Selcouth Chronicles Week 25
Hello family and friends! Welcome to week 25 of the Selcouth Chronicles.
Week 25: June 23 - June 29
June 23: London ->🚗 Stonehenge 🚗-> Bath
June 25: Bath -> 🚗 Rhos on Sea
June 27: Rhos on Sea ->🚗 Thirsk
ENGLAND AND WALES
Highlights: Stonehenge, Roman Baths, High tea, Mr B’s Emporium of Reading Delights, dinner with new friends, smallest house in Great Britain, the Great Orme, English sausages, World of James Herriot, Sutton Bank and Kilburn White Horse
Sean:
This week had destinations that we sought out to visit for various reasons, but outside of our normal “it’s a famous place” tracks. As I have people I work with in the UK, we spent the beginning of the week on trips that allowed me to visit with them and also see some great sights. The end of the week was dedicated to the world’s most famous vet, James Herriot.
Sunday was the day we needed to leave London, so I left the hotel and made my way to the car rental. Due to some delays in me getting to the location and checking out the car, we were a bit late getting out of London. We wound up with an EV, which wasn’t an issue getting to our first destinations, and I was assured that EV charging is not a problem in this area. The reason we needed to get out of London on time was that we had timed tickets for Stonehenge! This was by far the oldest place we’ve visited on the trip, and it had some amazing information before you even made it to the stones. After seeing early man’s architectural marvel, we continued on to our final destination, Bath. We got into the Airbnb, went into town to get some pizza, and then got some sleep.
On Monday morning we made our way into town to see what the city was named after, the Roman Baths. It turns out the only hot spring in Britain is here, and it’s why the Romans built up a sizable city. Romans from all over the empire appear to have made trips to the healing warm waters of the spring. Once we finished the tour of the baths, I split off to meet up with a coworker who lived nearby, and Caitlin and the kids walked the town. We met up later to have high tea! I unfortunately showed up a bit late, and had to leave early, but it was still a fun experience with the finger sandwiches and scones. After that, I was working the rest of the night, but Caitlin and the kids found their way to a wonderful bookstore called Mr. B’s Emporium of Reading Delights. After that was dinner and lights out.
Tuesday was yet another travel day, which saw us making the four hour trek north into Wales. We’d wanted to visit the country on our travels, and as I have another coworker living on the north coast, we thought it made a good combination. The drive was fairly uneventful, with a charging stop in Birmingham before making our way to Rhos on Sea. After a short break to unload and for me to get some work done, we then made our way to Conwy to meet up with Alan (my coworker) and his family, which included his wife and two daughters. This was an amazing time and was a nice opportunity to visit with people for the first time in a long time. After dinner we returned to the Airbnb and called it a night.
Our goal for the next day was to see the walls and the castle in the town of Conwy. The well-preserved medieval walls and castle surrounding the small coastal town are a fun diversion for the day. Unfortunately, large sections of the walls are closed for some “essential conservation” work on the World Heritage Monument. This did put a small damper on the planned wall walk, but following the walls around the city still allowed for some fun views and took us over to the smallest house in Great Britain. This shack essentially had two rooms stacked on top of each other and was condemned in the early 1900s, but is a fun stop to see. Conwy had many fun diversions, such as a clothes store called Smart Ass Menswear, where I picked up some shirts, and a cafe called L’s Coffee and Book shop. From here, we made our way to the Great Orne Park, where I met up with Alan again and the rest of the family took a walk with some sheep. The views were incredible and made me wish we could have spent more time exploring the countryside of Wales. Once back at the Airbnb (I returned earlier to work), we ate some fish & chips (and milkshakes) from a local haunt.
Unfortunately, after dinner our luck began to fail us for the next day or so. We badly needed to charge the car to make the drive the next day, so Caitlin and I left the kids to make our way to a charger. Suddenly we noticed that our phones didn’t have a signal, but luckily we had GPS in the car and were able to make our way to the charger. The fast charger was anything but, and since it required an app to use, we skulked around at a nearby grocery store to use their wifi and stumbled through a charge that after almost an hour was barely more than we started with. With still no signal, we gave up and went back to the Airbnb. After a long hold with Verizon to figure out our phone problems, we discovered that it was an international roaming outage across all the major carriers and said they’d have it fixed by the end of the day. We gave up for the night.
Waking up early Thursday, we were depressed to see that there still was no signal. That meant no internet, no calls, and no texts unless we were somewhere with wifi, which was a huge concern because we needed maps to get to our next destination. Since we still needed more EV charge to get to our next destination, I ventured out and found a charger I could use, but with only a few miles to spare. After that tense adventure, we had enough charge to get to a rental place to swap cars. Without a signal we thought trying to charge would be impossible, so we switched to a good old gas car. With that done we made our way across to Thirsk. We settled into the nice cottage we’d be staying in, walked the property and near roads and called it a day.
Friday was a pure work day for me, spending the whole day in the cottage getting caught up on various things. Caitlin and the kids made their way out for lunch at a special cafe (see James’ section below) then to a location called the Forbidden Corner. This was a maze-like mashup of various oddities that the family made their way through. For instance, there was a giant mouth to walk through and a stockade to take a picture in. Once they successfully left the maze, a trip to the grocery store scored a wide selection of local sausages that we tried for dinner. A family movie closed the evening and we ventured off to sleep.
Saturday was James Herriot day! The fifteen minutes to Thirsk along the small country roads was a fun primer for the proper English village we were to visit. The World of James Herriot is located inside the famous vet’s former practice, and has the plaques of the real names of the vets next to the door. Walking inside, it’s set up very much like the vets had it during their practice days. Caitlin will talk more about the whole experience, but it was quite something. From there, we ate some fish and chips and mince pie at a local spot looking out over the market square. Finishing lunch we ventured out to the Sutton Bank park where Mr. Herriot said the “finest view in all of England” could be found. It was a wonderful view out over the fields and moors of Yorkshire. Turning away, we made our way over to the Kilburn White Horse, a figure carved into the side of the hill, over an acre in size. It was a beautiful walk along the ridge with a bit of a hike down and back up to see the horse. Returning to the cottage, we all agreed that it was a wonderful place and could see why James Herriot grew so fond of it.
Abby:
You could ask anybody what Stonehenge is and I could almost guarantee that the person would have heard of it. However, there might be more history to those thick stones than you have guessed!
Stonehenge, as everyone knows, is very old. In fact, it is even older than the pyramids of Egypt! The pyramids were actually built 500-1,000 years after Stonehenge was first constructed. The first version of Stonehenge was built 5,000 years ago, and was just a large ditch with maybe some wood posts or stones. Scientists think it was used as ceremonial grounds. 500 years later, big bulky stones called sarsens were carried from Wiltshire, England. Stones called bluestones, which were smaller but still big, were brought from 140 miles away in Wales. It must have been hard to transport all those stones! The average Stonehenge sarsen weighs over 30 tons. At the site, there was a challenge set up for people to pull on a sarsen stone and see how strong you were, which they measured by how many men you were worth. I wasn’t worth any men in strength (of course 🙄) but Dad equaled the strength of 5-10 men!
After the stones were transported, it took over 800 years for Stonehenge to evolve to what we see now. The sarsen stones were left in their original spots, but the bluestones were moved many time and sometimes destroyed. There are many theories about what Stonehenge is. For example, there are legends that the bluestones from Wales could heal people, so the site may have been used as a place for people to come if they were hurt or sick. People also believe that the stones may have represented dead ancestors, because they have found cremated human bones around the area. I think the theory that sounds most likely is that the stones were used as markers for the summer and winter solstices. I also believe that the theory about the ancestors could be true. It might even have been more than one thing at once.
I found Stonehenge to be a fascinating mystery, and I hope archaeologists and historians will keep trying to solve it. Even though I had seen pictures of Stonehenge before, it was very cool to see it in person in all its stoney glory.
Caitlin:
If you’re a friend of mine, you’ll know that I love to read. In fact, you might say that I need to read, because in addition to reading for pleasure I always read to fall asleep. Even though some nights I can only manage a page or two before passing out, it’s so much a part of my routine that there have been hardly any nights in my adult life that I haven’t fallen asleep to a book. It’s not uncommon for me to be in the middle of more than one book, and of course I have my favorites that I’m happy to return to, but there’s one author that tops them all, whose stories I am more or less constantly rereading in between and alongside all others: James Herriot.
I was first introduced to James Herriot on a family trip when I was around seven years old. We were traveling in a camper van and my dad would read the stories to my sisters and me each night. James Herriot is the pen name of Alfred Wight, who lived in England’s Yorkshire Dales beginning in the 1930’s. His books chronicle decades of his life as a country vet, and I can’t think of any other author whose books evoke such a wide range of emotions from me: some stories make me laugh out loud, some make me cry, and some are heartwarming. The characters - animal and human - are as familiar as old friends. As I’ve often said, these are my literary equivalent of a warm fuzzy blanket.
The bestselling books have been translated into 18 languages and inspired multiple television series over the years. The books are written with great affection for the people and creatures in his life, and a deep, abiding love for the countryside in which he practiced. Having read James Herriot’s descriptions of the Dales for most of my life, I’ve been very much looking forward to seeing the place in person, as well as the museum that was created in his honor. The World of James Herriot museum is located in the building where James first worked and lived. The downstairs rooms have been restored to look as they would have at that time, and it was great fun to mentally match them with what I’ve always pictured as I read. The museum also had a lot of information about the real people behind the books’ most beloved characters, and we enjoyed learning more about their lives. The upstairs, where the family bedrooms used to be, are dedicated to an interactive children’s area and a museum about the history of veterinary medicine, and in an adjacent building there are sections detailing the various television shows. In fact, immediately before our arrival in Thirsk, there was limited access to the museum as filming for the current series was taking place there.
It was such a gift to be able to see this part of England, which I’ve been wanting to see for most of my life. It was even better to be able to share it with Sean and the kids, and listen to James and Abby laughing as we listened to the audiobooks while we drove in the countryside. My only regret is that my parents weren’t able to join us in the fun, but they were in our thoughts as we witnessed this literary world come to life. Thanks Mom and Dad!
James:
This week, many of my favorite experiences were focused on food. As every week goes by, I experience more and more new things. I learn new history, see new places, and sometimes even hear new sounds. One of my favorite things to have a new experience of is food, and this week we had plenty!
On this trip, we have eaten a lot of pizza, especially in Italy. Normally, the only thing that really, truly varies is the type of toppings. The crusts, on the other hand, usually only change in thickness and not much in flavor. One creative restaurant called Dough (in Bath) decided to change all that. They had a wide variety of crust flavors to choose from, including hemp and gluten-free seaweed. We personally went for turmeric, kamut (sweet, nutty, and buttery), and gran arso (smokey and nutty), plus chocolate for dessert! They all tasted wonderful with their toppings, and I am so glad that we tried their specialties. It was fun to try something so familiar made in such a different way!
While we were in Bath we had another fun new food experience: afternoon tea! It’s the classic British pastime. We ordered the full tea, and it came on a tiered serving tray. It was stunning to look at with its rows of sandwiches, beautiful ceramic teapots, scones with clotted cream, and tiny, sweet treats. I didn’t love all of the sandwiches, and the chocolate dessert was a little too intensely chocolate for my taste, but all the rest of it was wonderful. It felt exciting and fancy, because all I had known of afternoon tea was that it was a stereotypical British lunch thing. Now I realize why they do it: it’s such a good way to get your spirits up! I found it was a nice way to hit the pause button on my day and just enjoy myself.
When we moved on to Wales we stayed near a town called Conwy. In this town, we found a café bookstore which (as the name suggests) not only sells food, but books as well. I was sold! When we sat down to eat, my first thought was that everything on the menu looked delicious. It definitely lived up to my expectations in taste, but what I loved the most about being there was that they had combined two things that don’t normally go together, but happen to be some of my all-time favorite things: eating and reading. It’s the perfect combination!
Our most unusual food experience this week (maybe on this trip… maybe ever) was near the small town of Thirsk, after we returned to England. It was called the Maple Park Café, and it had very good reviews online. It looked excellent, so Mom, Abby, and I decided to make our way over there. As we drove in, we noticed something strange. There was a sign that pointed to hearse parking. This was very confusing, and Mom started to wonder if this was the right place. But as it turns out, the café was right next to the hearse parking. Once we got out and started to go into the café, we discovered something: this café was sitting right next to a crematorium! We almost left, but we didn’t really have any other place to go nearby, and the food did look really good. It was a little bit hard to enjoy ourselves there, especially when a funeral party came out next to the giant windows. Everyone was very somber and sad, and I felt awkward eating a giant sandwich just feet away from them. And do you know something? The café’s reviews were spot on: the sandwich was, in fact, delicious. It just felt wrong to enjoy our food so much while we were there!
I can’t believe that this all happened in one week. I’m so curious – and maybe slightly apprehensive – about what the weeks to come will bring!
See you next week!
Sean, Caitlin, James, and Abby
p.s. How long did the international outage last? 3 long days!
Catching up? Read week 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, or 24.