Along the Pennine Way

Yet another update about a weekend excursion. But does anyone really want to read, "... and then I read one hundred and ninety pages of Dickens..."?

Yesterday, we drove to Haworth, a former industrial town in which the Brontë sisters lived. After attending a service at the church where their father was minister and where most of their family is interred, we toured their house, which is now a museum. Like other author's homes/museums, there was a lot of old furniture, a few items of clothing on display, and a few samples of their manuscripts, which were by far the most interesting part of the exhibit. When we finished, I ate a sandwich on the museum veranda in the savage wind – you can guess that I wasn't thrilled about being put outside to eat my lunch.

When we got started on our hike through the moors, I managed to put away the sour grapes and enjoy the scenery. It was classic English sheep country, complete with rocky crags and heather. We hiked high into the hills, past a waterfall and walled-off pastures, up to a crumbling stone farmhouse built who-knows-when by who-knows-who. On the return hike, our group got separated. I ended up near the back of the line, with John Morton. After following the ancient signposts too literally, we ended up, with the other six who had followed us, somewhere along the backside of Mount Ararat, for all we knew. While John and the others made some phone calls, I had a very pastoral moment. I was leaning against a stone wall, staring into space when I heard some rustling behind me. I turned around and looked straight into the eyes of a pair of old cows chewing hay and staring at me through the broken window of an old farmhouse.

Eventually, we were directed toward the right path and found the bus only twenty minutes later than the rest of the group. Elizabeth was the first to see us, and started singing the theme from Chariots of Fire while we ran to meet each other.

All in all, a refreshing day.

Again, photo credit goes to William Overbeeke.