The Beauty of Yorkshire

Click here if you would like to see a Yorkshire Hikes slideshow.

I have fallen in love with Yorkshire (don't get me wrong.. I still can't wait to come back to San Diego), but I have been convinced that Yorkshire is the heart and soul of England. I know that many people feel that way about London, but not if you're living in the North. The past two weekends, Darrick and I have explored the countryside and heard many of the stories that go along with every dale, moor, castle, abbey and pub we have gotten to see. I'm starting to think that in order to live in Yorkshire, you must be an amazing story-teller, because everyone I've met in this area seems to have that gift. 

Last weekend, Darrick and I got to stay with Ali's Aunt Sharon and Uncle Kevin at their home in Blacktoft, a few miles from Goole. There is a bus to Gilberdyke, the next town over, but it only runs twice a week. There's a single pub in the town, which is the only business in the area. Sitting by their fireplace hearing stories made me feel like I had been transported into another world. More stories were served up with their homemade, delicious Indian food and with a Yorkshire breakfast, the next morning. This was after a day out to Whitby with Clare and David Price to climb the stairs on the rugged coastline where Dracula was set... a few miles away from where we had fish and chips at Robin Hood's Bay. I don't know how Darrick and I got so lucky to be taken in by such wonderful people while in Yorkshire. The contrast of the carefree weekends with the crazy heaps of work and long commutes of the week are a bit jarring (on Mondays), but also really refreshing (on Saturday and Sunday).

This weekend, Chris came to visit Leeds and we had two full days of sun along with two full days of hiking in the Yorkshire moors in Ilkley and the dales in Malham. That still expanse of nature seemed so far away this morning as I was sprinting from one train station to a bus station, trying to make my connection to Goole after a landslide knocked out part of the track for at least eight weeks in Doncaster. A journey that was already over an hour has gotten much longer and more complicated on Mondays, but I can't feel stressed out about anything when I'm looking at pictures of hiking through Yorkshire. I can't wait to go back! As I'm planning and teaching a project about SuperHeroes in Bradford, a project about transforming the Goole Docks that kicks off next Tuesday with a fieldtrip, designing signs for a new school in Atherton with 6th graders and helping to change the structure of year 7 in Sheffield, my head is spinning, at times. I feel so lucky to have this opportunity, but also really overwhelmed by it. All of our exhibitions are coming together around the same time, and that inevitable nervousness and uncertainty that builds up towards an exhibition has been amplified and multiplied with so many different schools, communities, teachers and students involved. In the end of this first block of schools (right after Spring Break), we will (hopefully) be publishing two books, manufacturing signs and hanging two projects in a school and two in community centres (I'm trying to get used to switching around the r and the e and adding a u to words like favourite...otherwise my students call me out). I think it will all come together - at least I hope it will - pieces of it will come together - maybe not all of it... too bad we can't all just go hiking in the dales together when it gets overwhelming. Hiking through the Yorkshire Dales feels like you're walking through books of Mary Oliver's poetry. So peaceful and beautiful.

Please, come visit! I'll take you there :-)