Saturday was a lovely day, although not so lovely in London. We did a quick trip out to get some fresh backed goods for the day and then it was time to tuck in and watch the coronation on the television. Being Canadian, we opted to watch the CBC coverage, although everything from the cathedral would have been from filmed by BBC I assume.

The shops and businesses were decorated in flags and royal photos, all the pubs were flying flags and bunting as we walked around the town in the early morning. The festivities will carry on throughout the weekend as it has been declared a bank holiday.

Once all the provisioning was done, we settled in with our scones and cream, cheese and crackers and of course, mimosas!

Dan preparing the first toast of the day. We could actually watch the event in local time, which meant for once I was not getting up at 3:30 am to prep for the viewing from Canada!

With the coronation over, we had a short walk around the town and then back home for a quiet night.

Day 25, Marsk to Helwith and back!

We had a leisurely start with a lovely 6 mile walk from Marsh through fields beside the Swale tributary and climbing up, only to descend once again to our turning point at Helwith. The day was warmer than we have had and we thoroughly enjoyed the fine day ( although the skies continued to threaten us from afar!

Glenn had read in the “Poodling Guide” that there was a tea room at Hellwith. This would make a lovely stop at the half way point for us.

Once we had scarfed down our scones with cream and red current preserve we reluctantly headed back towards Marske. Along the way, we met a farmer in the field with a young horse, and he commented “Now don’t go telling people about this walk!!”….little did he know, I write a blog!!!

Once back in Marske, we decided to visit the little Norman church from where we started today’s walk. St Edmund’s is a small church, no running water, no toilets, and we presume no heat, but the atmosphere was still very warm and inviting. Like all small churches, they are discussing their future and the possibility of converting this church into more of a community space. For anyone who knows me, this sounded all too familiar.

One interesting fact we discovered was that this church actually housed the bones of St Cuthbert. Yes, the same saint who was in Lindisfarne and who’s bones were carried off to protect them from marauding Danes. Turns out that there was 2 places where his bones rested temporarily until their final resting place in Durham Cathedral, and this was one of them! One other bit of trivial, the Gospels that Charles placed his hand upon during the coronation were the Lindisfarne Gospels. They were created in the early 700’s and are housed in the British Library when not in use at coronations!

Once our visit to St Edmund’s was done, we headed back to Richmond. We were invited to a street party as part of the weekend long festivities for the coronation. After a pastoral morning setting, we relaxed our weary bones with drinks and good food!

It’s once again time to bid farewell. We are entering our last week in Richmond and have planned some exciting walks and visits for our last few days of Dales exploration. Hope you can join us again. Until then…