Consider the time factor before you indulge in a luxury car. I splashed out an extra £7 a day which would have been fine had I not spent an hour going in and out of the office to find out how things like the seat height and tilt, the transmission, the sat nav worked and even how to shut the open sunroof in an English heatwave we were having. Mercedes has reinvented the whole damned lot!
The plan was to tootle through the Yorkshire Dales and end up in the South Yorkshire village of Cawthorne which we eventually did after an ongoing battle with the car’s electronic devices. Our first stop was Richmond which is my middle name and one smart looking market town that is now on the list for further investigation next visit. I'm hoping we still have one more in us.
From there it was on to Hawes which comes highly recommended by Bill Bryson. It's quaint, it's cobbled and it's highly wanderable. Green rolling hills gave way to moors not far out of Hawes as we headed south-west to the Ribbenhead Viaduct which is a glorious example 19th century railway engineering. Hiking trails are frequently dressed with crushed granite or basalt which explains the British obsession with hiking boots and poles even for short walks. I reflected upon this at length during our 3km rock-hoping ramble to the viaduct and back but it was well worth the effort. Stone and brick arches aside, the sheep were rather fetching.
Next stop was Halifax for three very good reasons:
1. We really enjoyed ‘Last Tango in Halifax’
2. We've been to Halifax, Nova Scotia and enjoyed that too
3. Nanna would say “Go to Halifax!” when she really meant “Go to hell!” so we have - twice.
Now this is where the sat nav had her way and took us on a merry old ride north-east on the A64 then due south on the M1 before she finally allowed us onto a local road for the last few km but happily enough that road was Cawthorne Road. I had imagined travelling a more scenic local route all the way but what can I say? Sometimes technology really, really shits me!
Cawthorne Accommodation Tip #1
But Sarah and Andy’s backyard studio flat smack in the middle of Cawthorne didn't impact unfavorably on my bowels in anyway, it fact it's to be highly recommended. We thoroughly enjoyed the light modern space with its rustic Yorkshire exterior, the lovely garden and the pair of very vocal rooting hedgehogs - sweet little copulatory creatures.
I first heard about Cawthorne from a woman I once taught who'd worked in the pub there while backpacking in the 70s. It was full of hard working, hard drinking, heavy smoking Yorkshiremen in those days and few of them spoke standard English but it's now a gastro pub with boutique brewed largers and ales and no less than 17 kinds of gin. That aside, they still put way too much salt in the light curry sauce that spoiled my monkfish and seared scallops. Some things never change.
Cawthorne is an extremely liveable Midsomer style of village but I've only been there in summer and autumn, it could be completely foul in winter but we had a marvellous time pottering about and I am now the proud owner of a pair of mugs that are emblazoned with:
London
New York
Paris
Cawthorne
After two very comfortable and happy nights we headed south-east to visit Lara, Nikos and Yiannis at Fordham near Cambridge. Lara is one of my Claytons nieces - the nieces you have when you don't have nieces - and the oldest daughter of my New Zealand bridesmaid, Philip. But that didn't happen without a significant amount of swearing on my part en route to the Nene Valley Railway which runs between Wansford and Peterborough. The problem was the station isn't actually in Wansford and even the locals didn't know its location.
I finally flung the Merc into the station car park just as a rather splendid green engine steamed out towards either Pixley or Hooterville, which ever is the short run to the terminal end of the track. But all was not lost - apart from my camera which I left on a table at the ticket office but it came back again and so did the train which we boarded for the longer return trip to Peterborough. It was the most ordinary of the four steam train journeys we did this time but a mid-week Heritage rail excursion is guaranteed to make anyone under the age of 70 feel like a teenager compared to the other passengers and for that it was well worth all the swearing.
We had a brilliant outdoor Northern Summer Solstice celebration with the Jamieson-Nikiforakis family by the Snail which is a shallow but reasonably wide stream at the foot of their garden. The wine was rather special and Nikos’ saganaki prawns were a real treat.
Cambridge Accommodation Tip #1
The best £96 you could possibly spend on accommodation in the entire UK is at Trinity Hall, Fordham near Cambridge. We had the superior room in a glorious Victorian home where even our en suite is the size of a bedroom and in fact used to be one. Trinity Hall is the home of Sue and John Taylor and is John’s family home. It is also a working farm on the village edge. Sue absolutely spoilt us with breakfast which was by far the very best of our whole six weeks of travel. The huge vase of sweet peas on the perfectly set dinning table pushed Trinity Hall from 2 to 3 Cawthorne Stars which is a rating scale similar that which the French tyre company plagiarised.
We concluded our travels in the gardens of Anglesea Abbey which is neither an Abbey nor by the sea but a rather large and house that was formerly owned but a couple of brothers with an English mother and an American father who bought a peerage. It was originally a priory but Henry VIII took care of that and then gave the estate to one of his mates - as he did.
The brothers agreed that the first to marry would surrender the house to the other. Given that the brother who remained had an extensive collection of nude male sculptures and portraits it think it was a done deal, on his part at least. Add to that the fact that the Queen Mother was a regular house guest during the racing season and there is little doubt that we’re talking queer peer here. And yes, I have touched the toilet the Queen Mum used - my third verified flush with royalty having already used two that were sat upon by HM the Queen herself.
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