While Monty Python may have suggested some rather unsavory things about Yorkshire, it’s my favorite place in England. My godmother Tamar lives there in a 500 year-old stone farmhouse, with little heating and two-ton stone-slab door lintels that I always crack my head against. The door lintels are only 5’10″ high (that’s 180 cm for our Eurotrash readers), and while many people have told me I have a thick head, in battles of Stony’s head vs. solid rock, I have yet to emerge unscathed.
It’s also a poignant reminder how small people were back then, and how different their lives were. Where Tamar keeps her Piano, the original farmer, his family, and their cow would have spent the winter.
Kinga and I rented a Streetcar (huge fans of the on-demand car sharing scheme, there’s one 3 doors down from my house), and headed North. This trip had lots of additional concerns, not the least that this was our first trip as a ‘couple’. Could we stand each other, or even the other’s driving styles? Luckily we survived intact (unlike my skull when it hit another door-frame), and even joked about our secret concerns once we returned.
We woke up the first morning to 3 inches of snow, which was beautiful! And difficult – we had to shovel a lot of snow and then drive cars up an angled, snow-covered mud track. Two hours and a bit of burned rubber, the cars were out and I celebrated by leaving the keys in the ignition and the window down. Being Yorkshire, a kind neighbor rolled up the windows and dropped off the keys.
Once we got the car out, our days turned to frolicking! Kinga wore her cute wellies (which Tamar disdained for farm work but appreciated the fashion statement), and we all went for a walk through . . . field and fen? What is it you walk through?
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While Tamar had lit the fire on the first night, the second night we went out for dinner, got back a bit late, and it wasn’t really worth lighting the fire. So we made our hot-water bottles, headed up stairs, and simply couldn’t stop laughing as we joked about how completely frozen we were. I’ve been camping in 0 degree Fahrenheit weather before, but you know what you are in for. Here we were with a bed and electricity and a hot shower, and our room temperature was hovering around freezing. In the morning I was surprised my water glass wasn’t frozen.
But I think trips like that make you appreciate the modern creature comforts even more. How else can you appreciate turning up the thermostat if you’ve always had one?
I’ll finish off with my favorite picture from the trip, two horses drinking from a trough. It was completely frozen when they approached us, hoping for sugar cubes or carrots. Finding nothing, they pushed through and broke the ice, and drank what must have been very cold water! In the background is Robin Hoods Bay, the same view you see when looking out Tamar’s kitchen door.
