This is the day K.J. and I found out we would be moving our little family to North Yorkshire. After the end of an assessment conference we drove our rental car into the Peak District for a day of exploring and decompressing before flying back to Alabama.
This is my husband carrying my tripod.
The day begins cloudy and overcast, as days often do in England, but beautiful sunshine is coming. Look at the lovely ferns. Ferns now remind me of Miss Penelope Lumley from The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place, who frequently taught her pupils about Victorian England's obsession with pteridology.
Do you have landscapes that cause your whole body to exhale? My body physically relaxes when I'm surrounded by countryside anywhere in the United Kingdom. Peaks, valleys, seaside cliffs, and even wooded areas--they're all my favorite.
"What IS it about the English countryside--
why is the beauty so much more than visual?
Why does it TOUCH one so?"
- I Capture the Castle, Dodie Smith -
In Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth and her aunt and uncle must content themselves with the "beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak" when Mr. Gardiner's work keeps them from traveling further north to the Lakes. This is all we had time for as well: a walk in the Peaks and a visit to Chatsworth.
We stood at the brink of a new season of our life together, and we were excited. If I had to speak in Lord of the Ring's terms, maybe I'd call this our Fourth Age. The Elder days were our brief time together before children, the Second Age was living in Louisville with baby E, the Third Age was Alabama again, and now something new was beginning. (If it's not obvious I definitely just finished reading through The Lord of the Rings.) Our ages are a lot shorter than those of beings who live for thousands of years.
E made it to the gates of Chatsworth with K.J. one Sunday when he preached at a church in the Peaks, but we never made a family trip there. We did, however, take two family trips to the Lakes, so the kids weren't completely deprived.
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