As you’ll know from my last post, I’d every intention of continuing the story of our holiday in Cornwall in March 2001 in this one. But, like so many of the plans that me and Mum have made in the years since we started this blog, it hasn’t worked out as we expected it to.
The main problem this time is that our house is still uninhabitable, following the burst pipe in the shower-room that I told you about in Post 301. Though it is drying out gradually – with the help of dehumidifiers – it’s still not safe to put the electricity back on in there and so we’re still having to camp out in Mum’s partner’s house. And, while I know that we’re very lucky to have somewhere else to live for the time being, it’s not quite the same as being in our own house.
The only place we can work here is on the kitchen table, which means we get a lot of interruptions – and there isn’t enough room in the kitchen for our big office chair which in turn means that we can’t sit comfortably and concentrate for very long.
So, rather than struggle on with the next part of our holiday in Cornwall this week, we’ve been thinking of some of the places we’d like to try and visit over the coming months when there’s more daylight and kinder weather.
Top of the list is East Riddlesden Hall, a fabulous 17th century manor house set in lovely grounds and now belonging to the National Trust. Though it’s less than 6 miles/9kms from where we live, I’ve never been and Mum says it’s at least 40 years since she was last there, so I’m sure we’ll both enjoy it.
And next on the list is Saltaire, a UNESCO World Heritage Centre not far down the down the road from East Riddlesden Hall. This model village was built in the 1850s, by Sir Titus Salt, to provide good housing for the people who worked in his mill on the banks of the river Aire, while the mill itself has now been converted into shops, cafes, a museum and an art gallery with lots of David Hockney’s paintings on show. I’ve been past lots of times in the car, on the bus and on the train, but I’ve never actually set paw on the ground there, so that’s something else to look forward to.
We also want to visit Haworth, where Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte wrote their famous novels in the parsonage while their father Patrick was the vicar there.
Of course, we’ve been to Haworth lots of times and have stayed there a few times in the past…
…though we’ve not been since the start of the Covid pandemic in March 2020, so I’m sure there’ll plenty of new things for us to discover. And there’s a new exhibition at the Parsonage relating to the Brontes’ childhood and how it affected their novel writing which we’d like to see.
Our main reason for wanting to go this time, however, is to look for possible sites to film later in the year to make a trailer for Mum’s next-but-one novel, Master of Wuthering Heights, which is a retelling of Emily Bronte’s famous novel entirely from Heathcliff’s point of view.
Then we want to travel just a little further afield and cross the border into Lancashire so we can visit the Pendle Heritage Centre at Barrowford…
…and maybe catch a bus and take a ride around some of the villages near Pendle Hill, when we’ve worked out which bus we’ll need…
And with that I’ll sign off for today as this chair is beginning to hurt my bottom. But I’ll be back again to continue the story of our visit to Cornwall in March 2001 – and I’ll tell you more about the places I’ve mentioned in this post later in the year. Meanwhile, take care and stay safe – and look out for some more tales from me soon!
Follow my next blog: 305. MY MUM THE STORY-TELLER – PART ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY
29/02/2024
Wilf the bear-faced blogger 