A Trip “Across the Pond” ~ to England!

North Yorkshire, England here we come! Yes, we are off and traveling… to the UK once again. With John’s family living in or very near to Skipton (an ancient market town in the North Yorkshire Dales), we usually make a trip at least once a year.

I thought I might share some of our older posts on our visits to Merry Old England so that maybe you too can take a vicarious trip. Included below are links to book reviews with pictures for each of the UK locations listed in the posts, and one post which just a travel post with some books included in it:

• Bath ~ links to John’s review of The Curse Maker.
• North Yorkshire (John’s native home) ~ see Shellie’s review of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre
• Whitby ~ see Shellie’s review of Dracula.
• Our “Magical Mystery Tour” where we visited Stonehenge, Avebury, Glastonbury and more.

Also here are some pictures from our last trip – in July of 2011, which I have not posted about yet. With the pathetic excuse being that we had “the messy year from hell”.

Please enjoy!

Ancient Castles and Churches  are everywhere. Here we have Windsor Castle, Exeter Cathedral and Skipton Castle. The last two boast Norman walls within their structure, making these buildings very very old.

And for something even more ancient, we went hunting for (and found) some hidden standing stones – on Dartmoor. Stone circles are scattered everywhere in the UK; this circle was out in a grazing pasture. We almost did not find it.

 

And another circle which was found by archeologists during the Victorian era in a local park. The stones were buried in the moors and then reconstructed, also on Dartmoor.

Then there was that elusive circle near Skipton that we could not find, due to John taking a BIG scary tumble. He bumped his head, broke some ribs, and was visibly beat up and bruised all over his body!

Above is a picture of the “goose egg” on John’s forehead before it developed into a black eye. And there I am, standing on the moor among the ruins of the stone age settlement while we were searching for the stone circle – minutes before John’s tremendously loud fall on a big pile of sharp boulders. I was terrified and had visions of attempting to run, fumble, hike down difficult moors (non-locals do not easily walk on these loamy and spongy hills) while screaming for help. With an American accent, in a panic, and being totally ignored as crazy.

We also came upon some local flora and fauna – foxglove and a rare and illusive hedgehog. John and I were ecstatic when we found this little guy (he was the size of a small dog or kitten) walking on the grass. You can’t see them, but he has skinny spindly long legs with which they walk extremely slowly. We even had to run back to the house to get the camera, 4 blocks away, and had enough time to get this picture of him.

And the best part of the trip is the “local folk”. Here we have John’s oldest daughter and two of our four grandchildren. If only you could hear the littlest ones’ English accents. Emily was so very cute last July, where she called me “grand-dad Shellie” (not grandma) in her little girl Yorkshire accent.

And then there is the lovely top picture: the spectacular moors near Skipton, decorated in their summer heather and balmy warmth. Sadly, it will be much colder for our visit this time, and of course the flowering heather will be gone. But it will be lovely, green, and much wetter.

So, our bags are packed, the house-sitter is set, and we are almost ready to fly! Posting will be at a standstill, as will all social media. Emails and commenting will be slow since I will have access to the computer for a short time daily. But when we return things should be back to normal just in time for our favorite celebration – Halloween!

Once again, cheers my dears. Till the end of October!

(All the pictures included above where taken by John or myself. Please, if you use any of them, credit Layers of Thought.)