A lovely and so so English weekend in the countryside

This post is going to be all about my homestay weekend, which was this past weekend. Warning: I'm going to gush like crazy. So a group of about 20 of us Butler kids left Edinburgh around 5:30 on Friday night to head out to Cumbria, in the north of England. It was dark as we drove down, but I saw what I imagine to be the suburbs of Edinburgh, I saw the Ikea and some strip malls. I was surprised that it looked quite like home. When we got to the town of Appleby, we met up with Julian, our host dad for the weekend. There were four is us girls to stay with Julian and Elita Fraser: me, Amanda, Sarah and Allison (who reminds me alot of my friend Holly. It was uncanny). Julian picked us up and drove us to their home in the country, actually in a village of about 17 houses, called Ormside. They live in a huge, beautiful farmhouse at the end of the only real road in the village. Their house is about 800 years old. That was mind blowing to me. When we pulled up to the house, all of us gasped. We didn't get over the beauty of it the whole weekend, I think.

We chose our rooms when we got in the house, I had my own room, as did Allison. Amanda and Sarah shared a room with two twin beds. Pictures of my room are on Facebook, but I think I will choose a a few from the weekend to put on this blog post. We came back downstairs to a wonderful dinner of moussaka (a Greek dish with eggplant which is really popular here in the UK) and salad. It was delicious. Elita is one of the best cooks I've ever had the pleasure of meeting. We were very well fed the whole weekend, they were always offering us more food and more tea. Lots of tea. Anyway, after the main course, she brought out fruit salad and ice cream for dessert. This was the moment I knew we were in for an amazing weekend. The ice cream was some of the best I've ever tasted. We went to bed and woke up to a breakfast of cereal, toast and tea. Julian and Elita are such an adorable English couple. They were probably in their mid to late 60s, had two children who were grown, one living in London and one in Devon (in the south of England). They called each other darling all the time and were very proper, I was always afraid I would use the wrong fork or something. Julian was always making jokes and they were really interested in what we had to say about life in the states.

After breakfast we headed out to see the rest of their property, they have an old church not far from their house, it's very small and cute. They also have a tennis court and a huge garden. Julian trims alot of the bushes to look like animals, he even has made a dragon, which was really impressive. In the front driveway, one bush has a J and another has an E for Julian and Elita, respectively. Adorable. They have some chickens, but apparently not long ago one of the neighbor's dogs got most of their chickens, so they have less now. They also have some cats, who are mostly scared of people but they like to sit in the kitchen window from outside and look at you. It's so cute, they're all sitting there in a row. For lunch that day we had carrot and tomato soup and then grapes and cheese. The grapes and cheese platter was so fancy, there were like 3 different kinds of cheese...amazing. Then we went to an old castle called Brough castle. They don't really know much about it, other than it's really old and falling apart. The day was perfect for taking pictures, the sun was very pretty. On the drive there, we saw alot of the countryside, which was beautiful: mountains in the distance (which are a big deal for a Midwestern American girl like me) and sheep everywhere. I have never seen so many sheep.

We had tea time when we got back. This may have been the most exciting time of the homestay. I've always wanted to have real English tea time, with a tray and biscuits (cookies). Three different kinds of biscuits! And two different kinds of cakes! They were way too good to us the whole weekend, it was amazing. We relaxed after tea time and watched some skiing on TV, it was nice. Their living room has a fireplace and they use real coal (not charcoal) to keep it going. For dinner that night we had ham and potatoes and then lemon pudding for dessert. Heavenly. Confession time: I slept with the light on while in their home. An 800 year old house is sort of scary, how many dozens of people have lived there? I just can't imagine what has happened in that house. So interesting. It's also so quiet out there, and so dark at night. On Sunday morning, we had fresh hard boiled eggs from the chickens of their neighbors. Yum. And we watched tennis that morning, the men's final of the Austrialian open. Julian and Elita are really into tennis, and the final was Andy Murrary (a Scotsman) vs. a Serbian who had won it before. Apparently it's been over 70 years since a Brit has won the Austrialian open. Andy lost though, it was sad, but fun to watch. Julian was joking that if he won, he would be called British in the morning papers, but since he lost he would be called Andy Murrary the Scotsman. 

My room that I stayed in

A barn on their property

The tennis court

Their backyard

Ruins of Brough castle

The lake

Julian and my friend Amanda

We then had lunch: chicken, carrots and green beans. And the best apple crumble (crisp) I have ever had in my whole life. Holy cow. I want cooking lessons from Elita. I was so full though, I couldn't finish it, unfortunately. We then packed up our stuff and said goodbye to Julian, which was sad. I'll miss them, they were so sweet. Elita took us to another castle that was built for a Lord in the 1800's. We couldn't get real close because it's private property, but I have some nice pictures of it. Then we went to a lake, which was absolutely gorgeous. I have amazing pictures of that. After that, Elita took us back to the bus station so we could head back to Edinburgh. I was so lucky to get to stay with them, it was quite literally like something out of a dream. When I get rich (ha, right), I'm going to buy my parents a house in the English countryside just like that. I would also really like to buy a house there myself and grow old with my boyfriend AJ in the English countryside. It was so beautiful and...breathtaking.