(The following is a fairly lengthy account of our just completed trip to
England, with a little LBC content at the end. For those purists who
complain that everything on here must read as a tech manual, please be
forewarned and delete now. You won't hurt my feelings in the least! 8^) )
Hi Friends!
Paula and I have just returned from our long-awaited trip to England,
and I have to tell you it was a great trip. Everything (nearly) worked out to
a "T", including the weather which was absolutely wonderful! It was cool
and sunny nearly every day. All of our connections were solid and worked
out, the lodgings which we had selected were all great.
We spent a full 2-weeks in the UK, beginning on June 14. We stayed a
full Saturday to Saturday week in London, then took the rail to York where we
rented a car (my driving on the left side of the road sitting on the right
hand side of the car was a whole new experience--not bad, really!) and drove
to Leyburn, North Yorkshire, where we rented a stone cottage for another full
Saturday to Saturday week. I do believe we experienced everything we could
have possibly done so. We visited city and country markets, points of
interest in both London and North Yorkshire. Leyburn turned out to be a most
pleasant surprise. We visited such esteemed sites as The British Library,
the London Eye, Shakespeare's New Globe theatre (where we saw the play
"Macbeth"), the Strand theatre (where we saw the play "Buddy!" for the second
exciting time), Westminister Abbey, and tons of other sites in London, using
the subway and walking as our only means of transport. That worked
wonderfully. On two occasions, we took the rail to our destinations:
Hastings in Southern England, site of the Battle of 1066, and to visit York
in Northern England.
In Leyburn we had the rental car, so we were off everyday to see
something different: thousand-year-old abbeys and churches, MIddleham Castle
ruins, where King Richard III spent his Princehood (is that a word?),
Haworth, the Bronte sister's town and home, James Herriot's (real name Alf
Wight) home and town of Thirsk, which he called Darrowby in his books, and
the places of his tales. We took a longer drive north, near the Scottish
border to view the nearly 2000 year-old Hadrian's wall and Roman fort. On
the way home, we drove over the strikingly beautiful and Rugged Penines, via
Tan Hill, the highest and most remote Pub in England, where we stopped for a
Pint. Foot and Mouth disease has really rocked the whole area---huge impact
on every facet of life there. We and/or our car must have been disinfected a
hundred times. But we did not mind at all. These people are paying a
terrible price for a terrible disaster that has befallen them. We hope and
pray for their full recovery.
And the food and ale!! I drank many pints of wonderful ale, one each
night at our "locals", the Highbury Barn Tavern in Islington, London, and the
Black Swan in Leyburn. The barkeep, Bob, in the Black Swan took quite a
delight in keeping up with our travels each evening, as he drew me my pint of
Black Sheep Ale, which quickly became my overwhelming favorite of all the
ales I tried (we also visited the Black Sheep brewery). And Paula stuck with
her Gin & Tonics. The Pub food was WONDERFUL and PLENTIFUL! We tried many
traditional Pub meals and we were always most pleased, and most STUFFED,
after each of them. And yes, I did have the SPOTTED DICK ( I just had to try
it)--the dessert, the dessert (Shut up Ed!)!
Anyway, it was one great trip, and we both were very pleased and not a
little bit surprised, that everything fell into place the way it did. ALL
arrangements, Airline tickets, lodging, rail tickets, London rail/bus passes,
car rental, EVERYTHING, was done on the internet. And it worked.
Darn, I wish I could get a pint of Black Sheep here. LBC CONTENT: I was
always on the lookout for our brand of LBCs and was occasionally rewarded.
There are many many Minis running around the roads of England. I saw 2 Big
Healeys on the road, a number of Lotuses (Loti?), including a club of about 4
of the older open wheel models, a beautiful Lambourghini Countach (Sp?), and
only ONE Spridget. This one was a BRG '76 Midget that was parked in front of
an auto parts store on the town square in Leyburn. I happened to see the
owner walk over to it with one of the parts store employees, so I introduced
myself and talked a bit with him. It seems he had only purchased the car
two weeks ago, and seemed very proud of it. I told him of this exchange, so
I hope he is listening. Anyway, the Midget was in pretty fair original
condition, looked like tan leather seats, some rust in the usual places, but
not really bad. Judging from his attitude, I could tell he was in for a
good time.
My sincere thanks to the listers who sent me so many suggestions as to
where to go and what to see. We attempted to put together a trip using
something from everyone's posts, plus a lot of our own ideas, and it worked
beautifully.
--David C.
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