Oh those magnificent period dramas!

~ Elizabeth Hurd ~ 5 Comments
Highclere Castle
Highclere Castle

Shortly after I arrived to live here in the UK the fourth series of Downton Abbey began and with a hint of smugness I looked forward to watching the new season months before my American friends and family would be able to do so. It was with some lingering resentment and a great deal of curiosity that I sat down to watch that first episode on ITV, for it had been only a few months previously that I’d thrown down my knitting and stomped out of the room at the end of series three feeling seriously miffed. After they killed off two of my favourite characters, and the second one right in the last moments of the show, I declared myself to be over, done, finished. From that day forward Downton Abbey would be dead to me. Continue reading →

Eclipse

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Last week we had a partial solar eclipse. Although it was overcast here, I was able to snap a few photos. Most of them didn’t turn out, but here is one which shows the eclipse more clearly than the others. DSC_0107

We Went to the Wilds – Part II: A Different Approach  

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 “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.” ~ Alfred Wainwright, British fellwalker and author of the seven-volume Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells.

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Rain.

The rain drumming on the roof of our tent that first night at Coniston never stopped. Sometimes it was a gentle patter as soft as a lullaby, but more often it was a ferocious torrent, as though we had unwittingly pitched our tent beneath a waterfall. Continue reading →

Lakeland Views

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Once again I must apologize. Although the residual brain cloud left behind by my recent cold has begun to dissipate, my blogging time has been severely limited as I try to catch up with all those things which fell by the wayside while I was ill. I am hard at work on Part II of the camping trip last summer, but it isn’t anywhere near completion.

In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy a short preview of some of the incredible scenery of the Lake District. Some of these photographs were taken last summer, while others were taken by my husband on previous trips to the area.

Lake District

Next week will be the blog which exposes just what it is that makes camping in the UK different from camping in the US.

A Charming English Manor House

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Great Chalfield Manor
Great Chalfield Manor

Those who were expecting Part II of my camping saga will have to wait until next week. A nasty cold virus has temporarily rendered my little grey cells incapable of holding onto a thought long enough to do justice to the tale. Instead, I shall try a new post format and share with you a visit Mr. H and I made to Great Chalfield Manor last June. Continue reading →

We Went to the Wilds

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“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

During my first winter here in the UK I had an interesting encounter with someone who had just returned after living in the United States for five years. She was having some difficulty readjusting to life in her native England, and a wistful expression clouded her features when she spoke of all the camping trips she and her husband had taken from their home base in Ohio, which had allowed them to experience up close many of the natural wonders in the US.

I felt a stirring of pride at hearing my homeland praised so highly, and in an effort to reciprocate and express my love for the UK I told her that my husband was planning to take me camping in the Lake District in August.

The woman’s wistful expression vanished in an instant to be replaced by one of disdain, and she shook her head in a sad, condoling manner. As gently as she could she leaned forward and confided,

“It isn’t the same.” Continue reading →

It’s a Dog’s Life

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“If you eliminate smoking and gambling, you will be amazed to find that almost all an Englishman’s pleasures can be, and mostly are, shared by his dog.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

From time to time my friends and acquaintances have emailed me to ask questions about some of the differences I have found between life in the UK and life in the US. Since much of my blog-writing time is often spent dithering around trying to choose a topic to write about, I’ve decided to make life easier this time and address one of those questions, one which is near and dear to my heart.

Are there any differences in how pets are treated, and what species are treated as pets? Continue reading →

Your Face Will Freeze Like That

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The back lanes of the Cotswolds.

When we were children we used to clamour for my grandmother to tell us tales of her childhood growing up in “the olden days” on the farm in Oklahoma. We were fascinated by a life so different from ours, in a time which seemed like something out of a history book rather than real life. My grandmother would oblige with stories about riding in Model T’s down irrigation ditches and sneaking watermelons by moonlight.  She also told us tales of that very peculiar creature known as the hoop snake. Continue reading →

Are We There Yet?

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99 bottles of beer on the wall

99 bottles of beer

Take one down

Pass it around

98 bottles of beer on the wall

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Road trips in the US are as much de rigueur today as they were when my grandparents loaded everything they owned onto their car and drove all the way from Oklahoma to Oregon to escape the Dust Bowl. They fell out of fashion during the heyday of the cheap airline ticket in the 80’s and 90’s, but since the days of heightened airport security and airlines charging extra for just about everything the road trip has come back into its own. You haven’t lived until you’ve been confined to the backseat of the family car for a few days with your siblings and actually sung “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” all the way to the last bottle.

When it comes to road trips it is my firm belief that people fall into one of two categories: conquerors and explorers. Continue reading →

Lest We Forget

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High on a barren, windswept bluff overlooking the majestic Columbia River Gorge in southern Washington State sits a strange concrete structure of pillars and columns encircling a large stone slab alter. Most motorists speeding along the interstate highway which hugs the great river below do not even know it is there, and only those who are actively looking for it can pick it out from among the other rocky outcroppings and cliffs. In the summer it is blistering hot and brush fires frequently sweep through the area. In the winter the bitter wind is funnelled up the steep gorge, howling fiercely and driving rain and ice sideways before it.

This is the Maryhill Stonehenge.

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Commissioned in the early 20th century by eccentric businessman Sam Hill, it was the first US memorial dedicated to soldiers who fought and died in WWI. Mr. Hill, a Quaker, believed that the original Stonehenge in Wiltshire had been used by the Druids as a sacrificial site and he wanted his replica to be a reminder that mankind is still being sacrificed to the gods of war. Inscribed with the names of those men who served and died in the war are these words: Continue reading →