I have decided to make this blog a two-parter because I have so much to say about my beloved homeland. Today's will cover the mainland of Scotland and next week the stunning and unpredictable isle of Tiree off the west coast.
With a visit from my sister Lyl came also the quintessential visit to the land of our ancestors. I can hardly believe that I have lived in the UK for 11 months and have only just now taken the journey up to Scotland. The northern tip of the UK is probably my favourite place on the planet, filled with brisk weather, greasy food, hilly terrain, and whiskey. Besides all the typical stereotypes of Scotland I also love it because it is where, in some very small way, I come from.
There's something about Scotland that warms my spirit every time (may be that's the whiskey). My relation to the land is a few generations removed, but the textures of history here mean more to me than in any other country that I have ever visited because it is connected to my history and the history of my father, grandfather and so on.
Back in 1923 Robert Kerr Paterson (my great-grandfather) married his second cousin who was 19 years younger than him, Elizabeth McBride Holmes (my great-grandmother), in Gourock, Scotland. Robert was already residing in Canada, and had received a medical degree from Queen's University (this is where the legacy began). He had moved from Renfrew, Scotland to Renfrew, Ontario, and later Bob returned to Scotland and fallen in love. Later, Bessie gave birth to a daughter named Mary, and twins Robert Kerr (my beloved grandfather) and Elizabeth. That is how the lineage traces back and, despite the three generations passed, I still feel an intense pull to the place.
My first two trips to Scotland was as a youngster – first when I had just turned one and then when I was about four. Though I cannot say for sure that I remember these trips in detail, whether from hazy memories and photographs, I do remember bits and pieces. At 15 I remember more clearly being stuffed into a station wagon with my Mom, Dad, sister and brother, and driven all over the country, visiting castle ruins, Scottish cities and lochs, as well as the westernmost of the Inner Hebride islands where cousins Pearl and Mary maintain their parents' cottage – a later full-time home – on a heather-capped, sheep-strewn and remote island called Tiree.
Though being fined countless pounds for fighting with my siblings and dragged to countless castles, I have to thank my Mom and Dad now for instilling such passionate pride in me for this gorgeous country. There was a lapse in my grandfather’s generation when there was not a lot of connection to Scotland. A combination, I think, of a distancing from the previous generation and my grandparents absolute worship of their second-home and cottage at Norway Bay.
When Dad visited Scotland during a 10-month backpacking trip in 1972, he got in touch with unknown relatives to appease his grandmother (the aforementioned Bessie) and discovered instead lasting relationships and a deep love for the country. Dad maintains the Scottish pride continually with an insistent celebration of Robbie Burns' Day each 25 January, his homemade shortbread during the holiday season, and his fervent desire to one day learn to play the bagpipes.
Lyl and I counted Edinburgh and Glasgow among our must-visit destinations during the great backpacking adventure of 2004. Though Glasgow was too bustling a city for me at the time (this is before I ever imagined Toronto and London would be my homes), we were in love with Edinburgh, its studded volcanic hills, perched on the southern edge of the Firth of Forth, with an old and new town that is separated by a valley that holds up the towering Edinburgh Castle. We stayed at Brodies' Backpackers, facing the cobblestoned Royal Mile, which leads east to Palace of Holyroodhouse and west to the Castle. We bundled up in the day and visited landmarks such as the war memorial and tower to Lord Nelson overlooking the city from Calton Hill, then listened to bagpipers along Princes Street while eating chips and haggis wrapped in paper, before returning to our hostel to nap beneath large tartaned comforters. We visited the Writer's Museum, learning more about Scottish legends Robert Burns, Sir Walter Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson; the graveyard where economist Adam Smith and poet Robert Fergusson are buried; the National Portrait Gallery to see paintings from Mary Queen of Scots to Sean Connery to a possible relative called Robert Kerr Paterson; the imposing Palace of Holyroodhouse and the magnificent castle.
For this latest journey to Scotland, Lyl and I had Tiree as our ultimate destination, a trip we had not made for almost 15 years. First we arrived in Edinburgh to meet Ottawa friends Jill and Noel, who have been on the road for over two months. As usual, Scotland greeted us in a misty rain and, as a result, that first day was spent along the Royal Mile, pub-crawling to avoid the downpour. There were pints of Tennants and McEwan, drams of whiskey, a delicious pile of haggis, tatties and neaps, then later deep-fried Mars bars and fish and chips. By the end of the day we were all feeling a little worse for wear and vowed tomorrow to indulge in some vegetables.
We did even better. Though Noel was feeling under the weather (which I have been blamed for thanks to a never-ending cold I’ve been nursing), Lyl, Jill and I spent the day hiking up to the summit of Arthur’s Seat. Since Edinburgh is placed within a 350 million year old volcano, the surrounding terrain offers casual (and often strenuous) walks with stunning views of the city below. We started off on a slight incline along the Salisbury Craggs and, with prodding from Jill, traversed the heather- and thistle-strewn hill to the top, known as Arthur’s Seat. It was brutal at times since, as usual, I was not wearing proper footwear, and the remnants of yesterday’s binge drinking and eating were barely settled in my stomach. But despite all the whining (sorry ladies), the view from above was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. (You will have to wait for me to upload my photos to see what I mean.)
Back down the hill we lunched on mussels from the Isle of Mull (so much for the veggies plan) and then embarked on the informative Scotch Whiskey tour. We learned about the five whiskey-producing regions and chose our favourite to sample at the end. Though fond of the floral highlands, light lowlands and even the peaty smokiness of Islay, I discovered that the fruity Speyside whiskies are my dram of choice.
Lyl and I said goodbye to Jill and Noel, who returned to Canada a few days later, and equipped with a brand new knowledge of whiskey, the rugged countryside around Edinburgh and the wish that we had never tasted a deep-fried Mars bar, we boarded a train the next morning to Oban, a small fishing village on the west coast that provides ferry passage to the Hebride islands.
Tiree is such a blissful and heavenly place, and was this journey filled with amazing family members, great food and Scottish music, that I will have to break off now and return to a Tiree-only blog next week. Until then, mar sin leibh.
Tuesday, 10 August 2010
Thursday, 29 July 2010
Writing Irish
One of my favourite things about living in London – a reason I listed in my very first blog entry – is treading the same ground as my beloved writers, like Shakespeare, Virginia Woolf and Charles Dickens. Ireland, and Dublin specifically, is heaven for someone like me. A person can (literally) not walk a block of the city without stumbling upon a statue of Oscar Wilde, pass by the house where George Bernard Shaw was born or see landmarks from within the pages of James Joyce’s novels.
This past weekend I flew to Dublin. Ostensibly, I was there to spend the Saturday with Adrian, my 17-year-old next-door-neighbour in Ottawa, non-biological little sister, who I helped raised since she was one (at least I like to think I did). She has been in Ireland for the whole month with a group called the Irish Experience, visiting Cork, Galway and Dublin, and gaining an English credit for high school. I was thrilled to fly in for 48 hours and spend time with her, but she had a strict itinerary and could only see me on the Saturday.
Fair enough. We had a lovely (based on companionship, not weather) Dublin day: wandering Trinity College campus, shopping on Grafton Street, strolling along the Liffey, drinking the freshest pints of Guinness on the planet (me, not Adrian). Newly lit up by the words of Irish writers thanks to her course, Adrian was even keen to stroll quite a distance along the Liffey to visit the house where Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ was based. Thrilling for me, of course, that someone else wanted to visit sites from my favourite novels, short stories and poems. (The next day’s literary obstacle course around the city would have been strenuous for even the most Guinness-fortified companion, however, so I was glad to be on my own for that one.)
Luckily for me, Adrian’s group leader had a couple of extra theatre tickets (resulting, most likely, from the fact that two kids had already been sent home for various forms of bad behaviour) so I got to prolong my visit with my girl for a few more hours. Since the kids had just read it in their Irish playwright class, we saw Sean O’Casey’s ‘The Plough and the Stars’ in the Abbey Theatre off O’Connell Street, the very theatre where it was controversially staged for the first time in 1926.
The title of the pacifist play comes from the flag of the Irish Citizen Army. “Plough” refers to the symbol on the flag that in Northern America is known as the big dipper. The show was stunning, perfectly cast and acted, and even moving for me – despite the fact that I was the only one who hadn’t read it. Based during the months leading up to the infamous Easter Uprising of 1916, it chronicles the unextraordinary lives of Irish tenement-inhabitants who are each affected by those extraordinary nationalistic events in their own way.
Equipped with this very poignant Irish experience, I spent Sunday cramming in as much of Dublin’s rich literary history and culture. I walked out to the house where Nobel-prize winner George Bernard Shaw was born in 1856 (he wrote Pygmalion which is perhaps more widely known as the film My Fair Lady); saw the Dublin Millennium Literary Parade in the park beside St. Patrick’s Cathedral (which includes Wilde, O’Casey, Yeats, Beckett and Joyce); visited, for the first time, the James Joyce Centre, a rather unspectacular timeline of the writer’s life with a few spectacular artifacts (his death mask and the actual door of 7 Eccles Street where his most well-known character, Leo Bloom, fictionally resided); and wandered through St. Stephen’s Green to see the commemorative statues to Yeats and Joyce.
Another stop in Dublin that I count as one of my must-sees is the Writer’s Museum. You wear a headset spouting out all sorts of facts about Ireland’s great writers – Swift (the father of satire), Yeats, Wilde, Joyce, Beckett and Synge (both phenomenal playwrights), among others. It is a really great museum with so much fascinating information in the ornately decorated rooms of a beautiful old house. Among the old artifacts on display are: a 1685 Old Testament, the first one translated into Gaelic; an original copy of Ulysses signed by Joyce; and a program from the first performance of Synge’s most famous play, Playboy of the Western World.
I had a truly wonderful visit with Adrian and thoroughly enjoyed my solo literary day. I made the kind of stops (and did the amount of walking) that not everyone would have the stamina for, especially since the landmarks I checked out were all related in some way or another to Ireland’s great literary geniuses. Now I'm back in London, hanging out with my latest visitor, my sister Lindsay,and getting really excited about this weekend's trip up to Scotland, the homeland.
This past weekend I flew to Dublin. Ostensibly, I was there to spend the Saturday with Adrian, my 17-year-old next-door-neighbour in Ottawa, non-biological little sister, who I helped raised since she was one (at least I like to think I did). She has been in Ireland for the whole month with a group called the Irish Experience, visiting Cork, Galway and Dublin, and gaining an English credit for high school. I was thrilled to fly in for 48 hours and spend time with her, but she had a strict itinerary and could only see me on the Saturday.
Fair enough. We had a lovely (based on companionship, not weather) Dublin day: wandering Trinity College campus, shopping on Grafton Street, strolling along the Liffey, drinking the freshest pints of Guinness on the planet (me, not Adrian). Newly lit up by the words of Irish writers thanks to her course, Adrian was even keen to stroll quite a distance along the Liffey to visit the house where Joyce’s ‘The Dead’ was based. Thrilling for me, of course, that someone else wanted to visit sites from my favourite novels, short stories and poems. (The next day’s literary obstacle course around the city would have been strenuous for even the most Guinness-fortified companion, however, so I was glad to be on my own for that one.)
Luckily for me, Adrian’s group leader had a couple of extra theatre tickets (resulting, most likely, from the fact that two kids had already been sent home for various forms of bad behaviour) so I got to prolong my visit with my girl for a few more hours. Since the kids had just read it in their Irish playwright class, we saw Sean O’Casey’s ‘The Plough and the Stars’ in the Abbey Theatre off O’Connell Street, the very theatre where it was controversially staged for the first time in 1926.
The title of the pacifist play comes from the flag of the Irish Citizen Army. “Plough” refers to the symbol on the flag that in Northern America is known as the big dipper. The show was stunning, perfectly cast and acted, and even moving for me – despite the fact that I was the only one who hadn’t read it. Based during the months leading up to the infamous Easter Uprising of 1916, it chronicles the unextraordinary lives of Irish tenement-inhabitants who are each affected by those extraordinary nationalistic events in their own way.
Equipped with this very poignant Irish experience, I spent Sunday cramming in as much of Dublin’s rich literary history and culture. I walked out to the house where Nobel-prize winner George Bernard Shaw was born in 1856 (he wrote Pygmalion which is perhaps more widely known as the film My Fair Lady); saw the Dublin Millennium Literary Parade in the park beside St. Patrick’s Cathedral (which includes Wilde, O’Casey, Yeats, Beckett and Joyce); visited, for the first time, the James Joyce Centre, a rather unspectacular timeline of the writer’s life with a few spectacular artifacts (his death mask and the actual door of 7 Eccles Street where his most well-known character, Leo Bloom, fictionally resided); and wandered through St. Stephen’s Green to see the commemorative statues to Yeats and Joyce.
Another stop in Dublin that I count as one of my must-sees is the Writer’s Museum. You wear a headset spouting out all sorts of facts about Ireland’s great writers – Swift (the father of satire), Yeats, Wilde, Joyce, Beckett and Synge (both phenomenal playwrights), among others. It is a really great museum with so much fascinating information in the ornately decorated rooms of a beautiful old house. Among the old artifacts on display are: a 1685 Old Testament, the first one translated into Gaelic; an original copy of Ulysses signed by Joyce; and a program from the first performance of Synge’s most famous play, Playboy of the Western World.
I had a truly wonderful visit with Adrian and thoroughly enjoyed my solo literary day. I made the kind of stops (and did the amount of walking) that not everyone would have the stamina for, especially since the landmarks I checked out were all related in some way or another to Ireland’s great literary geniuses. Now I'm back in London, hanging out with my latest visitor, my sister Lindsay,and getting really excited about this weekend's trip up to Scotland, the homeland.
Friday, 23 July 2010
The (Perhaps Surprising) Joys of English Food
England may have history and it may have culture, but there is a general consensus around the world that English food is just not good. There are bangers and mash (sausage and potatoes), tatties and neaps (potatoes and turnips), English breakfast, fish and chips, Cornish pasties, and all sorts of filled pies.
Despite the stereotype, I am quite fond of all of the above.
Some of my favourite (English) writers characterized the label best, like Virginia Woolf in ‘To the Lighthouse’ with: “What passes for cookery in England is an abomination … It is putting cabbages in water. It is roasting meat till it is like leather. It is cutting off delicious skins of vegetables … A whole French family could live on what an English cook throws away," and W. Somerset Maugham who said: "To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day."
Well, I agree about the breakfast. While I do miss real Canadian bacon and maple syrup (not necessarily in combination) along with my favourite weekend brunch spots in Toronto, I am also rather fond of the spread that counts as a proper English breakfast here: bacon, sausage, eggs, cooked tomatoes, baked beans (I could take or leave these), toast, and sometimes black (also known as blood) pudding.
The latter is probably the most disturbing, but actually quite tasty when it is done well. It is a type of sausage that is made by cooking blood with a filler – typically oatmeal, barley, bread or suet – until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. According to my father, it originated during bitter-cold famines in northern Scotland when peasants simply bled their farm animals and mixed it with whatever was lying around so that they could infuse some protein into their diet. Yes, it sounds gross but is not at all bad. Not quite as tasty as haggis – my favourite Scottish dish – but I will break down that one once I return from my homeland in mid-August.
I think I could write a weekly blog on food over here, because I am constantly discovering weird combinations, flavours and names for things. I have had prawn cocktail crisps, curry on my chips, the delicious Branston pickle in ploughman sandwiches, more malt vinegar than any person needs, and squash (which is essentially concentrated juice that you dilute with water).
Besides the weird and the wonderful, there are also amazing cheeses, cured meats and outstanding beers, proper English tea, and all sorts of delicious fish and game birds (At my cousin’s one evening, I ate a pheasant that was so freshly killed that I got a little shot in my mouth). For me, Borough Market is the best place to find all these cheeses and meats, plus amazing beer-battered fish and chips, the best cup of coffee in the city, falafels, raclette, fresh fruit and veg, and a selection of curries one could only dream of.
It is my favourite Saturday excursion and, this past weekend while my friend Paul was visiting, I had my most learned outsider tour of the market. You see, Paul is currently working as a chef at a Michelin-star restaurant in Paris and knows more about food – where it comes from, how to cook it – then anyone really needs to. Saturday morning at Borough Market was just the opening of my culinary education that spanned the six days he was in London.
Part of living in an amazing city like London is dining out at amazing restaurants. I have been to some truly outstanding Thai, Japanese, Indian, French, Cuban, Spanish, Turkish and Greek establishments in my 10 months here. When Paul arrived he had a few choice spots he wanted to check out as well but he also wanted to cook a little something up for us. So, after spending far too long at Tesco’s, we returned to Marge’s flat one night, laden with grocery bags and watched the magic happen.
The homemade burgers – consisting of ground beef and pork, chopped parsley, shallots, eggs, and more – were about to hit the hob when suddenly the power went out. Gathering on the stoop with neighbours and multiple bottles of wine we waited out the blackout. We started off very hungry, then rather drunk, and ended up having a hilarious evening with local West Kensingtonians, the culmination of which was a spectacular 1:30 am feast of homemade Shropshire cheese burgers and a delicious, simple, salad of rocket, tomatoes, parmesan, lemon and E.E.V.O. Thanks Paul!
I was unable to partake in the big feast out that week because I had a work dinner with my editorial team, hosted by a company that specializes in the communication of employee benefits and pension schemes. It actually turned into two big feasts out. My work dinner was at the Coq D’Argent, a gorgeous French rooftop restaurant at 1 Poultry Street. It started with cocktails on the gardened terrace followed by, for me, my first oyster, a sumptuous piece of foie gras, duck confit and crème brulee, interspersed with multiple bottles of superb French wine. It was gluttonous and incredible. The rather large oyster went down smoothly, the foie gras blew my mind, the duck melted in my mouth, and the crème brulee was perfection. The only complaint was that the service was slow and kind of discourteous. It was just like being in France.
Around 11 pm I hopped in a cab and headed up to Smithfield where I found Paul and Marge, plus Michelle and Dom, at St. John’s, a truly English restaurant (especially when compared to the French restaurant I had just dined at) that celebrates eating the animal from head to tail. My friends had eaten all sorts of delicacies – Marge even ate ox heart! I showed up for the best part of the night: dessert. I snagged a few bites of Paul’s crème brulee ice cream and some of the freshest madeleines ever (literally made while we waited). It was the climax of a week of absolutely great food.
I could write much more in this blog about all the interesting food in England. Even if some of it is not technically English food, the melting pot of ethnic flavours in this country is enough to rebuff the stereotypes of eating in England. And then there are the standard staples that I mentioned above. I mean, if you really think about it, at least England has defining foods – even it they are fish and chips or steak and kidney pie. In Canada, we don’t really have a cross-country standard dish, just a favourite in each province. (Poutine in Quebec, beef in Alberta, salmon in BC or lobster in PEI). Even if it might be in a mocking tone, at least people talk about the food in England.
Despite the stereotype, I am quite fond of all of the above.
Some of my favourite (English) writers characterized the label best, like Virginia Woolf in ‘To the Lighthouse’ with: “What passes for cookery in England is an abomination … It is putting cabbages in water. It is roasting meat till it is like leather. It is cutting off delicious skins of vegetables … A whole French family could live on what an English cook throws away," and W. Somerset Maugham who said: "To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day."
Well, I agree about the breakfast. While I do miss real Canadian bacon and maple syrup (not necessarily in combination) along with my favourite weekend brunch spots in Toronto, I am also rather fond of the spread that counts as a proper English breakfast here: bacon, sausage, eggs, cooked tomatoes, baked beans (I could take or leave these), toast, and sometimes black (also known as blood) pudding.
The latter is probably the most disturbing, but actually quite tasty when it is done well. It is a type of sausage that is made by cooking blood with a filler – typically oatmeal, barley, bread or suet – until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled. According to my father, it originated during bitter-cold famines in northern Scotland when peasants simply bled their farm animals and mixed it with whatever was lying around so that they could infuse some protein into their diet. Yes, it sounds gross but is not at all bad. Not quite as tasty as haggis – my favourite Scottish dish – but I will break down that one once I return from my homeland in mid-August.
I think I could write a weekly blog on food over here, because I am constantly discovering weird combinations, flavours and names for things. I have had prawn cocktail crisps, curry on my chips, the delicious Branston pickle in ploughman sandwiches, more malt vinegar than any person needs, and squash (which is essentially concentrated juice that you dilute with water).
Besides the weird and the wonderful, there are also amazing cheeses, cured meats and outstanding beers, proper English tea, and all sorts of delicious fish and game birds (At my cousin’s one evening, I ate a pheasant that was so freshly killed that I got a little shot in my mouth). For me, Borough Market is the best place to find all these cheeses and meats, plus amazing beer-battered fish and chips, the best cup of coffee in the city, falafels, raclette, fresh fruit and veg, and a selection of curries one could only dream of.
It is my favourite Saturday excursion and, this past weekend while my friend Paul was visiting, I had my most learned outsider tour of the market. You see, Paul is currently working as a chef at a Michelin-star restaurant in Paris and knows more about food – where it comes from, how to cook it – then anyone really needs to. Saturday morning at Borough Market was just the opening of my culinary education that spanned the six days he was in London.
Part of living in an amazing city like London is dining out at amazing restaurants. I have been to some truly outstanding Thai, Japanese, Indian, French, Cuban, Spanish, Turkish and Greek establishments in my 10 months here. When Paul arrived he had a few choice spots he wanted to check out as well but he also wanted to cook a little something up for us. So, after spending far too long at Tesco’s, we returned to Marge’s flat one night, laden with grocery bags and watched the magic happen.
The homemade burgers – consisting of ground beef and pork, chopped parsley, shallots, eggs, and more – were about to hit the hob when suddenly the power went out. Gathering on the stoop with neighbours and multiple bottles of wine we waited out the blackout. We started off very hungry, then rather drunk, and ended up having a hilarious evening with local West Kensingtonians, the culmination of which was a spectacular 1:30 am feast of homemade Shropshire cheese burgers and a delicious, simple, salad of rocket, tomatoes, parmesan, lemon and E.E.V.O. Thanks Paul!
I was unable to partake in the big feast out that week because I had a work dinner with my editorial team, hosted by a company that specializes in the communication of employee benefits and pension schemes. It actually turned into two big feasts out. My work dinner was at the Coq D’Argent, a gorgeous French rooftop restaurant at 1 Poultry Street. It started with cocktails on the gardened terrace followed by, for me, my first oyster, a sumptuous piece of foie gras, duck confit and crème brulee, interspersed with multiple bottles of superb French wine. It was gluttonous and incredible. The rather large oyster went down smoothly, the foie gras blew my mind, the duck melted in my mouth, and the crème brulee was perfection. The only complaint was that the service was slow and kind of discourteous. It was just like being in France.
Around 11 pm I hopped in a cab and headed up to Smithfield where I found Paul and Marge, plus Michelle and Dom, at St. John’s, a truly English restaurant (especially when compared to the French restaurant I had just dined at) that celebrates eating the animal from head to tail. My friends had eaten all sorts of delicacies – Marge even ate ox heart! I showed up for the best part of the night: dessert. I snagged a few bites of Paul’s crème brulee ice cream and some of the freshest madeleines ever (literally made while we waited). It was the climax of a week of absolutely great food.
I could write much more in this blog about all the interesting food in England. Even if some of it is not technically English food, the melting pot of ethnic flavours in this country is enough to rebuff the stereotypes of eating in England. And then there are the standard staples that I mentioned above. I mean, if you really think about it, at least England has defining foods – even it they are fish and chips or steak and kidney pie. In Canada, we don’t really have a cross-country standard dish, just a favourite in each province. (Poutine in Quebec, beef in Alberta, salmon in BC or lobster in PEI). Even if it might be in a mocking tone, at least people talk about the food in England.
Monday, 12 July 2010
World Cup Final, Red Light District and Van Gogh
Let me first recap the last 24 hours of my life. Yesterday afternoon I was pounding the pavement in Amsterdam with my brother Kyle, Heineken in hand amid a sea of orange football fans. The weather was peaking into the 30s, with sporadic rain providing some respite, but I had already sweated through every piece of clothing I had packed for the short weekend visit to Holland. We swelled with the crowds towards Rembrandtplein, a secondary choice for World Cup Final viewing as Museumplein had been closed off at 3pm, a full 5.5 hours before the first whistle would blow. Kyle and I found my friend David, who traveled in from Den Hague for the event, and his colleagues from the International Criminal Tribunal (ICTY), prosecutors donning red, white and blue facepaint, an orange cowboy hat and a Netherlands football jersey. We crowded around a flatscreen television on the patio of a bar and contemplated the absolute madness around us. Then 8:30 came, the crowds quieted to an almost anti-climactic concentration, and the World Cup Final between Holland and Spain had begun.
Roughly 45 minutes later it was a scoreless half-time. I hugged Kyle and David, said goodbye to some new friends, and sprinted off to Waterlooplein to catch an intercity bus down to the Eurolines bus station. For the second half of the game, and the apparently very tense overtime, I listened to the almost incomprehensible Dutch play-by-play from the inside of a bus that would take me overnight from Amsterdam to London. Despite the intonations from the announcer I was still unsure what the outcome was. Not until we stopped to pick passengers up in Eindhoven around midnight did I notice the dejected orange fans moping around the city, collapsed onto front stoops and unenthusiastically lifting their flaming vuvuzelas to their lips. I was really glad I wasn’t in the middle of the Rembrandtplein mob and I wondered how my brother would make out.
Kyle was on Day 6 of a ritualistic post-uni European backpacking trip. The first stop had been in London to visit me, where he proved to be very anti-tourist, having been to the city multiple times, but humoured me with some Soho pub visits and spent time with our British cousins. With Holland advancing into the World Cup Finals and Kyle’s intended next stop after London being Amsterdam it seemed only fitting to accompany him on the second leg of his adventure.
Sure, most 29-year-olds would be weary of a 6:15 Saturday morning flight out of Luton, two days spent in a stifling, tourist-filled Amsterdam capped off with one of the worst hostels of all time for €55 a night, and then a Sunday to Monday overnight bus across Holland, France, the Chunnel and southern England before arriving 10 hours later at the office for a very productive day of employee benefits features writing. But, you know what? You only live once. How often do you find yourself in the very country competing in the quatro-annual biggest sporting event of all time?
So, Saturday morning found me in the Red Light District at 9:30am, sipping an ice-cold Heinie on a patio overlooking the canal. The middle-aged prostitutes were out in full force and the city appeared to be swarming with Brits. I was happy to be in Amsterdam again but wondering what I had gotten myself in to. Kyle was arriving mid-afternoon on the train (he has a Eurorail ticket and youth card so must make the most of it) so it was up to me to find us two beds to sleep in. The city, as seems predictable now, was filled to the limit, hotel and hostel prices were through the roof, and it was looking likely we were going to have to sleep in shifts leaning against our backpacks in Vondelpark.
And then I stumbled upon the sorriest excuse for a hostel that ever was (though truthfully, in my six months on the road back in 2004, I did see worse, and a lot of it). It wasn’t the best way to introduce Kyle to the hostelling life. However, I reminded myself that it could only go up from here. His reaction, upon his arrival at 3pm, made me slightly concerned that this kid was a bit too high maintenance. Granted, we did get charged €55 each to share a dormroom with six other boys, one communal toilet/shower room and ventilation that left a lot to be desired. But we were centrally-located in the RLD on perhaps the biggest weekend in Holland’s history so I think we should feel lucky with what we got. (The next night Kyle endeavored to find a different accomodation but to no avail, and had to instead take the train out of the city to Rotterdam following the match where he hopefully settled into a 120-bed dorm for €12.50 a night.)
Anyways, before the kid arrived, I managed to take care of my tourist-tendencies. I wandered around the RLD, the canals and Nieumarkt to reacquaint myself with the city I so loved. Since navigating is not my strong suit, I wanted to get my bearings before Kyle arrived so that we wouldn’t be constantly lost. I also took the tram out to the Van Gogh Museum which, three visits later, I had still not managed to see. I swallowed the rather inflated price (still stinging from my €55 hostel bed) and enjoyed a couple of hours among Vincent’s masterpieces such as my favourite sunflowers, a few self-portraits and the scarecrows over the cornfield.
Back to the Centrum in time for Kyle’s train and right into the swing of a much-younger traveller’s plans, and all that goes with the quintessential Amsterdam visit. The city was still throbbing with tourists and football fans amping up for the following day, and I was afraid that Kyle was going to be disgusted by the crowds and whores and sex-tourism. He sort of was. But we wandered outside the city centre as the sun set and the humidity took a break. We didn’t have the wildest Amsterdam night, which I feel guilty about for Kyle’s sake, but we spent a good quality evening together. We were both fading fast, having each slept for three hours the previous night, so returned to our sketchy hostel for cold showers and our threadbare beds.
Hours of much-needed sleep later we emerged into another scorcher, expertly maneuvered the growing crowds of orange people, and ventured out of the downtown core to book Kyle a hostel for that evening, plus find the Bloomeinmarkt which I love. The first project, though attempted intermittently throughout the day, was fruitless, but we strolled through miles of tulip bulbs and found less busy patios to enjoy our sparse, but delicious, diet of Heineken, Amstel and chips with mayonnaise. Mid-afternoon we concocted Kyle’s plan to flee Amsterdam for greener pastures (Rotterdam) and arranged a meeting spot with David Gault.
At this point our plan was to check out the once-empty green field that is Museumplein but were definitely noticing that fans decked out in all sort of orangery – wigs, fluorescent overalls, knee-high boots and simple t-shirts – were flowing down Dam Rak to that exact location. It turned out that the police had to close the place off around 3pm because it was busting at the seams. So, instead, we joined David and his friends in Rembrandtplein. I was full of hope for Holland, but didn’t really care that much about the actual football game. And it turned out that it was best that I didn’t stick around. I’m not sure yet if the crowds rioted when Spain was declared World Cup 2010 winner in overtime but I sure hope that Kyle and David made it out of there in once piece.
It is still not 100% official that I did. I made it through an 8-hour workday (one that I thought I was a half-hour late for until I turned up at the office ready to apologize and realized that I was the first one in – and still on Amsterdam time) after sleeping randomly on a bus with a serious snorer right next to me. But at least I made it through a really wild weekend with moments of great fun. Loved spending time with my brother, though not at all envious of his impending adventures. I know he is going to have an amazing time but I also know that there is a time and place for backpacking journeys, and that is in your early 20s outside of the brutal tourist season. I don’t hold Amsterdam responsible either. I have had 10 amazing days there over the course of 10 years and I intend to have many more. Maybe just not over World Cup Final weekend next time.
Roughly 45 minutes later it was a scoreless half-time. I hugged Kyle and David, said goodbye to some new friends, and sprinted off to Waterlooplein to catch an intercity bus down to the Eurolines bus station. For the second half of the game, and the apparently very tense overtime, I listened to the almost incomprehensible Dutch play-by-play from the inside of a bus that would take me overnight from Amsterdam to London. Despite the intonations from the announcer I was still unsure what the outcome was. Not until we stopped to pick passengers up in Eindhoven around midnight did I notice the dejected orange fans moping around the city, collapsed onto front stoops and unenthusiastically lifting their flaming vuvuzelas to their lips. I was really glad I wasn’t in the middle of the Rembrandtplein mob and I wondered how my brother would make out.
Kyle was on Day 6 of a ritualistic post-uni European backpacking trip. The first stop had been in London to visit me, where he proved to be very anti-tourist, having been to the city multiple times, but humoured me with some Soho pub visits and spent time with our British cousins. With Holland advancing into the World Cup Finals and Kyle’s intended next stop after London being Amsterdam it seemed only fitting to accompany him on the second leg of his adventure.
Sure, most 29-year-olds would be weary of a 6:15 Saturday morning flight out of Luton, two days spent in a stifling, tourist-filled Amsterdam capped off with one of the worst hostels of all time for €55 a night, and then a Sunday to Monday overnight bus across Holland, France, the Chunnel and southern England before arriving 10 hours later at the office for a very productive day of employee benefits features writing. But, you know what? You only live once. How often do you find yourself in the very country competing in the quatro-annual biggest sporting event of all time?
So, Saturday morning found me in the Red Light District at 9:30am, sipping an ice-cold Heinie on a patio overlooking the canal. The middle-aged prostitutes were out in full force and the city appeared to be swarming with Brits. I was happy to be in Amsterdam again but wondering what I had gotten myself in to. Kyle was arriving mid-afternoon on the train (he has a Eurorail ticket and youth card so must make the most of it) so it was up to me to find us two beds to sleep in. The city, as seems predictable now, was filled to the limit, hotel and hostel prices were through the roof, and it was looking likely we were going to have to sleep in shifts leaning against our backpacks in Vondelpark.
And then I stumbled upon the sorriest excuse for a hostel that ever was (though truthfully, in my six months on the road back in 2004, I did see worse, and a lot of it). It wasn’t the best way to introduce Kyle to the hostelling life. However, I reminded myself that it could only go up from here. His reaction, upon his arrival at 3pm, made me slightly concerned that this kid was a bit too high maintenance. Granted, we did get charged €55 each to share a dormroom with six other boys, one communal toilet/shower room and ventilation that left a lot to be desired. But we were centrally-located in the RLD on perhaps the biggest weekend in Holland’s history so I think we should feel lucky with what we got. (The next night Kyle endeavored to find a different accomodation but to no avail, and had to instead take the train out of the city to Rotterdam following the match where he hopefully settled into a 120-bed dorm for €12.50 a night.)
Anyways, before the kid arrived, I managed to take care of my tourist-tendencies. I wandered around the RLD, the canals and Nieumarkt to reacquaint myself with the city I so loved. Since navigating is not my strong suit, I wanted to get my bearings before Kyle arrived so that we wouldn’t be constantly lost. I also took the tram out to the Van Gogh Museum which, three visits later, I had still not managed to see. I swallowed the rather inflated price (still stinging from my €55 hostel bed) and enjoyed a couple of hours among Vincent’s masterpieces such as my favourite sunflowers, a few self-portraits and the scarecrows over the cornfield.
Back to the Centrum in time for Kyle’s train and right into the swing of a much-younger traveller’s plans, and all that goes with the quintessential Amsterdam visit. The city was still throbbing with tourists and football fans amping up for the following day, and I was afraid that Kyle was going to be disgusted by the crowds and whores and sex-tourism. He sort of was. But we wandered outside the city centre as the sun set and the humidity took a break. We didn’t have the wildest Amsterdam night, which I feel guilty about for Kyle’s sake, but we spent a good quality evening together. We were both fading fast, having each slept for three hours the previous night, so returned to our sketchy hostel for cold showers and our threadbare beds.
Hours of much-needed sleep later we emerged into another scorcher, expertly maneuvered the growing crowds of orange people, and ventured out of the downtown core to book Kyle a hostel for that evening, plus find the Bloomeinmarkt which I love. The first project, though attempted intermittently throughout the day, was fruitless, but we strolled through miles of tulip bulbs and found less busy patios to enjoy our sparse, but delicious, diet of Heineken, Amstel and chips with mayonnaise. Mid-afternoon we concocted Kyle’s plan to flee Amsterdam for greener pastures (Rotterdam) and arranged a meeting spot with David Gault.
At this point our plan was to check out the once-empty green field that is Museumplein but were definitely noticing that fans decked out in all sort of orangery – wigs, fluorescent overalls, knee-high boots and simple t-shirts – were flowing down Dam Rak to that exact location. It turned out that the police had to close the place off around 3pm because it was busting at the seams. So, instead, we joined David and his friends in Rembrandtplein. I was full of hope for Holland, but didn’t really care that much about the actual football game. And it turned out that it was best that I didn’t stick around. I’m not sure yet if the crowds rioted when Spain was declared World Cup 2010 winner in overtime but I sure hope that Kyle and David made it out of there in once piece.
It is still not 100% official that I did. I made it through an 8-hour workday (one that I thought I was a half-hour late for until I turned up at the office ready to apologize and realized that I was the first one in – and still on Amsterdam time) after sleeping randomly on a bus with a serious snorer right next to me. But at least I made it through a really wild weekend with moments of great fun. Loved spending time with my brother, though not at all envious of his impending adventures. I know he is going to have an amazing time but I also know that there is a time and place for backpacking journeys, and that is in your early 20s outside of the brutal tourist season. I don’t hold Amsterdam responsible either. I have had 10 amazing days there over the course of 10 years and I intend to have many more. Maybe just not over World Cup Final weekend next time.
Friday, 2 July 2010
Canada Day In Trafalgar Square
When Canada turned 143 yesterday, Queen E was in the capital, telling everyone on Parliament Hill that “Canada is an example for the world.” I have spent only three Canada Day’s away from Ottawa and I have to admit, besides the frenzied patriotism that fills the capital on 1 July, London is my favourite non-Ottawa Canada Day so far.
My previous ones, which include the Forks in Winnipeg, a lack-lustre Toronto and a long weekend with black bears in Algonquin Park, just didn’t show up the way Canada Day in Trafalgar Square did. I swear, every single expat Canadian living in the country was down there yesterday.
In order to create more of an authentic atmosphere, London imported the following:
• a makeshift Tim Horton’s complete with M22’s and timbits
• a ball hockey tournament in the square
• a food stand selling, among other things, non-curded poutine
• Sleemans on tap and by the can (though they ran out and started peddling Carlsberg)
• performances by Cirque du Soleil, Sarah Harmer, Hawkesley Workman and Jully Black
• tourism booths set up for each and every glorious province
It was a pretty special day. I was already in a fairly nostalgic place, having returned from a visit to both Ottawa and Toronto earlier in the week, so it didn’t take much to get me in the spirit. Despite a 5.0 earthquake and the G20 protests, I had a truly amazing eight days in Canada and was still running on the homeland fumes.
Since we don’t get a national holiday here, I had to squeeze my Trafalgar Square visits into my lunch hour and later evening. I made my colleague Nicola come down with me at lunch. She had a somewhat vested interest since her Dad is Canadian and she lived there for three years when she was growing up. But I don’t think she was quite prepared for the spectacle on hand (or for the enormous Canadian flag I pulled out of my bag and draped over my shoulders). I sipped a Sleemans and wandered around the square before we had to head back to the office.
After work I had to head to Shoreditch for a work event but I escaped early and headed back to Trafalgar Square around 8pm. En route I picked up a six-pack of Molson Canadian cans then met up with a variety of Canadian friends all around the Square and Covent Garden area.
It wasn’t a late night – the full day even came to an end sans fireworks around 10pm, which was fine by me as I was in dire need of one early bedtime this week. So, despite the fact that I didn’t spend it in Ottawa, I still had a great Canada Day in the heart of London.
My previous ones, which include the Forks in Winnipeg, a lack-lustre Toronto and a long weekend with black bears in Algonquin Park, just didn’t show up the way Canada Day in Trafalgar Square did. I swear, every single expat Canadian living in the country was down there yesterday.
In order to create more of an authentic atmosphere, London imported the following:
• a makeshift Tim Horton’s complete with M22’s and timbits
• a ball hockey tournament in the square
• a food stand selling, among other things, non-curded poutine
• Sleemans on tap and by the can (though they ran out and started peddling Carlsberg)
• performances by Cirque du Soleil, Sarah Harmer, Hawkesley Workman and Jully Black
• tourism booths set up for each and every glorious province
It was a pretty special day. I was already in a fairly nostalgic place, having returned from a visit to both Ottawa and Toronto earlier in the week, so it didn’t take much to get me in the spirit. Despite a 5.0 earthquake and the G20 protests, I had a truly amazing eight days in Canada and was still running on the homeland fumes.
Since we don’t get a national holiday here, I had to squeeze my Trafalgar Square visits into my lunch hour and later evening. I made my colleague Nicola come down with me at lunch. She had a somewhat vested interest since her Dad is Canadian and she lived there for three years when she was growing up. But I don’t think she was quite prepared for the spectacle on hand (or for the enormous Canadian flag I pulled out of my bag and draped over my shoulders). I sipped a Sleemans and wandered around the square before we had to head back to the office.
After work I had to head to Shoreditch for a work event but I escaped early and headed back to Trafalgar Square around 8pm. En route I picked up a six-pack of Molson Canadian cans then met up with a variety of Canadian friends all around the Square and Covent Garden area.
It wasn’t a late night – the full day even came to an end sans fireworks around 10pm, which was fine by me as I was in dire need of one early bedtime this week. So, despite the fact that I didn’t spend it in Ottawa, I still had a great Canada Day in the heart of London.
Friday, 11 June 2010
Catching World Cup Fever
It probably doesn’t quite capture the mood to simply say that England has World Cup fever. To be fair, if you are anywhere outside of Canada, it is safe to say you know what I’m talking about. And maybe that’s not fair either. Canada may not have qualified for South Africa but they do have a lot of fans. I remember spending a few nights in Little Italy down on College Street last time round and it would not be fair to say that there aren’t football (soccer) fans in Canada. I’ve seen Italy, Portugal, Greece and even England fans get rather rowdy in the streets of Toronto. But for some reason it feels very different over here.
The fever has been building for months and months with pubs proclaiming screening schedules, offices coordinating ways to manage World Cup-related absences (I work at Employee Benefits after all – it’s been big news here), and England flags popping up on every house, flat and storefront. I even purchased a Team England jersey so that I could fit in when heading out to watch the matches.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t actually like footie. Sure, there are some fine-looking men involved in the sport but, no matter how long I live in England, I will never follow football the way I follow hockey. Despite this promise, there is still something about the spirit of the World Cup that makes you want to be a part of it – even if that means just being the token Canadian ex-pat in her England t-shirt, drinking beer and asking stupid questions during the matches.
At the office we just kicked off a World Cup lottery. Editorial and sales staff alike paid £2 to choose a country out of an envelope – or two once we discovered there were leftovers. Even though most of us will be cheering for England, we have our lottery teams to support as well, just for a little extra competitive spirit. Whoever comes out on top wins the envelope of money – a whole £64.
My first pick is Germany and my back-up is Paraguay. Could be worse (I could have picked Slovenia and Honduras like my friend Tynan) or better (I could have picked one of the perennial favourites like Brazil, Portugal or Italy). And while I enjoy supporting the underdogs, I rather doubt the Paraguayans have much of a chance.
Germany, on the other hand, was singled out as a favourite early on. Unfortunately, injuries to the captain, goalkeeper, defender and two midfields could really hurt their chances. Even Franz Beckenbauer, who led his country to World Cup glory as captain in 1974 and then as coach in 1990, does not have a lot of optimism for Germany’s success. Maybe this is for the best though as I hardly want to be caught cheering for Germany in an English pub (If the reason for this is not completely obvious just consider this: 2 World Wars and 1 World Cup).
England, despite its own unfortunate last-minute injuries, also has a good chance. At least according to English bookies. Earlier this week England captain Rio Ferdinand saw his World Cup dreams crushed when he suffered ligament damage to his left knee during the team’s first training session in South Africa. But despite this setback, manager Fabio Capello is being called the reason that England can win the World Cup. And all you have to do is believe it.
So enjoy the kick-off weekend, starting with the Opening Ceremonies earlier today and the first couple of matches – which we were slyly screening on an old tv in one of the meeting rooms at the office this afternoon – and culminating in England first match against USA tomorrow evening. And if you’re interested in a little light reading, check out the news alert I sent out this afternoon at the following link: http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/item/10814/23/5/3.
The fever has been building for months and months with pubs proclaiming screening schedules, offices coordinating ways to manage World Cup-related absences (I work at Employee Benefits after all – it’s been big news here), and England flags popping up on every house, flat and storefront. I even purchased a Team England jersey so that I could fit in when heading out to watch the matches.
Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t actually like footie. Sure, there are some fine-looking men involved in the sport but, no matter how long I live in England, I will never follow football the way I follow hockey. Despite this promise, there is still something about the spirit of the World Cup that makes you want to be a part of it – even if that means just being the token Canadian ex-pat in her England t-shirt, drinking beer and asking stupid questions during the matches.
At the office we just kicked off a World Cup lottery. Editorial and sales staff alike paid £2 to choose a country out of an envelope – or two once we discovered there were leftovers. Even though most of us will be cheering for England, we have our lottery teams to support as well, just for a little extra competitive spirit. Whoever comes out on top wins the envelope of money – a whole £64.
My first pick is Germany and my back-up is Paraguay. Could be worse (I could have picked Slovenia and Honduras like my friend Tynan) or better (I could have picked one of the perennial favourites like Brazil, Portugal or Italy). And while I enjoy supporting the underdogs, I rather doubt the Paraguayans have much of a chance.
Germany, on the other hand, was singled out as a favourite early on. Unfortunately, injuries to the captain, goalkeeper, defender and two midfields could really hurt their chances. Even Franz Beckenbauer, who led his country to World Cup glory as captain in 1974 and then as coach in 1990, does not have a lot of optimism for Germany’s success. Maybe this is for the best though as I hardly want to be caught cheering for Germany in an English pub (If the reason for this is not completely obvious just consider this: 2 World Wars and 1 World Cup).
England, despite its own unfortunate last-minute injuries, also has a good chance. At least according to English bookies. Earlier this week England captain Rio Ferdinand saw his World Cup dreams crushed when he suffered ligament damage to his left knee during the team’s first training session in South Africa. But despite this setback, manager Fabio Capello is being called the reason that England can win the World Cup. And all you have to do is believe it.
So enjoy the kick-off weekend, starting with the Opening Ceremonies earlier today and the first couple of matches – which we were slyly screening on an old tv in one of the meeting rooms at the office this afternoon – and culminating in England first match against USA tomorrow evening. And if you’re interested in a little light reading, check out the news alert I sent out this afternoon at the following link: http://www.employeebenefits.co.uk/item/10814/23/5/3.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
Up North With The Yorkies
My first visit to the English county of Yorkshire did not disappoint, despite the questionable weather that greeted me. I spent the bank holiday weekend staying with my amazing family up north in Knaresborough and venturing around the region to see as much as possible.
I arrived via train to Leeds and then onto the old spa town of Harrogate on Friday night where I was greeted by my cousin Clair’s husband Murry. He nominated himself chief tour guide for the weekend, along with the children from time to time, and Clair when she was up for it. Oliver is 15, which provides him an excuse for spending too much time with us, but the girls Molly (12) and Jessie (9) did join in on most of our Yorkshire activities. It makes me so happy to get to know this extended part of my Holmes family and I can hardly wait to spend more time with them in Tiree in August.
On Saturday morning in the misty fog and sporadic rain I was introduced to Knaresborough, a town that dates back to 1100 when it began to grow as a market town around Knaresborough Castle. The town has been passed through the centuries from Hugh de Morville, who led the four knights who murdered Archbishop Thomas Beckett at Canterbury Cathedral, to John of Gaunt in 1369. The castle fell in 1646 during the Civil War when citizens looted the stone. As a result, much of the town centre buildings are built with the very same castle stone.
Clair, Molly and I wandered along the waterside and had coffee and teacakes in a café that used to be a houseboat. Then we explored the Castle grounds, now just a scattering of ruins and a small museum, and carried on to the market square where England’s oldest chemist shop stands alongside modern shops and local pubs. We also visited Saint Robert’s Cave, a medieval hermit’s site along the River Nidd, which attracted thousands of pilgrims in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
In the afternoon the whole family (minus Ollie) piled into the car to drive around the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, landscapes which would normally be stunningly colourful and stretching for miles. Due to weather restrictions we mostly peered out the windows at heavy mist and wet fields, but this did add to the tragically romantic atmosphere that I expected anyways, thanks to my youth spent reading the novels of the Bronte sisters. The Blubberhouse Moors, which inspired ‘Wuthering Heights’ (wuthering is a Yorkshire word that means turbulent weather), are up here. Because of the mist and fog, I could almost see tragic Heathcliff pining for his true love Catherine.
We continued on to Brimham Rocks, balancing formations on the moor of the same name, which have been around for hundreds of years, formed by erosion, glaciation and wind into the shapes of various animals like the Sphinx, the Watchdog, the Camel, the Turtle and the Dancing Bear. After walking around in the rain for a while we rewarded ourselves with local Risplith ice cream. I tried the gin and tonic flavour (with real gin), which started me on a downhill drinking spiral that carried into the early hours of Sunday morning.
Next we stopped for a pint of a Yorkshire-brewed lager, the Copper Dragon, and I spent the rest of the evening trying to sample as many more as I could, like Timothy Taylor’s and Black Sheep. After Clair cooked us a delicious dinner of fish pie Murry took me out on a pub crawl of Knaresborough where we sampled locally-brewed half pints along the way. We even stopped by a music hall where the 70s rock group Wishbone Ash were performing then carried on to Blind Jack’s where I was allowed behind the bar to pull a pint. Very fun.
The next day Murry, Molly and Jess took me into York for the day. If you’re not going to spend your hangover lying in bed, this is the town to recover in, with walks along the River Ouse, wanders through the shambles and along the old city walls, and a brisk climb up 275 steps to the top of the York Minster (though the actual count is in dispute thanks to Jess’s accurate tally the whole way up and down). We saw straight across Yorkshire from the very top and looked down to see exactly what else we wanted to visit in the town.
York is a walled city with a rich history and the site of major political events in its two millennia of existence. Founded by the Romans in 71 AD and called Eboracum after the British tribes who inhabited the area, it was the capital of Britannia Inferior until the end of Roman rule in 415 AD after serving as court for the Emperors Hadrian, Severus and Constantius I. Over its history it served as the capital of the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria, the capital of the Viking settlement once it was captured in 866 AD, and following the Norman Conquest was named York. Situated halfway between the capitals of London and Edinburgh, the city has had a long past, and is certainly an interesting visit for anyone who enjoys both classic and modern history.
On bank holiday Monday, my last day up North, we drove to the east coast, since the Evans’ were going to be spending the rest of their half-term holiday at a friend’s place near the beach. Besides the slow pace we took in getting there – with traffic that brought me back to commutes out of Toronto on camping and cottaging weekends – it was definitely worth a windy afternoon on the beach before heading back to London. Jess, Molly and I ran into the freezing cold sea up to our ankles then we wandered along Filey Beach where I was introduced to the traditions of a typical British seaside holiday.
I am so lucky to get the chance to visit different areas of this country with family as my tour guides. I had such a fun, historic and relaxing weekend in Yorkshire, and am now counting the days down to more family time in the Scottish Hebrides come August.
I arrived via train to Leeds and then onto the old spa town of Harrogate on Friday night where I was greeted by my cousin Clair’s husband Murry. He nominated himself chief tour guide for the weekend, along with the children from time to time, and Clair when she was up for it. Oliver is 15, which provides him an excuse for spending too much time with us, but the girls Molly (12) and Jessie (9) did join in on most of our Yorkshire activities. It makes me so happy to get to know this extended part of my Holmes family and I can hardly wait to spend more time with them in Tiree in August.
On Saturday morning in the misty fog and sporadic rain I was introduced to Knaresborough, a town that dates back to 1100 when it began to grow as a market town around Knaresborough Castle. The town has been passed through the centuries from Hugh de Morville, who led the four knights who murdered Archbishop Thomas Beckett at Canterbury Cathedral, to John of Gaunt in 1369. The castle fell in 1646 during the Civil War when citizens looted the stone. As a result, much of the town centre buildings are built with the very same castle stone.
Clair, Molly and I wandered along the waterside and had coffee and teacakes in a café that used to be a houseboat. Then we explored the Castle grounds, now just a scattering of ruins and a small museum, and carried on to the market square where England’s oldest chemist shop stands alongside modern shops and local pubs. We also visited Saint Robert’s Cave, a medieval hermit’s site along the River Nidd, which attracted thousands of pilgrims in the late 12th and early 13th centuries.
In the afternoon the whole family (minus Ollie) piled into the car to drive around the Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors, landscapes which would normally be stunningly colourful and stretching for miles. Due to weather restrictions we mostly peered out the windows at heavy mist and wet fields, but this did add to the tragically romantic atmosphere that I expected anyways, thanks to my youth spent reading the novels of the Bronte sisters. The Blubberhouse Moors, which inspired ‘Wuthering Heights’ (wuthering is a Yorkshire word that means turbulent weather), are up here. Because of the mist and fog, I could almost see tragic Heathcliff pining for his true love Catherine.
We continued on to Brimham Rocks, balancing formations on the moor of the same name, which have been around for hundreds of years, formed by erosion, glaciation and wind into the shapes of various animals like the Sphinx, the Watchdog, the Camel, the Turtle and the Dancing Bear. After walking around in the rain for a while we rewarded ourselves with local Risplith ice cream. I tried the gin and tonic flavour (with real gin), which started me on a downhill drinking spiral that carried into the early hours of Sunday morning.
Next we stopped for a pint of a Yorkshire-brewed lager, the Copper Dragon, and I spent the rest of the evening trying to sample as many more as I could, like Timothy Taylor’s and Black Sheep. After Clair cooked us a delicious dinner of fish pie Murry took me out on a pub crawl of Knaresborough where we sampled locally-brewed half pints along the way. We even stopped by a music hall where the 70s rock group Wishbone Ash were performing then carried on to Blind Jack’s where I was allowed behind the bar to pull a pint. Very fun.
The next day Murry, Molly and Jess took me into York for the day. If you’re not going to spend your hangover lying in bed, this is the town to recover in, with walks along the River Ouse, wanders through the shambles and along the old city walls, and a brisk climb up 275 steps to the top of the York Minster (though the actual count is in dispute thanks to Jess’s accurate tally the whole way up and down). We saw straight across Yorkshire from the very top and looked down to see exactly what else we wanted to visit in the town.
York is a walled city with a rich history and the site of major political events in its two millennia of existence. Founded by the Romans in 71 AD and called Eboracum after the British tribes who inhabited the area, it was the capital of Britannia Inferior until the end of Roman rule in 415 AD after serving as court for the Emperors Hadrian, Severus and Constantius I. Over its history it served as the capital of the Anglian Kingdom of Northumbria, the capital of the Viking settlement once it was captured in 866 AD, and following the Norman Conquest was named York. Situated halfway between the capitals of London and Edinburgh, the city has had a long past, and is certainly an interesting visit for anyone who enjoys both classic and modern history.
On bank holiday Monday, my last day up North, we drove to the east coast, since the Evans’ were going to be spending the rest of their half-term holiday at a friend’s place near the beach. Besides the slow pace we took in getting there – with traffic that brought me back to commutes out of Toronto on camping and cottaging weekends – it was definitely worth a windy afternoon on the beach before heading back to London. Jess, Molly and I ran into the freezing cold sea up to our ankles then we wandered along Filey Beach where I was introduced to the traditions of a typical British seaside holiday.
I am so lucky to get the chance to visit different areas of this country with family as my tour guides. I had such a fun, historic and relaxing weekend in Yorkshire, and am now counting the days down to more family time in the Scottish Hebrides come August.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
