GREY SKIES & A ROADS

On the road now with a bloody big car (asked for small...a recuring theme) and Belinda and of course the trusty AA road atlas.
Before we left London though we managed to visit Hampton Court Palace & catch the Thames river boat back to Westminster....a lovely trip through Richmond & Kew & Teddington Lock (by the time we arrived my lips were blue from the very chilly wind experienced on the upper deck.

We caught the train to York on Tuesday from Kings Cross station. The tube strike (950 jobs from the ranks of ticket sellers on the underground to go!) meant we had to fork out for a cab...so be it.

York is such a beautiful place (we were only in the historic centre mind you) with parks full of flowering bulbs & trees & historic ruins & buildings. York has been a major Roman,Viking & Medieval centre in the past.

The Minster (the biggest medieval cathedral in Europe) was astonishing.We took up the offer of a tour and the guide new her stuff...we saw up close (normally they are way above you) 4 of the restored panels from the mammoth project that is conserving what are the most comprehensive set of medieval stained glass windows in the world (it takes 6 years to complete a window) . Underneath the cathedral in the museum are the Roman ruins of the place where Emporer Constantine was crowned by his father ! It goes on & on...we have walked in the footsteps this week of Constantine, Henry the VIII,Richard III,Queen Victoria,Sebastian Flyte(we do know that he is not a real person!)  and the Brontes.

Having the car means we can visit lots of places not otherwise easily accessible....so it made possible a trip to Castle Howard..the oppulent Baroque "big" house (Mr Howard has 200 tenant farmers as well as 2000acres he farms himself to pay for it all). It was the setting for Brideshead Revisited so we did the Brideshead Tour with Stephen (a font on all things Eveleyn Waugh) and it was overwhelming...the house,the gardens & THAT fountain!!!!!!!!!!!...........

Then back on the road through the Yorkshire Moors (breathtakingly beautiful) to the village where the Brontes lived, Haworth.

We are staying in a very eccentric b&b with the flamboyant owner Mike & his loverly cat Charlie.

Walked the moors yesterday in the mist,cold & rain(should it be any other way!) to the Brontes's Waterfall...Heathcliff nowhere in sight but it did feel as if he had been there.

We are staying a stones throw from the old Bronte parsonage which is now the expertly curated Bronte Museum (it seems no-one ever threw anything out so there are an amazing array of personal items on display). They have a very active acquisitions program too & recently bought Charlotte's writing desk with funds from the V&A. Haworth is a delightful village with cobblestone streets & worker's stone cottages on nthe edge of the moors (a writing landscape if ever there was).

It's Ted Hughes & Sylvia Plath territory too & we will visit Sylvia's resting place on the way to the Lake District this morning as well as Cowan Bridge (the fictional Lowood School set here in Jane Eyre).

Signing off in Yorkshire

Kath & Beinda