Here is the new post that I should've written over a week ago. I've been putting it off over and over because I have not been in the mood to write
at all. But it's been over a week, and writing a new post has now officially become this looming chore hovering over my head, which is a pretty good indication that I need to just sit down and write. So my apologies in advance if this post is less than stellar. I will try my hardest to be entertaining!
So, last weekend, along with Tanya, Astrid (flatmate from Bavaria), and Astrid's visiting parents, I went on a day trip to the Peak District. Our first stop was the town of
Bakewell, which is this incredibly picturesque place. Most of you have seen the pictures Tanya took for me (I managed to forget my broken camera at home, completely ensuring that I was unable to take pictures. Just in case it was thinking about working, you know). Our bus arrived in Bakewell at around 10, which was before any of the shops were open. We met our tour guide, who was this really friendly and funny local lady, and she took us on a morning walk around the town. We walked down to the River Wye (pronounced like "why"), and saw some
massive ducks. They were like the size of geese. Tanya couldn't figure out why I wanted a picture of them so bad, and was completely confused about my lamenting there was "nothing in the frame to provide a sense of scale." Apparently monster ducks are normal for her. There's a picture up of them, but you can't tell that they're huge. Trust me though, they were.
ANYWAY (though I'm sure you all are rivited by my duck-centric tales -- get it?
Ducktales? I dare you to click on that link.), the walk was beautiful, though very cold. It was a gorgeous day — totally clear skies with a bright fall sun. The sun doesn't shine here that often, but when it does, it makes everything incredibly beautiful. It's hard to describe in words, but maybe you can see how vibrant everything gets from the pictures. All the colors are just over-saturated to the point of unbelievability. It's absolutely gorgeous. We saw sheep and cottages, all framed by the green rolling hills of the peaks. I got to talk with our guide a little bit while we were on our walk, (I just strike up conversations with people now; it's this new thing I'm trying.) and she was super nice. She did the hilarious thing that lots of people do here when I tell them where I'm from: "I'm from Oregon, the state right above California." "Oh are you, love? I've got a nephew in Oregon!" {expectant look, like maybe I'll have met him} "Oh, umm, neat!" {disappointed look} This never fails to amuse me.
After walking by the river, we headed up the hill to the Bakewell parish church, which was founded in 920 AD. It was extensively renovated during the Victorian period, however (Victorians liked to renovate things, and generally had zero respect for preserving historical integrity), and therefore looks very gothic. The church is situated on the highest hill in Bakewell, so the view from the graveyard is fantastic. I saw my first real-life celtic cross here, and I was blown away by how beautiful they are in person. Pictures really don't do the intricacy of the engravings justice. There was a big fenced-off one that everyone was congregating around, but I noticed a smaller, more intricate one to the left of the church. I went dashing over to that one, and the guy from the Uni of Sheffield who was in charge of the tour came over, probably to make sure I wasn't doing anything I shouldn't be. They really like you to stay with the group on these tours — something which I am really, really bad at, and don't particularly care to be good at. It turned out that he's doing medieval studies at the Uni, though, so I got out of trouble by striking up a conversation about British history.
We ended our walk by winding through cobble stone streets until we were standing outside of a little bakery, which had a sign claiming that shop as the sole possessor of the original recipe for Bakewell pudding. (According to our guide, three shops in Bakewell claim this). Our group was provided with samples of the pudding, which is actually almond-flavored custard on top of a fruit preserve, baked in a pie crust. For the British, the word "pudding" is pretty much synonymous with "dessert." It's slightly confusing. After sampling the pudding, we were given slices of pork pie, which, I acknowledge, sounds kind of sketch. It was absolutely amazing, however. It tasted like Thanksgiving stuffing and gravy wrapped in pastry. Okay, so maybe that doesn't sound all that good, either. But it was actually super tasty, especially after a freezing morning walk! I got all teary because the taste reminded me so much of home.
After having our samples, we went on to sample cheese at another shop. Most of it was blue cheese —bleh— but I sampled it anyway. It tasted like blue cheese. You all can take that statement as you will. Right beside the cheese shop was a Hallmark store, which I found horrifying. Here we are, in this lovely English village, and there's a
Hallmark? Really? Anyway, after cheese we got chocolate samples, and then headed over to Portland Square (yay!) for our whiskey samples. I'd never had straight whiskey before, so I was a bit apprehensive. (Do you take it like a shot? Am I supposed to sip it like a wine connoisseur? Will I be able to do that without inadvertently spewing it all over?) Tanya was even more nervous about it, however (she won't even drink straight beer; she gets it mixed with soda —it's weird), so I tried to pretend to be a big kid for both our sakes. The whiskey turned out to be really pretty good, though. It was like 70£/bottle stuff, imported from Scotland, so it should have been! I chose the "fruity and exotic" kind, as opposed to the "dark, bold" one. Playing it safe, you know. I tried to sip it, but felt my control over my face failing (I was trying not to make the post-tequila shot face) and drank the rest as quickly as I could without looking desperate. My face got hot, then cold, then
super hot, then tingly. It was interesting. I could actually taste the fruity tones, though, so I felt cultured.
After we finished out "taster trail" we had about an hour to wander around in Bakewell and find ourselves something to eat. Tanya and I found an cute old tea shop and got coffees and scones with jam and clotted cream. We had a couple extra minutes after that, so we went back to the Bakewell pudding bakery and got chicken mushroom hand pies for the road. So yummy! We managed to find our way back to the bus, and headed over to Eyam.
Eyam, pronounced "eem"is the cutest place I've ever seen. It's tiny, tiny, tiny, but's it's relatively famous for being "the plague village." The short version of the story (click on the link for the Wiki long version) is that, in 1665, the plague broke out in the village. Once the reverend of the town figured out what was going on, he convinced the townspeople to quarantine themselves instead of fleeing. This effectively stopped the sickness from spreading to any other villages, but a huge portion of the population of Eyam died. Some estimate over half. The graves of the plague victims are still visible in the church graveyard, and the "plague cottages," where the illness started, are still standing and lived in.
There's a bunch of other cool things to see, too, including the original town stocks; a medieval manor, Eyam Hall; and an incredible 8th century Anglo-Saxon cross. The cross was beautiful. To give you an idea of how old and awesome the 8th century is, here's a link to the epic poem Beowulf, which was first written down in the same period this cross dates from, preformed as it was meant to be, in Old English. (
CLICK ON THIS) Did you listen to it?? Listen to it. Seriously, it's worth it. It's like the most badass, gruesome poem ever.
"They have seen my strength for themselves / Have watched me rise from the darkness of war / Dripping with my enemies' blood." ~Beowulf, a manly-man.
So yeah, that cross is from the same time that awesomeness was going on.
To continue my story, we got to wander all through the village, and went inside the church. The church has extant medieval murals painted on the walls and beautiful stained-glass windows, but unfortunately they don't allow pictures taken of the inside. :( The graveyard of the church is huge, and is full of
lots of fascinating gravestones (we got pictures of some of the best ones). There's sections that are creepily unkempt and where the tree roots have pushed under gravestones to the point where you almost expect to see bones churned up.
On our way back to the bus, we grabbed a hot drink from a tea shop. I got hot chocolate (I'm still on my mysterious hot chocolate kick. No end in sight), and Tanya got a latte. We were late to get back on the bus, but this time it didn't leave us (unlike the Chatsworth bus!).
Our last stop was a viewpoint named
Monsal Head, which is situated on a high point above a valley crossed by a 1800's (now-closed) railroad bridge. We hiked down into the river valley, walked along the river, through a forest, and back up around the other side. It was absolutely gorgeous. Muddy, fallish with turning leaves, green, and the perfect walk. My only annoyance was that on the way back up I got stuck directly behind these two girls who were, umm... we'll just say they were not accustomed to walking very much. They spent the entire hike up squealing over the mud, slipping on leaves, and generally walking
ridiculously slowly. They were meandering. I hate meandering. I wasn't particularly in a hurry, but I was about 2 seconds away from shoving the both of them up the trail. I controlled my impulse, however, by contenting myself with, as Jane Austen says, "repeating to [myself] some few of the thousand poetical description extant of autumn — that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness — that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling" (
Persuasion. Read it if you haven't; you won't be sorry).
So we finished our lovely hike, got back on the bus and rode 45 minutes back to Sheffield. I then proceeded to book it home and stay up until 3 in the morning frantically writing an essay on the arguments for cannibalism in the British Neolithic. (As a side note, the arguments are totally legit. 3000BC Europeans ate each other. It's not totally clear if it was widespread, but there's at least two proven instances of it, and one of them was highly ritualized, which argues that it wasn't a one-time, survival-based deal. Crazy, I know.)
So there you go, that was my Sunday. It was, needless to say, very eventful, strangely morbid, and unsurprisingly literary.
