Blog 6 – Yorkshire
Yorkshire is beautiful! I wonder how I’ve never visited before. Well, I have, but only for a crazy hen do weekend way back. The scenery is outstanding. My eyes ache as I drink in the breath-taking landscapes of the Yorkshire Moors. It’s such a treat to be a passenger, both physically and mentally, even if Jan does drive like a rally driver about to win her first race.
Izzy and Ruby are settled in the back of Jans Berlingo micro camper. She loves her van as much as I love mine. Ruby and Izzy are getting along fine and I have to say that’s more to do with Rubys kind, angelic like character, than it is to do with Izzy and her feisty top dog attitude.
We visit Hovingham, Helmsley, Nunnington, Kirkbymoorside, Farndale, Sandsend and Whitby along with so many other places I could be listing them for hours. It’s true to say I’ve fallen in love with Yorkshire. I can see why it’s known as Gods own country. Jan and I swim in rivers in front of magnificent abbeys and we certainly make some workmen’s day when we strip off and swim in a river in front of a café. Jan happens to mention that she hasn’t swam in England since moving back 6 years ago. I’ve taken to swimming anywhere there is water and all year around, thanks to the lovely ladies Blue Tits groups. It feels only right that I get Jan involved too.
Our first joint swim takes place after we’ve had a delicious lunch beside a gorgeous wood cabin café, set along side a peaceful river lined with river and canal boats. It doesn’t look like the kind of place where people would swim. ‘Is it safe to swim in there?’ I ask a guy that’s doing some kind of work near a boat. ‘I’ve been working here for years and yes it’s safe, people occasionally swim in there. You going in?’ I look at Jan and back at the work guy ‘Yeah we are’. ‘We’re going in there?’ Jan asks, ‘Bloody hell Lis, hang on then, let me go get me swim suit on’. I have mine on me at all times, so, as perhaps only someone who lives by a beach can do, I change quickly, discreetly and easily on the boat slip way as Jan reappears with little Ruby in tow. ‘Haven’t got me swimsuit I’ll just wear me knickers and t’shirt’. I love this woman. Her ability to not give 2 hoots about what other people think of her is admirable. It’s one of the major reasons I love her. Can you imagine how different your life might be if you genuinely didn’t worry about what other peoples opinions of you are. To have the ability to be you, in all occasions and scenarios no matter what they may be. It’s a quality and trait that I come across in very few people and Jan has this quality, it carries with it a wonderful feeling of freedom. ‘You’re making my day’ says the work guy with a big grin on his face as he observes and listens to Jan and I. ‘If you’re stood there watching can you use my phone to get our photo whilst we’re swimming with our dogs please?’
Izzy of course is already swimming away, no hanging around for her, where there’s water Izzy is in it. Doggy paddling with her tail constantly wagging away like a propeller. As I swim over to Izzy, Jan attempts to entice 9 month old Ruby in, who is not appearing in the least bit impressed with this new adventure. Jan ends up carrying her whilst swimming over to Izzy and I and on release Ruby immediately swims back towards the concrete slipway. No amount of cajoling from myself and Jan is going to change her direction. Her little puppy paws are paddling as fast as they can. Ruby wants dry land and dry land she will get. This puts the cherry on the already very tasty cake for the workmen when she finally escapes and runs up onto the boat slipway.
After numerous attempts to shake the water from her coat she looks around and realises that being this close to the water may mean that Janet is still able to reach her and make her go back in. She looks up the slip way and Janet begins to shout ‘Stay Ruby, stay Ruby’ Ruby runs as if her life depends on it towards the carpark in the distance. Jan, who remember, is swimming in JUST her knickers and a white t’shirt, has to exit the water and chase Ruby up the slip way, past the café of lunch diners and into the carpark. Those workmans faces! I am crying with laughter writing this, it was like watching a scene from a carry on film. Needless to say, when captured, Ruby got tied up with a lead until we’d finished our swim.
It’s like there’s an air of peace and tranquility that I can connect with everywhere we travel through Yorkshire. I absolutely love it here. Everywhere Jan drives me is a sensation to the senses. I love the stone buildings, the flowing rivers, the vast moor land, and throughout all of the places we visit the people are super friendly and chatty.
Arriving in Church Houses in Farndale feels special. This is where Janets’ family are from for generations gone by. There’s a small cottage next door to the local pub and back in the day Janets family lived there and all 14 kids shared 1 bed! We decide to pay the pub a visit and on entering there’s a photo on the wall of Janets family and in it her Mum looks no more than maybe 5 years old. There’s only 1 gentleman in the pub, eating his lunch, he looks to be, perhaps, in his 80s and Janet is telling the barmaid about the photo on the wall. The gentleman eating knew some of Jans family as he too grew up in the area.
We enjoy the view and head on over to the church. Generations of Janets family lay here and her and her recently deceased brother, John, visited here last year to place some of her sons ashes with her family. We go pay our respects. Afterwards we enter the church. There isn’t another person here. I sit in a pew, on my knees and allow my mind to go quiet. I feel the peace but it also feels busy. I sense this church is very very old. I remember the first time I connected with a spirit energy. It was my aunty Connie who died when I was very young, maybe 4 years old and she came to me when I was having a difficult time at college. It scared me when it happened and it was years before a spirit payed me a visit again. I can’t experience spirits when I choose to, it just happens sometimes. Rarely in fact. Like when my Grandad died, I knew he’d gone before I got the call to tell me he’d gone, because he came to see me to tell me himself. It makes sense to me that spirits would be around, after all, isn’t everything in life simply energy vibrating at different rates? Some we can see and touch and others we can’t. Anyway, I’m sitting in the pew and I have a vision of me blessing the church with the light that I have inside me. I’m beaming all of the light from inside me out through the whole of the church. My head gets involved and says ‘I can’t bless the church, who do I think I am?’ I immediately hear in my left ear (its always my left ear when it’s spirit) ‘Who are you not to bless this church?’. O.K so here is what I do just in case you want to share the light some time. This is what I do if I’m ever anywhere and I feel a dark energy, or there’s heavy sadness, or depression, or I’m somewhere and I notice my energy depleting and it’s not appropriate for me to leave.
I take a deep breath in into my tummy and slowly release the outbreath. I do this 3 x to settle myself. I say in my mind ‘I am connected with the earth in the here and now’ I feel my feet (in this case my knees and the tops of my feet) connected with the ground and imagine I have roots that are connected with the earth underground. This keeps me grounded. I then say ‘I welcome only that which is for my highest good into and around my energy field’. This protects me and ensures my energy isn’t depleted. I then connect with the feeling of love inside of me. Sometimes this is easier to do than other times. If I’m finding it hard to connect with the feeling, for me I think of Izzy and that always fills me with love. Once I have that feeling, I imagine my entire body filling with this feeling of love. (If you aren’t able to feel it, you can practice by imagining a colour that may represent love and light for you and imagine your body being filled with this colour). I imagine me beaming this feeling/colour out, in this case, I begin by beaming it out of my body into the pews and the isle beside me, then floor to ceiling then the building is so filled with the feeling, with the light, that it expands out around the building and through the grounds surrounding. I then sit with this feeling for as long as feels right for me. There is no wrong or right amount of time. It’s whatever feels right for you. I always finish by saying thank you to the universe for the blessing. When I first started doing this, a part of my mind would get involved and tell me it was a stupid thing to do, or that it was just in my imagination (I now know the power and importance of our imagination, I’ll talk more about this in a later blog). Let the mind do it’s thing but carry on anyway. The more I’ve done it the more beautiful the experience has become and the quieter the mind has become. If you’ve never done this and you try it, I’d love to hear how you find it and if you have done it before, I’d love to hear how you do it. Please do take the time to message or email me, I’d love to hear from you.
Janet and I continue with our trip, she of course speaks of her brother John, it is only 3 days since she received the call to say he had died. He sounds like a great man. Fit, healthy, strong work ethic and a lot of good friends. He has a wife and son. Janet is his only sister and they have another brother who lives in Canada. John served in the SAS for years and later as security for the Canadian Ambassador, he’2d just retired, due to fly home 2 days later to begin his life as a full time family man. He’d emailed a friend to say he was about to be wheeled down for his routine op and was looking forward to seeing him for their retirement beer 2 days later. He never came out of the operating theatre. Such a huge shock for all that loved him. Janet’s and my time together is a healthy mix of sad tears and tears of laughter.
Human emotions can be complex and yet incredibly simple. It’s so important we give ourself the space to feel them. To learn how to express them. As a culture I think we’ve learnt through the generations to supress them. This is not healthy. I would love for part of every school curriculum to be about how to feel our emotions, to learn how to sit with them, accept them, to stop fearing them and running from them and learn how to express them in healthy ways and move on, as well as how we can use our minds to support ourselves. When we have the basics of mind and emotional health we are better equipped to handle life.
I end up staying in Yorkshire for 5 days. The longest I’ve stayed still on my trip so far. When Jan leaves to visit 2 of her sons down south, I stay an extra day, using Jan’s as a base to re organise the van. I’ve brought way too much stuff! By now Izzy and the farm pooches have an understanding. They all come say hi to me and stay away from Izzy. Misty the husky however isn’t bothered by Izzys growls, so Izzy doesn’t growl at her so much and even lets her sniff her bum on numerous occasions, only snapping when Misty does it for the 6th time in 10 minutes. Izzy is fortunate to leave the farm alive with all her limbs in tact with the attitude she has had and before we leave I apologise to the farm manager for her behaviour.
Izzy has absolutely been expressing her fear throughout our stay. Humans can be the same hey? Those people that are screaming and shouting, fighting and kicking out are usually coming from a place of fear. There is no need to shout and scream and kick out if we aren’t scared. If we aren’t trying to keep people away. After we leave the farm Izzy sleeps for almost 36 hours straight, she has been on hyper alert for the entire stay.
‘Let’s carry on up the map Izz’. She’s already asleep in her bed on the passenger seat. I set the music up, I love singing and driving and the beauty of this trip is loud music and singing no longer keeps Izzy awake. She has grown used to it. We leave the farm behind and I look forward to seeing Jan and Ruby again, somewhere towards the end of August. Destination unknown as yet.
Driving along out of Yorkshire, Tinks, the van, makes the most horrendous sound. My tummy drops down to my feet as Izzy sits bolt upright and stares at me. ‘That doesn’t sound good hey Izz?’ Turning off the engine I climb out and hope that I’m just going to find a stick or something being dragged along under the van. Nope, can’t see anything. Climbing back in, Izzy has already gone back to sleep, I turn the key in the ignition and hope the noise has gone away. Nope, the screaming occurs again and Izzy jumps back up. I know what she’s saying, I can see it in her eyes ‘I don’t care what this noise is, I am not going back to the farm’. I pull over, turn the engine off, ring a friend, they’ve no idea what it is. I decide to drive to a garage, turn the engine back on and no noise. ‘OOOO what do you think Izz, do you think we’ll be alright?’ ‘Just drive’ her eyes tell me. ‘O.k then, Northumberland here come’ or do we?
To be continued…..