Today was a little different, but to explain I've got to take a run at it...
In planning this trip, the first thing I did was buy plane tickets. I knew I wanted to do a loop, and I wasn't really interested in screwing around with connections and the rest. So in and out of Heathrow it was.
Then we started laying out the details of the loop, and sorting out what could be done by train, plane or ferry, and what needed a car. The last thing sorted was the last leg, which turned out to be Glasgow to Edinburgh to Heathrow by car.
The next question was how long to spend going Edinburgh to Heathrow. You could probably drive it in one (brutal) day, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. For a variety of reasons, I decided on three days -- or, the part that really matters, two nights.
Now where to spend those nights?
Because I needed a single room that could hold three people, and I was booking the week before, my options were limited. And looking at the map, I decided I wanted to be in the vicinity of the North York Moors National Park. I've never seen a moor, and figured this would be my one chance.
So Travelocity gave me two hotel options: a classic (looking) old pub thing near Robin Hood's Bay, which had appeal as that's near where the coast-to-coast walk (which I was briefly interested in) ends, and then a farm-y thing near Thirsk. Eventually, the terrible review of the pub and the fact that staying there would commit me to an extra couple of hundred miles had me book the farm.
And then I forgot about it.
So yesterday we were doing the map thing, figuring out out to get from Edinburgh to Hadrian's Wall to Thirsk. The first thing that comes up? The maps start identifying Thirsk as "the world of James Herriot." Now, if you're like the boys, that name will mean exactly nothing to you; but if you're like me, raised in the seventies by parents who subscribed to the Book of the Month club, and with a local PBS station that would flog "All Creatures Great and Small" every time pledge week rolled up, that will strike you as interesting.
(Of course it also raises the more interesting question of how long a name like "James Herriot" will be recognized and have commercial value, such that it's worth the town using it, and when do they have to find another draw? But I won't bother with that now.)
Ok, so now we're driving. The GPS -- or "sat/nav" in English-speak -- doesn't know the location, but it knows the street and it's leading us there. So we don't blink when it sends us down this street...
And past this little town (we've left Thirsk in the review mirror long ago)...
And up and around and through the hills...
I do pause, briefly, when the GPS tells me to turn down this road...
...but we've made it this far, and how bad could it be? And a mile or two later we come to this...
When we park and head toward the door, the woman (if she's thirty I'll eat my sock) who runs the place comes bounding out to show us around, explain our room, ask about our dinner plans, etc., etc., etc. It was, shall we say, different than what we've grown used to. (As was the fact that she's got the wood stove -- the only heat -- burning in our room and it's nearly August.)
Oh, and dinner? She sent us back down the hill to the Carpenters Arms, that "pub" we passed. Not exactly what I was expecting there either...
And the food was some of the best we've had on the trip.
The boys, of course, are in hell -- the wifi only works in the central tea room -- but I keep choking up because my Mum would've loved this place and I can't go twenty seconds without thinking about her.
But if you've ever had a hankering too see the moors and are contemplating a visit, I can highly recommend the High Paradise Farm. And if you're looking for something to do over the holidays, the Carpenters Arms is already booking Christmas and New Year's dinners...
I could think of worse ways to spend the holidays.
Oh John,she would have loved it... We saw places like that on our trip together. I'm feeling her presence.
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful surprise.
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