2014 - York Remembered

Syvart taking a break from his Cambridge studies.

In 2014 Taylor and I went to Europe.  We had amazing adventures as have been previously reported in Twice Knit.  However,  the reason for this wonderful trip was to see our son Syvart.  Here he is, waiting for lunch in a tearoom in York.  What a wonderful memory for all of us. The Cambridge days are over. Syvart now works and lives in Arlington VA with his wife Iris.  Taylor and I are still travelling, trying to see what the rest of the world is like.  Next stop, India in November 2016, followed by Taiwan in December 2016.

Exeter's Cathedral

Exeter was our entrance and exit to Devon.  We only stayed one night, before flying to Jersey.  It is memorable to us as the city with the lovely old cathedral, and as the city where we walked miles out of our way to visit a laundromat.

On first entering a cathedral I am always amazed by the grandeur and godliness.  However, the more I snoop around, the more I become aware that these huge buildings are built by and for men.  I was charmed by this old door in Exeter's cathedral.  It has a hole in it, because one of the bishops, from long ago, had a cat.  This is the cat door.

I'm not going into the story of the laundromat, but rest assured that we had clean clothes when we got on the airplane.

Jersey

The isle of Jersey sits 14 miles off the coast of France. It was occupied by Germans for 5 years during WWII.  The island has 45 square miles with old German military bunkers, towers, etc scattered throughout. The War Tunnels were built to be a hospital to treat wounded soldiers if the allies attacked Jersey.  It was built largely by Russian slaves. The tunnels are immense.

The Jersey War Tunnels

Elizabeth Castle is the only castle I've seen that was refitted by Germans to be a military post in modern days.  The flag is the St Helier Flag, but it is on a German gun tower. It was really eerie to see how much the Germans accomplished on this island during their occupation. We walked on a causeway during low tide to get to the castle.  At other times a person has to take a ferry.

Elizabeth Castle looks like a normal 16th century castle.

Other than becoming depressed over WWII, we found Jersey to be a lovely island with lots of sunny bays.

And good seafood.

Cornwall Lost. Devon Found

Our original plan, after leaving Dartmoor, was to make our headquarters in the village of Dartmouth,  a harbor town that hangs on the hills dropping down to the River Dart.  It's on the edge of Devon, and on the way to Cornwall.  We assumed that it would be easy for us to explore the coast line, driving west to go in and out of the Cornwall villages that we've seen on so many BBC shows.

Reality struck, however, during our drive from Princetown in Dartmoor, to the coast.  The quality of the drive convinced us that we needed to get into our parking spot in Dartmouth and abandon the car until we leave for Jersey.

Dartmouth is on the mouth of the River Dart.  It is a smallish village that rambles down to the river.  Once we parked the car, we were able to walk every where.

This is the road leading from our B&B to the center of Dartmouth.

There are lots of little alleys and stairways leading off the streets going down to town.

Dartmouth Harbor is very picturesque.

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It was a beautiful day for a ride up the River Dart on the Christie Bell to visit Agatha Christie's summer home and garden.

Now that I've seen this house, I want to reread some of Agatha Christie's mysteries. She used this house and grounds for some of her settings.

Agatha wrote all over the place.  However, I liked the look of this little corner in her Fax Room.

We rang the bell at the ferry dock at Agatha's to catch the ferry to Dittisham.

Here's the ferry.  It's looks more like a large row boat.

We mooched about Dittisham.

The tide was out.

Thatched roof.

All in all, we have decided that Devon is lovely.  Although we would love to visit Cornwall, we think we can appreciate that area just as well, if not better, watching the British shows from the comfort of our own home.

Keep Calm and yada, yada, yada

We are off the moors, and back into civilization.  This means that driving should be easier.  Right?  Well, the answer is no.  Now there are more cars, higher speeds, and the same narrow roads.  More differences are curbs, round abouts, and large vehicles.

We're trying to keep calm, but it's challenging. It's hard to make a cuppa while driving.

Two annoyances have occurred today:

• We learned, after being unable to get cash from Barclay's Bank with our Bank of America debit card, that our card was compromised last week and the bank cancelled our card.  That's good.  But, why didn't they send us an email, or phone us, to let us know that we no longer have a cash card?  We had to suss this information out by calling the bank's emergency number - on our long distance nickle.  As it turns out, they can't accept collect calls from mobile phones.  Where does a person find a land line in this day and age?
• Tyre got a puncture.  We just spent several hours waiting for the British version of AAA to come change the tyre.

Where are we?  In Dartmouth.  No more driving until we go back to Exeter on Monday. This is why:

This is the road that we walked down to get to the Dartmouth town center from our B&B.  In addition to people walking, cars go up and down this street.

Dartmoor - Day II

Last night we walked from our B&B, The Tor Royal Farm, to the Plume of Feathers pub and drank one and a half pints each of the local Jail Ale. That helped erase the nightmare of our first day of driving. We started driving again today.  We found that it wasn't quite so bad, even when driving down one track, two way roads.

We drove to the charming town of Widecombe-in-the-Moor.

Ponies on the village square.

St Pancras Cemetery, outside the church door.

St Pancras.

Grocery shopping for vegetables.

Grocery shopping for eggs.

Thatched roofs.

Next we drove, mostly on two lane roads, to the larger town of Tavistock where we enjoyed lunch at the Panier Market.

Lunch at the Panier Market in Tavistock is kind of like eating at the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia

Walking to and from the car park in Tavistock was charming.

After poking around the market, we drove to Merrivale, where we hiked on the moor, just like Cathy and Heathcliffe from Wuthering Heights.  We found a stone circle, stone rows, cairns, tors, standing stones and Tavistock Asburton stones.  The earliest stones are dated from c2500-1500bc.  I found it amazing that we could just wander around among this history with no signage and no restrictions.

Tavistock Ashburton stone.  The A means that I am facing toward Ashburton. Tavistock is behind me and there is a T on the back of the stone.

Standing stone.

Stone Circle.

Stone rows.

We finished off our day with a hike back to the pub, Plume of Feathers.  This time we turned last night's one half mile walk into at least a 5 mile walk by hiking there on the moor.  Naturally, we were unprepared for such a walk, and ended up lost and walking through the driving rain.  Fortunately, we found the pub before nightfall.  Tonight, one pint each of Jail Ale was all we needed to go with our chicken pot pie.

Tomorrow, we drive to the coast - Dartmouth.

Three Isles in the Hebrides

July 13 was big day for us.  2 bus rides, 2 large ferry rides, and 3 smaller boat rides to visit a wee bit of the Hebrides.

We started and ended our trip with this huge ferry.

Looking across the harbor in Oban at the ferry that takes people to Mull.

We got on the Caledonian MacBrayne with tourists, locals, dogs, etc, all bound for the island of Mull.

On Mull, we boarded a coach with the lovely driver, Colin.  Colin entertained us with stories of the island as he drove us across Mull on a one track road.  We shared the road with oncoming traffic, sheep and highland cows.  The island is only about 30 miles wide to our destination, but it took a full hour.

At the edge of the island, we stood in the pouring rain to board a smaller boat headed for the isle of Staffa.

A lot of us were crammed onto this boat.  Many of us had to stand on the back deck, in the rain.

We hiked along the edge of the cliffs to peek into Fingal's Cave.

We hiked in the other direction to see the colony of puffins.                 

From Staffa, we took another small boat to the Isle of Iona.  A man named Columba started the first Christian community here in 563.  It was ransacked later on by the Vikings. We saw the Abbey that has undergone many reconstructions.

We also poked around what was once the nunnery.

We were lucky that the sun came out while we were on Iona.  We had extra time to walk around in the sun, and to appreciate what a hidden gem this island is.

When the sun comes out on Iona, the children jump into the clearest water imaginable.

This shop looked very appealing to me.

The cows enjoyed snoozing in the sun.

Goodbye, Iona.

Bits and Bobs about Western Scotland

I'm practicing Scotch/Brit speak, hence,

Here are a few bits and bobs:

• The Scottish have the finest cuisine that I have experienced in all my travels.  Every meal has been outstanding.

• Right now, black and white horizontal stripes are on trend - for both men's and women's clothing.  Red pants are also popular, but I am too shy to take a photo of anyone wearing them.

• There is a lovely glen on the island of Mull.  It is inhabited solely by sheep, and there is no electricity in the area.  The weather in Mull is mostly rainy year round. The council saw fit to install a bus stop/shelter in the glen.  Since there is no electricity, they installed solar panels on the roof.  When there is enough sun, the shelter lights up at night and is apparently quite lovely sitting by itself in the glen.  There are no people to take the bus. There was no way for the driver to stop the bus for a photo of the actual bus stop, but this is what a glen looks like.

• The weather is often dirty in western Scotland. Surely you can figure out what that means.

• If you are offered tablet, it means a piece of candy that resembles butterscotch fudge. 

• This is not tablet, but have you ever seen anything cuter?

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  Knitters throughout the world are nuts.