Monday June 17, 2019

Edinburgh to Oxenholme

We said our farewells to Andrew, and took the bus to Haymarket Train Station. It is the station closest to Andrew’s house and only has four platforms – can’t go wrong!.

This meant we didn’t have to worry about the walk from the bus stop to the Main Station and possibly getting on the wrong train again. However, it did mean that all the luggage spaces were taken and there wasn’t any room for Shelley’s case. We managed to shove it under the table with a little help from the women across the aisle.

I got my computer out and was going to update the blog. Shelley greeted the couple that we were sitting with who were from Ecuador. The computer did not get turned on. We chatted all the way to Oxenholme with this lovely couple (Ramero and Valerie). He was a gastroenterologist and was attending a conference in Birmingham. They added another couple of weeks to their trip to visit Scotland.

Ramero\’s English was better than Valerie\’s, but she managed really well and of course their English was better than my Spanish. We talked about different dialects, languages and Ecuador.

I really wanted to update the blog as I was so far behind, but there is a time and place to connect to the wired world and a time and place to connect to the here and now. I learnt so much about Ecuador, the indigenous peoples and even a little bit about gastroenterology.

We arrived in Oxenholme and should have had a 15 minute wait for our next train to Windermere. Unfortunately they were missing a driver, I did offer to drive the train for them, but they declined the offer. We had over an hour to kill. We were told there was a nice pub up the hill with really good food. Off we went dragging our suitcases behind us.

If we turned left there was a beejesus hill, if we turned right it went downhill and there was a sign post to the Village. Which way to go. I asked a young girl who was attached to her cell phone if she could find the pub for us – yep up the hill to the left.

In the meantime, my best bud had chatted up an old English gentlemen who offered to take us to the pub in his car. We piled our suitcases in his car and he dropped us at the pub. How nice was that.

We both had a superb lunch and at 2:00 headed back down the hill to the train station. There were now lots of people waiting for the train and all congregating around the middle of the platform. I maneuvered us through the crowd to the front of the train and eventually the doors opened and we settled ourselves in for the short 30 minute ride to Windermere.

Once again we got into conversation with our fellow passengers. An Indian family whose eldest daughter was about to graduate from St. Andrews University and was not keen to return to Delhi. The father was a very proud father who told us she was graduating with honours and on the Dean’s list and will go on to get her Masters. The youngest daughter would graduate next year.

After arriving in Windermere we took the bus to Bowness. Andrew had checked out where we needed to get off the bus for our B&B, what a lovely, caring person.

Of course we chatted to a couple at the bus stop about the weather. \”We have had a lot of mizzle\” she said. What a great description of drizzle, mist and rain – mizzle!

We arrived at our B&B, which is very nice and clean, We walked down to the lake to check out the ferry timetable and headed back to the B&B with a bottle of wine and a bag of crisps!

The wired world can rob us of connecting with real people.

Sunday June 16, 2016

What a fantastic day out and a great tour guide. Although Andrew hasn’t had a car in 18 months, he drove his daughter\’s car very well. He made us laugh about the electronic start and “no key”. Shelley was the expert on starting the car and the electronics. She became “Lady Shelley” for the day as I had to open the back door of the car, because we couldn’t work out how to release the child lock.

Our first stop was at the Kelpies, legendary sea creatures who would lure sailors to them and then drown them. These fantastic sculptures, were created as part of a millennial project on a lovely area of the Union Canal.

It was quite a nice walk to the Kelpies and back to the car.  We stopped to take photos of a Scottish orchid, a wonderful log with amazing textures and a willow centaur.

As we walked back to the car, the heavens opened, we managed to take cover and we waited until the rain passed before getting back to the car.

We then went to the Falkirk Wheel.

I loved this place. Absolutely amazing engineering to lift narrow boats from one canal to the upper levels of the other canal. What would have taken 11 locks and half a days work, takes about 15 minutes in a bathtub. Absolutely amazing to watch this magnificent piece of engineering.

Shelley was getting hungry, so we left her to get something to eat in the café and Andrew and I walked to the top of the “lift” and along the towpath for a while. Then we went into the woods to see the remains of a roman wall. Lovely in the woods, although you could still hear the highway.

From there we headed to Linlithgow – the birth place of Mary Queen of Scots and her royal palace. We walked around the small loch, which was very pretty and peaceful.

Andrew talked about growing up here and his parents. If you were born in Linlithgow you were referred to as a black bitch and very proudly held that title. The story goes that a man was “imprisoned” on one of the small islands on the loch. His dog would take food over to him so that he would survive. It was discovered that the dog was doing this and the dog was then secured on the other small island so that she could no longer provide for her master. The dog was a little black bitch.

We finished up at the palace and Andrew went to get the car while Shelley and I had a little wander around, the palace needs a bit of work, but could be a nice place if you had a roof and windows.

Our final stop was Queensferry where there are now three bridges. I say now, when Ralf and I crossed into the Kingdom of Fife five years ago there were only two bridges. The rail bridge and the road bridge. They built a new “motorway” bridge. The old road bridge is only used for public transit, taxis, pedestrians and bicycles.

We went back to Andrew\’s place and prepared supper.  Andrew was expecting a warmshowers guest. She was cycling Lands End to John O\’Groats. Andrew helped her with her route – she was cycling big miles every day.  When Ralf and I left Edinburgh on our Grand Adventure it took us 5 days to get to John O\’Groats, she was hoping to do it in 3 days (about 160 kms per day).

Saturday June 15, 2019

Andrew came with us on the bus in to Edinburgh and gave us an interesting walking tour of Edinburgh. He told us about the Parliament and the history of England and Scotland. It was interesting as I didn’t know very much about the English/Scottish relationship.

Who was in charge and when the Scottish parliament was removed and then reinstated by the English.

I had an interesting encounter with a person selling “genuine Harris Tweed” waistcoats, which were a patchwork of materials. The jackets have been up-cycled using Harris Tweed he informed us. Up-cycling is the new buzz word, and is supposed to encourage you to buy things because they are not being thrown into the trash but reused. I innocently asked him how he knew each piece was “genuine” Harris Tweed. He got right in my face and quite angry telling me that there was a process by the Harris Tweed company who verified that the tweed was made in a particular area in Scotland and only then could they put in the special label. If I had any concerns about whether this was genuine I could write or phone the Harris Tweed organization. I asked him not to get so angry. He was right back at me asking me how he should have answered when I was questioning his clothing. I said you can answer without getting aggressive. He carried on and I put my hand up, turned around and walked away.   I believe the man protested too much.

Andrew was telling us that there is a lot of off-shore tartans being made and of course as we know from our travels in Asia a lot of “copies” of brand name products.

At about 1:30, Andrew left us to pick up his daughter\’s car, he is going to take us for a drive tomorrow to Falkirk. Shelley and I carried on walking the historic City and the Royal Mile. We had lunch and I carried on with the history tour for Shelley. Grassmarket had a small farmers market, which we wandered around and then headed up to Greyfriars cemetery.

Edinburgh is famous for its Universities, philosophers and seat of learning. In the 1800’s the medical profession needed cadavars to practice on. There were two Irish workers Burke and Hare, who as entrepreneurs started to remove newly buried bodies from graves to sell to the universities in the City. Unfortunately there weren’t enough dead bodies so they created a few (murdering). Eventually they were caught and Hare turned against the other and Burke was hung for the murders. People had to use heavy cement stones to place on top of the graves and iron railings to stop the body snatchers.

Two other interesting stories from Greyfriars Cemetery – J.K. Rowling used to wander the graveyard while writing her first Harry Potter book and used some of the names on the gravestones for characters in the book.

The second is Greyfriars Bobbie the little dog who stayed by his masters grave after his master died.

We walked the length of the Royal Mile to Holyrood Palace and the new Houses of Parliament.

Holyrood Palace is the Queen’s official residence when she is in Scotland.

Another good day walking the City.

Friday June 14, 2019

Another full breakfast to get us going. We had booked a taxi to the train station – the cost of the bus was 3.40 and the cost of the taxi was 5.60 not worth the hassle of waiting for the bus. The taxi driver was on time and very friendly.

I checked the boards at the train station and spotted the train to Edinburgh – off we went to Platform 9, about a half hour wait. As we were waiting I heard the announcement “The train now arriving on Platform 4 is the train to Edinburgh stopping at ……” The board on platform 9 hadn’t changed, there were two trains going to Edinburgh from York within 10 minutes of each other. One train originated in Birmingham, the other in London.

We got on the train at Platform 9 settled into our reserved seats and headed to Edinburgh. The train “service manager” we used to call them conductors, came down the train checking tickets, he checked our tickets and told us we should have caught the other train from Platform 4. “Don’t worry” he said, in his lovely Scottish brogue “we have plenty of room for you, but you must check the time on the ticket” and off he continued checking the tickets. On his way back I asked him what would the consequences have been if we hadn’t got a nice service manager such as himself. “Well, I could have charged you again for the correct train tickets and they would have been a lot more expensive from what you have paid”. I thanked him profusely for his kindness. “By the way” he said “if anyone asks, tell them I gave you a stern talking to”.

Obviously we were arriving at a different platform than the one Andrew thought we would arrive at. I found him trying to call me, but my new sim card wasn’t working and he couldn’t get through.

Andrew gave me a stern talking to! Lol He turned to Shelley and said “you trust this one with your travel plans do you”. Shelley smiled “Yes, I am having a wonderful time”.

Andrew very kindly took our cases home with him and we headed to a phone store to correct the problem with the Sim card. The young man switched the card from one sim port to another and it worked fine.

We decided to wander around Edinburgh New Town, which was actually built in 1800’s as the old town was getting overcrowded and smelly.

We had an average Italian dinner and then headed back to Andrew’s place on the outskirts of Edinburgh. We chatted until about 10:00 p.m. and then headed to our beds.

Andrew has a nice 3+1 bedroom house and is able to accommodate several warm-showers guests at a time. He is very knowledgeable about the various cycle routes to take from his house and was very helpful in checking train and bus times for us when we got to Oxenholme and to get us to Windermere

Thursday 13 June, 2019

Another big breakfast to set us up for the day. The forecast for today was for rain on and off.

I had planned a day at the Museum. York has several great museums to visit and one of the best is the Castle Museum. I learnt something new about this museum. The original museum was the inspiration of Dr. John Kirk. Before the NHS was created Dr. Kirk would often accept donations of personal artifacts for his services. It was said that some people would hide their memorabilia so that he didn’t take it as payment. 

Part of the museum is a recreated Victorian street with shops and street scenes to transport you to a bygone age. The lighting was quite dark, and we couldn\’t get good photos.

As the museum was previously the City Jail, part of the museum is the old jail with visual recordings of the inhabitants including Dick Turpin who was a highway man and was captured near York.

The museum is really well laid out and we spent over four hours wandering through all of the exhibits. We shared a soup and sandwich for lunch at the museum café.

Fortunately the rain held off in the afternoon and we were able to wander the streets of York again. This is my favorite City in England.

Shelley really enjoyed the City as well, she especially enjoyed all of the gardens big and small.

We walked around the outside of the Minster, we didn’t go inside the Minster as I object to paying to go into a church.

Minster

To maintain the historic nature of the buildings within the City any change of any historic buildings are strictly regulated. I spotted a notice for Planning Permission to replace four double electrical plugs inside of the Treasury House. Replace not add!!

At the end of another busy but great day in York we both needed to hug a bear.

Wednesday, 12 June, 2019

After a full English breakfast of eggs, back bacon, sausage, beans, mushrooms, tomatoes, hash brown and a pot of coffee we headed downtown to walk the walls of the City of York.

The weather forecast was for cloudy and rain in the afternoon. We had a great morning slowly meandering around the City Walls. The City of York originated as a Roman City and the walls were created for protection.

We stopped for a coffee half way around and sat in one of the gate towers. This tower was rented out for families right up until 1957. It was the most complete of the towers with bastions, gate and a top floor. On a good day you could sit outside with your coffee and ‘guard’ the City.

It also had a garderobe. A garderobe is the equivalent to an “outhouse”. They look like an external chimney but they have a “drop zone”. The name comes from the French ”regarder” to look. Basically look out (watch out) below.

The walls are not complete all the way around the City. Some of the walls were destroyed and not reconstructed. However, we were able to connect the local roads to get back onto the next section of wall with the help of locals, who recognized that we were misplaced.

We finished our walk of the walls at Clifford’s Tower. The Tower is part of a Motte and Bailey castle. The defending army and population could retreat to the Bailey. As they held the higher ground they could protect themselves. They usually had sufficient foods for a short siege period. A sad part of the history of the tower was when the Jews of York were persecuted. March 16, 1190, one hundred fifty jews ‘escaped’ to the Clifford Tower, they were surrounded, the walls were set on fire, they were about to be tortured, possibly raped to prevent further persecution they committed suicide.

The City has lots of little alleyways, we sometimes got misplaced, but as I know the old City (from a past life) I was always able to find our way.

We had a large, late lunch in the Golden Fleece, which is reputed to be haunted by five ghosts. We kept moving tables because we could not find a level table the floors were all sloped.

We wandered about during the afternoon and through “the Shambles Area”. The Shambles street is so narrow the second storey of the house you could reach out and shake hands with your neighbour across the street. I used to love this street, unfortunately it was used to film Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter series. Almost half of the street has been taken over by Harry Potter wizard shops.

Because of our large and late lunch we popped into Marks & Sparks (Marks and Spencer’s) and bought some sandwiches to take back to our B&B.

Tuesday June 11, 2019

Joy took us to the train station in Derby, for our train to York. We were there early at the station and the train rolled into the station. We had reserved seats and settled down for the two hours trip to York. About 15 minutes into the trip, we were told to move from our coach as the lighting was not functioning properly. We had to move forward four coaches, what a pain. However, we chatted to nice people on the train. Shelley chatted to an elderly couple from Doncaster going to York for a little break. I chatted to two touring cyclists who were heading up to the north of Scotland from Glasgow. There route was mostly gravel roads, I hope the weather improves for them. Fortunately they were staying at B & B’s at least they would have a hot shower and a warm bed at the end of the day.

We took the bus from the train station to our B&B then headed into York for a little wander around.

We are staying about 10 minutes walk from the Minster, it is going to be my landmark for finding our way back to the B & B. The Minster is such a beautiful building and quite jaw-dropping when you first see the magnificence of the stone-work.

We had a nice soup and sandwich for lunch and carried on having a wander around the streets and alleyways of old York as well as wandering a little around the newer area. Shelley wanted buy her son a nice flat-cap. We found one that she really liked made of Harris Tweed. I modeled them in the shop for her, I am convinced the sales person thought we were nutters, but we don’t care.

On the way back to our B& B along Gillygate we found a nice little pub where we stopped to have dinner. They had a nice Chicken, leek and mushroom pie with mashed potatoes and vegetables for 10.00 pounds. I asked how large the pie was – the landlord said there big and motioned a pie the size of a bowler hat. We decided to share our dinners as the portions are so large. The pie was more top hat shaped. There was plenty of food for the two of us and really tasty. We had a couple of glasses of wine and then headed back to the B&B where I started to catch up with the blog.

Monday June 10, 2019

Once again the birds woke me at the crack of dawn. Nikki and Chris left on their vacation to Anglesey, Wales – big hugs all round.

Our plan was to visit Bakewell, another lovely market town and then spend time with my nephew and his partner Caroline. Joy was to be our tour guide for the day and Caroline my nephew’s partner was going to be the historian.

Joy drove us through Chatsworth Estate which is an Estate owned by the Duke of Devonshire. The gardens are beautiful and are usually open to the public for free. This particular week-end the Royal Horticultural Society had their Garden show at Chatsworth, the price to enter was 38.00 pounds per person. We photographed the grand entrance and the house.

We carried on to Bakewell a lovely market town and the market was in full swing. We had a lovely wander around and treated ourselves to new bags.

Shelley tried the famous Bakewell Tart and didn’t like it. Joy bought one so that we could share it for dessert. We stopped in a pub on our way to Wayne and Caroline’s. I had my first beer of the trip. Unfortunately the weather was wet and drizzly, we didn’t stay too long in Bakewell.

We carried on to Wayne and Carolyne’s they live in a Village called Stoney Middleton. which is near the village of Eyam. We could have walked over the hill to Eyam, but it was cool, wet and windy.

The Village of Eyam is famous for being a “plague Village”. In 1665, Eyam was one of the first Villages in Derbyshire to be struck by the Plague. A haberdashery shop had ordered cloth from London and it arrived with rat fleas on it who infected the lady of the house. Within days people were dying from the plague. The rector of the church held a meeting and it was decided to quarantine the village. On the outskirts of the village there was a mound where the people of Eyam would leave money and their shopping list for the people of Stoney Middleton who providee them with food and necessities.

Some of the houses have plaques outside in their gardens indicating how many people died from the family.

There is a ‘Pilgrim Walk in this area – not quite the Santiago de Compostela, it travels from Illam to Eyam incorporating a lot of the Saxon churches and plague villages. Part of the path is from Stoney Middleton that we could have taken and seen the ‘mound’.

During the summer a lot of the villages in the area have well dressings this is to commemorate the quarantine of the villages and the survival of people. They create beautiful flower friezes.

Carolyne was amazing with the information on Eyam, she has discovered lots of interesting stories which she told us with great gusto.

After Eyam church she suggested we go to Tideswell Church. The Tideswell Church is again an old church dating back to the 1200. This church had knights and their ladies buried inside of the church.

One of them had damaged  arms and the other had lost his legs. Wayne and I were giggling “she’s ‘armless”, “He’s had a few too many drinks – he is legless” We had to leave the church in case we got struck by lightening.

By 6:30 we were fading fast and headed home. We finished off leftovers from the buffet and had a relatively early night.

Sunday June 9, 2019

Got to love time changes. I was awake with the birds singing outside of my window, I checked the watch – still on Canadian time, as was my phone. I decided to go back to sleep until I heard someone else get up.

I heard Chris getting up so I jumped in the shower and headed downstairs for breakfast. Shelley was already downstairs and it was only 6:30!

We decided to go for a walk up to the Town (not a village) while everyone got up at the normal time on a Sunday morning.

Wirksworth is an old Derbyshire Market Town with lovely sandstone brick buildings. Shelley is such a joy to travel with, she is so enthusiastic about everything and is so pleased to be here.

As we wandered through St. Mary the Virgin Church yard, I noticed one of the wardens looking at the notice board. I ran over to him and asked if we could go inside. The Church was going to have a service at 9:30. Oh dear I hoped he didn’t think we wanted to join the service. We could go inside as the church is open to visitors during daylight hours. Obviously during church services you wouldn’t wander around. We had a good half hour to view the inside and the beautiful stained glass windows which some were replaced in the 19^th and 20^th centuries. The warden told us a little about the history. The original building was built in the 9^th Century but most of the present day church was built in the 13^th Century.

After we got back to the house, we had another coffee and then Joy, Wendy, Baz, Shelley and I went to “The Woods”. When my Mum died she requested that a tree be planted in her memory. We requested “No flowers, donations to the tree fund”. Enough money was raised for us to plant 9 trees. One from each of the 6 children, one from the Grandchildren and great grandchildren, one from Mum\’s  friends and from my Dad. They were tiny saplings when we planted them and now they are beautiful trees.

The Woods are a green burial site. After Dad passed his ashes joined Mum\’s. It is a beautiful peaceful place.

They have a beautiful quiet area, with a fabulous piece of art – the Dandelion.

We went back to Nikki and Joy’s house, where Nikki had prepared a buffet lunch to feed the 5,000. Perhaps not the 5,000 but definitely enough to feed the family with lots left over.

It was great to see all my nieces, their hubbies and the great nieces and great nephew.

Shelley was amazed by all the different accents. I had forgotten that we would have a few different accents for her to listen to. My nieces are from Nottinghamshire, Joy has a Derbyshire accent, Baz (my brother-in-law) has a broad Stoke accent and Nick (Lyndsey\’s hubby) is from Liverpool. I wish I could download an example of all these accents but I can’t. Of course, the funniest was when someone mentioned Shelley’s accent, who didn’t know she had one.