A Hike on the Moors

During Kees and Thomas’ mid-term break, Maarten and Edmé and their children Wessel and Kira were visiting. We decided to go for a hike on the North York Moors. Although the Moors were still covered with snow, it was melting fast. Our first destination was one of the mysterious standing stone circles, near Grosmont. The tallest standing stone had a large number of coins squeezed into the cracks. Were they mementos left there by tourists, or offerings to the gods? If the latter, I'd say that Christians are more generous in their Sunday offerings than their pagan counterparts here. We found no pounds, only pennies, and an occasional 5 or 20 p. In any case, the kids were very keen on prying some pennies out of the stone. After some hard work, Thomas came home with 7 p. that day.


The North York Moors Railway was running during the school break. All the kids were great fans of Harry Potter, and NYMR station of Goathland was featured as the "Hogsmeade" station in the first Harry Potter movie. Unbeknownst to us, Goathland was also the site of "Aidensfield" in the popular series "Heartbeat". Below is a picture of the Aidensfield garage cum funeral service. We chose Goathland as the starting point for a very wet but beautiful hike on the Moors.