Friday 2 August 2013

My Yorkshire Holiday - Bits and Bobs

Some thoughts and pictures that would not really fit in with any of the other posts, but which I hope will nicely wrap up my "Yorkshire Holiday" series of posts:

These are for John, who has been writing about letter boxes several times on his blog. Even if you are not a letter box aficionado like him, I strongly recommend a visit to  "Rambles from my Chair" - I promise you will always find something interesting, entertaining, hilarious, thought-provoking or fascinating there (sometimes all in one post!), and he always has great pictures. Especially the ones of Ivy! Go and find out what (or, rather, who) I am talking about.


John, I would have liked to take even more pictures of letter boxes for you, but sometimes there were too many people about, and I know how sensitive people are to having their picture taken by a stranger - even if that stranger is not even remotely interested in them, but in the letter box. Still, I wanted to show you that I thought of you during my Yorkshire Holiday.

This was my main course (goats cheese lasagne) and dessert (brownie with vanilla ice and chocolate sauce) at "The Terrace", a restaurant in Ripon where my sister-in-law had booked a table for the four of us on Thursday night.
It was as delicious as it looks, and because the staff was so very friendly, we kindly did not hold their inefficiency against them (does it really take two people at the same time - getting in each other's way - to put cutlery on a table for four? And then remember that you actually forgot some of it, and have to go back for the forgotten items, and come back again to the table?).




While I was on the train, I wondered about the announcement that is made shortly before each stop. Not only are passengers told what the next stop is (which is very useful) and what trains they can change to (which is, again, very useful), but they are also politely reminded to take all their belongings with them.
Now, why is this a standard part of all such announcements? Nobody deliberately leaves their stuff behind when they get off the train, to they? And those who are a little forgetful/chaotic/confused - will the announcement really make a difference? Honestly, I don't think so. And those who are inconsiderate and rudely leave all their rubbish behind (empty crisp bags, newspapers, plastic bottles and the like) certainly won't suddenly, with a downcast, guilty look on their face, collect their rubbish from their seat after they hear the announcement.

Trains are good for thinking, at least for me (not quite as good as walking, but close). Something else I was thinking and wondering about: Why do people, when they book seats on a train, make sure they get a window seat - and then do nothing but read, write emails, send texts on their mobiles or play games on their portable game consoles?
A logical explanation could be that they don't like being exposed to possibly being touched by other passengers who move up and down the aisle and brush against them, either because of the train's own movement or because they are not paying attention. Still, when I am on the train and I have a window seat (booked or not), I enjoy looking at the scenery out there, especially when it is somewhere as beautiful as in the Pennines.

I've already been back for almost two weeks, and it has taken me this long to tell you about my Yorkshire Holiday of one week. See - by blogging, you turn one week of holiday into three :-)

ADDENDUM: There are two more points I meant to mention but forgot when I first wrote this post.

When we were in Pateley Bridge at the Nidderdale museum, I was especially touched by something I saw in one of the rooms. That room was the Victorian schoolroom; you can see it if you click on the word "Nidderdale museum" here in this post and then on "gallery". The schoolrom is the 2nd picture in the top row. Have a look at what is written on the blackboard: "Good children make glad parents". Ever since I saw this, it has remained with me, and I can't even explain what effect precisely it had on me, let alone why. Does it happen to you, too? That sometimes you come across a line in a song, a book, on a poster, in conversation with someone, and those words somehow touch you on an unexpected level, quite by surprise, and you can't really explain why and how?

One hugely contributing factor to the great week I had was, of course, the weather. See what BBC's "Look North" weather correspondent Paul Hudson has to say about it on his blog. Interestingly, he mentions the summers of 1975 and 1976 as having been very hot, too. Those years were in the middle of childhood for my generation, and the summer of 2013 is naturally in the middle of childhood for another generation. It is this kind of summer that will stick forever in the memories of those who are young now; they will always associate "summer" with a seemingly endless succession of glorious long, hot, sunny days, and when they get older, they will tell their children about how summer used to be so much nicer when they were young, just like they will be convinced that winters were always spent in snow-covered wonderlands. 
If you look at long term weather statistics, you will see that there hardly is such a thing as a "typical" summer or winter, and yet it is what we do in our minds; we like to keep things "sorted", it seems. Human memory is not very reliable in the first place (ask any Police officer who has to deal with witnesses of road accidents!), and we all have a tendency to modify our own memories as we go along. That is not a bad thing, because it mostly is there for our own mental wellbeing. But every now and then, it can be useful to remind oneself of what it really was like. For me, sometimes revisiting my own old blog posts serves that purpose, although they don't go back that many years.

19 comments:

  1. I like the letter boxes photos and your meal photos show delicious looking food. Train travel would be relaxing, I agree.

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    1. Trains are my usual means of transport for middle and long distance, and I mostly enjoy the journey. What I did not enjoy was the air conditioning on the Transpennine Express - it was FREEZING!! Yes, I know it was sunny and warm out there, but there was no need to make the inside of the train feel like being inside a fridge :-) I was glad of my cardy!

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  2. Interesting question about why someone should want a window seat and not look out and admire the view. Perhaps some people who travel on the line frequently take the view for granted or are just not interested in scenery. Perhaps some people don't like sitting in an aisle seat where they may be bothered by people asking them to move when they want to get in and out of a window seat. If I'm booking a train seat (which would be likely to be a long journey) I always choose a window seat but may well spend some time doing other things than admiring the scenery even though I enjoy doing so. On a long-haul flight though I always choose an aisle seat because I get up frequently and would rather people disturb me if they want to get up than have me disturb them.

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    1. That's true; when I am on the train to work, I don't look at the scenerey (it being an industrialized area anway) often, but I read, and I remain stood up - it's just not worth bothering to find a seat for the 17 minutes of the ride, and with me being seated at the office all day anyway.
      True about the people getting in and out, and wise of you to choose an aisle seat on the long-haul flights; gives you more leg-room, too.

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  3. Maybe it's the same reason I try to get a window seat on a plane -- I hate having people crawl over me to get in and out. Once I'm in, I'm usually in for the duration. Plus, I can turn to face the window and ignore the person next to me if I don't want to talk! xoxox

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    1. I actually don't mind people moving past me, unless they are doing it all the time (which rarely happens). You are right about the window giving the advantage of not having to talk. A book or my kindle do that job for me :-)

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  4. I like to look out of windows, but never take trains here in the States. I love looking out the windows of trains in Germany or Hungary. But sometimes I read....You remind me of taking the train from Ravensburg to Friedrichshafen. Alice, Nathan and I boarded the train ahead of my bil and sil who had the tickets and were so afraid of having a ticket inspector check. But luckily none did and Mike and Joshi ended up driving instead of using their tickets and still it took an hour for them to find us after they arrived!

    I have really loved reading your blog about your holiday and seeing the pictures!

    Your pictures of pillar boxes reminded me of a Hungarian relative who came here and traveled around the country taking pictures - nearly exclusively - of the connections for fire hoses in American cities because he'd never seen anything like them in Europe. And we don't have the lovely British post boxes.

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    1. My kindle is my faithful travel companion, and even before I had it, I always had something to read with me for longer train rides and plane trips. So, even I don't stare out of the window non-stop :-)
      Glad you weren't "caught" that time when you were travelling without tickets - the inspector would of course not have believed you that someone else had them.

      Our post boxes are yellow and not very sightly, just functional. Not really worth photographing, I think (but then again, a true mail service enthusiast may think different).

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  5. That is why i like taking holidays and blogging about them, also!

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    1. Yes, isn't blogging good in so many ways!

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  6. I also love the photos on John's blog, RAMBLES FROM MY CHAIR, but I truly cannot look at the photos of Ivy too much, that cat looks so much like our Minnie that we lost in April, it makes me too sad.

    I used to love the trains in England during the 80's, the seats were more like comfy chairs or sofas, and the lettering on the trains looked like something from the 40's or 50's! I very much enjoyed the journey from Eastbourne to London, the train would clickety-clack and the noise and the movement would almost lull me to sleep!

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    1. That lettering probably looked like that because those trains WERE from the 40s or 50s, Kay. Nowadays, you get a mixture of older (80s) and newer trains, depending on the company who runs that specific line. The Transpennine has become all modern, with freezing air conditioning and all in blue-grey colours. The smaller local train I take for my last stretch between Leeds and Harrogate looks a bit older and, if it does have air conditioning, at least it was not set to "freeze" :-)
      I like train journeys, most of the time.

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  7. What a long and interesting post, with all kinds of things in it. I love John's blog too. There is a Victorian pillar box not far from us which was going to be removed. The locals made such a fuss that it has been kept, but it is not used. It has been closed and is used as a street ornament. A strange idea, but it is an unusual box, to be sure, six sided. The pillar box down the end of our road is Victorian as it has VR on it, but it is nothing special.
    Your meal looks wonderful, so let's hope the restaurant takes the hint and improves the service - have you sent them a link to your review?
    It is funny how some expressions do strike a chord. One that resonates with me is "Many a true word spoken in jest" - which I have often found to be true.
    I like a window seat even if I am reading (although I admit, I do spend quite a lot of time looking out of the window). I think it is the feeling of being connected with the outside world.

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    1. I am sure John would like to see a picture of the six-sided Victorian pillar box!

      The restaurant does not have a website, otherwise I would have left a message there.

      Glad you liked my bits & bobs!

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  8. I do like the red letterboxes. (In Sweden we have yellow ones like you.) I think an additional factor that makes the English letterboxes stand out a bit extra may be that the houses are so often made of natural stone. The red makes such a stark contrast. About memories of summer, I also think we tend to remember the holidays best, especially travels, things that break the normal pattern. When I think back it is usually by the summer acitivities that I date things (and also tend to judge the whole summer by what the weather was like during the one or two or three weeks that I was off somewhere away from home).

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    1. Your explanation sounds logical, Monica. I am sure you are right. Some things in my life I date around travelling, too, but also around work or the year I moved to this flat and similar "milestones".

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    2. Yes, of course. Things like leaving school and moving and starting new jobs etc are at the top of the "memory list" for me too :)

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  9. Your addendum is fascinating Meike. I went to the photo before I read on and had to go back to read the writing on the blackboard and check for other things I missed the first time. Then I realised that I must have misread one or other of the board or your recollection and had to go back for a third time and check. It made me realise how perfunctory are my first look at things. In actual fact what was written on the board was "Good children make happy teachers." Not that that alters the thoughts behind it.

    As for memories you are so right. I remember the winter of 1947 (I was 3) and to me the winters of my youth were always cold and snowy with the insides of the windows iced up in the morning with our breath having frozen overnight. The summers on the other hand were always hot because I can remember sitting on my bedroom window sill looking out over the gardens behind because I couldn't get to sleep in the heat. Of course neither is a true reflection of the general weather then: just of snapshots that I recall.

    As for witnesses as you correctly point out nothing could be less accurate than the average witness recollection of what was seen. I can vouch for that.

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    1. You are almost right there, Graham - on the photo, the blackboard says "Good children make glad teachers" (at least that's what it looks like to me). But when we were there, it read "Good children make glad parents". I know they do change the exhibits from time to time, and hold lessons there for school children, so maybe someone wiped the blackboard and wrote a different message on it after the picture was taken.

      I am glad that my addendum caught some interest. It is what I so like about blogging, this exchange of thoughts and ideas; so uni-lateral when one is merely reading a book or a paper without actively participating.

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