Off Betsy and I go to Northern England, my first visit to the land of Hobbes (Thomas, not Calvin-and-) to find the philosopher’s answer to a life that is naturally “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short!

England Itinerary

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Okay, no glumness here–we’re actually going to celebrate a wedding!   Betsy’s nephew, Nicholas Eggers of San Diego, is marrying Aditi Das of Leeds, England, in a three day affair that we consider an improvement on last weekend’s Royal Wedding.  For one thing, we’re invited. For another, the bride and groom are stars in their respective families and cannot be outshone by Prince Andrew, Meghan Markle or the Queen for that matter.  And if that’s not enough, the clincher for us is that 2 of the 3 days are dedicated to Hindu wedding tradition and ceremony, which we haven’t witnessed before.  This feels like an incredible honor!

Our preparation to date has consisted almost exclusively of watching BBC detective mini-series.  We study the culture, dress and accent, and unfailingly admire the penetrating English intelligence and use of language.  I highly recommend “Unforgotten”–after you’ve warmed up with “Foyle’s War”, “Endeavour,” “Inspector Morse”, “Inspector Lewis”, “Doc Martin”, “Broadchurch”, and–need I go on?

For all the studying, my personal grasp of English-speak is a bit shaky, as you may have already discerned from the title of this post.  Between unfamiliar pronunciations and my personal hearing loss, I’m never quite sure if I got things right.  This visit will be the test as I plan to talk like a native. Will I blend in?  This could go terribly wrong–stay tuned and I will let you know.

Injured foot

We are trying some new things on this trip which add a certain unpredictability and excitement.  First, we are flying Virgin Atlantic, the Richard Branson airline, and thinking it will be a better experience than staid, tight-seated old Delta.  Secondly, we will travel exclusively by train, bus, bike and foot once we’re in country.  This seems less exciting since I injured my foot in a running incident and we may have to add Uber/Lyft as an option.

We’re off!

Virgin Atlantic at the Gate

Manchester cranes mark a city on the move.

We arrived at Manchester International at 8:30 AM, walked through a skyway to the train station and boarded a train for Leeds.  We felt alert after 5 or 6 hours sleep on the plane, and the transition was smooth, the train on time.  We viewed Manchester through a train window and we saw construction cranes everywhere, intriguing modern buildings juxtaposed with dignified historic ones.  Manchester looked like a city on the move.

I cleverly put my camera on “selfie” to take a discreet shot of the train. Apparently, not everyone was fooled!

After an hour, we changed trains at Leeds and 30 minutes later arrived in Harrogate, the site of the civil service also known as “Wedding 1” .  “Wedding 2”, the Hindu ceremony, would be at Shrigley Hall south of Manchester two days later.  

We rolled our luggage a half mile to the White Hart, where a room was ready for us, and soon thereafter walked through Harrogate’s much-loved Valley Gardens to The Sun Pavilion where wedding preparations were underway.  Jay and Sarah greeted us, and we were introduced to Aditi, the bride, and her wonderful family.  They had much to do, and managed to combine industriousness and sociability effortlessly.  We tried to make ourselves useful as we basked in the spirit of welcoming family and an upcoming wedding.  It was a lovely, sunny afternoon.

Jay and Betsy catch up.

We dropped into The Montpelier Pub after meeting Aditi and helping with some wedding setup.  It was late afternoon and seemed the perfect time to “stop for a pint,” just like our favorite BBC detectives do after work.

The pub keeper was a friendly chap and immediately recognized our non-standard speech—he guessed we were Americans.  We had a chat, and Betsy decided he was the guy to answer a pressing question:  why in BBC detective shows do ordinary Inspectors call a woman Chief Inspector “Mum?”  Is it a term of respect or is she, like, considered to be their mother?  And, by the way, Betsy mused, what makes the Queen Mum a “mum” to the British public?

His explanation was straight-forward if subtle for an American commoner’s ear to comprehend.  “Mum” when addressing one’s superior is actually “Ma’am”, a term of respect, while “Mum” is the same as “Mom” when speaking to one’s mother.  

The Queen Mum, of course, is “Ma’am”, and is used to distinguish the mother of the current Queen or King, even though she herself was never in the royal lineage.  For example, Diana, if she were still alive, would become Queen Mum at such time as her oldest son, William, became king.

This led to the next obvious question:  under what terms might Meghan Markle became Queen Mum?

“Never!” replied our friend quite emphatically.  “Prince William has three sons!”

But what if Prince William and his family were flying to the British Virgin Islands for vacation and their plane crashed?  Wouldn’t that make Andrew the First Prince, and therefore his son the royal lineage, and therefore Ms. Markle a future Queen Mum?

The  pub keeper explained to us that an old friend of his had been an RAF pilot, and was an OUTSTANDING pilot, so much so that he was now the personal pilot for the royal family, or at least in charge of their aviation, and that such a plane crash could never happen while he was at the controls.

And that, my friends, is why Meghan Markle will never become Queen Mum!

Amid the marriage ceremony, a sudden row worthy of the WWF broke out amid assembled friends and family.  I could not get close enough for a photo, but Dusty was on the floor, struggling, as a throng of younger celebrants shouted, pushed, pulled and pummeled him.  When the melee subsided, Dusty was barefoot.  The ceremonial shoes had been given to him by Nick so this was obvious a serious matter—he had lost the groom’s shoes!  Dusty retook to his seat in disgrace.  Would the shoes ever be recovered?

Dusty at a loss to explain how he lost the shoes….

After the ceremony, Nick conducts a raucous negotiation with the bride’s friends for return of his shoes.

Aditi saves the day with cash to ransom back the shoes. Note pictures of wedding party members on the bills.

It turns out his loss has a name—Joota Chupai—and the theft was premeditated by friends of the bride, who then go on to hide the shoes.  It’s a light-hearted game meant to show the acceptance and open hearts of both sides of the family and how willing and ready they are to share lifetime of laughter and fun together.

The woman in orange shoes was training for a 30 mile trail run in a few weeks.  Her husband, though, was aiming for a 50 mile trail run and had run 30 miles on Monday.  “He’s a bit of a nutter!” she exclaimed.  Those Brits—now we have a new word to describe lots of people we know!

Shortly after arriving in Kendal, we set out to “hire cycles” in Brit-speak so we could extend our range beyond walking distance.  The nearest cycle hire was 10 miles away in Windermere and we went to hop a train for the 15 min. ride, whereupon we learned that the train which runs every hour was canceled indefinitely.  Two local women explained the situation to us, called a taxi and allowed us to share a ride.

The Cycle Hire was immediately adjacent to the train station—a lesson for transit options everywhere—and we were soon mounted on perfectly-tuned Marin hybrids heading back to Kendal.  A “cycle path” picked up 400 m

Those Brits have a different word for everything! We rent cycles and hire people. Brits hire cycles and rent people?

outside the station and took us 4 mi. to where we could roll onto small backroads.  Thank goodness, because car traffic on A591 from Windemere to Kendal was intense with little patience for bikes.  

The last 6 miles on quaint country roads made our day.  It’s why we love to get on a bike!

Well-known craft brewery in Stavely, near Kendal, which happened to be right on our route.  Stop required!

Evidence that the Brits are finally stepping up their beer game. The bar keep did his best to explain the difference between “Cask” and “Draft” beer. “Cask beer is live beer and draft beer is dead beer,” is his summary.

Lovin’ the countryside….

Watching the river…

Our hotel room was perched on the corner of the hotel with windows overlooking the Stramongate Bridge.  My first thought was that traffic noise might define our hotel experience, but cars and trucks quickly faded to the background as we began to watch the bridge, the river, and the parade of Kendalians.

 A person can anonymously meander back and side streets for a while, but ultimately to cross the river one must go to the bridge.  A bridge concentrates people.  It also provides a long vista, a place to pause, take a breath and gaze. 

It is a meeting point of nature and city, a brief interlude of water, air, and birds within the grid of buildings and traffic that structure urban life.  

Carts racing bus