York:
Gently undulating mottled brown moors pass seemingly endlessly by the windows of the car. Easily can I imagine a plain and little Jane Ayre coming along a road such as the one we’re on now, though perhaps not quite so sealed, until her funds had run out. I imagine her tiny figure wandering, heedless of all else, into the distance getting smaller and smaller until, stumbling and weary, she reaches a cottage at the edge of my sight and collapses to the ground.
All the while a soundtrack soars in the background of course. I can hear the violin section now!
May wanted to drive through York and have a look at it so I looked in the Lonely Planet and saw that the York Minster is supposed to be one of the most beautiful medieval cathedrals in the world.
The Lonely Planet, however, often exaggerates on such things and one must take its suggestions with a pinch of salty bacon (which, just to side track, we’ve had every day of our trip bar one for breaky and frankly its starting to show in extra love-handles and such things. Bloody Full English Breaky). Whitby fish-and-chips is an example of something that’s supposed to be worth traveling across the globe for that definitely wasn’t. Such Lonely Planet stuff ups were appeased in York because the Minster was beautiful but the town was even awesomer amazing awesome. The cathedral is splendid but a percentage of that must be down to its being so happily situated.
Again, like so much that we’ve seen, we were blown away by the layers of history and immense depth of history. The town used to be the capital of Northumberland, I think if my history is correct, and was sacked by Vikings, taken back by the English, is the site of one of the most important religious figures around etc etc. The thin spider-web streets are lined with building upon building each with its own character and personality. We had lunch at a place called Café Rouge, which was very French and awesome and cute and the food was great.
We spent so much time in York and enjoying the incredible Moors that we came to Cambridge quite late. I did get a chance to have a half pint of Guinness. It’s so much less bitter than it is in Aus with this lovely smoothness before the lagar after-taste kicks in. Most yummy!
I finished Persuasion today. Ohhhhhh so good. My new favourite (over Sense and Sensibility). I could actually feel my heart fluttering beneath my chest bone when Wentworth would talk to her. I so desperately wanted them to come together and prove themselves. Austen is such a master. She holds off the good stuff, the sweet golden chocolatey good stuff, until the reader wants it so desperately that their heart is fluttering wildly. She really forces you feel what Anne is feeling when you finally read Wentworth’s letter where he pours out every emotion to her. I love a love story about real love, hehe, that really stands the test of time and other trials. In which the lovers test their strength and depend on one another.
