Fat Rascals at Bettys
TUESDAY LETTER
The Coach House (Ha!)
Harrogate
May 23 1995
The Coach House
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Ah, so much to tell, so little time. First, the digs are okay. On the plus side is the kitchen which the English call fitted, which translated means built-in cupboards and sink, and lots of room. Harrogate is dripping with character, full of parks and gardens and everything in town is close enough for walking. There was one small problem which only goes to show how we do take things for granted. Well, two problems, to be accurate; sitting and lying down. The place is decorated with 1945 Goodwill beach house chairs, if you know what I mean. That is somewhere between "Put it with the garbage, Dear", and "Let's phone Goodwill." The place has four beds, and the colour (wheee) brochure claims it will sleep five, one bed being an English double.
That is correct, unless you assume it means at the same time. The double bed is very, very hard and bumpy. Bumpy as in pot holes to hell. There are two singles in another room. One is normally placed on the floor next to a wall which allows for easy entrance and exit, and the other in a small alcove with a 3-foot ceiling, which does not. Both beds are okay in a pinch, which they do. Finally, there is another single cot located in a small room in which is also located a loo and a shower, both installed one can only assume by the landlord, a Mr. McIntosh of Scottish ancestry, who is clearly in some other trade. The shower is interesting in that it was installed at floor level minus any sort of curbing. Water, seeking its own level as it does, seeks its only level which in this case is the bedroom floor. No real problem, however, because there is a regular shower and bath on the ground floor.
Theresa raised several important questions shortly after we arrived, one of which was, "Where do you plan to sleep? I only ask because the double bed is not large enough for two." It took only minutes for me to size up the situation and answer brilliantly, "In the double, where did you think?" After what, given our state of jet lag, passed as a discussion of alternatives, she agreed that she might try that also.
About 1:00 am she awoke me to ask me if I was awake, and voiced the conclusion that, as she thought all along, it was impossible for two to sleep in this awful rack. I agreed amicably, and wished her god speed on her short journey and hoped she would tell me where I might find her if there was a need to do so. "On the single in the double twin, single room," she noted. Then, about 4:30 a.m. she crawled back into the double, asking me, again, if I were awake? I told her that I was now, and reminded her that only recently had we had a similar discussion and concluded that not even one person good get a good nights sleep in this contraption. She responded saying that was true, but once she got to sleep she could nod off again about anywhere, and then proceeded to do so. I complimented her, noting as always that I admired her accomplishments, but I doubt she heard me because she was fast asleep by then.
Sometime later in the day while I was nodding off while washing the lunch dishes, she shook me lightly and brought up the matter of sleep again, the deprivation of which was in the forefront of both of our minds. I said that I would look into it, recalling that the brochure did say the Coach House could sleep five. As I look around the second floor where all the bedrooms are located, it wasn't long before I discovered an electric switch and a small timer on the wall just outside the double room. There was also a small, handwritten note of instructions which had fallen to the floor and under a chair. To summarize, the note suggested that in order to accommodate one to five sleepers, the starting and ending times of the snooze, the length of sleeping intervals, and the wake-up times for the intervals should be punched into the timer. Then, just prior to reclining, power should be put to the device.
So we set the snooze for 8 hours and the intervals for 2 hours and activated it just prior to retiring. It really is not a bad system, given that the landlord is not likely to change the beds and that we prepaid the four week's rent. What happens, in our case, is that at the end of the first two-hour interval, the alarm rings, everyone wakes up and quietly changes beds, and then nods off in the new and as yet not uncomfortable environments. Then, at the end of the next 2-hour interval just as the bed lumps are getting really annoying, the alarm goes off, and everyone arises and changes beds again. One more round of this and it is time to get up for good, and the participants have had, given the conditions of the beds, a reasonably good sleep.
That took care of sleeping. Now, what about sitting. Fortunately our good buddies from Leeds down the road had us to lunch at their Castle, and after listening to us whine, suggested we borrow a couple chairs from their furniture warehouse. We made our selection, crammed them into the back of the world's smallest Rover, and before the hour was over were sitting comfortably in our new sling chairs, in front of a warm May fireplace, watching the travel show on BBC 2 of Sunny Spanish Holidays.
Valley Gardens Near Town Center
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Thus, the good life became firmly established among the hills and dales of Yorkshire. The pleasant walks have become part of each day, as does a morning stop at Bettys, the worlds greatest bakery/café. Every item scales out at 20 plus scrumptious fat grams and an entailment to walk another three miles. In case you should be concerned that we are wasting our time, rest assured. Our place contains a wine cooler consisting of 28 round red tiles imbedded in mortar. This thoughtful amenity would have been lost to me until Theresa came up with the brilliant notion of her anticipation, doing, recalling device. Each round tile tube is now dated with a post-a-note and is ready to store material and notes for each day's adventure.
Its Wednesday, so this must be Fountains Abbey! Each tile gets stuffed with folders and other information anticipating the visit of the day that gets read from ahead of time, and then upon return, supplemented with the sort of material one collects on such visits.
*****
Get-it-organized Ripley here! Ah, yes, I am sitting in front of red tiles right now and am eagerly anticipating later today stuffing some of the "containers" with brochures we collected at the Harrogate Information Center yesterday. You need to know where you have been, where you are, and where you are going. At least that's what I would do if you were here alone. I, mean, really, there are only so many days and there is so much to do...that is, after you are rested from a lovely night's rotating bed sleep with bird chirping starting in earnest at 4 a.m. and from leisurely sitting on the collected chairs from the Ashling estate down the road. Let's all get out our maps now and find Harrogate. Harrogate is 200 miles north of London and 200 miles south of Edinburgh, the halfway town between the two capitals. I plan to go to the library today and become a patron for a month (already noted on a paper in today's tile!). The first book to borrow is a short history of the area. Until then, all I know is that Harrogate has a population of 70,000 and was an "in" destination in the late 1800's when it was spa town for the wealthy. The Roman and Turkish baths still remain and I, for one, want to try them out. Jack is less sure. Perhaps a few more sleepless nights will help his decision on that score.
Montpelier Garden
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Charmed civility is my current term for Harrogate. The downtown shops remind me a bit of the expensive shops of Zurich a bit as they line the angular roads with jewels and clothes boutiques, interior decorating centers, antique stores, and most important the coffee and tea shops. Bettys, already noted above, makes 400 varieties of breads and pastries in its kitchen, located in the shop. The lineups, I'm sorry queues, on the weekends run out of doors nearly a block down to Montpelier street. The walk from our place to Bettys has been timed more than once, and yesterday's excursion took 11 minutes, 33 seconds. Our current Personal Best. I shall try to better my time daily.
One personal goal of this trip was to practice writing. Since we only have one laptop along (a sign of real frugality on our part), I purchased a notebook with a picture of Virginia Woolf on the cover at the local WH Smith shop. I also bought a real fountain pen with ink cartridges. Now the routine might be a 11 minute, 33 second walk to Bettys to check out the pastries; waffle briefly about my high cholesterol count; take out my pen and Virginia Woolf notebook; watch the people go by and write. How's that for an image in Harrogate?
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