It's a bank holiday weekend here in England, which back home we'd call a three-day weekend. The only difference is that we get three-day weekends in the U.S. because of a national holiday (Americans, obviously, are off tomorrow for Memorial Day), while in the UK the bank holidays come arbitrarily. I was explaining this to my mom and she kept saying, "But what's the holiday that makes all of the banks close?" and I had to tell her that there is no special Holiday, just the bank holiday, though according to one slightly dubious source, the bank holidays were carefully chosen by a 19th-century British noble who wanted to make sure the masses could get off work to enjoy cricket matches.
At any rate, I took advantage of the long weekend to travel with my friend Hannah to her family home in the county of Somerset, in England's southwest. In fact, Hannah's hometown of Cheddar is where the famous cheese was first concocted, although it's equally famous for being the town built along the stunning Cheddar Gorge. After sitting in very non-pastoral bank holiday traffic for several hours, fellow visitor Emily and I were keen to explore the area when we first arrived Friday evening, so after enjoying a delicious meal of creamy coronation chicken with Hannah's hospitable parents and sisters, we set out walking.
It was a truly perfect evening. As night slowly fell, Emily and I strolled down the hill to Cheddar Village's high street, then along the windy road carved through the gorge. We gazed up at the mighty cliffs, growing slightly dim in the twilight, and laughed at the furry brown sheep dotting its green ridges. I didn't feel as if I were in England at all, but as if I were back in Austria wandering through the Alps as I did one wet summer's day in 1999. After climbing a sizeable hill and sitting on the bluff chatting, Emily and I walked back through the town, getting only mildly lost in its hills and curving streets before finding our way back to Hannah's house. This is a place of absolute beauty and peace.
Yesterday we traveled to Bath and spent the day soaking in the sun while exploring the city's intriguing shops and attractions and, though today has been rainy, we've spent it variously attending church, going for more walks, taking naps, reading and chatting. Hannah's mother served a marvelous beef stew for Sunday dinner ("I must confess the gravy is mostly brown ale," she told us, but I don't know why she sounded apologetic as it was a tender, savory stew and the ale gave it a nutty flavor) and made fresh scones for tea (supper). It was a cream tea, actually, where one spreads the scone with thick clotted cream (I would describe it as essentially a creamy butter, though I suppose Brits reading this entry would be appalled at the comparison) and then jam. Hannah instructed me to put the clotted cream on the scone first, then the strawberry jam, but her sister Isabel advised swapping round the order, and I must admit I liked it better Isabel's way.
Alas I didn't bring the proper cables to upload photos to this computer, but I have, of course, taken lots of pictures that I'll post later this week. We are longing for good weather tomorrow, as we plan to head to a bathing beach in Devon that's supposed to be very nice. Then it's back to Nottingham in the evening, hopefully after the holiday traffic has subsided, so we can make the journey in three hours instead of the five it took to get down here. We'll get home late but well rested and very well fed.
Hannah was in fact the one who put the jam on the bottom and the cream on the top, I suggested putting the cream on the bottom and the jam on the top, which is the way you preferred and by FAR the best way of eating scones! Hope you enjoyed your stay with us in Cheddar, it was great to meet you and have you stay here. God bless.
You're right, the wiki article on the bank holidays may well be a bit dodgy. But there is this note on the BERR website which gives the history of the acts themselves which form the bank hoilday, although there is no reference given to the source. In fact rather then the cricket source for the bank hoildays, I would rather follow Judith Flanders line in her book Comsuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure In Victorian Britain, where she states that the bank hoildays came about due to increase of leisure time due to changes in industrial law.
http://www.berr.gov.uk/employment/bank-public-holidays/bank-public-holidays/page18882.html