The literary theme continues. It's a shame all my old English teachers have already joined the Classics Seminar in the Sky, because I just know they'd be proud of me and my recent wanderings.
Tuesday I headed into Yorkshire to the Harlow Carr garden, one of the properties maintained by the Royal Horticulture Society. The drive over there was beautiful but I decided it would be a hoot if I took the long way home, a route that would take me literally through hill, dale and moor on the back roads through Yorkshire Dales National Park. This is serious Bronte sisters territory. Unfortunately -- surprise, surprise -- it started raining only a few miles into the journey, turning the "hoot" into an "oh, hell." Moors are not places upon which one wants to be stranded, especially in the rain in twilight!
For miles and miles and miles there were nothing but sheep, sheep and more sheep. No houses, no signs of civilization whatsoever except for some ancient stone walls that were probably built by the Celts. Scarce traffic in either direction. OK, it was easy to imagine Cathy and Heathcliff meeting on one of those desolate, high, treeless moors for a romantic, illicit rendezvous (think "Wuthering Heights") but I kept thinking practical stuff like, what if I hit one of these stray sheep, many of which had left the safe confines of their pastures to take a leisurely stroll down the center of the narrow road. I didn't favor the odds of it being a pretty encounter.
Once I finally intersected with a main road -- only six miles from my village -- I admit I was rather relieved. I mean, moors are spectacular and romantic and all, but by then I had had quite enough natural beauty for one day. To think that all those wild, other-worldly open vistas are so close by...
For my fellow "Downton Abbey" addicts, I'll add this note: My return journey deliberately took me through the town of Ripon. Now, as we all know, the TV series is actually filmed at High Clere near Newbury in Berkshire, in the southern part of England. However, the fictitious Downton estate is located in Yorkshire near Ripon up here in the north. You'll recall numerous references to Ripon in the script -- it's where Matthew Crawley practices law, where visitors to Downton arrive on the train, and where Anna and Mr. Bates got married. And now I've been there. How cool is that?!
Yesterday I had another little literary foray, this time back in the Lake District, where I visited Hill Top, Beatrix Potter's home. Besides being the godmother of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix was a committed conservationist -- way ahead of her time, in fact. She bought up hundreds of acres of land in Cumbria to prevent their development and protect the environment of the area she settled in after she became a famous (and wealthy) author. Upon her death she donated all her property to the National Trust, who maintain it to this day.
I can happily report that Peter Rabbit and friends still live on. A family of 11 real by-gosh rabbits occupy the garden at Hill Top, which is maintained just as Beatrix did before her death in 1943. In addition to gorgeous summer flowers, there is a kitchen garden with rows of cabbages, of course. I'm not sure how the staff control the bunny population, but it was a delight to sit on a bench beside Beatrix's clematis-framed front door, sip a cup of tea and contemplate the adventures of Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail as they hopped around before my very eyes! I expected Jemima Puddle-Duck to come waddling by at any moment...
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