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And now for something completely different. . .

Here's my lovely tale of Yorkshire. Or, Why is there bacon on everything?

I woke up on the morning after the Night Where I Had Nowhere To Live having no real idea of anything except that I had to be on a train heading towards Wakefield at 8am. I managed to get myself to King's Cross despite not yet being light out, and waited until I saw Chad arrive so we could catch the train together. What a pair we made. He had just the day before returned from Chicago, was completely jet lagged and had lost his luggage on the return flight. Neither of us had slept the night before, and in two hours we were meant to impress a man we'd never met before on what amounted to the first day of a new job. Last year's group, we had been told, was a tad disappointing, but instead of making me feel like we didn't have to do much to exceed expectations, it instead made me nervous that we would also be a letdown. I was a ball of nerves and stress and no sleep. Chad's state wasn't much different, and so together we boarded and off we went.

In two quick hours we were in Wakefield and met at the train station by Ed, the librarian at Nostell and our supervisor for the fortnight. Younger than I expected (we hadn't been told anything really by our program), friendly, and energetic, which is surprising as he commutes daily from Manchester putting him on the road for three hours round trip in good traffic. Typically he does this about 3 days a week, but for us it was going to be 5. On top of this, he was driving us around, picking us up from train stations, taking us to the market each day for lunch food, and driving us to and from our hotel, so you can see how I might feel anxious and pressured to be fantastic.

Coming around the bend and seeing Nostell for the first time was a punch in the gut. A good one. Like, holy crap something like that exists?! The gorgeous house, the expanse of land, all of it was a shock to the system. Once we got inside we almost immediately sit down for some tea, and took a much needed breather. (I love this country and their tea breaks. It enables them to get almost no actual work done during the day!) He explained the history of the house and the families that lived there, and therefore where all the books in the library came from. Some were purchased by one owner who was a rabid collector, some were included as parts of the dowries of women marrying into the family, including a large collection from a Swiss aristocratic family. Then we got a tour of the house, which was unfortunately closed up for the winter. The furniture was under coverings and the shutters closed, but we still went room by room and peeked under the coverings and opened the shutters. It was beautiful, and considering the house was inhabited by baronets, which is like the lowest kind of title you can inherit, above a knight but below a baron, it was pretty fabulous. It makes you wonder what kind of house a full-on Earl would inhabit. Anyways, for some glimpses of what it looks like in full display, you can go here, including pictures of the library and billiard room stuffed with books.

On the first day, we did get a bit of an idea of what we would be doing the coming two weeks. Ed showed us some of the books from the library and the system he updated the catalog records onto. He asked us a few questions to see what we had learned/managed to remember from cataloging class (answer: hardly anything). Keeping in mind, both of us were on no sleep, I was currently in a state of shock and worry over having nowhere to live, and I was practically paralyzed for fear of royally messing up, I think we did ok. By early afternoon Ed let us check our email and I found that the hall manager had written me to tell me the room was mine and the keys were at the desk. So finally, I was able to unclench.

We knocked off early because of Ed's long commute, and he took us to the bed & breakfast that was to be our home. Ed had kind of prepared us for the worst, but it was easily the nicest place I've stayed in for a long time. Beats out the Edinburgh hostel of hippies and the Mancurian motel of phat beats hands down. We checked in and I was given room 3. Behold the site that greeted mine eyes as I opened the door to my room:


The sigh of relief, pleasure and release of pent up anxiety was audible as far away as Leeds, I'm sure. Note the large queen-sized mattress. The spaciousness of the room. The TV in the corner which was to become my best friend. See, here in the UK they have something called "Freeview." Basically for somewhere around £20 you can buy a box from the supermarket or Woolworths or whereever that you attach to your TV and get the equivalent of basic cable in the States, but without the monthly fees. The catch is that half the channels don't begin airing on freeview until about 6 or 7pm and the other half cut out then. But considering most people work all day, it's not such a bad thing. Anyways, thanks to this lucky box, I was able to watch the Daily Show every night, and numb my catalogue-heavy head with loads of rubbish telly. Happy happy joy joy indeed.

The catch to the room was:

A bathroom the width of a small shower. Literally smallest bathroom ever. And a shower faucet that produced little more than a light drizzle. But could I complain? There was just one of me. I wasn't that dirty. They gave me free chocolate biscuits and tea every night. I got to watch Jeeves and Wooster, and Poirot on ITV3. In a B&B. In Britain. Which is probably the most appropriate place ever to watch either of those shows. I had four pillows to sleep on. It was costing me nary a pound. How could I begrudge a tiny bathroom?


Check out my view.

That's right. Revel in it, suckers.













Oh, and the outside of the B&B.















I don't know what kinds of places Ed stays in when he goes on vacation, but he actually seemed nervous we wouldn't think it was good enough. Crikey, it was free. I couldn't bring myself to complain about a free piece of foam on the floor, let alone that! Maybe in the real world that's not all that nice, but in Student World where ramen and sharing a toilet with 12 other people are king, this was the Ritz.

That first night, Chad and I slept like babies. Pretty much immediately from the second we entered our respective rooms, all the way through dinner, and until the next morning. The other catch was having to get up and get ready to go by about 7:45 in the morning. Ed left and started work early to avoid rush hour traffic. This was actually fine, but my body is not very good at getting up when it's still dark. Fortunately, we'd each had about 14 hours of sleep, so that day we were ok.

From then on, Chad and I had a perpetual smile on our faces. We couldn't believe our luck! Every morning we woke up, got dressed, were fed a hearty English breakfast and met Ed who drove us to Nostell, where we watched the sunrise over the house.

























































Once inside, we'd get down to work. Ed showed us bindings and how to describe them in ways that sounded like a Starbucks order. Eighteenth-century half calf anyone? With double blind fillets? Sewn onto five raised cords? Hold the spine labels? It was definitely a lot of information to absorb, and I was still nervous, but I think I did alright. The most fun was getting to wander around the house. Out of every window was an amazing view.

Outside our work room.













Outside the kitchen.















It was pretty cold that week, and the house wasn't heated as evenly as would have been nice, so I spent most of the first week freezing my butt off. To the left is Chad freezing in the Oak Room where we spent most of our time the first week. To the left is a print of a famous Thomas More portrait. A replica of the original (which was lost) hangs in the house. Shortly after getting back from Yorkshire, I went to the National Portrait Gallery, and the first thing I saw as I turned the corner into the Tudor Room, the first room in the gallery, was another version of this same painting.

Here is a closeup of the print.














The painting hangs in this room, the entrance on the ground floor.














Near the entrance we used, were the bells they used to use to summon the servants. Each one has a different tone, so you could also tell by sound who was ringing. Just to show that we were basically working in the servants quarters.





On Thursday, Ed and a few of the other staff members took us on a walk of the grounds in the middle of the day. It was one of the few sunny days, so we took full advantage. The weather was fairly mild, and the walk gorgeous. Chad and I thought of all our classmates, stuck indoors somewhere in London with the smog and the grungy daily commutes, and felt pretty smug I have to admit.

The walk took us down the original entrance road to the house, which gives you an entirely different perspective of the house. We past this lake, and if you were going the opposite way towards the house, after this lake you'd start to see the house peeking through the trees, until suddenly you came around the bend and saw it in full view. The National Trust workers and visitors use a different entrance now, and this one is reserved for foot traffic, as the Trust grounds are like Forest Preserves, and open for anyone to come and use and walk around.


Here's a little something you hardly see in London. Open space. Fields. Filled with fresh air to take lovely deep breaths in.













The original wall to the property is in amongst those trees.













The Trust is working to both preserve the land, and reconstruct it to its original 18th century state. Planting it with contemporary grass and replanting trees where they originally were.











We walked all the way out to the obelisk which was the original entrance gate. It is currently being preserved and under not very picturesque scaffolding, but we peaked out around the wall and saw the untouched early entrance road.








Then we took a little diversion in the woods.












I felt like a hobbit.



I saw the craziest thing. Something growing. In January. Flowers. In January.










Ask me if I miss winter in Chicago. Go ahead, ask!



So this encompassed our days. Evenings were pretty laidback, which was nice nice nice. We were pretty bound to the hotel, since we had no car. One night we did venture by bus into Pontefract, the town our B&B was in. We arrived at about 5:05pm to discover that the entire town essentially shut down at 5pm. Except for pubs, which we bipassed since our hotel had a bar and restaurant, and we could bill that food to our tab. So we wandered around for awhile looking at where we could have been shopping. Or big stop was in the gigantic Morrison's grocery store where we picked up some food. I think we lasted about an hour before heading back to the hotel. Chad was jetlagged most of the week, and spent a good deal of time sleeping while I read and watched TV. Each night we'd meet up for dinner in the hotel bar, trying the lasagne or fish and chips or steak and ale pie. Poor Chad was a vegetarian which they couldn't seem to grasp the concept of. In fact, every morning he'd order eggs and mushrooms, and every morning they'd include bacon on the side, which he promptly turned over to me. In the evenings, he ordered fish sometimes, but they seemed to notice that he wasn't eating enough meat. They must have been worried, because by the second week when Chad would ask for a side of vegetables, they would include a neat little bundle of green beans wrapped in bacon. If ever you ask yourself, In what world do they eat vegetables wrapped in meat, the answer is Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

Thus, the first week ended, and I was torn. We were sent back to London over the weekend, but I was having so much fun I didn't want to leave. On the other hand, I was looking forward to getting back to London and actually moving into my room, getting settled, and getting the rest of my stuff from Claire's dorm room. I also kept thinking of all the things that would have made the first week even better. Like warm clothing, comfy shoes, and my laptop. So, ultimately it was good to get back and resolve things.

I was definitely looking forward to returning though, and come Monday I was positively bursting. On arrival in Wakefield, I was nearly hopping I was so excited to see Ed again and get back into Nostell and my lovely B&B. Of course, all good things must eventually alter, and I can't say the second week had quite the same verve as the first. Ed must have decided we were competent enough, and set us about cataloguing books and a collection of musty old pamphlets. This is where I learned for a fact what I've always suspected: sitting around cataloguing all day long is the most boring thing ever. I was still excited to be working with old books, in this wonderful old house, but the repetitiveness was getting to me. The week also flew by a lot faster than the first. I relished my breaks, and couldn't wait to get back to the hotel at night if it meant my brain wasn't constantly yawning from the repetitiveness. I definitely appreciated the dose of reality, though, which reminded me that the job wasn't all hikes and flowers.

Still, I dreaded Friday and the end of it all. On our final days, we were finally given a new task, and set about photographing and scouring the books for Chippendale book bindings. We didn't find any definitively, though there were some possibilities. It was the treasure hunt my brain needed to rejuvinate myself. Before I knew it, it was our last day and we were to head back to London. Both of us appreciated beyond words how patient Ed had been with us, taking time to explain the wealth of new things we encountered. So we rewarded him with the largest chocolate bar I have ever seen. 1.7kg of Cadbury Dairly Milk. All week long, Ed had said how much he wished he had some chocolate, and we figured we probably drove him to it. So we'd better give him a chocolate bar the size of the pains we possibly had caused him. If nothing else, the Nostell staff will remember Chad and me as those American kids who brought the giant chocolate bar, which is better than those too dummies that messed up two weeks worth of cataloguing. It must have worked, because he took us out to lunch.

Here is a record of the fiery sunset that we were met with on one of our final nights at Nostell.



















And with that, Ed took us for a final time back to Wakefield train station. He kindly offered us a room if either of us made our way back up to Manchester. I guess that means he liked us! He really liked us!

We got back to London and literally went straight to the bar. Danielle's birthday had been that week, and we had a drink in celebration, and then Chad and I parted ways. I spent the rest of the weekend avoiding my Collection Management essay (still not done with that!) and being depressed about going back to school.

And that, my friends, is what Nostell was all about.

Confidential to C.N. in Hackney: Cheeeeeeseeee, Gromit!