Swaledale, Yorkshire Dales National Park

Photo’s are here or you can just click on the photograph above.

Almost 5 weeks – our longest trip to the motherland since we emigrated to the USA 25 years ago!

It began with good friends, Dave and Ali, in West Malling, Kent. We landed in Heathrow bright and early and were greeted by blue sky and sunshine. We collected the rental car and headed due east to Kent. The sun was beaming down upon the righteous and we were happy! But as we approached the Kent county line threatening black clouds were gathering overhead.

May is usually a beautiful month to visit England but this year the weather wasn’t entirely playing ball at the start of our trip. We squeezed in a walk in the countryside surrounding the village of West Malling to stretch our legs. We dodged the drizzle and wrapped up against the cold on a brief visit to the tiny Tudor village of Eynsford. Eynsford is widely considered to be one of Kent’s prettiest villages with its ford and picturesque hump-back bridge over the River Darent. With the quantity of rain England has seen over the winter of 2023 and spring of 2024 swelling its rivers and streams to overflowing and turning its pathways to slick mud, I’d not want to drive through that ford without a tow truck waiting in the wings in case of watery emergencies.

We took a brief walk in Lullingstone Country Park avoiding the muddy riverside sections before lunch at one of Kent’s vineyard restaurants. Kent is well-known for its vineyards and several restaurants have popped up as secondary businesses for the owners. The location and ambience at The Mount Vineyard in Shoreham looked very encouraging. I even got my first glimpse of Kent’s famous bluebells in a small wood within the grounds of the vineyard. What could go wrong? It looked beautiful.

During our 5 week trip we enjoyed some notable culinary highlights but our lunch at The Mount Vineyard was not one of them. It was dreadful – from the wine to the food. Reputedly it was a farm-to-table restaurant but the food at The Mount was bland and boring enough to lead one to suspect it was less farm-to-table and rather more Sysco-truck-to-table. Luckily the four of us maintained our good humor but none of us will be adding it to the list of favorites.

On our first full good weather day with Dave and Ali we headed down to Eastbourne to their holiday home at All Saints (a beautiful building housing posh apartments in a converted hospital and chapel in the Victorian Gothic style). The apartment is in Meads Village on the outskirts of Eastbourne and we planned to hike the spectacular Seven Sisters coastal cliffs on the East Sussex coast and spend the night in the apartment.

The steep undulating cliffs at Seven Sisters, punctuated by patches of low-lying, scrubby, yellow gorse bushes, are best experienced on a sunny summer’s day. We didn’t quite get that but it was certainly a warmer, less blustery day than the Brits have had so far this year. We started at the National Trust Birling Gap car park and walked west towards the Seven Sisters Cliffs as far as our legs would carry us before resting on the clifftop in the milky sunshine with a picnic of supplies from The Black Cat Tea Room in Meads Village. Once again, we were happy.

A few miles away lies the tiny East Sussex village of East Dean where we refreshed with beers at the Tiger Inn in its beer garden overlooking the village green. Across the green from the pub there is a stone cottage with a round blue plaque. In the UK a blue plaque denotes a property of historical or cultural significance. The plaque reads “Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective and Bee Keeper retired here 1903 -1917”. For obvious reasons, there is much speculation about the final resting place of England’s most famous fictional detective (since his creator didn’t specify precisely) but devoted fans of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s literary works have followed the clues in his last novel and, apparently, this cottage is as good as it gets as a wild guess! Undeniably we Brits are a nation obsessed with crime drama but even so …

Our tour of the East Sussex coast took us inland to the very pretty village of Alfriston with its historic pub The Star. Talking of pubs it was nearly time to head back to the apartment for showers and dinner at The Pilot Inn in Meads Village. The Pilot remains a firm favorite for excellent quality food and good service. It is also conveniently located next door to All Saints.

The forecast for the following day was rain … heavy and relentless rain … everywhere … literally all over the UK. There was no escaping it, we’d be inside all day. Better inside back at Dave and Ali’s sprawling house in Kent than inside the apartment in Eastbourne, so we abandoned plans to stay over and drove home after dinner that night. Over the last few years the roads in the UK have been somewhat neglected (rather like the British National Health Service). The state of the roads is as bad for the wellbeing of your expensive car as the NHS is currently bad for your ongoing health. Some of the country roads are positively third world, certainly bad enough that you have to watch that you don’t disappear down a pothole and lose a wheel. Driving at dusk it’s much harder to see the offending potholes and if it’s been raining you have absolutely no idea if you’re driving through a shallow puddle or whether you’re going to take out your entire suspension. It’s quite an exhilarating experience spotting and avoiding them at speed. There’s as much chance that they’re lining the gradually collapsing edges of the country roads as being in the centre of the lane, so you have to stay on your toes. We missed one as dusk was falling and slammed heavily down a crater.

The Mercedes SUV we had rented didn’t like that. Its electronic system barfed immediately, there were warning lights beeping at us in the interior and when Geoff stopped and opened the door to assess for damage, the engine radiator fan was screaming at us louder than a squadron of military jets flying overhead. It was pretty loud inside the cabin – it was horrendous outside. Oh dear … we’d only had the car 4 days and I couldn’t imagine Hertz would be very happy with their luxury vehicle being taken off the road. We limped home with the engine screaming and the interior lights blinking. At least it was only 25 miles to go. Safely back at their house the boys did some fiddling and prodding, turned the engine on and off a couple of times and took it for a gentle drive around the block. Thankfully, It decided to rejoin the land of the living rather than head to the scrap heap.

Glad we don’t have to drive our own Mercedes on the British roads

Before moving to our next destination during our Grand Tour of England we squeezed in a trip to the theatre to see a production of The Watsons in which many of Dave’s friends were acting (he’s also an accomplished amateur actor). It is based upon a novel by authoress Jane Austen which she abandoned for reasons unknown and the story was completed for modern theatre with a surprising twist. It was great fun.

Our second stop was to visit one of my best friends, Kate and her husband Damion in Ashford, Kent. The sun was finally properly shining! We drove straight out into the beautiful Kent countryside for a tramp through the famous bluebell woods at Kings Wood in Challock. Kings Wood was historically a royal hunting ground where herds of fallow deer roamed free. Now it is more famous as one of England’s most significant ancient bluebell woods. The fresh lime-green leaves of the broadleaf chestnut and beech trees against the dark purple-blue of the bluebells was absolutely breathtaking.

That evening we met up with some friends of theirs at Stubbs Steak and Seafood Restaurant in Ashford. Whilst we’d worked up somewhat of an appetite during our walk we’d no chance of keeping up with Kate’s friends. Never have we seen two people put away such vast quantities of food, wine and champagne. It became, unexpectedly, an evening of gorging and excess reminiscent of a medieval feast fit for King Henry VIII and all of his wives. From oysters through appetizers, to slabs of steak to dessert to cheese … Kate and I watched on in awe (perhaps something more approaching horror) as we delicately nibbled on our salads

Another sunny day! We drove to the pretty town of Whitstable on the north coast of Kent. The seas were remarkably calm for the English coast but not really warm enough to justify the numbers of locals swimming and paddling at the shore. The Brits do like to frolic about in water at the first sign of a sunny day (any water will do … ponds, rivers, the Atlantic, the English Channel … puddles …we just love water!). Whitstable is a typical English seaside town … it has a stony, shingle beach, copious numbers of fish and chip shops, a few tea rooms and colorful fishing boats moored in the harbor.

Whitstable is also famed for its oysters (farmed from local waters as far back as Roman times). I’d rather eat a cow’s eyeball than an oyster but Geoff and our friends love them. Consequently, lunch had been booked at the famed Wheelers Oyster Bar many weeks earlier for the following day of our visit.

Since the sun was still shining when we left Whitstable we made an unscheduled stop in Canterbury, famous for its impressive Cathedral (founded in 597 but fully consecrated and operational in 1184). The city is flush with historic 15th and 16th century Tudor black and white buildings. It boasts a popular riverside park where instagrammers blatantly ignored signs to keep out of the flowerbed borders. As the young and entitled ‘grammars clambered through the lovingly cultivated flowerbeds in their high heels and frilly dresses for the sake of a suitable ‘gram we wondered again at the future of humanity. The Westgate Gardens park (with Westgate Tower in the distance) is very pretty with the gently flowing waters of the River Stour meandering through it. Punts glide across the waters and ducks with their ducklings nest in the undergrowth. We wandered through the pedestrianized streets of the city to the Memorial Cross at Buttercross, stopped for a view of the elaborately painted Christ Church Gate (which serves as the entrance to the Cathedral grounds) and past the 16th century The Old Weavers House marveling at the architecture.

The rain poured and the wind howled the following day but it didn’t matter because we were booked into one of Whitstable’s most sought after restaurants – the above-mentioned Wheelers Oyster Bar – the town’s oldest and cutest restaurant. Founded in 1856, it specializes in oysters and, lucky for me, in supremely fresh fish dishes with locally sourced ingredients other than repulsive oysters (otherwise I’d have been dining on dry crackers). It has a frothy pink facade with an interior reminiscent of your great, great grandmother’s front parlor and, if you want to dine there, reservations are essential many weeks ahead of time.

Champney’s luxury spa hotel, Eastwell Manor, was en route back home so it seemed only fitting (since the rain had abated) that we stop in for a quick mid-afternoon cocktail and a wander through the manicured gardens. Just the sort of place many an English-rose bride would love for her wedding venue with its sweeping stone staircases, fountains, and courtyard gardens.

Next stop we were heading north and further east into East Anglia to the wind-blown North Sea coastal town of Frinton-on-Sea in Essex. Famous for its painted beach huts and relentlessly churning brown waters, it was far too chilly and blustery to take Geoff’s grandma for the obligatory stroll along the beachfront so we settled for lunch at her preferred garden centre cafe, Parkers in Frinton (always good).

Half an hour north and we checked into an Airbnb just outside Dedham, Essex for the next couple of nights – a lovely renovated apartment set in landscaped gardens brilliant with soft pink, white and magenta rhododendrons. The picturesque village of Dedham is my favorite Essex/Suffolk border town – conveniently close to my mother and to some notable tea shops and gastro pubs. My mother is never happier than with a slab of homemade cake (preferably large enough to sustain a family of 4). This visit we tried out the pretty yellow-painted Oranges and Lemons Cafe and Gift Shop in East Bergholt. I can’t vouch for the food but the homemade cakes were substantial enough to impress even my mother.

Lunch at the gastro pub, The Sun Inn, opposite the 15th century St Mary’s Church in Dedham never disappoints. It is a historic coaching inn with dark oak panels, uneven wooden floors and great food. Dedham lies at the heart of Constable Country close to the River Stour – a region famous for its Suffolk pink-painted chocolate box thatched cottages and sprawling country cottage gardens. Dedham’s well-maintained High Street has various independently owned cafes and stores and its architecture covers the range from impressive Georgian houses to black and white painted timber-framed buildings.

In between pub lunches and coffee and cake at quintessentially English tea shops with chintz curtains and frilly doilies, we took advantage of the ongoing sunshine and walked the Dedham to Flatford Mill 7 mile circular trail. We crossed through flat, open farmland, leap-frogging over rocks in flooded low-lying fields; we wandered alongside the River Stour, over a rustic bridge and continued on to the Mill in Flatford. The millpond is famous for its view over Willy Lotte’s Cottage, the subject of 19th century painter, John Constable’s piece “The Haywain” painted in 1820. The wildflowers were blooming in the hedgerows and waist-deep along the pathways running across the floodplains. Catch Suffolk on a blue sky day in late spring and you will see it in all of its glory.

Another good sunny afternoon hike was the 5 mile Polstead and Stour Valley circular hike near Nayland. The farmers fields were bright with yellow rapeseeed flowers glowing against the blue sky. Suffolk is notoriously flat but this hike threw in a couple of more interesting, steeper rolling hills into the scenery. The walk begins and ends in the tiny village of Polstead with its beautiful 17th century pub, Cock Inn. On a sunny day the beer garden at the inn was very popular.

Leaving Suffolk behind us we drove from the furthest point east towards the city of Bristol in the southwest of the country. It had been 25 years since either of us had set foot in Bristol. It was a long drive east to west so a lunch stop was essential. I always take any opportunity I can to make a detour to Dorney Court in Buckinghamshire (close to Windsor and Eton) for coffee, cake and lunch at Crocus Cafe at the upmarket garden centre. We Brits do love a nice garden centre cafe! The gardens were beautiful as usual and the wisteria arbor was literally dripping in white and purple flowers – my favorite spring flowers in England.

Geoff and I met in Bristol 29 years ago when I was a lawyer and he worked for Compaq. Geoff had a wide circle of friends into which I effectively interloped as an outsider and newcomer to the city. Back then, we were all young, free and single. We worked hard and played hard spending our nights clubbing in the Thekla night club (a seedy ship moored in the murky waters of the harbor) and hanging out in pubs in trendy Clifton. After this brief interlude in our late 20’s and early 30’s, desperately trying to hang on to our quickly disappearing youth, we finally relented and bought a dilapidated old coaching house in the village of Kewstoke in Somerset. It was all but derelict and in need of a lot of TLC. We spent 2 years in the cottage effectively living in a building site, rebuilding it and making it home worthy.

During the late spring of 1999 Geoff was flown out to Compaq’s Headquarters for Tru64 UNIX engineering in the USA and unexpectedly returned with a job offer on the day on which the final pieces fell into place with our extensive renovations. Despite our frustration, we were unable to resist the opportunity and emigrated to New Hampshire in the fall of 1999. We experienced our first winter living in the snow in New England (7 winters in New Hampshire were quite enough before we moved to sunnier southern climes in Florida) … and the rest is history! We traveled back to see a couple of friends out west in Somerset for a year or so but, as frequently happens once people marry, move, emigrate, have families etc etc, we lost touch with almost everyone from that era. Now that we are entering the final months of Geoff’s working career (and my similarly impending retirement from the art world) it was time to revisit old haunts and rekindle old friendships.

One of Geoff’s oldest friends (who has also traveled the world and been busy doing other things outside of the UK) has in recent years returned to Bristol and reacquainted himself with old friends. It was to his super yacht that we headed for the next couple of nights to hang out in abject luxury aboard the cruiser Miss Conduct in all of its flamboyantly gay extravagance! Tom organized a reunion with everyone from that era. Some had traveled from the farthest reaches of England and another couple had flown in from their rather posh boutique hotel in Provence, France. Aside from seeing Tom one year in Florida and a surprise meeting in Boston with another old friend one summer, we hadn’t seen anyone in 25 years. The party was quite surreal – catching up with people who we’ve just been FaceBook friends with for years but haven’t seen or spoken to in the flesh in a quarter of a century.

Before the party Tom took us a on a guided tour of old haunts in Bristol, the Clifton suspension bridge, Clifton … and places in the city we literally no longer recognized. Nothing was the same – unsurprisingly! There were entirely new and gentrified areas, newly pedestrianized streets and new cafes and restaurants (Spicer and Cole Coffee and Kitchen in trendy Clifton is a great pit stop for lunch, coffee and cake and The River Grille in Bristol Harbor close to the yacht was also excellent for dinner). A sobering thought … if another 25 years pass before we get together again most of us will be in bath chairs, wrapped up in cardigans, our arthritic knees under tartan blankets, living out our twilight years in nursing homes … or not …

We spent the next 2 nights with old friends, Barrie and Karen, just south of Bristol in the village of Hutton, North Somerset. Before arriving at their home we took a trip down memory lane to the village of Kewstoke and to the aforementioned “The Old Coach House” which we had renovated, sold and left behind 25 years earlier. When we packed up and set sail for the New World in 1999 we took every stick of furniture we owned and every personal possession without much thought to their respective future usefulness in our new homeland. This included (inexplicably) a hand carved solid wood name plate for “The Old Coach House” which Geoff’s uncle had made for us as a house-warming gift 28 or so years earlier when first we moved into the derelict house. For 25 years in the USA the sign has adorned the wall in our garage (firstly in New Hampshire and now in Florida) and the chances were high that it would never see the light of day again. This year, Geoff unilaterally decided that we needed to pack even lighter than usual (which is a challenge since he point blank refuses to travel with anything other than hand luggage – regardless of the length of the trip). His plan was to return the name plate to its original home. So the heavy 36″ by 18″ lump of wood (and its accompanying wall fitting) was squeezed into our already limited hand luggage space on the off chance that the current owners of our former home might want it. Turns out that they did!

Geoff knocked on the door and introduced himself and (even though we might have been mad axe murderers) we were invited into their home for a guided tour of our old house and garden. In many ways totally unrecognizable, it was also somewhat surreal. The beautiful pale yellow country kitchen (hand built by a friend in the industry) was exactly the same – as were the pricey Villeroy and Boch tiles I had picked out for the kitchen and bathroom. They had stood the test of time for 27/28 years.

Anyway, the sign is now back where it should have been all along!

The trip down memory lane continued with our somewhat nervous arrival at the home of our old friends. We’re all a bit older, crinklier and somewhat grayer but otherwise we fell back into our previous pattern of banter as if we hadn’t last seen them 23 years ago, but only last week. Dinner at The Old Inn, Hutton was extremely good and the following day we drove out to the limestone gorge, Cheddar Gorge, a very famous area of scenic beauty in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. We had Sunday lunch at The Bath Arms Hotel in Cheddar (which was also excellent). Sadly, there was no time to take any more trips down memory lane through the Somerset countryside – the next stop was Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire in the Midlands.

We were to visit Geoff’s dad and stepmother for a couple of nights. The sun hadn’t shone much in the Midlands in a good few weeks we were told, but it was shining when we arrived so we were bundled into the car and driven a few miles to the village of Burton Lazars to enjoy the lovely weather. We criss-crossed the fields around the village as Geoff and his dad caught up on the past year and his plans to retire. There was another reunion (although on a smaller scale from last year’s visit) with some of Geoff’s old school friends at the Purple Garlic curry house (excellent) in town and a couple of beers at an old haunt “The Crown” in town. Although the sun didn’t play ball on our second day in Leicestershire we navigated around the lake in Hambleton, Rutland weaving through shady forests dotted with white Queen Anne’s Lace and the tiny bright pink flowers of wild geraniums. Good for a walk to burn off the calories from coffee and cake at the rather excellent Hilltop Farm Shop Cafe. Dinner at The Royal Oak, Great Dalby was also pretty good.

From the in-laws in Leicestershire we were back on the road to catch up with several old friends in Cheshire, one of my favorite counties. We were staying at an AirBnB in Audlem in a very beautiful old house surrounded by pretty gardens which was walking distance to the historic Shropshire Union Canal.

Audlem is a very small quiet village, which boasts a good coffee and cake shop – “The Tearoom No.11” but not much else. We walked the Audlem Canal circular walk passing through farmers fields and along the towpath. We outpaced the elaborately decorated barges which were puttering along on the tranquil waters of the canal. Audlem is famous (for those who know locks in the UK) for its run of 15 locks (over the short distance of a mile and a half) with an impressive water level drop of 93 feet. Audlem is also conveniently close to Spice Heaven curry house where we met up with Gary (a good friend of ours) in the comparatively unappealing town of Whitchurch. Still, if you’re in the area – it is a good curry house – even if the town lacks in immediately obvious charm. Audlem is also only a few miles from The Combermere Arms in Burleydam with its beautiful beer garden and good pub food where we had dinner with Gary, and old friends Rob and Rainzley.

We couldn’t visit Cheshire without the compulsory tour of the city of Chester, a walk along its ancient walls overlooking the city and the Cathedral, and a stroll along its pedestrianized streets. From the Eastgate Clock on the Walls you will find the iconic views of the city every visitor wants running down Eastgate Street and Foregate Street. Famed for its Roman history, Roman ruins and fabulous black and white timber-framed Tudor buildings which now house upmarket stores and coffee shops, Chester is my favorite northern city in England. We revisited Jaunty Goat Specialty Coffee Shop which was a firm favorite in previous years but has lost some of its previous glossy sheen with a noticeable decline in the quality of its cakes … simply outrageous!

It also cannot be a “proper” visit to Cheshire without lunch with Gary at The Dysart Arms in the tiny, quaint village of Bunbury. The Dysart Arms remains my top pick for historic character, quality and excellence of food in the area.

Next stop, a week up in our very favorite region of England – the magnificent Yorkshire Dales – with my oldest friend Caroline and her family. As is tradition it was non-stop hiking, tea rooms, homemade cakes, cute country pubs, lambs skipping through the fields, rivers, streams and, best of all, her daughter Olivia’s impressive vegan culinary feasts every night back at their home.

As I have mentioned, the rain has poured for months on end in England – quite unprecedented deluges – and our friends have endured months of drizzle and heavy, grey skies. The upside of the miserable winter and spring endured by my fellow countrymen (whilst we’ve been basking in the sun in Florida all winter ) is the benefit to the landscape of all that water. I have never seen England look quite so incredibly emerald green. The wild flowers have emerged out of their wintery slumber and the green and golds of the moss blanketing the stone walls is even thicker, softer, and more water-logged than usual providing a haven for wildlife. By the time we arrived in Yorkshire the temperatures were on the rise and spring and early summer flowers filled the meadows, dotted the lush hedgerows and sprouted out of the stone walls in shades of pink, white, yellow and pale blues. Shady dells were filled with the heady aroma of wild garlic, the meadowlands were yellow with buttercups, and bluebells carpeted the woodlands.

The Yorkshire Dales are always our happy place in the motherland

The hike of the vacation was undoubtedly the 6 mile Muker to Keld to Corpse Road loop trail in my favorite dale. Swaledale is a landscape of ancient drystone walls and grey stone field barns. It didn’t hurt that the sun was shining in Muker in a cloudless sky and the surrounding scenery was the Yorkshire Dales at their absolute finest. We have tiptoed through the buttercups in previous hikes through Muker’s famous upland hay meadows but this year we took a different route past the rocky River Swale. We lingered for a while to admire bluebell fields, clambered over narrow stone stiles, scrabbled over mossy rocks to a viewpoint over the Kisdon Force (waterfall) where kids were swimming in the peaty brown waters and up over the hills to the village of Keld. Thankfully, we weren’t relying on the offerings in Keld for our coffee and cake stop for the day. Much earlier in the day we had made the bonus discovery of the Dales Bike Centre “Cafe and Cakery” as we were driving en route to Muker through the village of Fremington. It was full of hardy, long-distance cyclists filling up on traditional English fry-up breakfasts and homemade cakes before heading off over the Dales. If we hadn’t found the “Cakery” we would have been pretty hungry by the time we reached the village of Keld. Even worse the only tea shop open in Keld was at Rukin’s Campsite, which was basic to say the least. Certainly not a stop worthy of anything more than replenishing water supplies or picking up an ice-cream. Their cakes and snacks left an awful lot to be desired … The hike, however, continued to impress so we didn’t dwell upon the disappointment of Keld’s tea shop! The route continued along the roadway for a short distance after leaving the village before a steep climb up the cobbled Corpse Road track before reaching the summit of Kisdon with its 365° views across Swaledale. Finally we descended again to the village of Muker. The hike was absolutely glorious!

The highlight of our dining experience for the trip to England was dinner with Caroline and her daughter, Olivia at the excellent The Abbey Inn opposite the ruins of Byland Abbey. Olivia (also an excellent chef, as I have mentioned above, also works in the food and nutrition industry) and is a huge fan of the renowned Michelin Star chef Tommy Banks who owns The Abbey Inn. I’m not sure it would have mattered what Olivia had been served for dinner after her unexpected meeting and photo opportunity with Tommy in his own carpark. She was totally starstruck, bless her! The food was excellent and the ambience was in keeping with the history of the building which was originally built by monks in 1845 as a farmhouse. The Inn and its beer gardens overlook the ruins of Byland Abbey itself which is believed to be the most ambitious Cistercian abbey built in England. Construction began during the 12th century and, back in its day, it housed 100 monks and another 200 lay brothers. Currently, not much more than the facade stands with other sections largely reduced to rubble – but what a facade it is glowing golden in the late evening sunlight. A fabulous Inn in a wonderful location!

Our second hike was at Malham Cove (of Harry Potter fame) on the Janet’s Foss, Malham Cove and Gordale Scar circular hike starting in the village of Malham. Prior to beginning the hike we stopped in Settle at Car and Kitchen Cafe for breakfast sandwiches and coffee and cake (excellent as usual).

The circular walk starts through a wooded glen frequently described as “magical”. White wild garlic blooms perfumed the woodland trails before reaching Janet’s Foss waterfall (the watery playground of folklore fairies). We followed a side trail out to Gordale Scar – the view from the interior of this huge, hidden, craggy, limestone ravine is awe-inspiring. We weren’t feeling brave enough to climb up the slippery rocks of the waterfall to the top to reach Malham tarn (lake) so we retraced our steps to the main trail before ascending to the the summit of Malham Cove with its famous limestone pavement – like giant stepping stones. To cross the stones of the rugged limestone pavement you have to watch your step to avoid falling down a crevice and breaking an ankle – some of the leaps across the steps were quite treacherous. The views across Malhamdale from the summit was worth the effort of the climb up and the descent down 400 or so stone steps before returning to the village.

The Courtyard Dairy outside Settle is the perfect place if you love cheese! There is a modern restaurant with a terrace overlooking the surrounding fields where you can eat extremely good handmade pizzas and salads. Highly recommended for the hungry hiker after clambering up and down Malham Cove!

My favorite tea shop (in the world) is “The Old School Tea Room” in Hebden. Obviously, if we were to hike the Grassington to Hebden circular trail, it would have been unthinkable not to stop in my favorite tea shop. We parked up and started in Grassington (emergency coffee stop at CoffeECO – which also sold rather good clotted cream and jam scones served warm and freshly baked straight from the oven too). Whilst the streets were uncharacteristically quiet (given that Grassington is the most famous of all Dales villages) we had a quick potter through the village streets then returned to the car park where the hike starts. We traversed seemingly endless rickety, uneven, slippery stiles in the stone walls dividing the fields, we tramped through meadows filled with bright yellow buttercups and navigated through narrow stone-walled pathways. Lambs skittered around their mothers in the farmer’s fields and cows grazed upon the emerald grasses. Finally we reached Hebden and my favorite tea shop in time for lunch!

I’m sure it didn’t come as much of a surprise to either Caroline or Geoff (despite the rolling of eyes) that we’d be back at The Old School Tea Room when we tackled the Hebden to Burnsall circular hike a day or so later. The hike to Burnsall was spectacular if a little nerve-wracking for my friend. Every cow and bullock in the county of Yorkshire was out grazing in the fields that day and , unfortunately for Caroline, she is absolutely terrified of cows. The kind of terror that almost goes beyond the capacity for rational thought. Not a great affliction for an avid hiker in her own cow-rich county. Because we are kind and benevolent friends, and because she always allows me as many visits as I can reasonably squeeze in to my favorite tea room, we “protect” her wherever possible by flanking either side of her wherever there is an offending ruminant within a 100 foot radius. Even so, if she can make a clear run of it to the nearest stile, she’s off like a greyhound out of its trap

The second occasion we passed through the idyllic village of Grassington was fortuitously timed as the village was still decked out with all of the props as the 1940’s wartime screen set of fictional Darrowby. Filming had just completed for an episode of the much-loved British TV series James Herriott’s “All Creatures Great and Small”. Grassington’s starring role in the current series is the reason the village is now even more famous than it ever was.

For our final hike, Caroline’s husband Stephen joined us for the Buckden, Hubberholme and Cray Gill waterfalls loop hike which we started in Hubberholme at The George Inn carpark (since we were booked there for lunch post-hike). It was a misty, cloudy, damp hike, slipping and sliding over slimy rocks, knee-deep in wet grasses and mud. The views were spectacular even with the clouds sitting low upon our shoulders and the damp seeping into our boots and bones. The waterfalls at Cray were flowing fast and the fields were water-logged with pools of water, streams and narrow brooks, courtesy of the recent downpours. What better way to warm up post damp-hike than with one of the award winning pies at the uniquely perfect country pub “The George Inn” in Hubberholme. The Inn does not have Wi-Fi … nor any other sign that it’s joined the modern world since 1754 when the former church vicarage became a public house. What it lacks in 21st century communications it more than makes up for with endearing character, the quality of its food and beer and the tongue-in-cheek humor and bonhomie of its owner, Ed, who kept us entertained as well as fed and watered. We all agreed, after a good few beers and the best homemade pies we’d ever eaten, that it is a pub which doesn’t try to be anything at all and yet succeeds in being everything you would ever want of a truly authentic old English country pub.

Finally, we were getting towards the end of our trip back to the motherland. Leaving Yorkshire we headed south to the Cotswolds where we had rented a cottage in the village of Willersey, a few miles from my favorite Cotswolds village, Broadway. We stopped in the renowned Daylesford Organic Farm store in Kingham – a very swish complex of cafes, stores and an upmarket deli. We stocked up on picnic items, salads, deli supplies and the best warm chocolate orange melting cake we have ever eaten.

During our 5 days in the picture-perfect Cotswolds, Geoff’s two sisters and one of his nieces came over to stay at the cottage and hang out for a couple of days. Geoff’s aunt joined us for Sunday lunch at The Swan gastro pub in Broadway (which is excellent).

The Cotswolds is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty – the quintessential English countryside in all of its bucolic finest. Warm-gold limestone cottages covered in pink climbing roses and dripping with purple wisteria. Historic tea shops. Immaculately maintained villages.

We did the short 2 mile Snowshill Circular loop through fields and woods before ascending uphill and looping back to the tiny unspoiled village of Snowshill, considered by many to be the prettiest village in the Cotswolds. The clouds were getting blacker and blacker and we only just made it back to the car before the heavens descended.

The following day we walked the 6 mile Bourton and The Slaughters loop from Bourton-on-the-Water (a town which is a tragic victim of its own fame). If you’re not prepared to get up early and wander along the riverside admiring the architecture before all of the tourist junk shops, galleries and cafes open, then I simply wouldn’t bother. It was busy enough when we parked up first thing and grabbed a coffee and cake at Bakery on the Water (an excellent cafe and bakery with a pretty courtyard garden overlooking the river) but by the time we’d completed the walking loop and were back in Bourton a few hours later you couldn’t see the river nor the shops for the thousands of tour bus tourists milling about on the pavements and the roadway. It was awful. The walk was easy, mainly flat, not terribly interesting until you get to the section between the villages of Upper and Lower Slaughter which are very pretty … we probably wouldn’t bother with it again other than to get some exercise.

The best hike of our visit to the area was the 6 mile Chipping Campden to Dover’s Hill loop. Starting in one of the most beautiful villages in the area, the hike leaves the village of Chipping Campden and immediately heads up towards Dover’s Hill from which there are expansive views over the countryside stretching as far as the eye can see. The route then descends through the wooded area of The Dingle before eventually weaving way back to Chipping Campden in time for lunch, coffee and cake at the popular The Bantam Tea Rooms

We hiked in sunshine … and drizzle … and sunshine … and rain in the Cotswolds.

We got caught out in sudden downpours blowing drenching, horizontal sheets of water across the fields … huddling under trees, scrabbling for our raincoats from the backpack and by the time we put them on the storm was all over, of course … the joys of hiking in the English countryside!

On our final day in the Cotswolds we exchanged our muddy hiking boots for what remained of the pothole-battered wheels of our muddy rental car and took a driving tour to some of my favorite villages.

We started in Bibury, a beautiful village on the shallow waters of the River Coln. Miraculously, we managed (against all odds) to snap a quick couple of photos of the famous Arlington Row Cottages devoid of other people. Achieving such a photo was the result of a perfectly timed calculation between dumping the car at the side of the road, assessing the walking speed of a snake of tour bus tourists crossing the back field from the coach carpark towards the top of the Row, and weaving against the tidal flow of people leaving the Row.

It was a split second of calm – 3 photos and we were out of there before we were mown down by the next influx.

This is a tiny village with one of the most famous rows of cottages in the country. I’m sure the locals wish it wasn’t. There were hordes of Japanese, American and French tourists disgorged in their dozens every few minutes from tour buses parked close to The Swan Hotel by the bridge over the Coln. God knows there can’t be a worse place to live in the Cotswold villages than Bibury.

Watching my fellow visitors with their selfie-sticks fight amongst themselves for the “perfect shot” was depressing – we saw people pushing, shoving and kicking their way through the crowds. One lady was so engrossed with her selfie stick that she fell over a wooden stake designed to prevent people careering into the stream in front of the cottages and almost ended up face-forward in the water.

There are good tourists and there are bad tourists. Those arriving in packed tour buses, overrunning a location for as long as it takes to beat their way through the other tourists, snap a few photos, create a lot of noise and chaos but contribute absolutely nothing to the local economy are not good tourists.

We got back into the car and drove towards the far more peaceful and idyllic villages of the Rissingtons. Continuing in a loop to Burford (another of my favorite villages) we stopped for coffee and walnut cake at The Priory tea shop on the High Street before powering up hill for one of the most famous views in the Cotswolds. Burford is also very popular and very busy and is best seen in the morning before the coaches arrive. The view down Burford Hill of the stone cottages with their climbing roses around their front doors and peonies in their gardens set against a backdrop of rolling hills and woodland in the distance, is lovely.

We hadn’t been out to visit Geoff’s aunt in the the western Cotswolds for a good few years so we met up in Painswick – a gorgeous village where the limestone buildings look more white-washed than the deeper honey-colored stone of the villages further east. There are also more locals than tourists in Painswick, which is a bonus. We met in the Rococo Garden Cafe which was undergoing a major overhaul so it wasn’t the best culinary experience. Painswick is appealing for its understated beauty. It also boasts two unusual features. There is a rare pair of “spectacle stocks” next to the churchyard made of iron in the mid 1800’s to constrain the ankles of unfortunate passing vagabonds, thieves or miscreants. Its church, St Mary’s, is also set in a rather unique churchyard. There are 99 yew trees in the churchyard which, over the course of the 300 years of their life, have been sculpted to form arched walkways. For years if a 100th tree was planted, it always died. Legend has it that the Devil ensures that the 100th tree always dies. The last (contested) count was apparently 120 healthy trees, so make of the legend what you will …

Of course, the sun shone sufficiently often in a (relatively) blue sky for the majority of our visit to Broadway and the Cotswold villages which is unfortunate since I would sell my grandmother to live in the chocolate-box village of Broadway. Geoff, however, has set his heart, less on a limestone cottage in the Cotswolds and more on a sandstone cottage in the Yorkshire Dales … so the debate continues…

For the moment we’ll be heading home to Florida but England is beautiful … and we love her always ❤️