Sheep, a Lacking Pashmina and Finally, All Creatures!

 If anyone has the notion that the Yorkshire Dales is a lovely, quaint but not very exciting corner of England, boy would you be dead wrong! In the last two days, we have had three remarkably different experiences, all within a 50 mile radius.  Our first, was at a sheep fair.

As my entire repertoire of sheep knowledge includes that their milk makes good cheese and their wool, lovely sweaters, attending a day-long fair, consisting of sheep judging, sheep races, and sheep dog demonstrations, may not  have been my first choice of things to do on vacation.   But, this was a very different type of holiday and if we wanted to embrace the Yorkshire people, this seemed like a logical place to get to know them.

The fair was filled with people, young and old and we were able to speak to a few of the Yorkshire natives. Unfortunately, these conversations required, what I like to call, “the lean-in.” I thought we were safe because we never required closed-captioned for “All Creatures,” (Except to be honest, I never understand what Helen’s father, Mr. Alderson is saying, so maybe we should) but once we began a conversation with real Yorkshiremen, we had to do the “lean-in” in order to keep up with the conversation, as real-life does not offer the closed caption option.  

I also learned that there’s more to sheep than just a good Manchego and a well-made cardigan. Besides there being a lot of people at the fair, there were a dizzying amount of sheep—and they were all different. In the past, my quality-time with sheep had been non-existent, but after spending some up-front and personal time with a few hundred, I realized their sizes, their wool and sometimes their lifespan (a.k.a their untimely demise) depended on the type of sheep they were. 

Lastly, there’s a lot of mud at such an event. I don’t know how it happened, but besides my shoes, I got mud on my raincoat and even my stylish robbery-free purse from Amazon.  But that’s for later.

That night, we were going to leave the sheep behind and splurge for dinner at a beautiful Manor House with a with a well known chef. Mark had made the reservations and said that the dress was “casual elegant” (What does that really mean?) and that no jackets were required.   Although my apparel choices were somewhat limited, I went with my never-wrinkle J. Jill travel pants and a sweater from Talbots (I even think it was wool!) I had brought a pashmina and was thrilled that I didn’t have to wear my functional LL Bean raincoat, even though I washed-off most of the mud.  

As soon as we pulled into the place, I knew that we were a bit under-dressed and that there was no way I could wrap my pashmina around me to make me look more stylish. The truly low-moment of the evening was when we were escorted into the dining room and Judy and I were told that the small table located between us was for our purses. I hesitated because again, I was carrying my robbery-proof Amazon bag and recognized that it would never fall under the category of  casual elegant. As I put it down on this little table, I realized, with the hostess watching, that there was mud (God, I hope it was mud!) all over it from the sheep fair! Horrified, I flipped it over so quickly, it nearly fell off the table! Fortunately, the rest of the evening was lovely and the food was incredible.  After one glass of wine, I was beginning to think that maybe my pashmina did fall into the casual elegant category, or at least close enough. 

And today, with our incredible Yorkshire tour guide, Tim Barber, we went to visit all the filming locations of “All Creatures.” The day spent with Tim however, turned out to be so much more.

As the four of us, who are between our mid-sixties and mid-seventies, do not exactly fit the “groupie” profile, I was a bit concerned about us making the whole day about taking photos in front of the “Drovers” Bar or Skeldale House, the home of our favorite Yorkshire vets. But apparently there are a lot of middle-age (and older) people—mostly Americans— who are redefining the word “groupie,” as Tim said that the All Creatures tour had become his most popular. Thankfully, Tim seemed to read the situation and realized almost immediately (mostly because of Bob’s many questions) that we were not in it just for the quick snapshot but really were interested in what made the Dales so interesting.  

And it was.  Sure, we got all the silly photos—I mean, we are here—and we even had lunch at the Drover’s, but it was the rest of the day that made it so special.  We visited an abandoned priory, a long-gone hunting lodge of a “shepherd” landowner and the churches that were the backdrop of the All Creatures wedding and non-wedding (fellow viewers will know what I mean) but were  steeped in history, one of which was built in the 1100s!  The last few days’ lesson in truly enjoying Yorkshire is to make sure to  bring: your wellies, at least one nice outfit, even if it requires ironing and a mind ready to learn.  Closed captioning

is optional.