Adventures with Rosie Around the World : Lovely England

So I arrived on Monday evening into London and made my way to the hotel where my friend Drew was already waiting for me. Was good to see a face from home and catch up on all the news and hear about his travels around Europe.

Next morning we caught a train up to Ilkley, West Yorkshire to spend the week with some lovely family friends of mine, the Beesons. We dropped off our luggage and then wandered around town and got the lay of the land. It's a small quaint little town full of coffee shops. You can walk straight up into the moors from behind the Beeson's house, and there is a river right below town. We've done a bit of exploring around the place and it's lovely to be in the English countryside once again.

One day we took a steam train to a village called Haworth, made famous by the Bronte sisters. We visited the parsonage where they lived and composed their novels. A very sad story with all six bronte children dying before they reach the age of 40 (2 before they turned 12), and their mother also died while they were very young. Their father outlived them all until he was in his 80s. It seemed like a very bleak sort of town and the sanitary conditions were awful in those days. Glad I live in this century.

Bronte Parsonage

Scones always make me smile :)

Haworth train station

We had a very cold, rainy day yesterday so Drew and I did some planning in the morning at the house (mainly Drew who figured out where to go and how to get there) and then found a couple of coffee shops to sit in for a while before braving the rain and having a walk by the river.

This is pretty much what our day consisted of

Today we went to Bolton Abbey and did a walk along the dales and along the river. Then had a lovely pub lunch in a village called Linton. This afternoon, because the sun was still shining, Drew and I rambled along the moors directly behind the house. Was lovely and invigorating.