Category Archives: England

Skipton to Knaresborough ~ Day 8

Friday September 22nd was the eighth day of our travels in the UK. Originally we were going to be driving straight to York from Grassington to return our car and take a train to Liverpool. The reason we were traveling to Liverpool was to attend the Liverpool v. West Ham futbol/soccer match which was scheduled for Saturday the 23rd. After we had made reservations for a hotel and flights back to Dublin based on that date the game was switched to Sunday the 24th. We scrambled to make different plans than we had prior to the game change. Instead of spending an extra night in Liverpool we decided to spend Friday night in Knaresborough. On the way to Knaresborough we stopped in Skipton to see the castle.

Before we packed up and checked out of the Devonshire in Grassington we enjoyed breakfast.

Breakfast was very good each of our mornings here.

On the road to Skipton Laura managed to get snaps of all these great road signs. We don’t see Hedgehog area signs on any roads we travel in the USA.

We had reservations for the castle and the castle car park.

Over 900 years old, Skipton Castle is one of the most complete and best preserved medieval castles in England. If you are interested in the history of this castle follow this link.

The ancient Yew tree in Conduit Court.

Lady Anne Clifford (1590-1676)
Born at Skipton Castle, 30th January, 1590, the daughter of George Clifford, she was the last Clifford to own Skipton Castle. She fought equally tenaciously for her rights and for the King’s cause in the Civil War, when Skipton Castle withstood a three years siege.

Lady Anne was also remarkable for the extensive post Civil War restoration work on her Castles. In 1659 she planted the yew tree in the central courtyard to mark the Castle’s repair from its Civil War damage.

The beautiful Conduit Court where a 350-year old Yew tree planted by Lady Anne Clifford still survives today

We enjoyed our time here especially since we were early enough to enjoy the castle mostly on our own.

This door called out to me at Holy Trinity Church in Skipton. Before we left Skipton we popped into the church.

The window of the Ministry and Ascension of Jesus. Centre-Ascension to his Father in Heaven, whilst his disciples watch from the ground as they receive the gift of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Left panel: Jesus the Good Shepherd. Right Panel; Jesus walking on water.

Window by; J.B. Cappronnier of Brussels, 1899.

Love the rest of our journey to Knaresborough. That will be another post.

Back to the Present: Greg is working hard to finish up the redo of our Master Bedroom Shower stall. He is almost there. He needed a break from all the hard work so we did a little drive on Friday to some craft fairs. We had breakfast in Chewelah and then took some roads less traveled to see the beautiful larches in our area. Before we left home I put a roast in the slow cooker so dinner would be taken care of while we were out and about.

Saturday was back to work for Greg and he finished the grouting while I did some shopping. We enjoyed leftovers on this day.

We had a wonderful Sunday at church including our annual business meeting. After church we stopped for Mexican food in town. We were happy to see my cousin and her husband at the restaurant and had a good catch up with them. Hope you all had a good weekend.

The Dales Way ~ Part 2

This continues the post of our walk over hill and dale from Grassington to Hebden and back to Grassington along the River Wharfe. The whole walk was closer to 6 miles than 4 miles but the steps that Laura’s device clocked were 20,077! This was on Thursday September 21, 2023.

We left our cozy Pub and headed through the village towards the River Wharfe.

The Old School Tea Room, Hebden. Family run, traditional but quirky tea room. Gifts, crafts and cards also available. School dates back to 1874 and the old bell still chimes every hour! (Laura, we missed going in here)

Hebden suspension bridge: The bridge, next to stepping stones, was built in 1884 to connect Hebden with Thorpe after a man drowned trying to cross the Wharfe. Nearby Burnsall Bridge, also on the river, had been swept away in a storm the previous year. The new bridge was built by the Hebden blacksmith using 262 yards of redundant steel rope from the old lead mines. It was restored in 2014/15.

If my hips were any bigger I wouldn’t have been able to squeeze through here! 🙂

 

The water at Linton Falls was in full force due to the storms the day before.

It was tempting to go down this lane and investigate Linton Church and village but our feet said no.

Back in town we treated ourselves to some famous Love brownies and got a recommendation for dinner and made reservations. As if we didn’t have enough steps in already to strolled in town and did some last minute shopping before we got ready for dinner.

Our dinner this evening at the Grassington House would be in honor of Greg’s 70th birthday, a treat from Josh and Laura.

Cheers to Pops on 70 years!

It was a lovely dinner and an American couple from Utah stopped by the table for conversation since they noticed we were from the States, too.

After dinner we took some evening shots for our memories.

We were thankful for being able to walk in sunshine with glorious blue skies and fluffy clouds and to see the wonderful landscape of a portion of the Dales. Capping the evening off with a delicious meal was a nice treat.

Although there was talk of taking part in Quiz Night at The Devonshire we all opted to tuck in and rest our feet and legs and get ready for Day 8 of our trip.

The Dales Way ~Day 7

On Thursday September 21st, day seven of our travels, the fire alarms went off in the Inn while we were getting ready for breakfast. Yikes. I was happy to be dressed when one of the owners knocked on our door to check our smoke alarm. After a full check of all the rooms in the Inn it was determined that there was a faulty wire somewhere that set off the alarm. The noise stopped and we finished getting ready for our breakfast.

I ordered the American Pancakes on this morning and they were excellent. The coffee was decent, too. After breakfast we headed out from town for a 4 mile walk or so we thought.

 

We learned that the day before our glorious sunshine filled walk there was lots of rain and flooding. Again we were so thankful for Providence in our timing. So thankful for blue skies, fluffy clouds and nice temperatures for walking.

Once we were off the paved road we begin to see what the storm left behind. At this point we could call our walk. Around the puddles and through the Dales.

 

We spotted some grouse ahead…

 

After seeing them we felt like we were going off track so we headed back.

We were confused on which way to go to get to Hebden. We saw another walker and she pointed out the way or the direction we needed to go and we bumbled our way through someone’s field and finally made it to this sign.

Over the Stile we went and continued on.

We were happy to see our first destination in sight.

 

I wanted to call this walk, ‘Sheep Shite and Mud Puddles’, because we had to really work at dodging all three.

We were thrilled when we made it out of the fields.

A few more mud puddles to navigate.

We made it to this Pub just before it opened for the day.

We enjoyed our time here very much. It was nice to sit a spell and enjoy some good food. Josh had the Pheasant Burger and got a chance to compliment the chef on the goodness of it.

 

From here we would make our way to the Dale Way trail along the River Wharf to get back to Grassington. That will be another post.

Goodnight Day Six ~ Grassington

From Ripon on Wednesday the 20th of September we continued on our journey to our final destination for the next couple of nights, Grassington. This part of our journey was a short 22 miles on B6265.

Grassington is the home of the fictional market town of Darrowby in All Creatures Great and Small, the 2020 television series set in 1937. Based upon the classic James Herriot books written by Alf Wight which follow the adventures of a young country vet in Yorkshire. Click here for more information on this charming town.

We would be staying at the Devonshire for Wednesday and Thursday nights. We were very happy to find a parking spot in this very popular market square. If we hadn’t we would have had to park at the Grassington National Park Visitor Center. We checked into our rooms in time to freshen up and have a walk about the town before our dinner reservations.

We had the Darrowby Suite and our kids had the Tristan Farnon room.

It was nice to be in a small quiet village with everything we needed at our doorstep.

We were glad we had made reservations for dinner because things filled up fast and the seats were full.

After dinner we regrouped in the bar area to play Phase 10. All the seats in the Inn were full with people and many with their 4 legged friends. Some were well behaved and others…not so much.

We shared another Sticky Toffee Pudding in the bar while playing our game.

We tucked into bed after a nice full day.

Day Seven took us into the ‘Dales’ for a nice long walk.

Postcards Day Eight

On our 8th day, Friday September 22nd we left Grassington after breakfast and made a stop in Skipton to see a castle and enjoy some lunch before heading to our stop for the night in Knaresborough at the Knaresborough Inn.

Skipton Castle in the Market Town of Skipton in North Yorkshire.

We are back in the U.S.A. and driving across our state to get home today. It will be nice to be reunited with our own pillows tonight. Thank you for following along with my postcards. Hope to visit fellow bloggers soon and see what you’ve been up to. I have enough photos from our trip to bore you all to tears in the near future! It definitely was a ‘WOW’ trip.

Great Britain 2003, 2004 and 2006

Ever since our first trips ‘Across the Pond’ before we were married we had a tugging to return and enjoy these lands that held great memories for us. It took twenty nine years for us to book a trip in February of 2003. It was a short trip to London with a day trip out to Cambridge. We stayed in South Kensington and used the Tube and Trains for our sightseeing. Our children were all able to care for themselves at this stage which made travel easy for us. Seems the travel bug took hold.

In April of 2004 we took our daughter to Great Britain for a graduation gift. Our itinerary included tracking down her favorite author’s haunts in Oxford, The Cotswolds, Bath, Devonshire, York, Edinburgh, and ended our trip in London. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Jane Austen, and Monty Python thrown in for fun.

In 2006 we traveled with best of friends in May to Wales, The Lake District, Oban, The Isle of Iona, Edinburgh, and York.

We left our fellow travelers in York and took a train back to Manchester Airport and on home. Our friends traveled on to Bath and London.

The next time we traveled to England was with our oldest and his bride and with a digital Camera!

We traveled in 2013, 2014 and in 2022 and those trips are well documented on my blog.

On this trip in 2023 we will return to York but none of the other locations we’ve been to before.

Today, Friday the 15th of September we land in Dublin with four of our family for a new adventure.

I’ll try to post a photo a day if possible while we are traveling. Cheers and Sláinte!

Walking Again

Last Friday we got up with the birds and tackled the Rotary Trail. Started our walk at 5:30 A.M.

This was something new on the trail path. Different languages on each side of the post saying May Peace Prevail on Earth. Nice sentiment but, with all the ungodliness, unrighteousness, lying and suppressing of the truth going on these days, I can’t see that happening anytime soon.

We have finally scheduled walking again in anticipation of another trip across the pond. We will be flying in and out of Dublin this time with a hopper flight to England, too. We are going with our oldest and youngest and their spouses. While in England we will stay to the North visiting York and the more of Yorkshire. From Yorkshire we will head to Liverpool for the Liverpool v. West Ham game before hopping back to Dublin. Our youngest and hubby are staying in Ireland for the full time we are on the trip. They have a 6 day tour and then will be on their own until we all fly home from Dublin. This trip will be in September.

Any suggestions for which villages/towns to visit in Yorkshire?

The Fragrance of Summer Hodgepodge

Summer is upon us and Joyce has come up with questions to get us ready for this season. Thank you, Joyce From This Side of the Pond.

1. Hello Summer! In the northern hemisphere anyway. What’s something on your summer bucket list? Do you have an actual summer bucket list? If not, use your hypothetical list.

I don’t have a summer bucket list but since we are traveling to Dallas for our youngest siblings birthday party (twins), I’ll be checking off going to Waco and walking about the Chip and Joanna dynasty. That’s been something on my radar to experience. My hypothetical list would include keeping cool.

2. What for you is the defining scent of summer?

Fresh mowed grass and throw in a campfire!

3. What’s a (music, food, wine, or flower) festival happening in your part of the country that you would like to attend if tickets/travel/timing was no object? 

Hands down the Lavender Festival in Sequim. We’ve gone in years past and it is worth the effort.

4. Apparently a military whistle blower claims the US has a UFO retrieval program. What say you? Do you believe aliens are out there? 

Only if you count Angels and Satan’s minions.

5. Besides your wedding day and the birthdays of any children you may have, what are three of your top experiences in life? 

  1. Summer Camps in my teens. God was drawing me/calling me to himself and this time the Gospel became clearer to me and with the help of the Holy Spirit, I repented and believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. Hume Lake Christian Camp in King’s Canyon, Sierra Nevada mountains.

2. Singing on tour, bringing the Gospel to schools and churches across Great Britain the summer of 1973 and 1974. Not only did these tours add growth in our walk with Jesus but we got the UK travel bug. Dear and I are the singers on the right.

3. Grandchildren!! So thankful to God for letting us be close to our two, Addy and JJ. What a sweet cherry on top of our lives they are.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Speaking of lavender, when we were in England in July of 2014 we came across these lavender fields in Broadway (Cotswolds).

This coming up weekend all our kids will be here because our granddaughter is getting baptized on Sunday (that will deserve a whole post next week). We also have a candidate for our pastorate coming to preach. There are other events going on for us to get to know him and his wife and see if he will be the one who God has chosen to be our Shepherd. Exciting times and a very full weekend!

Pass the Torch Hodgepodge

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It’s Hodgepodge time again and Joyce is celebrating Hodgepodge #500!! Congratulations to Joyce and Hodgepodgers everywhere. Click over to join in the fun.

1. Last time you drove/flew 500 miles (ish)? What’s a place you’d like to visit that lies approximately 500 miles from your current location? 

In December of 2022 we drove to Abbotsford, B.C. Via Bothell Washington and once we arrived in Abbotsford we drove on to Chilliwack with friends for our Mennonite Girls Can Cook Christmas party. That was just under 500 miles worth of driving.

It would be a nice vacation with Family to stay at Cannon Beach on the Oregon Coast for a few days and enjoy the sand and sea just beyond our doorstep. Cannon Beach is 500 miles from us.

2. Tell us about a time recently it felt like you were ‘racing against the clock’. 

Being retired and older I don’t race much. I have felt the need to clear out things and let things go before our kids have to sort through it all.

3. Have you ever attended any really large sporting events?

Yes!

What was your impression of the experience?  

We have enjoyed memorable experiences at some large sporting events. I attended my first Rose Bowl Game on January 2nd in 1967 (USC v. Purdue). The Rose Parade and Rose Bowl Game are always on New Year’s Day unless that day lands on a Sunday. When January 1st lands on a Sunday the parade and game are moved to Monday. My second Rose Bowl Game was in 1992 when Greg was a student at the University of Washington and the Huskies played at the Rose Bowl against Michigan. The Huskies won this game which made the experience very exciting.

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In 1984 the Summer Olympics were hosted by Los Angeles and we were able to get tickets to some rowing events at Lake Casitas. The most exciting part of these Olympic Games was the fact that my husband Greg was able to represent his company as an Olympic Torch Bearer!

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In 1994 our sons got tickets for World Cup games in Los Angeles and Stanford. The USA was hosting that year. The photo above was at the Rose Bowl for one of the games we attended.

Dan and I attended Brazil v Camaroon at Stanford Stadium. Attire was colorful and the party atmosphere was very lively. Both those countries know how to celebrate.

We were able to track down where the US team was staying and training and our sons met every player on the team and got all their autographs. That’s Alexi Lalas with our sons. That’s not a cigarette in his mouth.

When Dear and I were traveling with Josh and Laura in England in 2013, Josh got us tickets to a Manchester United game v. Crystal Palace at Old Trafford. That was a great time! Josh also made it into an Arsenal game on that trip.

The Superbowl, The Kentucky Derby, The World Series, FIFA World Cup, The Indianapolis 500, The Daytona 500, The Olympics, The Masters, Wimbledon, The Boston Marathon, March Madness, Tour de France, Monaco’s Grand Prix, The Open (golf), The Ryder Cup, The Stanley Cup Finals..of the events listed which would you most like to attend in person? Or maybe one that’s not listed? 

Fifa World Cup, it will be hosted by the USA/Canada/and Mexico in 2026.

4. Are you an iced tea drinker? If so, do you drink it year round, or only in the spring and summer months? Do you make your own or buy it bottled? Sweet or unsweet? Flavored? Lemon or no lemon? How about a Long Island Iced Tea? 

Not a usual for me. If I do have an iced tea it would be lightly sweetened with some fresh lemon squeeze or the last variety.

5. April 20th is Volunteer Recognition Day…do you volunteer in some way? Tell us about it. If not, tell us about a volunteer you appreciate. 

I volunteer at church under Women’s Ministry. I’m the branch leader of Hospitality serving the church family in planning, supplying, and carrying out fellowship opportunities involving the entire church body. Responsibilities include: Maintaining the kitchen and supplies. Helping with food serving and cleanup for church events like potlucks, Easter brunch, pie and praise, and funerals.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

We celebrated our grandson’s 4th birthday this past Saturday. We had a T-Rex crash the party and we had a cute dinosaur and delicious dinosaur cake. If you want to see more of the surprise T-Rex entry click here.

I’ll be sharing more from JJ’s Dino-wonderful party on Friday.

Thanks for stopping by for #500!

Kenneth Grahame ~ Wind in the Willows

From the Wind in the Willows ~ by Kenneth Grahame

“The weary Mole also was glad to turn in without delay, and soon had his head on his pillow, in great joy and contentment. But ere he closed his eyes he let them wander round his old room, mellow in the glow of the firelight that played or rested on familiar and friendly things which had long been unconsciously a part of him, and now smilingly received him back, without rancour. He was now in just the frame of mind that the tactful Rat had quietly worked to bring about in him. He saw clearly how plain and simple – how narrow, even – it all was; but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him, and the special value of some such anchorage in one’s existence. He did not at all want to abandon the new life and its splendid spaces, to turn back on sun and air and all they offered him and creep home and stay there; the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still, even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage. But it was good to think he had this to come back to, this place which was all his own, these things which were so glad to see him again and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.”

 

“This has been a wonderful day!” said he, as the rat shoved off and took to the sculls again. “Do you know, I’ve never been in a boat in all my life.”

“What?” cried the Rat, open mouthed: “Never been in a – you never-well, I-what have you been doing, then?”

“Is it so nice as all that?” asked the Mole shyly, though he was quite prepared to believe it as he leaned back in his seat and surveyed the cushions, the oars, the rowlocks, and all the fascinating fittings, and felt the boat sway lightly under him.

“Nice? It’s the only thing.” said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leaned forward for his stroke. “Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing – absolutely nothing- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing.”

I read The Wind in the Willows for the first time in 2008 and that same year Dear and I went to the Rose Bowl Flea Market where I saw and purchased this teapot by Sadler from their Classic Stories series.

While we were in Oxford in September of 2022 we took a stroll through Holywell Cemetery.

The friends of Holywell Cemetery need some more friends to help keep up this cemetery.

 

The reason I’m adding photos from this cemetery in this post about Kenneth Grahame is that we stumbled upon his gravestone in this cemetery. We saw a few gravestones of note. This one is Kenneth Grahame’s. His son is buried here, also. He died tragically when he was just 20.

To
The Beautiful Memory
Of
Kenneth Grahame
Husband of Elspeth
And
Father of Alastair
Who Passed the River
On the 6th of July 1932
Leaving
Childhood & Literature
Through Him
The More Blest
For All Time
And of His Son Alastair Grahame
Commoner of Christ Church
1920

Another headstone we took note of was this one for Charles Walter Stansby Williams.

Charles Walter Stansby Williams was a British poet, novelist, playwright, theologian, literary critic, and member of the Inklings, an informal literary discussion group associated with C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien at the University of Oxford.

Have you ever read The Wind in the Willows? I found it to be very entertaining and heart warming. I’ll leave you with one more quote from this children’s classic.

“Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that’s always changing!”

Enjoy your horizons!