only inches from the tires, I’m even worse as a passenger.

This is pretty typical scenery in the Swaledale area, except for the lack of sheep in the walled pastures. As the sun sank into the west, I began to wonder if we’d escape the dales before dark. They seemed suddenly threatening to me, although we were passing into James Herriot country. The Yorkshire Dales veterinarian has become a draw for tourists who fell in love, as I did, with his books and the Brit television show, All Creatures Great and Small. The town where the series was filmed has a mock-up of Herriot’s office and lots of memorabilia, although we hadn’t time to stop there. We had a market to attend and cheese to buy!

Finally (!!) we came to where the teensy-weensy yellow “scenic road” on the map merged with the marginally wider and slightly less threatening route to Hawes. But we were still an hour away, and dusk was melding into dark by the time we arrived. Naturally, the market itself could not be found. Buyers had got what they came for and sellers had long since packed up and gone home.

The town, which we’d expected to be colorful and lively, looked gray and grim and dull. But that was more a reflection of the twilight shadows and our exhaustion than Hawes itself. In full daylight, it woulld be a charming place to explore. And let me add our experience there this was the only true disappointment we experienced on this trip, although not the most maddening. As always, in usual Alicia-Lynn fashion, we shrugged and soldiered on.

Legs uncertain after many traumatic hours in the car and both of us ravenous after a long day without more than a hurried snack-breakfast, we staggered into a small grocery and bought tacky packaged sandwiches for supper. After wolfing them down in the car, we set out for the dreary, multi-hour drive back to Witton-le-Wear. And no, this time we did not choose the “scenic” B-road back to the motorway.

But we did achieve one of our goals. Wensley cheeses are famous in England, and we had intended to stock up at the Tuesday market, buying from local vendors. But the cheeses were for sale in the grocery as well (yay!), so we did not return empty-handed. I considered, but rejected, a box of cheeses (pictured) that featured something called a “Middle Age Spread.”
Thanks very much, but I already have that!

A Day of Virtue and Awe (Lynn Kerstan)

There are plenty of ruined abbeys in England (destruction courtesy of Henry VIII’s brutal Dissolution of the Monasteries), with some of the most interesting to be found in Yorkshire. One stands on a rugged crag in coastside Whitby, where Jo Beverley recently moved. That was on my agenda, more for the company than the abbey, and I’ve always wanted to visit Rievaulx as well.

But when Krissie, she of Impeccable Taste, declared Fountains to be “glorious” and a must-see, it shot to the top of the list. So Alicia and I set out on a sunny, cool autumn Tuesday and, reluctantly passing Studley Royal, an estate joined with Fountains that we longed to explore just because of its name, we arrived at the abbey without our usual wrong-turn diversions. An auspicious start to what would surely be a blessed day!

Our first stop was Fountains Hall, a house built around 1600 using stones from the ravaged abbey. This picture of me at the gate shows the orderly structure and fondness for windows common to Elizabethan architecture. But the most interesting detail isn’t visible. Inside the arched inset above and to the right of the front door is a statue of a maniacal-looking male stuffing what appears to be a small animal or a child into his mouth. We later discovered it was Saturn gulping down a child.

Titan, challenging Saturn for the rule of heaven and earth, had demanded he devour any child born of his seed if he wanted to avoid war. Power being more important than his own children, Saturn complied, one after another, until his wife hid a couple of them away. Trouble ensued, and that is somehow the way Jupiter got to be the Big Guy. At least he wasn’t the nasty Saturn or Titan. Myths are weird. So is the fact that the owner of Fountains chose to put that statue where everyone who entered the house could see it. Ugh.

Here’s Alicia, reluctantly standing still for a picture alongside the oddly shaped greenery rimming Fountains Hall. After exploring the restored rooms and interesting displays recounting the history of the house, we hurried to the place where the guided tour of the abbey ruins was to begin. Provided by the National Trust, which brilliantly preserves, explores, and administers the property, the tour is free.

We made it in time to join about thirty Brits and the entertaining and informative guide who introduced us to medieval (the abbey was founded in 1132) construction, commerce, and the lifestyles of the poor and prayerful. The Cistercian monks and lay brothers who lived and worked there built a flourishing abbey from virtually nothing save hard work and determination. They were smart fellas, though, choosing a site no one else wanted for many reasons and knowing this one had what they most needed—a reliable source of water, stone, and timber.

Here’s what we saw when the tour started. The picture makes the abbey look small. It isn’t. When we stood close, it soared tall and reached wide. Fountains is England's largest ruined abbey, and because it's very big, we missed out on several wondrous sights.








Like this one, showing the cellarium where the lay brothers lived. The construction is awe-fully beautiful and has endured for many hundreds of years







The “reliable source” of water, the river Skell, looked like this when we were there in October. It drops down at this point to run beneath the abbey in important ways, like flushing the toilets. But in mid-June 2007, swollen by torrential rains, the entire valley was flooded and the waters roiled over the top of the abbey walls. Hard to imagine, especially for someone who lives in 9-inches-of-rain-if-we're-lucky Coronado CA. Much devastation at the abbey and for miles in both directions, but as the river scoured the Skell River Valley, it also uncovered ruins that hadn’t been seen for centuries. More revelations about the Fountains Abbey yet to come!

Never underestimate the curiosity of people about the everyday essentials of life, whatever the century. Our attentive tour group became positively giddy to learn that Cistercian monks were permitted no underwear, and they swarmed to take pictures of the abbey loo. Here it is. Beyond the arches were boards, some with round holes, for the men to do their business. Beneath them, the River Skell transported the doings to where they settled and became fertilizer.

Here's one of the giddy, curious tourists having her picture took at the toilets. Standing, mind you, leaning against one of the arches.

Then, moving from the necessary to the sublime, we entered what was left of a magnificent church. Imagine the stained glass that once filled the enormous window at the far end of the church nave.
I'd love to show more pictures of this splendid building, but I'm out of space and you must be out of time. Alicia and I were running out of time as well, because we had big plans for the rest of the afternoon.

But first we walked alongside the river, which widens as it emerges from underneath the abbey, to the Studley Royal water gardens. Serene, nearly deserted, the placid waters and grassy verges and clusters of trees took our breath away. We followed two magisterial swans as far as we could and then broke away to return to the parking lot.

A blessed day. Until we set out for the town of Hawes deep in the Yorkshire Dales. Tuesday was market day in Hawes, and we were on a mission: Enjoy a small-town market experience and buy some local cheese.

Needless to say, Things Did Not Go Well.

The Cottage Clan (Lynn Kerstan)

A bit of ancient history. In October a year ago, Alicia and I were to spend a week in a two-bedroom cottage at the foot of Glastonbury Tor in southwest England. Then lymphoma came calling. I spent most of October in the hospital while Alicia, with a non-refundable airline ticket and cottage rental, managed to entertain herself without me. Deathly sick, I couldn’t imagine that a year later, we’d be happily ensconced at Arrow Cottage in the north of England. Built circa 1780, it looks much like the other residences in Witton-le-Wear—same gray stone, solid profile, perched beside a narrow street built for coaches and curricles.

The cottage can sleep thirteen people, but there were only five of us sharing the place, each of us with a private bedroom. Here’s mine. Natalie, the cousin of a long time-buddy also named Lynn (each of us was known as OtherLynn, depending on who was speaking) turned out to be a remarkable woman who was, blessedly, competent in all sort of ways. The same could not be said for the rest of us. Badly injured in a roadside-bomb explosion in Iraq, Natalie had struggled back to health and was contemplating where to settle down and what to do with her life. She is also a writer (a good one!), which meant she wasn’t off-put by our peculiar writerly ways.

Lynn Coddington, Judith Stanton, Alicia and I have known each other for years. We’re all writers of historical (and sometimes paranormal) romance, academic geeks, and former or current college teachers. LynnC is a book reviewer, while the rest of us are editors, critiquers, and teachers of writing. In other words, we have lots in common and plenty to talk about. The cottage had two sitting rooms (one shown here) and a dining room with comfy chairs where we enjoyed wine and meals served up by those who could cook. I was relegated to clean-up and dishwashing, an appropriate task except I had to get Natalie to turn on the dishwasher. Never did figure how to do that.

Social life was built around the table. At any given time, one or more of us would be there working on our computers or making plans for the next excursion. One night, fueled with Bulgarian Cabernet and frustrated that we couldn’t find a Pub Quiz to go to, we discovered that Pub Quiz questions and answers were available online. We did pretty well, all things considered. Rivalry was fierce. “I said it first!” “Did not!” We all flunked questions about Brit football and cricket teams but scored a near-perfect when it came to history. I think someone won (not me), but none of us really cared. Even so, I demand a rematch!

Food had a lot to do with cottage life. Most often we fended for ourselves, but LynnC and Alicia are good cooks and occasionally provided us with roast chicken, pork from the free-range pigs at Howard Castle, poached pears, soups, and salads. I supplied cookies, potato chips, and wine. Everyone chipped in one way or another. But after leisurely mornings, we all set out in different directions, depending on what we wanted to explore.

We were in this particular village primarily because Judith, writing a novel set in the world of competitive horse trials (dressage, that sort of thing), wanted to attend high-level doings at medieval Witton Castle that weekend. Nice venue! LynnC and Natalie were researching family history and all things Saxon for an exciting series of books in which a time-traveling Saxon warrior finds himself in the 21st Century where battle no longer means a Shield Wall. So Witton le Wear, settled by the Saxons more than a thousand years ago, was a good launching pad for their explorations.

Alicia and I are more like a pair of Travelocity Roaming Gnomes, klutzy, constantly lost, and always getting into trouble but having a good time anyway. We’re just happy to be in England, glad to see most everything we stumble across, and thanks to our No-Fault Travel Policy, our regular screw-ups aren’t allowed to get in our way. If Alicia says, “Turn left!” while pointing right (a regular occurrence!), no problem. We’ll eventually get reoriented. When I get cranky about being trapped in an overlarge car on an undersized road, she ignores me and enjoys the scenery.

This is the one bit of scenery I most recall. It’s the turn I had to make a bazillion times (or so it seemed to me) on the way from one place or another back to the cottage. On the right is the Witton “Village Green.” If you look closely, you’ll see cars parked on the road, turning a two-lane into a one-lane. Which is why I crept along at snail’s pace, because the locals darted around those parked cars as if no one might be coming the opposite direction. I never darted. I huddled curbside until certain there was no oncoming car within a light-year of Witton. Then I cautiously stole around the roadblocking vehicles until I arrived at the cottage and shakily steered the %$*#* Mercedes into the garage, aided by Alicia who got out to open the door and then guided me in like a sailor flagging a jet plane onto an aircraft carrier. We make a good team.

Mind you, our laid-back travel style was put to the test big time on our trip to Fountains Abbey and the ensuing Search for Local Cheese in the Dales. More about that next week.

P.S. Thanks to Darla, I now understand the mysteries of the Dun Cow and the Three Tuns without having to do the work! I owe you a pair books, Darla, and don’t want to provide duplicates, so email me at lynn@lynnkerstan.com with your address and let me know which books Not to Send.

Shambling Around (Lynn Kerstan)

Still in York, UK, at least for the morning. Alicia wanted to see York Minster, where I'd already spent a lot of time, so I roamed aimlessly around the medieval section of town. The Shambles is perhaps York’s most famous street, short, narrow, curvy, lined with shops and fifteenth-century buildings that seem inclined to topple over at any moment. It gets its name from “shamel,” a medieval word meaning bench or booth. Originally a street of butcher shops and residences, it has something of a channel between the pavements (sidewalks to us Americans), once used to wash away butchery byproducts. As I watched the shoppers and tourists, I tried to imagine the channel running red with blood. We writers have odd thoughts.

Later I brought Alicia to The Shambles and then to a nearby open-air street market where she bought shoes and I almost bought a raincoat to replace the one I forgot to bring with me. I own three raincoats, not sure why since it almost never rains in Coronado, and here I was in rainy England without a one of them. Lucky for me, it rained only twice during our trip, and not for very long.

Next I practically missed York’s shortest street, famous for having the longest street name in the city: Whip-Ma-Whap-Ma-Gate. Yup. The picture shows pretty much the entire thing. “Gate” was the Viking word for “street,” and many of York’s street names end with “gate.” The original name of this one was Whitnourwhatnourgate (meaning, roughly, “neither this nor that street”), but acquired a “new” name when it became the site of a pillory where petty felons were publically whipped. Lords and politicians also used the location to make speeches, which in my opinion sealed its reputation as a place for unpleasant events.

Lots of York’s streets have peculiar names. Grape Lane may sound ordinary enough, but it derives its present moniker from the original, “Grope” Lane, where Ladies of Uncertain Virtue awaited and serviced their customers. When I tried peddling my wares, there were no takers. What is now Finkle Street used to be Mucky Peg’s Lane (because a slovenly woman lived there?) or perhaps Mucky Pig’s Lane because drovers used it to herd their wares to Swinegate.

That’s where I wound up shortly before time to rendezvous with Alicia. In the picture you can see the street sign to the left and a trendy restaurant with an eccentric name of its own: The Slug and Lettuce. Alicia and I chose to have lunch elsewhere, meaning (for us) a wood-beamed pub.

Then it was off to our last adventure in York. Rather, a couple miles outside the walled city, where we stopped to fuel up the $@*!# Mercedes and stock up on Items We Could Not Be Without when we settled into our home-for-a-week later that day. Those turned out to be many bottles of wine, crisps (potato chips), gingernut biscuits (cookies) HobNobs (fabulous chocolate-covered oatmeal biscuits), and Diet Coke. That was pretty much it. We have our priorities!

Mind you, we could have bought almost anything at the Tesco Extra (think the largest Super Walmart on the planet), open 24 hours a day with baby care, a recycling center, a café, and a Chicken Counter. It was almost culture shock after the wonderfully preserved and charmingly eccentric town we’d just left. As we navigated out of the parking lot (I’ve seen smaller airports!), I spotted a couple of Tesco’s neighbors: Toys R Us and Frankie & Bennie’s Italian American Diner.

Sharing a mutual thought—Lemme Outa This Faux-American Mall!—Alicia and I located the Great North Road and made the four-hour drive to the village of Witton le Wear, where we would spend a week in company with three friends. Fact is, Witton le Wear is in the middle of Nowhere, if you don’t count similar tiny villages scattered about the area. The Wear (rhymes with “beer”) is a river, and Witton Castle (what remains of it) is located within sight of our cottage.

There used to be two pubs in the village, but the one that served food had closed a week earlier. Had we known that, we might have bought more practical supplies at Tesco. Face is, pub closings have become common throughout England due to the economy, which is suffering as ours has done. Brits are buying beer at Tesco and drinking it at home rather than gathering with friends at the local watering hole. During our trip we saw a great many closed-up or “For Sale” pubs. Directly across the street from our cottage, The Dun Cow remains open, but only for a few hours a day. An amazing number of pubs and streets in Durham are named The Dun Cow, but we never found out why. Same for The Three Tuns. If anyone can solve this mystery in Comments before the end of the year, I’ll send a couple of free books by way of thanks.

Meantime, here’s a picture of the back yard at Arrow Cottage. That was sometimes the only place we could get a reliable mobile (cell phone) signal, but otherwise the weather was rather too chilly for hanging out in the garden. I still regret not dragging myself outside at night. With little ambient light from metropolitan areas to spoil the view, I might have savored the beauty I love almost as much as I love the ocean—a skyfull of stars.

Lanes, Trains, and Automobiles (Lynn Kerstan)

To York! To York! A helluva town since, well, the first century. The Romans garrisoned their base near the River Ouse as they subdued the North England “Brigantes” (aka locals not partial to invasion) and called it Eboracum. Later, the Anglo-Saxons named the town Eoforwic, and later still, the Danes dubbed it Jorvic. You can see where this is going. And I was going to York as well, for maybe the forth time, to revisit favorite haunts and collect my good buddy Alicia Rasley, who would arrive by train late that afternoon. Here’s me posed at York Minster apparently crowned, appropriately, with a dunce cap. I earned the “honor” just about every day of this trip.

It was Sunday, and everyone north of the Humber was heading the same way. Traffic slugged along for miles and miles, and I had to check into my B&B before 2pm. Coming onto one of York’s super-narrow streets in a big car is like threading a needle with a garbage truck. Naturally I missed the turn onto the street I needed, but figured no big deal. I need only turn at the next corner and go around the block. Ha! The even tinier street, one lane with parked cars on both sides, curled like a skinny serpent before dead-ending at the river. I’ll not recount my adventures along that street except to say I emerged from it, limp as overcooked linguine, more than half an hour later.

When I finally reached Abbeyfield, my excellent B&B one block from where I’d Endured an Ordeal, no one answered. I rang and rang a bell I could clearly hear. I even banged on the door. It was only 1:40! I was early!! But figuring I was disturbing the peace of this quiet, pretty street, I went back to sit in the car and cogitate.

I was parked without a permit. All the parking close to town requires a permit. Would I have to sit there until the proprietors returned at 6pm, the next opportunity for check-in? Rats. I didn’t come all the way from California to sit in a car. Distressed and disgruntled, I decided to walk into the town center, only a couple blocks away. But as I set out, the l’il angel that sat on my shoulder for much of this trip whispered to me, “Try again.” So I went back up the steps of the Victorian townhouse and rang the Abbeyfield bell.

Turns out the proprietor, “hoovering” a room on the third floor, hadn’t heard my initial efforts to break in. After sincere and unnecessary apologies, she provided me a cup of tea, re-parked the car in a legal space, displayed the permit on the dashboard, and carried in my luggage. Throughout this trip and despite my budget restrictions, I had the best-ever luck with accommodations. The picture shows the breakfast room at Abbeyfields, and just so you’ll understand why a diet looms in my immediate future, here is the menu:
Good Morning!
Awake to the aroma of warm, home-baked
granary, white & wholemeal breads!
Pure squeezed orange or grapefruit juice
Freshly brewed Yorkshire, Earl Grey
herbal & fruit teas
Freshly brewed filtered coffee
Selection of cereals
Fruit, natural & Greek yoghurts
Seasonal fresh fruit salad
York Full Monty!
Local butcher Tony's finest lean bacon
Tony's pork sausages (simply the best!)
Local fresh mushrooms
Deliciously-sweet vine-ripened tomatoes
Eileen's farm eggs (she talks to her hens!)
Yorkshire honey & traditional lemon curd
Duchy organic jams & marmalade

Yum. But that was for the morning. After missing evensong at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge, I was determined to be on time for the ceremony at York Minster. Evensong in a great church with a splendid choir is always a special part of my England trips. St. Paul’s in London. Salisbury Cathedral. Canterbury Cathedral. Wells Cathedral (twice—I love Wells!) Now York.

It’s fine to hear the service from the body of the church. But arrive fifteen minutes early, approach the “choir” section beyond the altar, and if you can remain for the entire service (about 45 minutes), someone will escort you to seats in the choir section itself. There you’ll be alongside the singers and the prelates conducting the beautiful rites of Vespers. The picture can’t begin to do justice to the intricate wood-carving of York Minster’s Choir. No words can describe the beauty of the singing, all boys and men on this occasion, and I even enjoyed the not-overlong commentary on the biblical readings for 27 September.

I had a little time to wander around before heading for the station and then to the farthest track where Alicia’s train would arrive. In the gardens near the museum are the ruins of an abbey, not the first or last abbey ruins we’d explore on this journey. I was amazed at the pleasant weather, which we enjoyed for the great majority of our time in northern England, and enchanted by the gardens in glorious bloom so late in the year.

At the train station, I carefully positioned myself where I’d be able to see the passengers emerge and watched with eagle eyes as they disembarked. No Alicia! Back I went to the terminal and sat on a bench near the main entrance/exit in case I’d overlooked her. But it appeared she had missed her train. And no, we couldn’t call each other. Some day, when I’m in a nursing home, I’ll contemplate the problems we had communicating by phone in England. For the moment, though, I was moderately bereft. Being adults and experienced travelers, we’d catch up with each other sooner or later. But I wanted it to be now!

Fortunately, I lack a sense of direction. Emerging from the station, I had no idea which way to turn. And while I stood there for several minutes, studying a map of central York, Alicia spotted me. She’d found an exit I never saw and had gone outside expecting me to pick her up in the car, which had been our plan until I actually tried to drive in York. So all was well. We took a taxi to her hotel, only a couple blocks from mine, and as night crept over the town, we returned to York centre for supper in a 15th-Century-era pub with plenty of wine, piles of food, and lots to talk about. One thing about Alicia and me: We never run out of conversation.

Travel Uncensored (Lynn Kerstan)

That’s me, loitering outside one of my favorite places—York Minster—and feeling about as old as the church, which took more than 250 years to build. Despite the black duds and dazed expression, I also felt supremely happy, all warm and glowy inside, as I always do in England.
But before I got to the good stuff came the Journey, the Enemy, and the Inevitable.

It’s a long way from San Diego to London, and with early check-ins, long lines, security, plane changes, immigration, customs...well, let’s just say there’s nothing friendly about taking to the skies these days. Well, except the hardworking, friendly flight attendants and pilots, who do their best to soothe the savage beasts cramped up like sausages in a tin. I used to manage a travel agency, and American Airlines was my favorite carrier for my clients and myself, in large part because of excellent leg room. But after this trip, I’ll be looking for an alternative. The seats were crammed so close together that passengers could scarcely breathe, let alone move. I’m only 5'2'' and of fairly normal weight, and I was miserable. Most folks had it worse than I did.

But all was redeemed when I got to know my seat-mate, Aby, who was moving back to be with family in East Anglia following the death of her American husband. She is 84 and was quick to tell me that while snatching my heavy carry-on from my grip and lifting it into the overhead compartment. Seven or eight brothers and sisters still live within a few miles of where they were born, but Aby was an adventurer currently mourning the necessary sale of her vintage Jaguar. Her husband, she said, built the flight tower at DFW along with other notable landmarks. By coincidence, his (now hers) surname was the same as my mother’s, so I am persuaded we are all distantly related. We surely share personality traits galore. Aby and I spent the first several hours of the flight laughing, probably to the disgruntlement of the people who had reclined their seats practically onto our laps. That'll teach 'em.

As always, I couldn’t sleep on the night flight, so I landed at Heathrow pretty much wrung out. Fortunately the drive to Cambridge would take less than two hours, or so I thought. Already, just being in England had me exhilarated and full of energy. Then I shuttled to the car rental yard and met the Enemy.

Upgraded and Ungrateful
Yup. That’s the one. The bane of my existence for nearly the entire trip.
When I finished the paperwork and went to claim my car, I couldn’t find anything that resembled the picture of the Astra on the Auto-Europe website. An employee helped out by taking my key and pressing something. “Look for the car with the open boot,” she said. And sure enough, the boot (“trunk” to us Americans) rose up on a shiny silver car directly in front of me.

Most people would be delighted to reserve the cheapest possible car with automatic drive and get handed the keys to a 2009 Mercedes with all the bells and whistles. Not I. For one thing, I don’t like being responsible for a car worth more than my entire net worth back when I had a net worth. For another, what use are bells and whistles when you don’t know what they are or how to work them? No Car Manual or instructions of any sort. But of the eight or ten cars still on the lot, this was the only automatic to be had, and I dare not drive a manual with the gear stick on my left. Too many things to keep track of when driving in England as it is.

Okay, deep in my greedy heart was a twinge of pleasure at driving a luxury car, which I’d never done before. That quickly vanished when I actually had to drive the damn thing on any road smaller than a Motorway. But at the time, I knew they wouldn’t have put a ritzy car into my hands if a cheaper alternative were available. So I finally managed to start the Demon Car and maneuver it out of the parking lot, heading for the “Orbital Road” that circles the great expanse of London. I was headed north. So of course, I wound up going south. Not sure how. I exited, found a way to get turned around, and headed back, only to find myself going south again. This happened three more times before I accepted my fate. The result was something like getting on a clock at 9 and aiming for the Motorway exit located at 1, except I was taking the long way around.

In the universe, there are likely millions of moons orbiting planets in less time than it took me to reach my desired exit. Meantime, I was wrestling with the controls on the car. For an experienced driver, many things become virtually automatic. Turn signals, for example. But on this car, nothing was familiar. The little baton that would indicate a lane change or turn on my own car threw the Mercedes into cruise control. Let’s just say I’d heard of cruise control. Period. So whenever I had to signal, I found myself rapidly slowing to, say, thirty miles an hour. After an hour or two, I figured out how to set the cruise control to a safe Motorway speed and keep it there. On rare occasions, I even managed to find the actual signal indicator in time to let other drivers know what I was planning to do.

Eventually I did reach my destination, looking and feeling something like Bill the Cat. Also so exhausted that I knew I couldn’t continue to slither through through the narrow, crowded streets of Cambridge trying to find King’s College Chapel in time for Evensong. Already a menace on the roads, I managed to get turned around in someone’s private driveway and aimed myself toward Peterborough, about an hour north.

The place where I’d booked accommodations was located in one of England’s “Services” turnouts where travels can fuel up their cars, grab some fast food, and stay the night. So there I was, limp as overcooked cabbage, in my plain, clean room at with a Big Mac and Diet Coke for supper. And yes, I was smiling and happy. Welcome to England!

P.S. If you read about my odyssey with Pat Potter in July, you'll have guessed that the Inevitable is getting lost. I brought that to all new heights on the England trip, so stay tuned for Wanderings with Friends.