Accommodation: Ingle Hill
We had quite an alarming (and, upon later reflection, quite comic) wake-up call. At around 7:15 I heard the phone ring. A moment later I hear Anne, in her turkey-like English soprano ringing out cries of "Telly-phone! Telly-phone!" I sit bolt upright in bed, having registered that the call is for us. I struggle to put my glasses and pants on. Meanwhile, Anne continues to cry out, "Telly-phone!" and begins pounding on the door.
"I'm coming!" I yell.
"She's coming!" Devin yells.
"I'm putting the phone down in front of your door!" Anne yells, pounding again on the door.
"Okay!" We yell out.
"Telly-phone!" she cries again. I think she continues her alarm of "Telly-phone!" all the way down the stairs - I picture waving her arms about.
I finally pick up the phone and, wouldn't you know it, no one's on the other end. I go downstairs to tell Anne this. "Did they say who they were?" I ask.
"No," says Anne, "But it sounded like a young man, and there seemed to be children in the background!"
I'm telling you, this woman is mad - in the most saintly and lovely way possible. I go upstairs and get back into bed. After we ponder for a while, we decide it could only have been my dad. So I call my dad's cell # in China with D's cell phone. It was my dad, just checking up. All in all, a very funny episode.
From there we began our way to Clay BankTop. Not really a promising start - it was drizzling so we put on our rain gear. An old man passing us on the way to the village: "Pretty grim, isn't it?" At the center of town there's a stone table where John Wesley is reported to have preached
from (we've been in Methodist country since the Dales) and while we were taking a picture of it a Japanese woman begins calling to us from the doorway of the walking shop across the way. It turns out she was saying "ohayo-gozaimasu" to me. We went in the store - turns out, she's married to the (white) owner of the shop and they both thought I was Japanese. Other (white) people from the village arrive at the store and when they see me they ask her, "Friend of yours?" Hm. I suppose in a village like Osmotherly I should just shrug.Anyways, we walked through a pretty wood in the light rain, coming across the Insane British, out for a walk on a wet Sunday morning! Then came the moors - two up and down climbs in the bitter wind and the incredibly wet white mist that kept all views strictly out of sight. It was miserable, and we were freezing. 2 American women were on the path also, but unlike us they didn't have rain shells on - instead, they had ponchos, a bad business on the incredibly windy moors. The ponchos were flapping violently and blowing up over their heads. I told D I wouldn't be surprised if I saw them fly past me, screaming.
At the bottom again we (and the 2 women and the Rugby couple) stopped at Lord Stone's Cafe for a much needed pot of tea and scones, along with some of Anne's elaborately packed lunch:
1 ham sandwish
1 cheese and relish sandwich
1 devilled ham sandwich
1 homemade fig bar
1 tiny golden lemon cupcake
1 almond layer cake piece with jam
2 cherry tomatoes
So funny and good, like Anne. Anyway, it was torture to put all our wet, supposedly waterproof, rain things on again. Off we went to 2 more up and down moors. It was insane - wind worse than ever, perhaps worse than at 9 Standards, slippery wet stone steps, impenetrable mist. And locals out for a hike! "Probably some local fisherman, out for a pleasure cruise, at night, in eel infested waters." We were even more soaked by the time we got to Clay Bank Top.
The most frustrating thing was we couldn't get an answer at our B&B for a pick up down to Great Broughton - 2+ miles away and not mapped out for us. Miserable. It was pouring rain by now (on the moors we were in the clouds, now we were under them). We had no choice but to trudge in the rain on the dangerously trafficked mountain road to Great Broughton. I was ready to scream. We met up with the Rugby couple in the village and commiserated a bit.
Finally got to the B&B - the son-in-law let us into the garage to take off and hang up our soaked-through rain gear. He explained that they were gone to Whitby for a luncheon to celebrate his father-in-law's 80th birthday. Well, one can't really argue against that, right? Once we were sorted out, the hostess - Margaret, had us down for tea and jelly roll and scones and cookies!!! in their garden room - they're avid gardeners. Too bad it was wet the whole time we were there. She was lovely, and so was Len, the 80 year old and her husband. They chatted with us and we wished Len a happy birthday. He ended up telling us a lot about Dianne, their daughter who died of cancer at 45. I'm not sure how long ago this was, but it was very sad as he seemed quite fixed on it. Dianne seemed quite an interesting person. Traveled everywhere and nannied for Danielle Steele and then for Jerry Hall! They had pictures of her with Jerry Hall up in their dining room.
Dinner was at Jetminer's Inn - it was okay, sort of a letdown after all the raves I read on the C2C forums. I had really looked forward to the traditional roast beef and Yorkshire pudding in Yorkshire - but it was just okay. We did split a strawberry and sherry trifle with loads of cream and custard. Mmmmm. And we had a good laugh about Anne. It's good to laugh. Especially when one is physically worn out.
Back at Ingle Hill Len had some old friends over for more birthday celebrations (his daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren had gone home) and he made us each have a glass of port & lemonade with them, and Margaret insisted we have a slice of birthday cake each. They were so sweet - the hosts, of course, but also the port and cake!
The forest outside of Osmotherly - the last picture we took that day as the rain fogged up our camera.
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