Postcards From Across the Pond

The secret to stress-free (or stress -reduced) driving in Britain is to give yourself as much time as you can muster. There is nothing worse than starting out on a five-and-a-half-hour drive at 9AM and needing to be at your destination by 3PM only to find yourself stuck in traffic jam after traffic jam and watching your ETA move from 2:30 to 3:00 to 4:15 to 6:28 …

And so, on our recent trip to Yorkshire, we left when we were ready, drove up using a slower but more scenic route, and arrived when we arrived. No stress. Except:

We also had the advantage of the SatNav, though to get Her (that’s what we call the SatNav: Her) to accept that we were going on a slower route, we had to keep disappointing Her by taking turns She didn’t authorize and not turning when She really, really, really, wanted us to.

As we were neared our destination, however, I felt certain She was taking us where we wanted to go via the route we wanted to take and began following her directions with confidence. And she made me drive straight through the city of Bradford.

I’m sure She did this just to get back at me for ignoring Her on the first leg of the journey.

But, as I said, we were in no hurry, and we arrived without incident, and we enjoyed our tour of Bradford (at least now we can say we’ve seen it, and we don’t need to go back) so there was nothing to complain about.

Skipton is lovely. We mooched around the market and stopped at a Morrisons to lay in supplies, and still got to the cottage in plenty of time.

Our cottage was spacious, comfortable, and well kitted out. It was also modern and stylish, but there is such a thing as too stylish.

I don’t think it’s too much to ask to have common appliances you can operate without needing to refer to a user manual. The fridge and freezer, thankfully, were not among them, but they were difficult to find, as they were hidden behind panels that looked identical to all the other panels in the stylish, modern kitchen. No, I am talking about the oven and the hob.

It took us half an hour and repeated references to the user manual to figure out the oven, but the hob completely defeated us. All I wanted was to brew some coffee, but turning on the hob required both of us reading and struggling to interpret the user manual, repeated attempts at turning the hob on, and then discovering that, since it is an induction hob, it doesn’t heat up, and therefore doesn’t cook anything. Or, at least, not my coffee, because it’s not induction compatible.

Eventually, my wife was able to get the hob to work. The key is, you need a pot made of something magnetic, which my coffee maker is not. But this gave me an idea. If the pots can be heated up, then I could put the coffee maker in a pot and have the hob heat the pot and the pot heat the coffee maker.

So, I tried it, and it worked. Sorta.

The downside was, whoever had last used the pan had not cleaned it very well, and the hob became covered in baked-on grease. I was able to get most of it off, but only most.

Then I put the pan and the coffee maker in the sink and washed them. Thoroughly. When I finished, I noticed that the aluminium coffee maker had left marks on the pristine, white sink which, try as I might, I could not shift. It’s like no one had ever used the kitchen before, and I wondered if that might be the case. People don’t go on holiday to cook and clean; they go on holiday so they don’t have to cook and clean. We’re the only people I know of who go food shopping on the way to a holiday so we can cook at home all week.

Whatever, the modern, sleek, pristine kitchen now looks well used. They should thank us for bringing a bit of authenticity to the place, but I doubt they will.

Sleek and modern as the kitchen was, it was nothing compared to the shower. I have seen some complex showers in my day, but none had me standing in the tub for a full five minutes pushing levers and turning values in an attempt to simply get some water to run. Then, after finally achieving a flow of ice-cold water, it took another ten minutes to figure out how to make it warm and come out of the proper shower head.

It’s a tap FFS, not the control panel of a German U-Boat!

And, despite a user manual, we never did figure out the how to turn the heat on.

On the other hand, the bathroom had 4-star toilet paper, and the toilet had a soft-close seat, so that sorta made up for the downsides.

And the location of our cottage was perfect. It was right on the Liverpool to Leeds Canal, and I mean right on. If you stepped out the door and walked six paces, you’d be swimming. That’s if you weren’t run down by a cyclist whizzing by as you stepped onto the canal path.

There was actually a sign telling us to look both ways before we stepped out our door.

And just down the path a ways were views like these.

Having benefited from unexpectedly fine weather the last few holidays, and having seen the dire forecast for the week we were in Yorkshire, we assumed that the Weather Gods were done with us, but for some reason, they continued to smile. There were a few spots of rain over the week, but it always happened when we were inside. All our excursions were met with little more than clouds, and more often than not we enjoyed sunshine and mild temperatures.

One of our rambles took us to Hardcastle Crags, which included a hike to a cotton mill.

After that we went to Hebden Bridge—where we had lunch in a place called The Really Good Sandwich Shop which served, as advertised, a really good sandwich—before visiting yet another Morrison’s supermarket.

On another day, we visited East Riddlesden Manor, a house originally built in the 1600s. It was small, but unexpectedly delightful, and boasted the best National Trust café I have ever visited.

Mostly we visit old castles that have been abandoned for centuries, so this was a treat. As a local manor, it changed hands many times and was occupied as late as the 1940s.

The café was in one of the outbuildings, and it was charming and peaceful and served a very fine scone with clotted cream and jam.

While there, someone told us about Bingley locks, which were not far away, so we went.

The Bingley locks are also on the Liverpool to Leeds Canal, and at Bingley, they have five locks that take the canal boats up, or down, an elevation of 60 feet over a distance of just 320 feet. It was opened in 1774 and right from the start drew spectators. We were lucky that a boat was just pulling in to be raised when we got there, and we were able to see the entire operation. Then we went to the Canal Side Café for another really good sandwich.

On our last day, we went to Haworth, where the Brontë sisters lived. The entire village is like a memorial to the Brontë family, and it is ever so twee, but in a grim, wuthering heights sort of way.

The main street can be very crowded in the summer with tourist, and local traffic has a time getting through.

We travelled home on a bright, sunny day, with the Weather Gods watching over us , which was a good thing because, during the seven-and-a-half-hour drive (that was supposed to take five and half hours), we ran into multiple traffic jams and, stress-free or not, it would have been dreary sitting through them in the rain.

Not incidentally, along the way we decided that, the next time we visit the North, we’re going to take the train.