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 :-)