We all have bad days, you know the sort, where nothing seems to go right and you wish you hadn’t got up at all. Here in Yorkshire, they call it a “mare” of a day, like a nightmare. I like that description. It happened to me last week. My printer died at the most inopportune moment, just as I was trying to print out my RWA membership form. On top of that, I couldn’t find the most recent version of a file I needed, and my email kept bouncing. I was having a “mare” of a day. In fact after a couple of hours of accumulative chaos, I was ranting like a crazed old crone. Not a good state of creative mind to be in. Howarth is much as it would have been in Victorian times. Built on a steep hillside, the cobbled streets and tumbling stone cottages really take you back in time. As you might imagine, it’s a popular tourist spot nowadays, with gift shops, teashops and regular historical weekends. At the top of the village is the vicarage, now a museum. As you take in the ambiance, you can feel the history rising from the cobbles beneath your feet, sense the timelessness from the view of the moor on the horizon. Beautiful. Of course it’s not quite as it would have been in the 19th Century. There are modern conveniences; the Victorians didn’t have such luxury. They also didn’t have reliable transport. When you drive into the village on the steep, winding road, you are reminded that this would once have been a virtually inaccessible dirt track. No electricity, no running water. And yet this village is special, very special, because this is the place where the Bronte sisters wrote some of the most enduring novels ever to have been published. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey. Yes, I go there because I feel humbled. 
I knew what I needed to do – get out of the house. So I drove out across the moors to visit a small village about 12 miles away from where I live, Howarth. Isn’t it pretty?
With precious pages of paper and ink, their magical, memorable stories were written. That’s it. No gadgets, and no conveniences. And here am I bemoaning my life. I hang my head in shame, pay homage, then I come home and type like the wind, grateful to have a PC. I even give it a hug. 
I feel lucky to have the email service that I was cursing just hours before. I forgive the printer for packing it all in, and thank it for its previous efforts on my behalf. Sometimes you have to step back from life to appreciate it properly. Follow the link below to take a virtual tour round the Bronte home, and don’t forget to give your PC a hug afterwards. 
August 24, 2006
Taking you out on a visit with me
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Ohhh What a beautiful place! I love towns and cities that are so solid, and you can actually imagine what the past was really like. I saw alot of places like that when I was in Scotland, and Greece.
Comment by Sasha — August 24, 2006 @ 12:22 pm
It’s been years since I went to Haworth. I really must go again sometime soon and get some inspiration… Maybe we should have an ERWWY outing?
Love
Wendy
Comment by Wendywoo — August 24, 2006 @ 1:07 pm
That is beautiful, thanks for sharing it.
Comment by Kris — August 24, 2006 @ 5:30 pm
Thanks for sharing, Saskia! I love historically rich settings and envy you your location. The closest history I have here is St. Augustine Florida, which is dripping in pirate lore, but I haven’t been so blessed as you since I lived in Turkey and breathed the history daily.
Comment by Heather — August 24, 2006 @ 5:33 pm
That place looks beautiful! Excellent point you make. I had a mare of a day on Monday and I’ve been feeling grumpy ever since. I’m going to hug my PC now.
Comment by Amy — August 24, 2006 @ 5:43 pm
I love traveling in England. You’re making me want to go back. When we can, we stay at farm bed and breakfasts. I take my computer with an adapter plug and try to do some work every day. Nothing like sitting on a bed and writing and looking up to see cows and sheep drifting past the window. One morning at a farm in Scotland, we saw a fox dash out of the bushes and grab a pheasant. He looked so pleased with himself as he left the farm yard. The other birds had a lot to say about it. “Did you see THAT? Glad it wasn’t me!”
I think about modern conveniences a lot. When I’m tired and cranky after a long plane trip across the U. S, I remind myself I could be on a wagon train traveling at ten miles a day.
Rebecca
Comment by Rebecca York — August 25, 2006 @ 12:18 am
Heather, mmmm pirate lore, sigh.
The closest we have to that kind of history in the UK is Cornwall, another beautiful spot, very rugged coastline. I love the feeling of history there and recently set a time travel novella there, due out in Secrets 19 next year. I haven’t been to Turkey, but like you say some places just hold the history better and you can breath it in the air.
Sasha, this landscape is similar to parts of Scotland, yes. It does me good to get way from the PC and appreciate it from time to time.
LOL Rebecca. I can just picture it. It is inspirational, something just so different to our daily lives, it really gets the cogs going.
Wendy, we ought to shouldn’t we, make a change from embarrassing the staff at our usual haunt.
I’m so glad you all enjoyed the visit to Haworth.
Comment by Saskia Walker — August 25, 2006 @ 6:56 am
I loved this, Saskia!! I *must* go there someday. You are so lucky to have villages like this so close to you and you are clever enough to appreciate it! Thanks for sharing it.
Comment by Marilyn Jaye Lewis — August 25, 2006 @ 7:21 am
Ohhh I’d love to visit England! Thank you for sharing.
After my laptop died a year ago, I vowed to never again curse my PCs. They get spoken to sweetly, even when they misbehave.:)
Comment by Alyssa Brooks — August 25, 2006 @ 11:03 am
Fantastic! Thanks for going to all the trouble to post the pics too. I grew up near a Revolutionary War graveyard in Pennsylvania and I’ve always loved noticing the history around us and wondering about the stories attached to places and things that have stood the test of time. My visit to England and Scotland left me awed by the differences in our idea of “old” history. We’re such a young civilization in the US that a 200 or 300 years old building is considered “old”–nothing on the Roman ruins in the English countryside (or Bath) or the mysterious Stonehenge!
Luv,
Cleo Coyle
Latest release…
Coffeehouse Mystery #4: Murder Most Frothy
Comment by Cleo — August 25, 2006 @ 12:15 pm
Marilyn, you would love it. Most towns and villages have history around every corner, but often it’s mixed in with the modern. A few places have a larger area just as it would have been, like Haworth, and towns like Bath. There you can truly get a flavour of the time it was built.
Cleo, we lived near Stonehenge when I was about 8 or 9, and I was mesmerised by it, my imagination ran riot. I love ancient, mysterious cultures.
Good policy, Alyssa. I figure if I talk to the plants, why not the PC as well.
Comment by Saskia Walker — August 26, 2006 @ 1:32 pm