The Romantic Road

And so for a week in the romantic Cotswolds, home of the 'Chocolate Box' village and the gentle rolling countryside in viridus extremis (which might be Latin for very green).

Doing the Cotswolds is a torturous days work in anyone's language, but with an air of joie de vivre, I set off to do the 'Romantic Road' motoring tour, as you might call it if you were driving a Morgan with the top down.

First stop Moreton-in-Marsh (the names alone have a sugary caramel centre), where there's no shortage of attractive buildings, but the traffic thundering through the main street spoils the quaint village atmosphere we tourists crave. I take to the bike and cycle off down a country lane for a mile or so and back past a duck pond which has a little house in the middle with ramps for the ducks to walk up.

Next stop is Stow-on-the-Wold. Rather hilly here which allows a glimpse of some lovely countryside as you look down the street. These little villages usually have a good bakery, and S-on-the-W is no exception. I buy a pastry (have I told you I'm a pastry addict since arriving in this pastry-centric country?) and cycle around for a bit.

Back in the car and off to the Slaughters, first Upper then Lower. Now this is more like it. Here we have the dreamy little village with the stream running by and the only commercial venture is a grand hotel in the traditional style called the Lord of the Manor.

An American couple have arrived at the same time as me and are looking around for the shops, while I'm pouring tea from the Thermos and enjoying my pastry. They ask at the hotel and find there are no shops. They tell me the hotel is mighty fine and I should have a look, which I do.

It has a large and beautiful cottage garden at the back and sweeping lawns in front which culminate at the stream where a double cascade waterfall is visible for the enjoyment of the G&T sipping guests on the terrace.

I have a peep inside at the elegant entrance hall, sitting room, and bar which have a 1930s sort of atmosphere. Oh for a week here playing ladies!

Lower Slaughter is as charmingly devoid of shops as Upper Slaughter, although there is an art exhibition for the tourists who want something more to do than take in the scenery. The houses are beautiful and a little stream flows gently through the village.

Two young American girls ask if I will take their photo. One is from Virginia and is here to start university in St Andrews, Scotland, next week. Her friend from Washington DC, has come with her for a couple of weeks holiday and to see her on her way.

My head is starting to spin a little, I'm not sure I'm cut out for the motoring tour. You know what it's like selecting perfume, after sniffing three of them they all start to smell the same. I'm feeling rather like that with the villages and have to make sure to write notes after each one.

The next is Bourton-on-the-Water which does have shops. It also has a most intriguing model village. It was created during the 1930s by the publican of the Old New Inn (only in England!), and local craftsmen, in the back garden of the pub.

Not only is it a model village, but a model of this village, in 1/9 scale. Every house, shop and church is here. Even the River Windrush running through, complete with the lovely stone footbridges that can also be crossed in the real village. Well most days the river is running but not this one, some problem with the pump.

As you walk past the Church of St Lawrence you can hear the choir singing a hymn, and the clock in the church tower is the correct time! The gardens have bonsaied trees and shrubs, and ground-covers with miniature flowers, and neat green lawns. It really is wonderful.

After cycling around the real village I hit the road again, but it's getting late in the afternoon by now, so no time to stop in Burford if I want to see the 15th century stained glass at St Mary's in Fairford.

Beautiful. The lady watching over proceedings tells me it has recently be refurbished, glass cleaned and lead repaired. It had to go to York for this work to be done by the experts. I can't begin to imagine what that would cost.

Heading home at last via Bibury. The houses in this little village are so beautiful that I must stop for just a few more photos.

I'm totally knackered after the Romantic Road Motoring Tour and pour myself a goodly draught of red and sit down to ponder the natural and the man-made beauty this country has on offer.

A Tesco Tart

I'm in love with Tesco, the supermarket king! Tescos can provide your every wish. What care I if dozens of Umpa-Loompas are beavering away somewhere, if small farmers are being held to ransom by this corporate giant, or if children are slaving in rice fields and tea plantations. Actually I do care, but love is making me blind. I'm just a Tesco Tart!

Constable Country

I've decided, in an effort to speed up these ramblings, to choose one special day from each week to tell you about. But which day? This is the dilemma.

We've moved on to Suffolk now and I have to decide which of those special days was the most special. Will it be the visit to the magical, moated Oxburgh Hall? Or the day I got lost on Wicken Fen? Or perhaps the day in Bury St Edmunds, the town where Sam Weller met Mr Pickwick at the Angel Hotel in The Pickwick Papers, not to mention it's wonderful Abbey ruins set in beautiful, peaceful gardens for all to enjoy. Or what about the day cycling around Cambridge, now that was a special day. But I think perhaps it will be the day spent in Constable Country that I most want to tell you about.

John Constable, the renowned landscape artist, was born in East Bergholt in 1776, the son a wealthy corn merchant who owned the mill in Flatford, on the river between East Bergholt and Dedham.

The young John walked each day from his home in East Bergholt to school in Dedham, passing on his way all the beautiful countryside of the Dedham Vale wherein flows the River Stour in Suffolk.

These were the landscapes he grew to love and started to sketch at a young age. His father wanted him to get a real job, as fathers do, but John eventually won him over and, at the age of 23, was enrolled at the Royal Academy School, and within a few years was exhibiting his work at the Royal Academy.

He was a little ahead of his time as an artist and the stuffed-shirts at the Royal Academy couldn't abide his nature studies and pictures of old cottages and cows munching grass.

The French embraced his romantic, earthy style and he sold many pictures there but few in his native England during his lifetime. He is said to have influenced the work of his contemporaries in France, and later still the impressionist movement drew inspiration from his work.

To start my day in Constable Country I decide on a peaceful rural walk as set out, in what appears to be adequate detail, in a magazine at The Stables, my very pleasant abode for this week in Suffolk. I take the precaution of tucking the mag into my back-pack for reference purposes.

The walk commences in the car park of the Red Lion pub in East Bergholt, proceeds in the opposite direction from my destination, circles around and ends up in Flatford. Sounds easy? Well, yes it is until the 'now go down the hill' bit. This is not a fully adequate instruction when there is a choice of two hills to go down.

I hardly need mention that first I go down the wrong one. Trudge back up and down the other one. The path now disappears altogether and becomes some flattened grass on the edge of a field. I press on and come eventually to a Footpath marker. These signposts can be seen all over the country indicating the public footpaths that criss-cross this small island.

Now the problem with these signposts is that they don't actually tell you where the footpath is going. I think you are expected to have a compass and an Ordinance Survey map in your hip pocket, and not just be wandering around with a magazine containing clearly inadequate directions.

Naturally I head off in the wrong direction but luckily I find some elderly walkers out for a bit of air, and they set me straight, so I make it to Flatford without further ado.

I approach from the far side of the river through a field that has a herd of docile cows grazing or drinking at the river, oblivious to the numerous people walking to and fro on the path through their field to Dedham.

The first building that catches the eye is Bridge Cottage situated just over the little hump-backed bridge. It is painted white and has a thatched roof, making it about as picturesque as they come. This is the National Trust Visitor Centre which has a good exhibition relating to the life and times of John Constable. Here you can sign up for the guided walking tour.

Our guide has a collection of pictures in his folder and as we walk around from one spot to the next he shows us just what this or that painting depicts. Willy Lott's cottage, which is featured in 'The Hay Wain' looks just as it did then, also the mill and the dry dock, the ordinary everyday things of the time that Constable loved to paint. We are not fortunate enough to have a 'Constable sky' today which reminds us all the he too had to wait for those clouds to billow up in an azure sky.

The old Granary is a privately run B&B, but the mill; Willy Lott's cottage; and the Medieval Hall House, Valley Farm, are all owned by the National Trust and leased to the Field Studies Council who run residential and day courses in arts and environmental subjects.

For those who like messing about in boats there are row boats for hire near the bridge and on a pleasant day one can scarcely imagine a more delightful pastime.

The Brits certainly do a good job of preserving their 'sacred' sites. This place is almost close enough to London to smell the petrol fumes but still looks much as it would have looked 200 years ago to a young boy on his way to school.

Beautiful Bodnant

It's farewell to Wales after a trip on the funicular tramway up the Great Orme, a giant lump of rock to the north of Llandudno forming a headland about two miles long, where the Irish Sea stretches to the horizon, the Snowdonia Range marches away to the south, and the wildlife are free to be as wild as they like.

I can't really leave Wales without a trip to the Bodnant Garden, reputed to be up there with the best. And indeed it is. The site slopes away to the River Hiraethlyn and beyond. The areas around the house are a feast of terraces, lawns, lily ponds on an enormous scale, walls, steps, flower beds, wonderful old trees and a celebrated Laburnum Arch that draws photographers from all points of the globe in the springtime, when its pannicles of wisteria like blooms hang in a yellow festoon from the curved tunnel.

As you strike out for the river the garden looses its formality and the path meanders through shrub borders, trees and paths of mown grass until you reach an impressive Mausoleum in its own little garden.

Then down some steps to a tinkling stream with ferns and all manner of greenery around. Eventually the stream joins the river just above a man-made waterfall. A bridge crosses at this point to the opposite bank where the path heads off to the old mill through a glade of stately California Redwoods.

Another bridge and a climb uphill where the path must be a delight in the springtime, flanked as it is by Camellias and Rhododendrons.

A stroll around the Lily Terrace and the Rose Terrace then I'm off to a B&B at Kidderminster in Worcestershire before setting sail for Suffolk on the morrow.

A word of advice for any of my female readers who fancy setting up a Bed and Breakfast establishment to make a few quid on the side: don't go away for the weekend and leave your husband in charge. And please, try to site your B&B on a road that actually appears on a map!

All Things Welsh

I must tell you that Wales is a bit of a blur and two days does not do it justice at all. I ventured as far south as Brecon through countryside not dissimilar to Scotland. So perfect are the farms they could be a model laid out on a board with hedges and trees and sheep and cows and lots of green grass and a farmhouse, then tilted up at 45 degrees (all the verticals self-righting).

The signs are written in Welsh first and English second so by the time you've gone slightly cross-eyed getting through the Welsh bit with all the 'llsywnd-b-coywd' sort of stuff you've whizzed past the signpost and still have no idea what it said!

My drive through the mountains of Snowdonia heading to Caernarfon has nightmarish qualities that are often associated with 'B' roads: narrow, winding and in this case mountainous. This is, in fact, an 'A' road but a jolly poor excuse for one I'd say. The Sat Nav and I are locked in a battle to the death, it got me onto this road and now it doesn't want me to follow the signs that clearly say CAERNARFON. I might as well look out for Mt Snowdon (1085m) while I'm here, but there are so many candidates for very high mountains that it's hard to pick. I pull into a lay by and take a picture of what must surely be it, but later discover it's Moel Eilio which is way down the list at 726m.

I eventually reach Caernarfon and what a magnificent place it is, but no time to linger it's off up the coast heading to the bright lights of Llandudno where our last story ended. Just before the turn-off to Bangor the huge rocky cliffs plunge straight into the sea and the road is cut through the rock like a mouse-hole. There is something quite awe-inspiring about this sight.

And so the day ends sitting by the water on the Promenade at Llandudno, eating the best fish & chips ever, listening to the call of the gulls gliding overhead. Surely a sound that says 'seaside' like no other.

It's Only a Paper Moon...

Do you remember that movie called The Truman Show, where, unbeknownst to him, What-his-name Truman lived in this totally artificial and manufactured world?

Walking into Portmeirion Village is a lot like walking into the Truman Show.

This little village, overlooking the beautiful estuary of the River Dwyryd, was the brain-child of Welsh architect, Sir Clough Williams-Ellis. He spent 50 years, from 1925 to 1975, developing this Italianate extravaganza near Porthmadog in Wales.

He was the father of Susan Williams-Ellis, founder of the Portmeirion Pottery Company, who named the company, presumably, after dad's beloved Portmeirion Village.

The only residents of the village are paying guests at the fairy-tale castle, Castell Deudraeth, Hotel Portmeirion or the self-catering villas around the village. The rest of the buildings are given over to shops, cafes etc.

Sir Clough apparently had a thing for Portofino in Italy and, although he denied basing his Welsh fantasy village on Portofino, there is reputed to be an overall similarity between the two.

As I walk around I can't help feeling I've strolled onto a movie set, or even wandered into Willy Wonka's factory, as one has the distinct urge to lick a wall or snap off a piece of windowsill because they really could be made of candy.

The village has in fact been used on numerous occasions as a movie set (much cheaper than lumping all your stuff to Italy I guess), and, most notably I discover, as the set for the 1960s British TV series 'The Prisoner'. There is a 'Prisoner' shop here, and a 'Prisoner' convention is held annually. Now I don't know the first thing about this show but I'm guessing it's not anything like our Australian 'Prisoner'.

Many famous people have visited and stayed in Portmeirion including Oscar Wilde who, I believe, wrote Blithe Spirit while staying in the hotel!

The gardens are beautifully tended, everything perfectly clipped and manicured, and the Italianate pool is too perfect to be real, but there's water splashing about so it must be real.

Gwesty Hotel sits on the furthermost tip of this little illusion, looking onto the estuary and backed into a wood. It has it's own swimming pool for guests, set in lawns a little distance away, and just to complete the surrealness of your Portmeirion experience, there is a pretend yacht anchored just below the hotel. At least I think it's a pretend one, I fear I may be loosing my grip on reality. Am I looking out across really truly beautiful golden sands stretching away, at this low tide, to a sapphire sea? Or are those distant ripples just a painted canvas backdrop moving in the drowsy afternoon breeze?

I leave in the nick-of-time before the hole in this fantasy dimension closes over forever leaving me adrift on a cardboard sea, and hit the road for the delights of a balmy Llandudno evening, cycling along the Victorian Pier and the magnificent promenade oblivious to the 'No Cycling' signs that are pointed out to me by the Promenade Police the next morning! Ha! Too late she cried!

A Revolutionary Bridge

I decide against visiting any of the ten museums in and around Ironbridge, opting instead to cycle through the beautiful Ironbridge Gorge from Jackfield to Ironbridge following instructions lifted from the internet.

As with most instructions there are a few gaps that could well do with a bit of padding out. But never-the less, I make it to Ironbridge without getting lost more than two or three times, having a nice chat with a lady from a walking group along the way. She tells me she had the chance to become a Ten Pound Pom when she was sixteen and wishes she had. Water under the (Iron)bridge eh?

I have a very delicious pastie from a shop opposite the famous bridge and sit nearby contemplating the fact that the decorative quality of a structure was once important even when working with a 'new' material. I fear that art is lost in the structures of our present day. Or should I say scale and proportion seems lost? For weird and arty structures have appeared in recent years but will they stand the test of time? On the other hand, you couldn't get anything more weird or arty than Gaudi's famous cathedral in Barcelona, now could you?

I walk over the bridge, now only open to foot traffic, and cycle through the trees beside the river back to Jackfield.

Having rejected the idea of museum visiting, I decide, after all, to visit the Jackfield Tile Museum. This area is apparently not just famous as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, but has jolly good pottery clay (or is it china clay) as well. And Jackfield was once the hub of the world's tile industry.

The museum is set up in the old offices, hallways, showrooms and artist studio of Maw & Co., known throughout the world for the quality and decorative excellence of their many different tiles. Designers had their own particular style and became known for their distinctive work.

A fun part of the museum are the rooms recreating a place where tiles were used extensively, such as an old-fashioned butcher shop, a pub and the curved wall of a tube station with 'COVENT GARDEN' written in the tile work.

The factory today still churns out quality tiles for the Craven Dunnill Company and you can watch a tile painter hand painting the tiles. He looks very serene and his brush strokes confident, obviously not at all put off by people watching him work.

But I've lingered long enough in Ironbridge so it's off Builth Wells in the middle of Wales where I have booked a B&B at a farm for the night.

My hostess is quite a friendly soul, bustling and efficient. She instructs me to remove my shoes as she doesn't allow shoes in the house! What? Oh, right-ho! (Is this a Welsh thing?) She provides some rather hideous towelling scuffs for those who require them.

Now I don't know how you feel about these sort of things, but I for one feel somewhat diminished in my socks. At a social disadvantage you might say, and even more so in towelling scuffs! There's a certain primitive flair to bare feet, but that requires a particular style of clothing and a few bits of jangling gypsy jewellery, all of which are noticeably absent from my wardrobe.

Just to emphasise my point, can you imagine the Queen in her stockings? Or Henry VIII in his socks? There's a distinct loss of authority when one is in one's socks.

And so as I am sneaking towards my boudoir, the only suitable place for socks, I am accosted by an old fossil (he's has taken up the offer of towelling scuffs) who wishes to tell me of all the places he's lived and worked is this great wide world. And being in a socially diminished, besocked condition, I have no power to resist, and so spent a less than lively half hour with this crashing old bore reliving his glory days.

I eventually make good my escape and ascend to my room, incredulous that one could invite herds of people to one's home as paying guests, then make them take of their shoes at the door. Why not go for more serviceable floor coverings one wonders?

A Bit of Detective Work

After a day in the ancient city of Chester, with its marvellously preserved walls; beautiful cathedral, once a Benedictine Abbey; and lively city centre, all set beside the River Dee, it's off to Shrewsbury and Ironbridge and then to Wales for a few days.

Shrewsbury is the setting for Ellis Peters novels about the fictitious monastic detective, Brother Cadfael. This unassuming but astute monk who tended the abbey herb garden, must have had one heck of a time keeping the garden ticking along while dashing off for prayers every few hours and ferreting out the perpetrators of the latest homicide in Shrewsbury.

Cycling around Shrewsbury is a pure joy as the riverside parks and gardens are extensive and beautiful.

Shrewsbury Abbey sits now on a small island of land roughly oval in shape and surrounded by busy roads just a few steps from the River Severn. A far cry from the extensive land holdings of the abbey in medieval times.

As with most monastic houses, little survived Henry VIII's demolition ball, but a section of the church was left in tact for local worship, and four Norman arches with their massive pillars survive from the 11th century, while the Norman tower incorporating the West Window is dated at about 1380.

I am delighted to find two stained glass windows made by contemporary glass artist, Jane Gray. One is St Winefride's window installed in 1992 and the other a window dedicated to St Benedict in recognition of this being a Benedictine Abbey. Incorporated in this window, down in the bottom corner, is a picture of a Brother Cadfael book!

Jane Gray was mentioned by Sandy Mackinnon in his entertaining book, 'The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow'. He was sailing a Mirror dinghy down the River Severn and was invited ashore for a spot of lunch by a gentleman sitting on the terrace of his house beside the river. His wife was away installing a stained glass window and as the gent was not very well, Sandy would have to fend for himself, which he did. Sandy was picturing the wife as some artsy craftsy sort who dabbled in a bit of stained glass. He had to revise that impression when her saw the spectacular work of this much revered and talented lady.

I mention to the guide how pleased I am to see the Jane Gray windows, and why. It turns out that this good gentleman is a close chum of the lady in question and is very interested in my story about Sandy's book. He takes notes so he can relay it to Jane. He tells me that a biography of Jane is soon be released and gives me his card so I can check for details.

Later in the day I'm busy taking photos of the spectacular sunken gardens and get into conversation with a retired couple from York. As we watch a little train of preschoolers all linked together walking around the garden, the wife says what a good idea that is, to keep track of them all. Her husband agrees wholeheartedly, 'Goodness knows, I like children', says he, 'but I couldn't eat a whole one'!

The Castle of Adventure

I'd love to report that Stafford Castle is a majestic ruin, but alas, it is a more homely sort of ruin, if indeed a ruined castle can be described in such a manner.

It was rather more majestic in stature right up to the 1970s, but when some idiot teenager fell from the battlements, the local council invited the army in to blow it up! Can you believe that? My theory is that this child was destined to fall from something, as dare-devil kids always will, and are you going to blow up every tall building in town?

The army, being in the blowing up business, were no doubt glad to oblige. As a result, no stately battlements remain to remind us of the castle's glorious past.

It occupies a wonderful position high above the town of Stafford, and on a clear day you can probably see some Welsh cattle grazing on a distant hillside.

There are two routes to the castle: straight up the front path, as it were, or the long way round reading the signboards as you go and picturing the mighty fortification in its hey-day.

The first castle on the site was built by Robert de Tosny, a high ranking Norman and a buddy of William the Conqueror, on land pilfered from the defeated Saxons.

These early timber structures fell into disrepair over the following 200 or so years and were in a ruinous condition when Ralph Stafford inherited the estate 1323. The stone castle was built by Ralph in 1348. He was one of the founding members of the Order of the Garter, and became the first Earl of Stafford in 1351.

It was constructed much like a classic sand-castle with towers on each corner and a rectangular bit in the middle. At a later stage someone thought it need just one more tower and so a fifth was added.

It stood looking down from its high mound over the surrounding countryside for the best part of 300 years until the time of the Civil War. At that stage it was described by a diarist of the time as being “somewhat ruined”. But a feisty old bird by the name of Lady Isabel Stafford, a supporter of the Royalists, was still in residence, and put up a good fight after the town of Stafford had fallen to the Parliamentarians. All to no avail of course and the local Parliamentary Committee ordered that “Stafford Castle be forthwith demolished”.

Fifty or so years later, in the 1780s, the owner of the time had what was left of the old castle cleared away. As is the way of things, his son decided in 1813 to rebuild it. It was constructed this time in the Gothic manner on the old medieval foundations.

Time moves on and by the middle of the 20th century it was crumbling once more. Lord Stafford had a bright idea to put an end to his worries about this pile of rubble, and donated it to the Borough.

We have seen a little earlier in this epistle how much the Borough appreciated the gift. But in the 1980s someone with a bit of foresight determined that it could be a valuable tourist attraction, the army's efforts in the 1970s having left quite a substantial amount still upright.

And so it is that the 'Friends of Stafford Castle' are dedicated to its preservation and to adding their little piece to the jigsaw puzzle that is the history of Britain.

Flying High

Once more we must board the magic carpet in an effort to catch up with that illusive traveller who flits off to the next adventure as we trail along behind.

We'll pause for a moment over the gardens of the Royal Horticultural Society near Harrogate and admire the sweeping lawns, the tranquil lake, the stately trees and the beds overflowing with flowers. A whole area is set aside to display garden styles through the centuries, and horticultural students hone their skills in the trial beds nearby.

Now look down if you will to see the magnificent Castle Howard, setting for the dramatised version of Brideshead Revisited. An ostentatious flight of fancy built for the 3rd Earl of Carlisle and designed by John Vanbrugh, a playwright who'd never built a house before in his life!

Leaving Castle Howard, look back as we pass over the Hambleton Hills and you'll see Yorkshire's White Horse looming on the hillside near the little village of Kilburn. But what's that fellow doing down there? By George, he's painting the thing! This not being a chalky region, it's necessary to give him a make-over every so often. I wonder who thought a White Horse was a good idea in this area?

As we fly south you'll see the spire of the great York Minster come into view, crowning glory of a city still surrounded by ancient walls and steeped in history. Train spotters will head straight for the National Railway Museum in York. Some, like me, may have their hearts set on seeing the original Flying Scotsman, but they will discover that it's currently in a million bits being restored! Never mind, there's afternoon tea at Betty's Tearooms to look forward to, except the queue to get in the door stretches halfway down St Helen's Square!

Then across the southern-most point of the Pennines to alight at Hilderstone in Staffordshire. Not far away are the ruins of the Stafford family seat, Stafford Castle. I'll be off on the morrow to see how well they're looking after the ancestral pile. Rumour has it that it's glory days are in the past. Perhaps the present Lord Stafford won't be much good for a loan after all!

All Things Bright and Beautiful...

A day in Thirsk, North Yorkshire, looking for the real James Herriot is a day of fact, fiction and film.

I arrive early in the morning and find 'Skeldale House' with no difficulty. The house with the distinctive red door is otherwise know as 23 Kirkgate, and it was from here that the veterinary practise of Donald Sinclair and Alf Wight tended the needs of the livestock and pets of the local community for around 50 years.

Thousands of people still visit this shrine, preserved to the memory of Alf Wight, seeking perhaps a little of the perceived simplicity and downright homeliness portrayed by this reluctant hero in his hugely popular books first published in the 1970s.

Although Alf's parents were not Scottish, he was brought up in Glasgow and so, unlike his portrayal in the 'All Creatures Great and Small' series, he had a true Scottish accent.

Alf's boss and later partner, Donald Sinclair, better known to the world as Siegfried Farnon, was what has been described as a true eccentric. He had no concept of himself as others saw him, and as a result was seriously put out by the way he was portrayed in Alf's books.

His brother Brian, Tristan to us, had quite the opposite reaction, and spent the latter years of his life giving regular 'All Creatures' lecture tours in the United States.

The house at 23 Kirkgate is set up as it was when Alf and Joan (Helen) lived here with their two small children, Jimmy and Rosie, and Joan's mother, a quiet and gentle soul who resided with them for the rest of her days, helping Joan with the housework and the children.

One of the best remembered features of the house is the French doors in the sitting room that open onto the long narrow garden. They are here still, along with the garden which these days has lost half its length through the inevitable sale of excess land. Today, at the end of the garden, there is a large replica cow byre, set up as a byre would have been when Alf tended his patients during his long working life.

There are seats here where you can sit and watch a video presentation by Christopher Timothy, who played the part of James in the TV series, giving us the low-down on the real James Herriot. Parked just outside is the car that was driven by James in the TV series.

The audio tour is narrated by Alf's son Jim who became a vet like his father, and was also part of the veterinary practise at 23 Kirkgate. We get some wonderful behind-the-scenes insights from Jim who was there amongst it all and can testify to things like the existence and generosity of Mrs Pumfrey and Tricky-Woo (real names escape me at the moment), he still remembers the arrival of those wonderful hampers from Fortnum & Mason!

There's a display of olden days veterinary instruments in the upstairs rooms and, in the adjoining house which now belongs to the Herriot Museum there is a re-creation of the set for the TV series. As you walk past that familiar telephone it rings, and if you answer it you will find a farmer on the other end of the line with some dire emergency that needs immediate attention!

Interestingly enough, it was the American public who put the James Herriot books on the map. They had been a moderate success in England but when the omnibus edition comprising the first two books was released in the USA it became an immediate hit. Large numbers of American tourists still flock to Thirsk each year seeking a little of that Yorkshire magic.

When Alf died in 1995, his memorial service was held in York Minster and was attended by over 2000 people including cast members from the TV series. Alf's stories revolving, as they do, around farm animals and their unsophisticated owners, touch the hearts of people to this day.

Unforgetable Fountains Abbey

We must leave the beautiful Lakes, the enchanting Dales, and the storybook Appleby behind us and move on to the tiny village of Grewelthorpe in North Yorkshire.

Grewelthorpe consists of a pub, some houses, a church, and a very charming duck pond skirted by a little green. It's a bit hard to interact with a town that has no store so I mostly leave early and return late.

Not far away, just outside Ripon which is six miles from Grewelthorpe, are the majestic ruins of Fountains Abbey, and the water gardens and deer park of Studley Royal.

This World Heritage site is a wonder to behold. It is reputed to be one of the largest and best preserved Cistercian abbeys in the country.

The abbey was founded in 1132 by a group of monks who'd had a bit of a set to with their fellows and were given their marching orders. The Archbishop of York came good with a plot of land in the Skell River valley for them to set up a monastery of their own, and they were admitted, within a few years, to the Cistercian Order, a very strict rule established in France some thirty odd years earlier.

They had a pretty hard time of it for a start because while they were quite good at praying, they were not much chop at building, or anything else very useful. The Archbishop sent along some practical help eventually, and building got under way.

The Cistercians, as an order, had a cunning plan to get all the tedious work seen to. They recruited lay brothers, who were illiterate peasants, to do it all, allowing them, the monks, to get on with hand writing copies of the Bible and such like.

Now in the 12th century it was very difficult to get into heaven it seems, and so to give yourself a sporting chance you needed to spread your wealth around in places that were likely to give you a foot in the door of the next world. The new order of monks soon attracted attention because of their austerity and piety, and so funds rolled in from those anxious to purchase a good seat in heaven.

Within 100 years it was one of the wealthiest religious houses in the country with vast land holdings stretching all the way to the Lake District. Their major industry was sheep farming, as wool was a much sort after commodity, but various other pursuits were filling the coffers as well.

The 14th century saw an economic downturn, and in the 15th century there was a decline in their free labour force of lay brothers. They weathered those storms and were still a wealthy and powerful abbey when, in 1539, Henry VIII shut them down along with all the other religious houses in the country, and snitched all their goodies.

Perhaps the substantial remains we see today is due to the fact that the abbey was not surrounded by a town, making it more difficult for the local population to make off with the stone of the walls to use for building materials, as happened in other places.

The ancient water-driven cornmill belonging to the abbey continued to function commercially right into the 20th century.

What a sight this ruin must be on a moonlit night when you might imagine ghostly monks filing silently down the stone stairs into the great abbey church for 2am prayers.

Ready to Ride

But what about the bike I hear you ask.

The bike, I must tell you, is my close companion and dearest friend. We are inseparable. It lives in the car, ever ready to be pulled out at a moment's notice to transport me across town, down a country lane, along a canal path, over to the station, around to Tescos etc.

I may have already mentioned my abhorrence of paying good money for parking. I know that councils have to cover the costs of providing parking lots and all that stuff, but there are plenty of people obviously quite happy to pay up so good for them. In six weeks I have paid exactly two pounds and forty pence for parking. I'd say at that rate I've paid for half the bike in saved parking fees already!

I've cycled on the Isles of Lewis and Skye, around Dingwall, Strathpeffer, Inverness, Forres, Fort Augustus, Mallaig, Stirling, Falkirk, Aberdeen, Appleby, Temple Sowerby, Coniston, Windermere, Keighley, Haworth, Ripon, Harrogate, Grewelthorpe, Thirsk, Stoke-on-Trent, Stafford, Shrewsbury, Ironbridge, Llandudno, Glatton, Mildenhall, Ely and Wicken Fen.

In fact I've put a new slant on 'Park and Ride', normally associated with leaving your car in a parking lot and taking the Park and Ride bus into town. I Park in the street and Ride into town. Or ride to the station, and take the bike on the train.

There's scarcely a day when it's not in use. Britain is a bike friendly country, and motorists are very considerate of cyclists. Even so, I'm surprised to find that the standard headgear for a day's cycling is a floppy hat!

Potter Mania

I'm going for the total immersion Potter treatment today. Rabbits, ducks and hedgehogs all the way.

We grown-ups head for Hill Top, the part-time home of Beatrix Potter whenever she could escape the society of her clingy mother in London.

Folks with small children head to the kid oriented 'World of Beatrix Potter', where the larger than life size characters are set in their own little scenes from the books. I may have to borrow a small child to get in without looking like a sad old lady playing with her dolls.

There's an uneasy truce between me and the lady in the Sat Nav today, but just to show me who's boss she takes me through the dreaded Kirkstone Pass (I'm assuming it's dreaded, if it isn't it should be), before delivering me to my destination at Near Sawrey, close to Windermere. I quietly hatch a plan to get home by a different route. Not that I'm becoming paranoid or anything, you understand.

The National Trust web site advises visitors to Hill Top to be early to 'avoid disappointment'. I arrive just after nine o'clock for a ten o'clock opening, as there's no way I plan to be disappointed. Three cars are here already, and by 9.20 quite a queue is forming at the ticket office. One lady has stayed in the village over-night as she was one of yesterday's disappointed persons. They open up at about 9.50 and we either pay up or, like me, show our Nat Trust membership card (love that card).

We all troop down the road to Hill Top after collecting our tickets, and linger in the charming garden until our ticket time is called. I'm a 10.05 so I have time for a few photos if only these people would get out of the way.

Inside, the house is just as it was when Beatrix lived here. She kept it as her studio after she married and moved to Castle Cottage. It's a cut above Wordsworth's Dove Cottage but still oozing rustic charm. Every room has a reminder of one or other of her books. The Tale of Samuel Whiskers is easily recognised as set in the kitchen and on the stairs. In The Tailor of Gloucester we see the dresser and grandfather clock, and the 1902 coronation teapot appears in The Tale of the Pie and The Patty-Pan.

After her marriage to solicitor, William Hellis, she bought farming land in the Lake District and became a much respected breeder of Herdwick sheep and a dedicated conservationist. On her death she left 14 farms and 4000 acres of land to the National Trust.

In nearby Hawkshead, the former office of William Hellis, also left to the Trust, is now the 'Beatrix Potter Gallery' where one can view the original sketches and paintings that illustrated her books, along with photographs and information about her life achievements.

It seems I still haven't had enough of the Potter Experience yet so I set of for Bowness-on-Windermere to find 'The World of Beatrix Potter'. Like most things in this country, it's well hidden and poorly signed. I raise this issue with the young man at the town Information Centre where I purchase my ticket, and he tells me it all has to do with the fact that the great British public love to complain and, of course, need something to complain about!

When I arrive I look around and find there are other mature persons sneaking into this kiddies paradise so I toss my head and stride boldly through the door and into a Potteresque fairyland, with each display recreating one scene or another from all your favourite Potter books. Peter is there as the star of the show along with Jemima, Squirrel Nutkin and friends, Mrs Tiggy-winkle in her kitchen, Jeremy Fisher in his pond. It would have been a shame to miss this.

My Potter day ends with a cup of tea from the Thermos, sitting on a rock by the lake finalising my plans for returning home NOT via Kirkstone Pass.

Say Cheese Please

A change from literature to gastronomy today, and I'm off to the Wensleydale Creamery at Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales.

There's a fleet of vintage buses operated by Cumbria Classic Coaches who run a service to Hawes on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. This seems like a good idea as I will get to enjoy a trip through the dales where I can take in the scenery instead of the road ahead.

The bus can be boarded at their Ravenstonedale depot at 10am says their brochure. Knowing that a trip of even a short distance is prone to adventure, I set off in good time. And jolly lucky I did, as it turned out.

The lady who lives in my Sat Nav and I have a love-hate relationship, and by the time I eventually hop on the bus, that relationship is strained to breaking point.

The brochure of the bus company has a postal code printed with the otherwise vague address of 'Ravenstonedale'. I put in the code and set off with an air of bon homme.

My Sat Nav friend directs me to Ravenstonedale, in one end and out the other. The road narrows as I get further along and eventually turns into what could only be described as a farm track, with sheep wandering across here and there, and an increasingly sheer drop off one side.

Eventually, as a collection farm buildings hove in sight, what I remember as a small apologetic voice comes from the Sat Nav: 'recalculating, in 600 metres make a U turn'. 'What the hell ...', bursts from my incredulous lips. I try hard to refrain from strong language lest I offend my erstwhile friend and send her into a sulk.

Back to Ravenstonedale, relieved that I haven't had my tyres shot out by this farmer who possibly hasn't seen anyone from the outside world since the War.

What now? I pass a roadside bus stop which I see has the bus company flyer stuck to the post. As luck would have it, a lady is loading up her car nearby and in answer to my inquiry says, 'Oh, don't bother looking for the depot, you'll never find it, (really?) just go down the road to the school and park in the triangle and the bus will come along'.

'Right, thanks very much'.

Down the road, there's the school, and the triangle? Hmm, the triangle consists of a wedge of tarmac where two roads converge. Is it legal to park here? I know the Brits make up their own rules regarding parking, but this seems a bit extreme even by their standards.

There are already three cars parallel parked along the base of the triangle close to the school fence, which seems reasonable, but I have to make inroads towards the narrow end. It is a big triangle and I'm not sticking out into the road, but, oh well, she did say to park here, so I park.

I'm looking around for the bus stop, nowhere to be seen, when the occupants of one of the other cars appear from around the corner. I discover that they too are looking for this elusive (and possibly phantom I'm suspecting by now) bus. They have inquired at the store and been told to stand in the triangle and the bus will pick them up. A further discussion reveals that they too have visited the remote farm thanks to their Sat Nav!

All is well when, ten minutes later, the 1959 cream coloured double-decker rattles around the corner and on we hop, in the company of what turns out to be the most entertaining of old Dalesmen by the name of Jimmy.

It's market day in Hawes and I'm guessing Jimmy makes this trip each week to check out the price of fat lambs, just for the heck of it, and have a pint or ten at the Drover's Arms (or whatever the local pub is called).

It's a good thing the Wensleydale Creamery is well worth all this effort. I wander through the museum which gives the history of the company and has on display all the paraphernalia associated with cheese making through the years. I discover that a milking stool has three legs because three is better than four on the uneven floor of an old milking shed. Well there you are, there's a reason for everything.

The thing that always fascinates about old equipment and tools, is the effort that went into making an item not only functional but also beautiful. Totally unnecessary decoration bringing art into everyday life. Heaven knows, everyday life was hard enough for a farmer and his family, too hard perhaps for the enjoyment of such trivialities.

After the museum it's into the factory where large glass windows allow one to watch the famous (and delicious) Wensleydale cheese being made in what looks like a series of very large stainless steel bath tubs, actually called vats. Each vat holds 4500 litres of cooled pasteurised milk, and it takes four hours to convert it into 500 kilograms of scrum-diddly-umptious cheese.

Five vats have the milk at five different stages of production, from fresh milk to the set cheese which is being shovelled out of the vat and into the cheese mill where it's shredded then packed into moulds to be pressed. All of these processes are carried out by hand. The whey that is separated during the process goes to a local pig farm and each pig drinks 20 litres of whey a day!

After a pleasant few hours in this charming little market town we all pile back on the old bus, named 'Harvey', and head for home.

Our conductor, suitably attired in 1950s uniform, is a friendly chap who keeps up a running banter with the travellers while he sells us some bus related postcards. He says it's his ambition to sell Jimmy a postcard before the summer is out. It seems that today's the day and Jimmy lashes out and buys two!

Jimmy is in a very cheerful mood after his day out and chats away, mostly to himself. 'Aye, that's a grund 'un', says he to nobody in particular, and I look out the window to see a young deer just trotting across a field!

Back in Ravenstonedale Jimmy, the other couple and I alight from 'Harvey' and he disappears around the corner. I have a peculiar Harry Potterish feeling that it has driven through a curtain in the scenery to another dimension. Now that would explain the non-existent bus depot!

A Day by the Lakes

My newly acquired devotion to the cult of the Swallows and Amazons requires me to set off early on Sunday morning to Coniston Water for the Wild Cat Island Cruise. The cruise is organised by the National Trust, sailing on the 150 year-old steam yacht Gondola, which was rescued from its watery grave by the the Trust and completely restored to the elegant and sumptuous Victorian splendour of its hey-day.

Arthur Ransome, the author of the twelve Swallows and Amazons books, lived in a house overlooking Coniston Water, and so it is here that he set his novels about the children of the Walker family, sailors of the good ship Swallow, and their one time rivals, Nancy and Peggy Blackett, captain and crew of the Amazon.

Their first adventure is set on the fictitious 'Wild Cat Island' which is in fact a real island in Coniston Water, not far from Ransome's house.

It's a beautiful morning as 'Gondola' steams into view to collect the eager seafarers. The advertisements for the old steam yacht make a point of noting how quiet this vessel is, and that is perfectly true. Not an engine sound to be heard. She glides through the water as if drawn along on an invisible line.

On board, a family of S&A fans from America are sitting near me as we pull away from the jetty and the children are eagerly looking out for various points of interest along the way. Me too!

The children in Ransome's stories were loosely based on the children of his friends who did really live here, so we see the boat sheds where the Amazon was moored and the the farm, Holly Howe, where the children stayed for their holidays. We see the houseboat that inspired the character, Captain Flint who lives on a houseboat, and we pass Cormorant Island where the treasure was hidden.

Then at the far end of the lake we arrive at Wild Cat Island, where the children have their camp. Our captain navigates us into a good position to view the entrance to the secret harbour and there's a decided list to port as we all move across for a better look. We bemoan the fact that the lighthouse tree is no more, and I'm sure we'd all like to go ashore and look for the camp-site. But, alas, we must leave that to our imagination.

As we head back up the lake away from Wild Cat Island, I think I see a wisp of smoke from their camp-fire wafting up through the trees!

Back to reality and off to visit Dorothy and William at Dove Cottage. This humble abode was home to the Wordsworth brother and sister and later William's wife and family as well, until they outgrew the place (which wouldn't take long).

It is all very charming and pleasingly rustic on a summer's day in 2010, but I suspect it was not quite so in 1800. William was known to avoid the downstairs domestic areas of the house, confining himself to the more cheerful upstairs sitting room, which also doubled as his study, and leaving the house via the garden door. He was, after all, a poet and one can't be expected to pen those golden lines in the kitchen, can one?

The poetry for which he is best remembered was written here, and you can quite imagine him scribbling away in this romantic house.

William wasn't the only member of the household with a literary bent, we know that Dorothy belatedly (and posthumously) hit the headlines in 1897 with the publication of her Grasmere Journals, a record of their years at Dove Cottage.

And it turns out that the two best lines in 'Daffodils' (according to WW himself), were written by his wife Mary! In the kitchen I wonder?