Day 15: Danby Wiske to Osmotherley

Day 15: Danby Wiske to Osmotherly
 

Subtitle:  Fields of Gold

Will you stay with me, will you be my love among the fields of barley?

We’ll forget the sun in his jealous sky, as we walk in fields of gold.

See the west wind move like a lover so, among the fields of barley…

Sing it, Sting!

 Okay. I DON’T hate Sting, but he is sort of pretentious anus at times. But I was reminded of him today on our walk to Osmotherly.  After tidying things up and eating an egg or two at the White Swan Inn, hubby and I began our trek across to the Cleveland Hills. We started the day by visiting the church in Danby Wiske.

These are like Tennessee backroads churches...they all have a graveyard.

Like most of the areas churches, the original church on the site was Saxon in origin and later replaced by a Norman structure with an arched ceiling. There were two standout features in this particular house of worship. (1) The church wasn’t affiliated with any particular religion. Most of these churches were initially Catholic then Anglican. This one holds no particular affiliation. (2) There is a Norman “tympanum” in the front of the church. It shows three figures. 

The tympanum. If you squint and look a little cockeyed, you can see the three figures and the scale on the right. Presumably, Jesus or the Angel of Mercy is in the middle.

 The measure of a man is being weighed out between the two figures.  The good he has done is on one side and the evil on the other. In the middle, presumably Jesus or the Angel of Mercy places his hand beneath the evil  to tip the scales to the side of the good. This was a great thought for starting our day. 

The beautiful pipe organ at the Danby Wiske church. Dig the deco!

 We alternated all day walking between roads, both good ones and unimproved farm tracks, and farmer’s fields.  We definitely walked through rows of glistening wheat bowing and whooshing in the winds. 

We are pretty danged sure this is wheat.

 One thing I think we figured out: We don’t know our grains all that well. We also walked through fields of barley and perhaps soybean and hay, but we weren’t entirely sure. We need a grain and fodder refresher course, if anyone wants to offer it! 
Walking 12 miles through endless fields of grain with your husband inspires some intriguing songfests and conversations. Today’s topic : the WORST song ever written (in English). The competition was FIERCE.  I think we both agreed to despise Bobby Goldsboro’s  Honey for sheer sappiness.  Mingo’s greatest hit—My Cup Runneth Over with Love was also a hated rendition. We thought Ed Ames had an okay voice but really bad material to use it on.  We agreed that nearly any song that had a theme revolving around death was pretty much a candidate (with the possible exception of Jamie Got a Gun.)  SO high on the list: Billy Don’t Be A Hero,  The Ballad of the Green Berets, Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast (and pretty much anything EVER recorded by Wayne Newton including Danke Schoen—not even pronounced correctly we might add), The Night that the Lights Went Out in Georgia, Funny Face, I’m Not Lisa, Where Oh Where Can My Baby Be (I don’t care if Pearl Jam did record it), Daddy Please Stop, The Night Chicago Died, Patches, Party All the Time (in fact, if you were EVER a TV star and you recorded an album, the entire thing probably SUCKS), pretty much anything by REO Speedwagon, Someone’s Knocking at the Door and I Got My Mind Set on You (Come on you ex Beatles—my cat could come up with songs more creative than those), and according to Dave Barry: MacArthur Park (although I kind of like it.) And Achy Breaky Heart,  just cause it’s so fun to diss Billy Ray Cyrus (and Miley, too if you ask me.) Watching Scotty Grow? Someone get me some Phenergran!  But I think we both agreed we would rather hear ANYTHING than Honey. How revolting.

So as you can see, the scenery wasn’t all that interesting but we did see (and smell the byproducts of) a lot of cows, a few horses, etc.

We've seen more sheep and cows than humans. This was our first duck farm. Unfortunately, these cuties are likely destined to be "dead ducks."

And just to top of this day of flat walking and great excitement, we ate lunch at a BP service station. If this isn’t living high on the non-present hogs, I don’t know what is! One big highlight of today was that we got to cross the A-19 (something sort of like I-40) completely without any protection while Brits whizzed by us in their cars at 80mph.  For equally exciting time, cross I-75 around Loudon on game day.

After our burgers at the BP, we reached the Cleveland Hills and made an ascent up to Osmotherly, our first climbing in several days and it was thankfully mild. We have about 13 miles of climbing on the agenda tomorrow too. We reached our target of Osmotherly and the Vane House at about 3pm.

Paul in front of Vane House. There were no vanes.

 We enjoyed an ice cream and a nap before exploring two of the pubs.

A common site shortly after our arrival each day.

 One nice thing about English hand pulled beer. It’s comparatively low in alcohol, rarely reaching much over 4%, there is a lot of local microbrew and it’s taxed by alcohol content, so that many varieties are quite inexpensive. We had a couple of half pints each at two pubs and then went to dinner at the Three Tuns. It’s a VERY upscale pub. A “tun” is a barrel, but we had a glass of wine instead. The meal was tapas style although they also serve full size portions. We had a honey glazed Brie, scallops and a five spice cinnamon lamb—all very tasty and worthy even of a food snob.

Pub #1. I didn't even know there was a Queen Catherine.

Pub #2 . A place for a microbrew.

The three Tuns served us about 3 tons of yummy dinner!

All in all, a good day: Sunshine, temperature in the low 60s, flat easy walking until the last three miles, the beautiful village of Osmotherly, a wonderful dinner, the reminder that someone is frequently and graciously tipping a scale in our favor. And barley--- in the field and in the glass. Cheers!

 

Paul’s Ponderings:

Good weather, good food, and good hiking.   Who could ask for more?   Back into our final round of hills and less than 50 miles to go at this point.   The variety of ales in England never ceases to amaze and is one of the best parts of the walk.   Tomorrow we’re off to Clay Bank Top.  Our dinner tonight at the Three Tuns was quite good, including some "double ginger" ice cream....subtle ginger flavor with small pieces of candied ginger.