Month: May 2008

  • A Walk in the Moors

    “But it was one of
    their chief amusements to run away to the moors in the morning and remain there
    all day…”

     
    Wuthering
    Heights
    ,
    Chapter 6



    I didn’t get the chance to run away all day on the moors, but I did get an hour or so to hike there.  Our destination was The Bronte Waterfall. And, if we had time, we wanted to head to Top Withens. 


    We started out on the path which runs beside the Bronte Parsonage. 



    We even had our own personal guide to lead us through the first twenty feet or so.

    Mrs. Chicken wasn’t the only animal we saw. Not surprisingly, there were lots and lots of sheep.




    The day was hazy and humid, and our views of the valley were fogged with wispy clouds.  I also got my first sight of heather.

    It wasn’t in bloom yet, but the buds were there. I can only imagine how these moors must look when the heather is in bloom–breathtaking, I’m sure!



    The area is extremely rocky, and we saw lots of stone fences. How long would one have to work to make one? Much longer than I’d want to, I’m sure!



    The hike seemed much longer than the two or so miles it was described as being.  But, we saw landmarks along the way like the reservoir pictured above. And, we knew we were on the right trail when we came to this wooden sign. The English are very good about posting signs on hiking trails. It makes one feel not quite so lost in the wilderness to see a reassuring sign post.





    Finally, we reached our destination–The Bronte Waterfall!

    It was majestically underwhelming. Apparently, it’s pretty amazing when there’s been a heavy rain. We hadn’t had rain in a week or so. We did take the time to stand on the bridge, which is the second (or more) bridge, the former having been washed away in a flash flood. (Proof that the waterfall can be wild!)

    We did’t really have the time to hike the mile or so more to Top Withens as we still had two hours to drive to the bed and breakfast, and we wanted our supper. And, the path looked rather daunting–straight up the hill.


              

    I just couldn’t resist at least trying to see Top Withens, so I scrambled (gasp, gasp) up the path while Lisa took a rest below. (That’s her, the small bit of white near the arrow.) I just saw more rocks and sheep and another sign post when I got to the top of the first hill. No Top Withens for another mile or so.

    You may be asking yourself, “What is Top Withens, and why was she so eager to go?”  Good question. Emily Bronte, in her many moorish rambles, saw this farmhouse and used it as a model for Wuthering Heights. This picture of Top Withens was taken in the 1930s.

    Today, Top Withens has fallen into disrepair and is just a roofless set of stone walls now (so say the pictures I looked up on the internet).  I think I pictured Wuthering Heights as a more gothic castle than
    this humble farmhouse, but this image fits better with the book than my
    wild imaginings.

    We finished our ramble at a pub where I had shepherd’s pie (yum) and Lisa had a minted lamb burger (yuck).  We then headed off to new lands–The Lake District!

  • The Brontes

    How much do you know about the Bronte family? Heathcliff and the moors?  Yeah, that’s about right. It turns out that the Bronte children in real life were just about as interesting as some of their characters. Buckle your seat belts for a long, long entry!

    First of all, let’s meet the family.

    It’s the early 1800′s.  Patrick Bronte, aka “Dad,” was a parson in the town of Haworth. Mommy Maria had six children and unfortunately died before the oldest turned eight.  Enter Auntie Elizabeth Branwell, Maria’s sister, who cared for the children all their lives (or rather, all the rest of her life).  Those children were Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. 

    Maria and Elizabeth headed off to boarding school and died of tuberculosis there. (It’s not surprising that Charlotte would have had Jane Eyre’s boarding school stricken with a TB outbreak.)  This left four siblings at home, a quirky bunch. They spent their days writing and drawing about imaginary lands of Angria and Gondal and writing books so tiny that one needed a magnifying glass to read them properly.

    Branwell



    Brother Branwell was a sometime portrait painter, most-time heavy drinker and aimless fellow.  He’s the one who painted this picture of the three sisters which currently hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. (He was in it as well, but he painted himself out. Ah, perfectionists…)  Although the opium and alcohol could have done him in, it was bronchitis (and suspected tuberculosis) that nailed his coffin in 1848 when he was only 31.

    Charlotte



    Charlotte, the author of Jane Eyre and several other novels, was the next in age.  She headed off to boarding school, went abroad, and got married to her father’s whisker-faced curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, when she was 37. She didn’t last a year as a married lady and died either of tuberculosis or dehydration and starvation caused by severe morning sickness when she was about five months pregnant. You think someone might have been able to tell the difference between the two.

    Emily



    Emily, the Wuthering Heights lady, went off to school, was a teacher, hated it, and came back home.  She died of tuberculosis in 1848. She was a shy thing, but what must have gone on in her mind to dream up the likes of Heathcliff?

    Anne

    Anne, who wrote the very good and oft-overlooked The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey, lived a life similar to that of Emily in that she went to school, taught, and died of–guess what? Tuberculosis.  Bummer life,  even if she did get to live on the Yorkshire moors.

    Now, what did I, Teacherperson, do on this trip?  We parked the car in the lot and saw a pretty sight.  We hoped it wasn’t the Bronte Waterfall we had come to hike to. 




    Our first stop was the toilets…I mean, the Bronte Church, which is actually called Haworth Church (I think).

    It’s an active church, as evidenced by the wedding that was just leaving as we arrived.




    The church was extra-pretty due to the wedding just having left. But, it would have been lovely even without the flowers. 



    Did the Bronte sisters stare at this window instead of listening to their father’s sermons?





    The Brontes are buried in the church and not in the amazingly-crowded cemetery which is the front lawn of the parsonage and back yard of the church.






    It was neat to see Dad;s, Patrick Bronte’s, name on the list of parsons which goes to the present day.  (I added the big, red arrow.)



    Next, a school building where Charlotte taught.  To get a size of the scale of the place, imagine the school, church, and parsonage are all inside a regular-size Wal-Mart. It’s like walking from Health and Beauty to Office Supplies to get from one to the other. 

    This is the school. But on the right is the graveyard of the church and the left is the parsonage front yard. Not much of a commute to work for Charlotte.



    Next, it was time to go to the Bronte Parsonage Museum, the house where they lived and died.





    Haworth is very hilly. This picture was taken as we walked from the church and the school to the parsonage, which is what is at the top of the hill.




    I kept waiting for that guy to walk the whole way into the door so I could get a great shot, but he just wouldn’t move!


    As usual, you couldn’t take pictures inside.  So, I bought postcards and took pictures of those to post here for you! This room was to the right after the front door. it is where they sat and did most of their writing. Emily died on that very couch. She pretended she wasn’t sick, but when she finally could pretend no more, she died. 


       

    In Jane Eyre, Chapter 20, Charlotte Bronte wrote, “I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite–whose front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose an ebony crucifix and a dying Christ.”  Creepy, huh?  It turns out that Charlotte actually saw such a cabinet when she was visiting the Eyres!  And, here it is.


      


    The Bronte Museum was well worth a visit. They had great displays, lots of actual pictures painted by Branwell, things which belonged to the family, and the rooms decorated much as if they had never left them.  But, we didn’t come to Haworth just to see a museum. We came to hike the Yorkshire moors. 

    Have you read any Bronte novels? Did you like them?

  • Twilight

    Just a bit of fun…

    If you want to see a trailer for the movie, go HERE.  And, if you have no idea what I’m talking about, feel free to wander around TwilightLadies’ site.  Whee!

    You are 100% Twilight Edumacated
     

    GOOD WORK! I assume you are completely obsessed, fixated, captivated, consumed and/or any other synonyms that go along those lines, with TWILIGHT. You are my hero. You get an A plus. Go give yourself a gold star, or a lollipop or something! NICE WORK!

    How Well Do YOU know TWILIGHT??
    Create a Quiz

    But, I will get busy on the Bronte post right away.

  • Sherwood Forest:  The Trip Begins

    Remember a few months ago I mentioned that I had found a friend here in England? This friend, Lisa, and I were talking a month or so ago about how we’d both like to go to the Lake District and hike around.  “Why don’t we actually go some weekend?” one of us said.  With hopeful anticipation, we checked calendars and asked generous husbands if it would work out for us to go away for the weekend–Moms Only.  It did! 

    We picked up a rental car on Friday morning (a Vauxhall something or other).  Lisa was the designated driver, and not because I planned on sipping dandelion wine the whole time. I’ve not driven in England yet, and I thought a road trip in a standard transmission rental car was not the best way to begin. 



    Lisa is a great traveling companion. We both have the same love of talking and love of non-detailed planning. We were cruising down the highway, chatting merrily, when we both stopped mid-sentence and looked at each other with big eyes. “Oh! Did you see that? A sign for Sherwood Forest! Let’s go!” 

    We allowed ourselves a half an hour for a hike there (as we did want to make sure we got to Bronte country and our bed and breakfast in the Lake District at a reasonable time).   As you can imagine, the Visitor’s Center was rather Robin Hood-y.   This is a recreation of Robin Hood and Little John battling on the bridge.



    I think I prefer Errol Flynn.  Or Kevin Costner.  Or Jonas Armstrong. Uh-huh.





    We didn’t get much off the path in Sherwood Forest, and this is what most of what we saw looked like. There were a lot of beech trees with plenty of room for a band of Merry Men to move around. In some places, ferns were just starting to unfurl, so in the middle of summer, thigh-high ferns would carpet the floor providing much cover for a bandit.





    Interspersed with the slender, graceful trees were enormous oaks.  In fact, we were tantalized at the start of the trail by a sign for “The Major Oak Tree.” We just had to see what it could be.




    Not surprisingly, the Major Oak Tree is a big, old oak tree–800 years old to be precise.  To keep it standing, they have built metal braces to support the enormous limbs. 





    Look! It’s Robin Hood!





    Teacherperson scales a tree–sort of.


          


    Our next stop…the Bronte Parsonage and Church.



  • Home Sweet Cambridge Home

    After two three-day, back-to-back trips, I’m home with lots and lots to write about. But, I’ve got laundry piled waist high and Lethargy has me wrapped in a cozy polar fleece this gray and rainy day, so I won’t bother with a big entry yet. I’ll just tease you with where I’ve been.

    • Sherwood Forest
    • Yorkshire Moors
    • The Bronte home and parsonage
    • The Lake District
    • Beatrix Potter’s house
    • Lyme Hall (a.k.a Pemberley in the A&E version!)
    • The Peak District
    • Bath
    • Cardiff, Wales

    More to come, dear friends and readers! 

  • Grantchester

    The poem I am using for most of my text today was written by Rupert Brooke, who was described by W.B. Yeats as “the handsomest young man in England.” Brooke wrote his poem while in a cafe in Berlin in 1912. He was desperately homesick for just where I walked yesterday, Grantchester.



    Excerpts from The Old Vicarage, Grantchester

    (If you wish to read the whole thing, go HERE.  And, yes, these are all  original Sellers family photos taken Wednesday, except the tulips, which I took earlier.)




    Just now the lilac is in bloom,
    All before my little room;



    And in my flower-beds, I think,
    Smile the carnation and the pink;
    And down the borders, well I know,
    The poppy and the pansy blow . . .

    Oh! there the chestnuts, summer through,
    Beside the river make for you
    A tunnel of green gloom, and sleep
    Deeply above; and green and deep
    The stream mysterious glides beneath,
    Green as a dream and deep as death.

    — Oh, damn! I know it! and I know
    How the May fields all golden show,

    And when the day is young and sweet,
    Gild gloriously the bare feet
    That run to bathe . . .
                                ’Du lieber Gott!’

    Here am I, sweating, sick, and hot,
    And there the shadowed waters fresh
    Lean up to embrace the naked flesh.
    Temperamentvoll German Jews
    Drink beer around; — and THERE the dews
    Are soft beneath a morn of gold.
    Here tulips bloom as they are told;
    Unkempt about those hedges blows
    An English unofficial rose;

    And there the unregulated sun
    Slopes down to rest when day is done…

    ειθε γενοιμην . . . would I were
    In Grantchester, in Grantchester! —
    Some, it may be, can get in touch
    With Nature there, or Earth, or such.
    . . .
    I only know that you may lie
    Day long and watch the Cambridge sky,
    And, flower-lulled in sleepy grass,
    Hear the cool lapse of hours pass,
    Until the centuries blend and blur
    In Grantchester, in Grantchester. . . .

    Still in the dawnlit waters cool
    His ghostly Lordship swims his pool,
    And tries the strokes, essays the tricks,
    Long learnt on Hellespont, or Styx.
    Dan Chaucer hears his river still
    Chatter beneath a phantom mill.
    Tennyson notes, with studious eye,
    How Cambridge waters hurry by . . .


    . . .

    Grey heavens, the first bird’s drowsy calls,
    The falling house that never falls.

    God! I will pack, and take a train,
    And get me to England once again!
    For England’s the one land, I know,
    Where men with Splendid Hearts may go;
    And Cambridgeshire, of all England,
    The shire for Men who Understand;

    And of THAT district I prefer
    The lovely hamlet Grantchester.

    . . .
    But Grantchester! ah, Grantchester!
    There’s peace and holy quiet there,
    Great clouds along pacific skies,
    And men and women with straight eyes,
    Lithe children lovelier than a dream,
    A bosky wood, a slumbrous stream,
    And little kindly winds that creep
    Round twilight corners, half asleep.

    Ah God! to see the branches stir
    Across the moon at Grantchester!
    To smell the thrilling-sweet and rotten
    Unforgettable, unforgotten
    River-smell, and hear the breeze
    Sobbing in the little trees.
    Say, do the elm-clumps greatly stand
    Still guardians of that holy land?

    The chestnuts shade, in reverend dream,
    The yet unacademic stream?
    Is dawn a secret shy and cold
    Anadyomene, silver-gold?

    And sunset still a golden sea
    From Haslingfield to Madingley?
    And after, ere the night is born,
    Do hares come out about the corn?
    Oh, is the water sweet and cool,
    Gentle and brown, above the pool?


    . . .
    Say, is there Beauty yet to find?
    And Certainty? and Quiet kind?
    Deep meadows yet, for to forget
    The lies, and truths, and pain? . . . oh! yet
    Stands the Church clock at ten to three?

    And is there honey still for tea?


     
      

      
              
     

  • What Do These Places Have in Common?

    Arizona, California, Russian Federation, Pennsylvania,
    Texas, Brazil, Australia, Ontario, Washington, Spain, Belgium, Delaware, New
    Hampshire, Colorado, Great Britain, Denmark, Korea, Missouri, Nebraska,
    Senegal, and Hong Kong.

    They are all places on my Xanga footprints today. How very international I feel! Who ARE these people reading about punting?




    I’d be just as delighted to make your acquaintance as I was to eat these fairy cakes with double cream and blueberries. Just leave me a comment. You don’t even have to have a Xanga account to do it. (And, if you don’t want to leave your real email address, just make one up, like NotMyEmail@juno.com.) But, if you prefer to remain as The Great Mysterious Unknown, it’s okay, too. 

    PS–If you’ve never checked your Xanga footprints, you might want to, just for fun. Go to your private page. If it’s the white one, the footprints link is on the left, in blue.  If it’s your site page, go to Feedback Log and look for it in the left-hand side in blue.


  • Bank Holiday

    Monday was a Bank Holiday in England. We Ah-MUR-ih-kinz would call it a Federal Holiday.  We didn’t have any real plans, but since it was such a sunny, warm day, we decided to walk to Grantchester and have tea at The Orchard, a tea shop frequented by writers in the past.  TGD abandoned the office in favor of a day with us, and we began our walk.   After 30 minutes of walking and getting warmer and warmer, TGD said, “Why don’t we punt to Grantchester?”

    What is a punt, other than something you do on fourth down, you ask?  Imagine a wooden canoe, but flatter and wider with a platform at one end for someone to stand on. The punt is propelled through the water by that standing someone pushing a long pole into the river’s bottom. It’s quite a popular activity in Cambridge.

    We got to the punt rental place and found it was 14 pounds an hour for us to punt ourselves and 90 pounds round-trip for them to take us to Grantchester. We opted to go by ourselves. 


    We loaded our sodas and lunch into the punt and headed out on our “It should take you a little over an hour” trip to Grantchester.  Ten minutes later, still an easy stone’s throw from the dock where we launched, the rental owner called to us. “Are you planning to go all the way to Grantchester?” he asked, concern on his face.
    “No, I think we’ll just see how far we get,” I called back sheepishly.

    It turned out that we didn’t get very far. We were able to walk the distance we punted in about 10 minutes, but it took us an hour’s punting to go that far.  It didn’t matter, though, as it was a lot of fun. We all took a turn at it, even Little Miss (with Wit’s help).

    The Cam River has an upper and lower part, which we did not know. We had to take the punt up over rollers to get onto the river for Grantchester.  Little Miss enjoyed sitting in the punt when we had to roll it back down.  We saw two different people fall in while trying to get over this roller.  We stayed dry (and smug).

    We also got quite familiar with the trees on each side of the river. Punts are NOT easy to steer!


    Low bridge, every punter down!

    Crusin’ down the river on a Monday afternoon…

      

    Ah, bliss.

    Have you experienced bliss lately?


  • Where Everybody Knows Your Name…

    Okay, so the whole place doesn’t shout, “Norm!” when we walk in (mostly because no one in our family is named Norm), but we do have a local pub.  It’s a common thing–so we’ve been told and read–for English folk to have a pub they call their own.   And we are no exception.

    Most of our Sunday lunches are eaten at Lloyds, aka, The Regal Wetherspoon.  We are on nodding acquaintance with almost all the staff.  But, I didn’t realize how well they knew us.  Today when I placed our usual order:

    Me:  I’d like a cottage pie and a chili con carne with rice.
    Lady: Yup
    Me: And I’d like two beef burgers with cheese
    Lady: One with absolutely no salad.
    Me: (with a big grin) Yes, that’s exactly right!
    Lady:  I really should get more of a life.  You want to upgrade your Pepsis to pints, right?
    Me: Yes, thank you!

    (Side note: “Salad” refers to any lettuce/tomato/etc. that comes on a burger)

    We are also having a good time because we are making more and more friends here. Of course, we leave in 23 days, so that’s a bit sad to be making friends now when we are just going to pack up and leave.

    Yesterday,  LibbyK and two friends went out to lunch at Pizza Hut and shopping. Then, we went to dinner with a family with six children, matching up in age and gender fairly well with my own. And, they had a trampoline. And the mom is a Stephenie Meyers fan. And we all watched Doctor Who together. Much fun!

    Today, we took two teen friends (Robin and Fiona) with us to the pub. The kids are now all hiding in the dark, shooting each other with Nerf guns, even the girls.  And I have a pile of books to read, including the newest Stephenie Meyers book and a pile of Francine Rivers novels given to me by MJ last night (our hostess).
    Life is good.

    What good things have come your way this weekend?





    Another nifty sight near our England house.


  • Mean Time

    You probably thought I was going to talk about how unkind or crabby I’ve been. Instead, you can hear about our trip to Greenwich, home of GMT! Why exactly is it called “Greenwich Mean Time”?  Because it’s the average time (the mean)? Because all the astronomers were a surly lot? Because they were waiting around to do something else and made longitude in the meantime?

    In case you are wondering what and where Greenwich is, I shall tell you. It’s part of London (the eastern part) and houses the Old Royal Observatory where the British in all humility decided that they were truly the center of the world and made 0 degrees longitude run right through their hilltop observatory.  This line divides the earth into the Eastern and Western hemispheres. 

    Being in two hemispheres can affect the brain…




    It was a rainy day, which was ironic because we had postponed this trip twice due to rain, and both of the previous days turned out to be fine. This day, which was supposed to have a bit of rain was rainy all day.

    We started out by taking a river cruise from Westminster Pier (where Big Ben and the London Eye are) to the Greenwich Pier. 




    We trudged through the rain which didn’t seem to bother the birds, as you can see in this excellent shot taken by Wit of an English Robin. (Not the Hardyman kind–ha ha.)




    The land where the Old Royal Observatory sits is on a steep hill.  That’s Little Miss getting a piggy back ride and LibbyK with the only umbrella.




    Once we reached the top, we could synchronize all our watches to the correct time, as they have a handy clock outside. Underneath the clock, they have standard measurements in metal so that you can also whip out your ruler to make sure that your inches are truly an inch long.




    Of course, we all got to straddle the Prime Meridian (which future, self-proclaimed Geography teacher Gockle kept mispronouncing as “The Prime Meh-DEER-ee-an”).




    Thankfully, there were some inside bits to the day like touring the top floor of the observatory, designed by Christopher Wren (the same guy who did St. Paul’s in London–Dome Boy) and looking through an old-fashioned telescope. 




    And seeing Pluto.  (Yes, this was what we saw in the telescope!)



    The Royal Observatory doesn’t observe as much anymore due to all the smog and such in London. They moved their headquarters to–Cambridge!  Actually, our yard is adjacent to the observatory property. I wondered if we were also at zero degrees longitude, but it turns out that Cambridge is at .45 degrees. We are close, though!

    When we finished at the observatory (which also had lots of seagoing thingies and displays), we went to The National Maritime Museum.  There were lots of boat things and sea things and some interactive displays involving water.  I liked this picture.
          

    We felt we had sufficiently explored Greenwich, so we headed back into London where Hunter, LibbyK, and I wandered around in the Victoria and Albert Museum (art museum) and TGD, Wit, Gockle, and Little Miss went to the Science Museum across the street for about an hour or so.  We ended our day at that traditional English dining establishment, Pizza Hut.

    Have you had any Mean Time lately?