This was our last day in Yorkshire and we were a little sad about that because so far it was definitely our favorite part.  David had told me that we were returning to Ireland for the last leg of our journey.  At one point I asked if we could please just stay on in England, but alas our itinerary pushed us forward.

We headed to the town of Helmsley where we planned to stop and make a plan for a hike in the surrounding hills.  Before our hike though, we were headed for Rievaulx Abbey, a place that David had mentioned to be his favorite place on the planet.  In a former visit he had a memorable spiritual moment there and he wanted to return to that special place.  By the way, I had some inkling that this special place may soon become even more significant to David and me, but I kept my thoughts to myself…

After a stop for ice cream and a survey of the small town of Helmsley we went to the visitor center to find a map.  That turned out to be quite a challenge because the city governance had insisted on taking down all signs indicating where the visitors center was, strange!  We made it there eventually, got what we needed, and were on our way to the magical abbey.

Rievaulx is a tiny village dominated by the ruins of a monastery that was ordered to be destroyed by King Henry VIII back in the 1500’s.  For some reason, part way through the demolition, the orders we canceled leaving us with the frame of a cathedral which is quite beautiful for a lover of architecture and the natural world.  David insisted that we depart from the audio tour’s instructions and finish rather than begin at the abbey.  So we had a look around the old place, marveling at what life was like for a Benedictine monk 700(ish) years ago.  Entering the cathedral was indeed beautiful and we took in the different views slowly with attention to the reverence that surely possessed all who had entered when the building was in completed form.

David led us up front to the altar stone.  As I was gazing up and away, he sank down to his knee and asked me to marry him as he held up a pretty little ring.  It was a beautiful moment, picture perfect in design and execution.  I said yes and after a bit of reveling in our moment we departed feeling pretty darn good!

In my limited experience as a bride to be I’ve learned that most people want to know about the ring.  David presented me with the simplest ring possible so that I would have some tangible symbol of our engagement, but the plan was to design a ring upon our return home.  How did it fit?  Pretty well since David had measured my finger in my sleep and given my size to the jeweler.  The only catch was he measured my right hand, so it’s a little loose on my left.  Where did he hide it throughout the trip?  He’d stowed it in an little plastic bag and safety pinned it to the inside lining of his luggage.  When we got to our B&B in Yorkshire he hid it up atop one of the beams in our room.  Good thing I’m essentially a lazy person;  I’d done a couple pull ups when we first arrived, but hadn’t kept up my regimen.  Back at Christmastime my mom had given David my Grandma’s diamond to use in a ring.  This is great because it saved us the cost of a stone, serves me as a constant reminder of my beloved Grandma, and isn’t newly extracted from some distant and corrupt place.  Getting ahead of the story a bit, but what the heck, it’s about the ring; being that David is a great lover of gothic cathedrals and he proposed to me inside the ruin of one, we’ve opted to carry that design theme throughout our marriage celebration.  The ring we designed has a rose window on top with the bands shaped like gothic columns coming up to it.  Once it’s on my finger, we’ll post a picture.  At the moment I’m counting the days till it’s ready for wear.

As we approached the car, David delivered his last bit of surprise news:  we were actually going to Paris the following day, no more Ireland for us (excepting that we had to fly back from the US from Dublin)!

We still intended to hike and had a plan, but David’s feet were hurting so we opted for a short scenic jaunt before heading back to our cozy B&B.  Unfortunately we misread the map and did not find a particularly scenic walk through a vast unending field of some sort of brown woody bush.  I found it downright ugly, David wasn’t quite as disappointed, but it was a short walk nonetheless.  We’ll have to save that scenic hike for our next trip!

We were back for dinner at our favorite place in good time and got home in a hurry so as to get ready for an early morning departure.

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We woke up to a very tasty English breakfast prepared by our hostess, much better than our other hotel’s breakfast!

This was our day to visit the town of Thirsk where James Herriot (Alf Wight in real life) lived and worked as a veterinary surgeon.  I was looking forward to this since I’ve loved hearing the stories that David’s been reading to me for almost as long as we’ve been together.  We had just read the chapter about the candy store proprietor so we were particularly keen to find a similar sort of shop.  Apparently many businesses have taken the lead from the world famous books by Wight and named themselves after businesses in the stories tricking unsuspecting tourists into thinking that they’re visiting a place that their beloved characters had once frequented.  Incidentally, in the aftermath of writing world famous books, Wight was commended with an award for putting Yorkshire on the map as a destination for visitors.  We were recommended to visit a shop but alas, it was post Herriot.  That didn’t really take away from the fun though and we left with plenty of treats.  With that we headed to the Skeldale House museum to peek into the former home of our favorite author.  It was fun.

Andy, the proprietor of the Staveley Arms had given us some maps of walks around the area.  We had chosen a walk that went by some water falls, and old castle, and the town where Herriot and his wife had honeymooned many years ago.  We started with a wrong turn that took us away from the falls, so we missed that.  As far as I can tell the only reason we ever reached the castle was because it was up on a hill and we could keep our eyes on it, but then I might be discounting David’s navigational skills too deeply.  I had always loved the idea of the public footpaths through farmers’ pastures and it was quite fun for me to tromp along toward our destination.  My experience was especially enhanced because I was reading The Omnivore’s Dilema by Michael Pollan and I was in the pastoral section of the book.  Here I was having my own pastoral expedition!  We encountered lots of animals just as I had hoped we would.  Our first meeting wasn’t actually too much fun though, we came into a field with lambs, sheep, AND rams.  As far as I can tell it was the rams that made the difference.  Subsequently we walked through lots of other pastures with sheep and lambs, with little consequence, but this first time was different.  Our presence was definitely noted and monitored closely by the protective papas.  We were on guard and moved along quickly.  It made me a little nervous since I haven’t had experience with big protective male animals, but it was also fun and David assured me we’d be fine. Nonetheless he had us walk along the perimeter fence!  As we made the final approach to the castle we came upon a house with a little barking dog who was tied up right along our designated footpath.  As we came closer we realized she was just barking for us to hurry up and come pet her!  We stayed with her a while since she was enjoying our company so much.  Eventually two sweet little girls came out to collect her.  We continued on past a few chickens and then came to some cows and a donkey munching away on a bale of hay.  We stayed with them a while enticing them over to the fence with some fresh grass that we picked.  As we climbed the hill to the castle we took note of the sun sinking quickly toward the horizon.  It was going to be a fast and furious walk back, but for some reason we weren’t particularly rushed.  We were just going to be off when a chicken came clucking toward us from around the corner of the castle.  She seemed to be quite intent on checking us out and we were pretty amused.  Her interest was short lived though, (no food, we think) and we moved along toward the path David had determined we should take.  Now was the time for David’s navigational skills to be put to full use and he was diligent about cross checking the map, signs, and compass regularly.  The walk was quite beautiful but did make me a bit nervous since our only source of light and warmth was fast retreating for the night.  We were walking so fast though, I guess the warmth didn’t really matter.  Mother Nature did bless us with one more memorable moment:  we saw a newly born little lamb still connected to the mom by a cord.  The little one was all yellow and slimy, the mom couldn’t be bothered by anything other than eating grass and there was one other little lamb nearby who seemed to be calling for help.  As far as we could tell no one else was coming along to say hello, so it seemed that the new arrival had a cold night ahead.  Only after we reached the car (it was quite dark by then) did David confess just how badly his feet were hurting.  Flat feet suck!  We raced home crossing over and passing by the route we had just walked and were lucky enough to reach the Staveley Arms right around 9p, still in time for the chef to cook us some food.

We had to take great care to pack our bags because Ryan air has strict weight requirements and we’d had enough with paying hidden fees.  When we dropped off the car David asked the attendant about the M50, he said yes indeed we’d be charged and that we could get the whole story from the desk staff.  So off we went, a little sad to leave the nice people of Ireland, but relieved to be escaping the expenses of another day in Dublin.

The flight to Yorkshire was quick and easy.  We landed, got the car and headed to our lovely little B&B.  The iphone didn’t work, I wasn’t sure whether to be grateful or worried that we’d be perpetually lost, but it all turned out okay and with only one wrong turn and back track we made it to the lovely town of North Stainley.  Our hostess was quite friendly and the accommodations were really comfy.

It was about now that we considered curling up in the bed and sleeping the day away.  One of us (I forget who) had the resolve to get us up and out of the room.  With such beautiful surroundings, it really is a waste to stay inside!  We had the little matter of laundry and hungry tummies so we headed back to Ripon to get a bite and find a Laundromat.  The food wasn’t too good, typical English pub fare.  And it was served up by a gal who was talking constantly to a friend who was visiting her.  She was friendly enough, but pretty distracted by her conversation.  So we were in and out of there pretty quickly.

We found an all natural shop to buy some laundry detergent and headed a few doors down to put our loads in the wash.  While David went off in search of some water to cure my hiccups I stayed behind to monitor the clothes.  In came a gentleman and a cute little girl.  He had to run out to change his money so she and I stayed there together, I kept asking her questions to which she pretty much answered yes or no.  David and our new friend came back and we had a fun chat about artwork and the US Bill of Rights. This chap was brought up by art forgers who ‘did it for fun’. Then we went our separate ways.

Back at the house we headed out for a walk around the town which ended up being just around the periphery of a pasture.  It was another less than ideal hike, but at least we were moving about and not asleep in the bed.  Then we headed to the Staveley Arms located across the street from our B&B.  We were 2 of 6 guests in the place and the proprietor cooked a tasty meal for us.  The Arms and the The Coach house are both businesses leased from Lord Staveley who lives in the big house adjoining our modified stable accommodations.  We drove up to his place by mistake when we first arrived, we could tell immediately that it was the wrong place:  definitely not a coach house!