Adventures with Grandpa

All my grandparents grew up in England (which is explains my many relatives over here), but both sets immigrated to Canada before my parents were born. However, since they have ties over here, they come back to visit every so often. It’s actually worked out for me that by the end of the summer I’ll have got to meet up with all of them!

Anyways, my Grandpa picked me up from Rowleth End, and started his “whirlwind tour” of England.  And I mean that literally. We crossed the country multiple times.

Castlerigg Stone Circle - a stop on the way to the lakes

From the Yorkshire Dales we raced up to the Lake District, which is where my Grandmother grew up in a town called Bassenthwaite. Unfortunately it was raining (though, so far this summer has mostly consisted of rain, it’s wet even for England!), but I could still tell that it was beautiful. We stopped at the house my Grandmother lived in, and at the church where my grandparents got married, my dad was christened in, and my great- and great-great grandmothers are buried. We also drove by many of the major lakes in the district. After our tour of the lakes we spent the night at my Grandmother’s sister’s house in Fleetwood.

An old Saxon Church in Bassenthwaite - where my grandparents almost got married

Next, we drove to the centre of England, to a town called Ashby-de-la-zouche. Now, I’ve grown up hearing about this town because my Grandpa grew up here, and my great-grandfather was still alive when I was little so I remember my dad going to his 100^th birthday. Also, his wife, my step-great-grandmother still lives there, so we stayed with her – she’s 94.  I always imagined it a lot smaller than it actually is..

Anyways, it has a really great castle! Or castle ruin, to be more specific. But know why it’s a ruin? Because it was a royalist stronghold in the English Civil War, and when Cromwell’s forces defeated the royalists they blew up part of the wall so it became indefensible. It’s pretty awesome still though. You can even climb up a tower, go through some underground tunnels, and see where there were fireplaces etc.

Ashby Castle

The tower of Ashby Castle

At the top of the tower

My grandpa and I also did a day trip out to Oxford. Our first stop was lunch at The Eagle and Child, the legendary meeting place of The Inklings (you know, JRR Tolkien, C.S. Lewis and their friends. For those who still don’t know, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia authors). Then we did one of those open top bus tour-y things. After that I went to do a closer up look at Oxford Castle.

The original Oxford Castle was built for William the Conqueror, and the later stone one became Charles I’s base when he made Oxford the capitol during the English Civil War. After the civil war, until as recently as 1996 it was used as a prison. And yes, there were improvements made in that time, but not a whole lot. The prisoners still didn’t have toilets in 1996.. Ugh

Oxford Castle

Blenheim Palace near Oxford

Next, we made our way back up to Beverley, near York, where I had some down time before my week of Cambridge, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Oxford, again!

Flamborough Lighthouse, near Beverley

Rowleth End

As I mentioned previously, I did another HelpX stint at a B&B in the Yorkshire Dales.  Like Barnacre, I spent 2 weeks at Rowleth End. I really could not have asked for a better second placement. It was very different, but awesome nonetheless.

Firstly, the Yorkshire Dales has to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been. Even in the rain (which was most of the time), I thought the view from my window was amazing. Green hills, sheep, stone fences, the River Swale. And then, when the sun came out it was like nothing else.

Beautiful, eh?

One of the things I noticed most was the use of stone in buildings. I mean everything is built with stone – houses, sheds, fences etc. But when you look around it makes sense, there aren’t really a lot of trees. Anyways, throughout the Dales there are little villages of these stone houses, with very skinny roads in between them. Also, they’re not very far apart, only a few kilometres or so. It’s also not uncommon to come across a dilapidated stone building in the middle of a field, or on the side of the road.

Typical Yorkshire Village

As for the B&B itself, it was wonderful. Roger, the guy who runs it, is a very kind-hearted man. He let us keep all tips, let us drink whatever we wanted, buy any food we wanted/needed, and if we ever went out, he’d pay for everything. He took us out quite often too – to see the Olympic Torch in Richmond (yes, I’ve seen it twice now!), to get cheese from Wensleydale, and to the highest pub in Britain

The torch in Richmond

Yes, this is where Wensleydale cheese comes from

Tan Hill, the highest pub in Britain

There are only 5 bedrooms at Rowleth, so not too much work. I slept in a trailer in the garden, which was super comfy and warm – we even had a tv and internet. Anyways, I didn’t have to be up at the house until 9am, which is when I ate breakfast and we waited for the guests to finish so that we could start cleaning. In the morning we’d clear the breakfast tables, put the dishes in the dishwasher and put them away, vacuum, clean the kitchen and do the rooms of course. Sometimes we had extra jobs, but not often and they wouldn’t be hard. There were 3 other girls, Sophie from Germany, Ailsa from Taiwan, and Jade from Hong Kong. Usually it didn’t take us too long to finish.

After the morning work was done, we were free until 7pm when we had to help serve dinner, and then clean up afterwards. During free time I did various things. Sometimes I went for a walk with Buster the dog, watched movies, made Canadian dishes (Butter tarts, Nanaimo Bars, and Poutine), or took a nap. After dinner was finished, we often all watched a movie together

Going for a walk with Buster

Some steers giving us the stare down

Buster

The two weeks spent with Roger and the other girls went by way too quickly. I had a great time, and had lots of laughs.

Liverpool and York

As I mentioned in my last post, I did spend some time in Liverpool doing non-Beatles things. Granted, it wasn't a lot, but I did!

I got to Liverpool kind of late afternoon, so most museums and things were closing shortly. It also didn’t help that I had wandered around for some time trying to find my hostel – it turns out that the maps in Liverpool make the distances between things look a lot bigger than they really are (this tripped me up a few times).

Anyways, so the first day I actually went to check out some churches, the first two Anglican, and the last one Catholic. 

St. Luke’s is actually no longer owned by the Anglican Church, but by the city of Liverpool because it was bombed in WWII. The whole inside was bombed out, but the walls remain.

 Liverpool Cathedral

The Metropolitan Cathedral is also known as “The Pope’s Rocket” which I completely understand.

If you’ve been reading this blog, you’ll also know that I’m pretty interested in the Titanic, and it turned out that the Liverpool Maritime Museum has a permanent display featuring The Titanic, and a special exhibition for the 100^th anniversary. Though Titanic never went to Liverpool, it was registered there and was it’s official homeport. Also, did you know that Canada has it’s own big passenger ship disaster? Yeah, The Empress of Ireland sunk in the St. Lawrence, but for some reason has been almost forgotten.

Builders model of Titanic

From Liverpool, I went to some relatives in Beverley, which is near York. Beverley isn’t particularly big, but does have two old churches, one of which is a Minster. While staying with my relatives we went to York for a day. Did you know that York was once a Viking city called Jorvik? Yeah, York is old!! But anyways, we went to the museum on the Vikings (also called Jorvik), and obviously visited York Minster. We also walked along the old city wall, visited The Shambles, The Yorkshire Castle Museum and had lunch at what claims to be the oldest pub in York. York is also the birthplace of Guy Fawkes!

Beverley Minster

York City Wall

Clifford's Tower - York

The Shambles

York Minster

From Beverley I went to my next HelpX place – a B&B in the Yorkshire Dales called Rowleth End!