The Bronte Trail, Haworth, Yorkshire, England

 Our friend Tim who lives in Yorkshire guided me and my husband via some Bronte sites on the way to the Bronte parsonage Museum.

Our first (historically) stop was their birthplace. Just a plaque.

You can find a good summary of the places on Wikivoyage under Haworth with a condensed list. 

A readable guide to their lives with photos is on the local Haworth website. 

To reach Bronte country by car, you drive up the M1, motorway one, the first one which was built, going north from London.

Useful Websites

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How to reach the Dickens statues and sights

UK flag

What is worth seeing? As Jonson famously said, some things are 'worth seeing but not worth going to see'. That applies to many statues and plaques. If you are already in a city, sometimes it's worth a detour. Or you can do a trail following the haunts of a favourite character I was just looking at Dickens.

Dickens is associated with London. But let's go through his life logically.
Dickens' birthplace was in Portsmouth. I thought it was south of London. It's actually south west.

What's due south of London.

Brighton
Immediately south of London is Brighton with the Brighton pavilion, Indian on the outside, Chinese inside. What else? Associations with Brighton Rock. The rock you eat, not really good for your teeth but a novelty in olden times. the name of the Graham Greene book, another well known author for all you readers and lovers of literature.

Pebble beaches and narrow shopping lanes.
Brighton is only about an hour each way - make that two hours. I always add an hour to any journey. You need to only a day to get there and back and have time for lunch and shopping and with luck seeing inside a museum. So for those on language courses in Brighton, back to London to see the sites associated with Dickens.

From Brighton, go west and you come to Portsmouth. Mouth of the port.

Portsmouth
Big maritime museum. Ah - Dickens birthplace. At very least you can see a plaque on the house. He left for the big city, the capital, London.

I used to muddle up Portsmouth and Plymouth. Go further west from Brighton and Portsmouth and and you reach Plymouth. Where the Plymouth Brethren left for the USA, what was to become the USA.

In London two sites associated with Dickens are near enough to be done in one trip. From Euston or another station you can pass the Old Curiosity Shop on your way to Dickens House Museum.

I sometimes think of London like the sun with spokes reaching out. Better still, think of it as the central point of a clock with roads and railways reaching out around Britain. (The M1, motorway 1, runs north. If Dickens birthplace was south west at 7 pm, then Bleak House I think of as east-north at 2 pm.
Finally back to the centre, where Dickens is buried, in London, in Westminster Abbey.

USA flag

Travelling overseas, going west, maybe to 3 or 2 on an imaginary clock face, we have a statue of Dickens with Little Nell in Philadelphia, (known colloquially as Philly) in Pennsylvania, south of New York (also known for A Place For Everything and Everything In Its Place).

Taking London and Dickens birth and death location as the imaginary clock face centre, go south  around the globe, 7, to Australia, you can see a Dickens statue.

Dickens Statue
 Loch Ave, Sydney, Centennial Park NSW 2021, Australia

Useful Websites
https://www.rome2rio.com/s/London/Portsmouth
https://www.centennialparklands.com.au/visit/history-and-heritage/statues-and-sculptures/charles-dickens-statue?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens
To be continued tomorrow

About Author Angela
Author, Author! About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Not related to the actress.)
Author of twenty books including: Quick Quotations; Who Said What When.
See books and profiles on Lulu.com and Amazon, such as Wedding Speeches & Toasts. Also watch videos on YouTube.
See other posts on singers and statues and languages and destinations.

If you want to learn to speak the Queen's English, or Received Pronunciation. join me at my online toastmasters club,
Braddell Heights Advanced. Wednesdays, 7-9 Singapore time which is seven hours ahead of London, England.
I am also a member of
Singapore Online.9-12 pm, Singapore time, Fridays. I am also a member of
Tampines Changkat Advanced. This Tuesday evening Singapore time
Harrovians, London.
Toastmasters International Find a Club
https://www.toastmasters.org/find-a-club
https://books.google.com.sg/books?id=upSEBwAAQBAJ&pg=PA21&lpg=PA21&dq=quick+quotations
lulu.com/shop/angela-lansbury/who-said-what-when/paperback/product-21713991
learncool.sg
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THE AA to the Rescue - what do you need to do and say?

Problem
Who do you call when you are in trouble on the motorway.

Answer
The AA. You might have homestart or only the rescue service.

Before going on a trip, either have your AA card handy, or write the AA phone number in your phone, or put it in the glove box, or stick it on a clipboard. I am thinking of writing it on a sticker to put in any car in which I am travelling.

I think you can also call the AA if you are not a member and pay them to rescue you, and/or join for the year.

I had to call them to help me. I had the number to hand.

They asked me where I was. I was at a petrol station on the MI. Going north bound or south bound. Which petrol station? The AA man had it on his visual map.

I had to sign a hand-held machine he was carrying, like signing for the delivery of a letter.

I didn't have my AA number. However, they were able to trace me from my name and address and car number. As I don't have a good memory for my car number, I had to leap out of the car and find it. After that I typed my car number into the AA contact details so that if I ever had to call them again I had the number handy. You never know, next time I might be in a snowstorm or unable to get out of the car, so it's handy to have it.


AA van side view. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

When I got home I found an account of exactly what the problem was and what they had done to help solve it, at least temporarily. The mail contained the name of all the local garages - local to the area where I needed help. The AA also have an app.

You can also join other organizations such as the RAC (Royal Automobile Club?). I believe there\s Green Flag, too.

When we lived in the USA we joined the American Automobile Association, which was AAA.
When I clicked onto a serach engine for car rescue, up popped a sign saying Green Flag was currently offering 50% off the AA and RAC membership prices.

Useful websites and information for travellers:
AA
theAA.com
Emergency helpline:
0800887766
0800 181 00

COMPARISON OF COMPANIES
https://www.knowyourmoney.co.uk/breakdown-cover/?adgroup

RAC
www.rac.co.uk

GREEN FLAG
www.greenflag.com

OTHER INFORMATION
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2018/apr/03/rac-facing-millions-in-refund-costs-over-breakdown-cover-renewal-letters

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.

PS You'll never guess what was on the side of the van which drew up alongside! See next post.

See Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre Settings - and Eat Bakewell Tart

Problem
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, - two of Britain's favourite authors and the world's. Where can I see Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre settings?

Answers
Driving to Derbyshire
Drive up the M1 to Derbyshire. I left lunch at lunch time and arrived by tea time. Despite a delay at Bushey Arches, plus two go slows on the motorway, caused by road minor accidents.

Pride and Prejudice - Chatsworth.
One of my favourite houses. Years ago by good luck I met the late owner who was feeding her chickens.
You can visit the house or just the gardens and the shop.

The designer of the gardens, Sir Joseph Paxton, 1803-1865, also designed London's Crystal Palace. A blue plaque installed by Derbyshire County Council says he lived at Barbrook House from 1845-1865.

Jane Eyre - Haddon Hall. (Also a setting in The Other Boleyn Girl.)

Both are in the same area.

If you don't eat on the motorway or at either of these two places, you might like to stop at Bakewell, home of the Bakewell tart or pudding, my all time favourite dessert for tea time or after lunch or dinner.

I had a wonderful Bakewell pudding at a conference. I could not get the recipe. Another conference goer who claimed to have gone to school with one of the chefs said he would find out. He told me it was made from a catering mix supplied only in wholesale quantities to the trade.

I looked up the recipe and found it dated back to the earliest cookbooks. You can choose which grade of almonds and what proportion of almonds and sugar. We made it and it was so good - different every time, but never as good as the one I had had at the conference in Derbyshire.

More information from:
www.derbyshiredales.gov.uk
www.visitbritain.com

Author, Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share your favourite posts.

Service Station Entertainment: Sculptures and soft toys

I stopped at a motorway service station on the M1. Here's my picture of the entrance. Which services was I at? First I checked in Wikipedia.  The list gave two successive Moto services, both of which had Costa and M & S. Then I remembered that I had made a purchase and kept my receipt. I was at Moto Hospitality Ltd, MI, Toddington, Beds LU5 6 QG.

I went into the Services and headed for the toilets. On my way out I stopped to browse in the shops. They were still selling the scarecrow I had bought the previous year and used in my humorous speech in a humorous speech competition for Toastmasters International. 

I was looking in W H Smith for a toy which made a noise. I could not find one. However, I saw an emoji in bright yellow with a smile and hearts. Brilliant. I could use that to illustrate a talk on computing, or the importance of smiling, or Emojis, or Valentine's Day, or Love, or Symbolism, or Emailing. I hummed and thought about the price. 

Then I saw a badger. Larger. Perfect for a talk about wild life, and badgers, or childhood and toys. Nearly £10. I could save money by buying the smaller stuffed toy. No. I had to have the badger. I bought both. 

In a shopping mall or your local high street, you might go away and come back later. No good changing my mind later when I am an hour down the motorway. Besides, I had never regretted nay previous motorway purchases.

I passed the shop selling phone covers. I didn't need one. But I stopped to look and the assistant stepped forward to ask if I wanted any help. Yes, I wanted to know if he sold a red mobile phone cover, like my black one.  Mine stood up like a triangle on the desk so you could watch a film on your phone, look at a photo, or see instantly where you had put your phone. But mine was black and I wanted red. 

The price he quoted was too high for me. It was either £16.99 or £14.99, depending which model. The one I wanted was £14.99, but still double what I wanted to pay. I asked if he had something similar cheaper. He reduced the price by £2 to £12.99.

He opened three different packets to show me. He did not know what was inside. I suppose there are many kinds of phones and several kinds of covers for each. He seemed quite surprised by the different features and was as interested as I was comparing the different brands.

I said I didn't want to buy as they didn't suit and thanked him for showing me.

I glanced around and caught sight of a spiral collapsible car bin. At about £5, or £5.99 or £6.99, it was tempting.

Sculptures

I was leaving the building, pretty happy with myself, when I stopped in the front area to look back at what seemed like a modern version of Stone henge. When I looked closer, walking around, I discovered what looked like a group of stones was a couple of sculptures resembling tree trunks carved into goblins.

An interesting stop on the journey, part of the pleasure enhancing the holiday. Sculptures. Soft toy souvenirs.

All photos by Angela Lansbury, copyright.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.