and on that note...

If I didn't have these photos to prove it I might be convinced that our week long adventure through Yorkshire and London was really just a dream...but we did go and we came home inspired to bring the kids with us next time. We want to see them run along the moors and dales like wild Hobbit things, and explore the abandoned abbeys of those solitary monks, we want to see them wonder at the mysterious Tower, and take a proper stroll along the Thames, to stand in the shadow of Winston Churchill and Big Ben, and to see for themselves the uniformed English school children on their way to "Hogwarts'. I hope that this is just the first of many more adventures for the Kookies throughout the British Isles.

The Brontë Parsonage...where I happily spent an entire afternoon learning about the lives of the Brontë family. This place seemed untouched by time...even the table where they wrote their most well known stories is here in the front living room...you can still see where they carved their names into the wood. Although the house sits just above the town of Haworth, miles of solitary moorland stretch out behind the property. It's very easy to see why this place inspired stories like Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. The wind has a different kind of voice here...a sort of happy-sad song that sings, "come and walk and walk with me, cry with me and talk with me, dream with me and sing with me, the moorland song of sympathy." 

Yorkshire is the perfect place to walk for miles and be alone...

well almost alone.

 The city of York is one of the most well preserved medieval cities in the world.

 Yorkminster Abbey

 But our favorite was Bolton Abbey...the ruins seem to welcome God in.

 Bolton Abbey stepping stones

 And then off to London....a new favorite city for us.

Our favorite place in London had to be the Tower...we spent an entire day here.

And of course my man had to take a moment to do this...as any proper Englishman would agree. 

The Queen was quite disappointed that we couldn't stop in for tea

He's smiling on the inside...we just know it!

Just one more of the moors.