Bram Stoker's Whitby

Our three-day weekend by the sea continued with a two-night stay in the town of Whitby. Bram Stoker's Dracula includes several key scenes based in Whitby, and because of that and the erie church and abbey ruins perched high up on a cliff,  it is a gothic teenager's dream! In fact, when researching bed & breakfasts, one weekend in October was all booked up thanks to the town's annual Gothic Festival. So the Whiby residents (and tourism board) definitely milk their Dracula connection!

St. Mary's Church and the Abbey ruins at the top of Whitby Cliff

To get to the abbey and church on the cliff, you have to walk up a stairway with 199 stone steps. We stopped a few times on our way up to take in and photograph the views of Whitby (and for me to catch my breath).

Whitby Pier as seen from stairstep #101 (or maybe it was step #103? or #98?)

We toured the inside of Saint Mary's Church before heading over to the Abbey.  I didn't know anything about the church before we arrived, but have since researched a bit about it. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and inside contains only pew-boxes that families had to purchase to use for services. I tried to find a picture of the pew boxes online as no photos were permitted inside the church, but alas, no good photos were found. Trust me, the pew boxes were interesting :-)

St. Mary's church and graveyard

The church and its graveyard are partially responsible for the town's popularity in all things goth. Take this quote from Bram Stoker's Dracula:

"For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the Abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and churchyard became gradually visible... It seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell."

St. Mary's graveyard looking toward Whitby

While there, we read about a much more recent and super-creepy occurrence that took place in this graveyard. In November 2012, a rainstorm eroded part of the cliff where St. Mary's and the Abbey is perched. Over the course of several days, as the cliff eroded, human remains tumbled out of their coffins in the graveyard and landed on the street below. Ewwwww!! The remains were collected, and re-interned farther away from the cliffside.

St. Mary's graveyard looking towards the Abbey

And now on to the Abbey! Yet another abbey destroyed by Henry VIII in the mid 16th century. The abbey ruins that we see today was originally built in 13th century, so it is actually younger that St. Mary's church next door! I found it interesting to learn that the British / Anglo-Saxon conversion from Paganism to Christianity can be traced back to the Synod of Whitby . I won't bore you with the details (as there are a lot of details), but if you want to learn more, click on the words underlined above. If you click that link, congratulations! You're a history geek like me :-) 

Whitby Abbey

Whitby Abbey and the Whitby coast

After our tour atop the cliff, we walked back down to the town (this time on the steep horse/donkey cobblestone ramp next to the stairway) and ambled along the shops and restaurants. I tried to get Bill to purchase some kippers from the smoked kipper shack run by the same family for more than 140 years, but he wasn't interested. Everyone told us if you go to Whitby, you have to eat the traditional fish & chips. It's like, THE place to eat fish & chips in all of England. We asked our BandB hostess where she would recommend we go and she told us to skip The Magpie (which is on tourist row and is overpriced and way too crowded) and head for the Royal Fishery in town. We noticed a line out the door at The Magpie, so we made our way to the Royal Fishery per her suggestion. We were seated at a table right away amongst all of the locals (we seemed to be the only tourists) and had a delicious and super-filling dinner of sustainably caught fish & chips. YUM!! 

Then, because we're such a wild and crazy couple, we walked back to our Bed and Breakfast and watched the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who. It doesn't get more British (or nerdy) than that, ladies and gentlemen!!

Whitby Abby - NOT MY PHOTO, it's from the English Heritage website

As a side-note, England experienced an awful storm yesterday. The storm hit the English northeast particularly hard. The storm, coupled with an exceedingly high tide flooded most of Whitby's coastline as well as its seaside homes and shops. I hope everyone in Whitby recovers quickly and am very thankful we hadn't planned our mini-vacation this weekend.

Scarborough Faire... without the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, or Thyme

The weekend before thanksgiving I made Bill take Friday off and we set off for a long weekend by the sea. Our first stop? Scarborough! It's only a two hour drive from home, but we hadn't had a chance to visit the English seaside town yet. Although Scarborough doesn't have a pier, it does have a tourist-y area like fisherman's wharf in Monterey or pier 39 in San Francisco. 

Have you been to Scarborough Faire?

If we had visited in the summertime, everything would have been open for business and it would have been packed with tons of English weekend warriors. But we arrived on a drizzly, cold November and the faire (carney-like rides), casinos (arcades with skeeball, pinball, etc.), and food shacks were mostly closed. That kind of stuff doesn't interest Bill or I anyway, so we really enjoyed looking around without fighting the crowds. We had lunch at a small tea house and took in the sights by the sea. The weather, while not quite enjoyable, provided for some dramatic sky views. The low tide was so low, all of the boats in the harbor were literally resting on a thin film of water in the sand. 

Scarborough marina

After an hour or so of walking around we were pretty cold, wet, and miserable, so we decided to make our way up to Scarborough castle. The castle is perched on the cliff behind where these photos were taken, but not accessible from the seaside - all the better to protect your castle from the invading hoards!

Scarborough lighthouse

I drove from the seaside up to the castle, and per usual in this country, we took a wrong turn and got lost in a maze of confusing, small, one-way downtown English streets. We ended up seeing a sign to Whitby (our next destination) and decided to just head straight for Whitby as the rain was coming down in sheets again (and, truth be told, the driver [me] was a bit flustered).

We will definitely to go back to Scarborough on a dryer day and spend all of our time exploring their castle ruins. It looked pretty magnificent from afar! 

Scarborough Castle (NOT my photo - it's from the English Heritage website)

Our First Thanksgiving Overseas

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!!

We celebrated Thanksgiving twice this year. Bill took Thursday off, and we puttered around the house & walked downtown to visit the Christmas Market (140 craft & food booths set up to sell Christmas presents and tasty food). On our way home, we stopped at the local butcher's shop to pick up something to make for the two of us as a Thanksgiving treat. We knew we were having turkey with all of the trimmings on Saturday, so instead of the usual fare, we picked up and roasted a Yorkshire pheasant. 

The pheasant was pleasant (ha!), but pheasant is all dark meat, so not my favorite. But it was okay and we will probably make it again sometime while we're here. At one point I noticed Bill working on a piece of meat, and I figured he had gotten a small bone along with his bite of meat. He spat out the offending bit, and low and behold - it was buckshot! A friend here tells us that it's good luck to find buckshot on your plate, so let's hope it's true!

Pheasant buckshot

On to the communal Thanksgiving Feast on Saturday...

Some friends of ours rent a gorgeous house that is owned by an official Lord & Lady. Their house is wonderful  for entertaining, which they love to do.  The dining room came with a long table that seats 20 or so people - and they had it decorated beautifully. The Thanksgiving group included Americans, Aussies, and Brits; I think there was a total of 36 hungry mouths in attendance. 

Dinning room

Bill and I brought four loaves of homemade bread, his Mom's scalloped oysters (but we couldn't find oysters, so he used live muscles and it mostly worked), and roast veg (carrots, parsnips, and cauliflower). Others brought all the other fixin's - two turkeys, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two types of stuffing, many types of veg, several variations on cranberry sauce, and so on. 

Kitchen prep pre-feast

Minutes before we ate EVERYTHING IN SIGHT

And if we weren't stuffed enough, there were also plenty of items for dessert. One couple made seven pies (!!) and we also had fudge, three pans of sticky toffee pudding, toppings (ice cream, whipping cream, pouring cream, and toffee sauce), and various after dinner drinks.

And they shall eat pie (and fudge, custard, sticky toffee pudding...)

The sunset (at 4:15, as we get less than eight hours of sunlight this time of year) from their backyard was spectacular! It reminds me that, although times may be challenging, we still have a lot to be thankful for.  

"Thanksgiving" sunset

Autumn Awesome-ness at Bolton Abbey

Bolton's Abbey

It's been very cold but mostly clear the last few weeks. We went out to yet another torn-down abbey, Bolton Abbey, on a day that turned out to be pretty darned beautiful.  

Up close of Bolton's Abbey

Even closer - coffin in Bolton Abbey's graveyard

The abbey was pretty, but the surrounding area was even more stunning. The Bolton Abbey grounds had a beautiful waterfall that trickled into the River Wharf. Each valley (AKA dale) in the Yorkshire countryside is named for the river that runs through the valley. We live in Nidderdale, for the River Nidd, there is Wharfdale, Wensleydale, etc.  

Waterfall into the Wharf River

Bolton Abbey from the other side of River Wharf

It was such a glorious Autumn day! The colors of the leaves were just stunning. As usual, photos don't do the views justice, but they are still pretty.

Autumn leaves

Bolton Abbey from hillside

Christmas Cakes, Puddings, and Pies, Oh My!!!

One of the main things I wanted to experience while living in North Yorkshire was to attend Betty's Cookery School. I recently attended their Christmas Cakes and Puddings class - my England Bucket List is one item shorter!! 

Action Shot making Christmas Cake

The course is fairly expensive, but boy do you get your money's worth. The day started with a warm welcome, a new Betty's Cookery School Apron (yours to keep!), fresh croissants, butter, jam, and tea or coffee. I sat down with a bunch of ladies who quickly became my buddies. One gal in particular looked exactly like Bridget Jones, was a farmers wife from just outside of York, and was given this course by her husband for her birthday. She was a hoot! I confessed to my table that I may need help, as I didn't know what anything we were going to make should look like when completed, and had never measured ingredients by weight. One of my new friends said, "Oh, that's right - Americans use cups and stuff, right? Can you buy special measuring things to know how much a cup is?" 

After breakfast we watched a demonstration from the professional Betty's Bakery staff and got started on the Christmas pudding. The pudding (which is not really a pudding at all) is comprised of mostly of dried fruit, candied citrus peel, eggs, and brandy, and has to steam in its pot for 5-1/2 hours. Once the primary steam is done, it has to age for one to three months. To serve the pudding, you re-steam for two hours or so, remove it from the pot, flambe the pudding with brandy, then drench each portion in a home-made rum sauce. What's not to love?! 

Maturing Christmas Pudding

Once the puddings were steaming away, we took a short tea & cookie break before starting on the Christmas Cakes. Step one of making the cake had us creaming our butter & brown sugar together by hand. It took ages. And then another age. The professional bakers said we can use our mixers when we make christmas cake at home, but they wanted us to experience all of the stages the butter and sugar go through and at what stage it was appropriate to start adding the eggs. We had to be very careful and add the eggs a bit at a time, beating them into the mix very well before adding more egg. If you add more egg before the batter is ready, the batter will curdle. Many of the students (including me!) had their batter slightly curdle at the very end... but thankfully adding the additional dry ingredients brought the batter back from the brink of disaster. I know I for one was getting antsy, and I'm not surprised I added the last bit of eggs too soon - I had been hand-beating batter for over a half-hour by that point!

After a Christmas Cake is baked, it has to mature for six to eight weeks. Every few weeks I have to "feed" the cake by brushing it with sherry. A week before Christmas, I am to cover the cake with rolled-out marzipan. The day before Christmas I cover it with rolled-out fondant and decorate it. I will be sure to post pictures of the cake once it's completed. 

Maturing Christmas Cake

All of the students were more than ready for lunch by the time we popped our cakes in the ovens. Lunch was delicious - a delicate chicken dish called Coronation Chicken, carrot salad, scalloped potatoes, fresh bread and a glass of wine. Dessert was a yummy chocolate bomb with a passion fruit ganache on the inside. 

Chocolate Bomb

After lunch I was filled with calories and ready to tackle the mincemeat strudel, jarred mincemeat, and rum sauce. Bring it on!! The mincemeat strudel was beautiful, and unlike the pudding and cake, was ready to take home and eat... needless to say, it was gone before I thought to take a photograph of it. The rum sauce has also been eaten, but a carton of beige sauce would have made a boring photo, anyway. 

Maturing Mincemeat

The last item we made was mincemeat, which contains apples, raisins, golden raisins (sultanas), spices, vegetable suet (whatever that is!), etc. The mincemeat has to mature for several weeks as well, and will be ready for me to make a fresh mincemeat strudel for Christmas. I will try to remember to photograph my strudel and add it to the blog post with my finished Christmas cake. 

Before we left, we watch a short demo showing us how to finish and present the cake, pudding, and strudel. We got to try a few of the items as well. Thank goodness I liked everything I tried!

I had an amazing adventure at Betty's Cookery School and look forward to my next class... Which is Yorkshire Breads in February!! ;-)  

Rievaulx Abbey

Cathedral at Rievaulx Abbey

We took a weekend drive through the town of Thirsk, a town mentioned several times in Downton Abbey and the setting for the All Creatures Great and Small books (and subsequent TV show) to arrive at Rievaulx (pronounced REE-VO) Abbey. Yet another Catholic abbey established by French monks, and torn down by Henry VIII hundreds of years later. 

Cathedral's Windowless Windows (and roofless roof)

We picked a beautiful autumn day, but as you scroll through the photos you'll notice the blue sky trades places with the "England Grey" several times during our visit. 

Rievaulx Cathedral's Nave

Two Abbots (head monk) from Rievaulx have become saints since their death, Saint William and Saint Ælred. They were both buried at Rievaulx, but I could only find the shrine to Saint William. A friend and former publishing co-worker of mine left the secular life several years ago to follow his heart and is now an ordained monk. He has since been re-named Ælred, in honor of his patron Saint, Saint Ælred. Saint Ælred was a writer of history and spirituality during his life, and was the Abbot of Rievaulx from 1147 until his death in 1167. 

Saint William's Shrine

Much like Fountain Abbey, there is still quite a bit of foundation in tact, outlining the various buildings that made up the once-thriving abbey. They had a kitchen, dormitory, library, cloisters, hospital, etc. Abbeys were self-sufficient entities that would typically make their own food, clothing, and tend to their sick. The monks would also help the local populations in a tangible as well as religious capacity. During the black plague, many clergy died because they took care of the ill and preformed last rights on the dying and caught the disease more often than not.

Building at Rievaulx, Perhaps the Hospital

Much of North Yorkshire is still made up of simply stunning rolling hills. You can see from the picture below that the setting around Rievaulx Abbey has probably not changed much since its heyday. And you can see Bill taking a photo of a building that must have been just to my left. 

North Yorkshire Countryside

Bach Flower Remedies - Level 2

I've had a lot of questions about the Bach flower remedies and I thought I'd write a quick post about Dr. Bach and his flower remedies. Doctor Bach was a British medical doctor, a bacteriologist and immunologist who began his medical career in 1912 after qualifying at the University College Hospital in London.  Later in his career, he felt he needed to treat the person and not the disease and started studying homeopathic medicines. He eventually left his high-end medical career to spend all of his time working on his new theories on balancing emotions to help improve immunity (psychoneuroimmunology). 

The Bach Cenre, Mount Vernon, Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, Oxfordshire

There is more and more evidence that sustained negative emotions can negatively affect your immunity, so it may be very helpful to help balance your emotions whenever and however possible. Much like aromatherapy, flower remedies are used to help balance a person's emotions. If someone is overly nervous, lonely, afraid, impatient, self-centered, exhausted, apathetic, etc. they can take one (or more) of 38 flower remedies to help cope with whatever issues they are facing. 

Walkway to Entrance of Bach Centre

The last years of Dr. Edward Bach's life brought him to Mount Vernon, the name of his small cottage in Brightwell-cum-Sotwell, now the Bach Centre where I completed the flower remedy levels 1 and 2. 

Dr. Bach believed that western medicine has had amazing results, and is the first therapy one should seek when our bodies have mechanical faults and are not working properly. In many cases, however, western medicine confines itself to treating the symptoms and doesn't look at an imbalance that may have caused the mechanical problem to arise in the first place or exacerbated an existing condition. Bach Flower Remedies are considered complementary medicine, not alternative medicine. While alternative medicine practitioners may discourage people from partaking in western medicine, complementary medicine, such as the flower remedies, can be used in conjunction with any other course of treatment or medicine and won't interfere with those treatments, and vice versa. 

Dr. Bach's Office and Handmade Furniture

Those of you who know me know I am alive because of western medicine and I LOVE what western medicine has done for me. And if there are simple, inexpensive ways I can help myself and others stay balanced and healthy with a robust immune system, well then, sign me up!! :-)

Pretty Flower (not a remedy flower)

Because I am not working as a massage therapist while in the UK, I want to be sure to come home with additional work skills that are not readily available in the US. I hope to take the level three early next year, which is four days of training at the centre, then 6 − 12 months of correspondence work (essays, client studies, etc.). If I complete all of the coursework and do well, I will be a certified Bach Flower Remedy practitioner!

Wild Oat - good for those looking for direction in their life 

Sorry for this short diversion into work-related stuff... next blog will be another British travel blog post :-)

Brightwell-Cum-Sotwell

I think I've taken more train trips in the last six months than my whole life combined! Wednesday found me back at the train station, heading five hours south to the small (and I mean small!) village of Brightwell-Cum-Sotwell for my Level 2 Bach Flower Remedy training. 

York train station

Brightwell-Cum-Sotwell were two incredibly tiny villages (Brightwell and Sotwell) that grew together to make one very tiny village. The village has only one pub and one shopette. The shopette is about the size of your average gas station snack shop, and sold milk, eggs, cheese, crackers, some meats, breads, and other assorted foods. The pub is an award-winning pub for its food and traditional, hand-pulled ale selection. It's a 16th century thatched-roof pub that is just as sweet as can be. 

The Red Lion Pub, Brightwell-Cum-Sotwell

I stayed at a bed and breakfast, so my first meal of each day was covered, I purchased lunch items from the shopette, but my only option for dinner was this pub. Night #1 I ordered the steak and ale pie, but it was so much food I was embarrassed by how much they had to take away when I was done (no mini fridge in my cabin, so there was no way for safe leftovers). Nights two and three I ordered their soup with a side of fresh baked bread (spicy butternut and carrot + coriander/cilantro) which was just the right amount. Each night I ate there I met up with gals from my class, so it was really fun and a nice way to enjoy the environment without feeling like too much of an american  tourist :-)

The Red Lion's bar

Each morning we (there were four of us at the BandB taking the course) had a 15-minute walk to the Bach Centre. We saw a lot of village residents, including cows...

Mooooo!!!!

.... and duckies!

Quack! Quack! Quack!

And on the first morning, I woke up to find sheep grazing in the plot right in front of my wee cottage! The hostess of the BandB was surprised to see them as well, as her next-door land owner had never had sheep in his field before. I could faintly hear them bleating from inside my cabin, and it was so sweet! 

Sheep by day

That night (and the next day) the sheep were still there! It's harder to see them with the sunset behind them, but if you look closely, you can see them. I love the sheep! Almost makes me want to not eat lamb... but not quite.

Sheep by night

Autumn Cider Festival

It's autumn (not fall, apparently that's an American term for autumn) in England. As a Californian who has never really experienced a true autumn (fall), I have been in awe of its beauty. Everyone says this autumn isn't that spectacular because we had such a warm, dry summer, but I still think it's gorgeous. 

The Craven Inn, Appletreewick

A few weekends ago, Bill and I met a few of our new friends in a small village called Appletreewick for their annual cider festival. 

Cider Festival

The cider was delicious, as was the apple-inspired menu. We learned a lot about cider - for example, "scrumpy" cider made in western England is not carbonated. We were all a bit surprised by so many flat cider options, but most of the varieties we tried were very tasty. The food was tasty, but I think I'm the only person who ordered from the specials, as their regular menu is also very yummy. 

Autumn Leaves

After cider tasting and lunch at the Craven Arms, we walked down the main road to Appletreewick's other pub, The New Inn. Along the way we encountered 25 or so young people celebrating a 21st birthday, all dressed as "Where's Waldo" and I wish I had thought to take a photo of them! The second pub had a few different ciders to choose from, but we all agreed the first pub had the better selection. The view at the second pub, though, was outstanding; rolling rock-walled greenery dotted with sheep as far as the eye could see. 

Appletreewick Views

Appletreewick Residents

Back at the car park, the boys found a cool old tractor that they had to explore. All in all, a very fun day!

Boys Being Boys!