The North

So after eventually getting the car we drove east to see Stonehenge, where we only stopped for a little while before turning north.

On the plane from America to France we watched (half of) a new French comedy called "Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis". Basically the whole movie is a series of jokes about someone from the south of France not wanting to move to the cold north where people are backward and talk with a funny accent.

All that made me worry a little about visiting my cousins in Yorkshire. Likewise, on their side they were worried about having a French girl stay with them. "Park your Citroën out in the driveway so she feels welcome," they told their grandmother. But all went well. I've heard enough Yorkshire to cope well with the accent. The only thing for me is that, with no definite articles, every noun sounds like a proper noun; "go to fish shop" sounds like there's a town called 'Fish Shop'. But Cindy found it easier without all those superfluous little words getting in the way of the meaningful part of the sentence. And of course our hostess (my third cousin, twenty-eight times removed) was very welcoming and fed us well so I was very happy that I got in touch with her.

The next day we went to York with her and a grandson. The best part of that town was a mediaeval street called "The Shambles".
And we also went to a Viking history centre to learn about the North's Norse heritage. It was quite an elaborate animatronic ride with commentary in several languages and even smells piped in. The smell was a novelty at first but it soon wore off when they showed us a mediaeval toilet. The straining animatronic face was going a bit too far.

We had dinner at the local pub with plenty of family that night and generally felt like we got a good taste of England.

The last thing we saw in England was Hadrian's Wall. For such a long wall it was hard to find! And once we found it we were a little underwhelmed.