On to, and in, Murchison

17/11/12 - in Nelson
Turns out the kids I mentioned in the last post - boys and girls of a variety of ages, though mostly around the Intermediate level - are up from Christchurch to play in a touch rugby tournament.   They certainly brought plenty of life to the place which was pretty quiet the night before, and they seem well organised.  They're up and about early this morning: I thought there was no one around until I went to the toilet about 6.30 and discovered they were already up and running.  The walls in this place a surprisingly soundproof.

Yesterday afternoon we went for a long stroll/walk on the beach at Tahunanui.  It's glorious: a huge expanse that gets covered with the tide when it comes in, and warm water and sunshine streaming down on it all.  You can see why people like the place.  Nelson seems to have grown hugely since we were last here, but that might be just my view of it.  It's certainly not a little place.

We got some Soov from the chemist yesterday and that's certainly helped ease the itchiness of the mozzie bites.  We could hear one in the cabin just before we went to bed last night but Celia may have frightened it to death or even caught it in a mighty clap she gave!

We're off to Murchison today. Almost missed out on getting a place to stay until Celia discovered, on an iPad app she's got, that there was a place not listed in the AA book.  Hopefully the road isn't totally winding and hilly!


18/12/12 - in Murchison
Restless night after a not so wondrous day.  It rained on and off all the way to Murchison, and then rained more when we got here. Between times it would be quite warm and pleasant, and I actually went for a walk at one point looking for the river on the other side of the road and strangely forgetting that I'd just been looking at it with Celia at the back of the camp!  I'd missed noting the bridge we came over, somehow.

She wasn't in the best of states: the midges are everywhere here and she got very agitated because she was so sure they were all out to bite her, after all the trouble she'd had with the bites she'd got in Picton.  Her ankles are still swollen, and she wants to be at home now, so everything combined to make her feel miserable for a while. The camp isn't very good considering what we're paying for it (only five dollars less than the very good cabin in Nelson) and the so-called double bed in the room is literally just a built in bunk that Celia immediately knew wouldn't be comfortable for the two of us.  So we brought one of the air beds in and she slept on that.  It was stuck in the corner under the little shelf where the cutlery and electric jug is.  The kitchen we used was okay, but whether they're doing some overhauling of it or what I don't know, but it's almost bare of utensils. The jug in it was so foul looking inside that we couldn't bear to use it.  It reminded us of the one in London that had been peed in, though that obviously wasn't the problem with it.*  Still, there's a quite large lounge area and we sat and watched a repeat of Doc Martin and read a bit. Ironically, there's a notice in the office that you should check out the place before you pay as no refunds will be given.  I'm not sure how you'd do that, and what your alternative would be anyway!

The place is geared up for people doing kayaking, and there are wet suits hanging everywhere, and a lot of young people about. Not that we saw them much: they were either out kayaking or cooking in the other kitchen, which had pots and pans galore in shopping bags on the floor.  That might explain their absence in our kitchen.  The toilets, which are next to our cabin, are pretty good and look as though they've been built, or done up, recently.  I guess if you have a place like this you have to work on a bit at a time, depending on finances.  The problem is, as seemed to be the case in Kaikoura, if you let it run down too much people won't come at all and then you've got no money to work with.

We had pottered around in Nelson before we left.  There was a market with a lot of stalls that was worth wandering around, though it was raining lightly, and I went up to the Cathedral to have a look. It's in a beautiful setting, a well-established garden on the hillside, and that's a delight, but the cathedral itself seems rather stark to me, and lacking in much warmth.  The great bell tower is square and open, so you can see the bells, but has a skeletal feel about it, and the building, while imposing, doesn't invite you in.  There was a short-haired cat wandering around inside, a friendly creature, which I thought must have belonged, but neither of the two women doing the flowers knew where it came from, and one of them was shooing it away from the altar, and asking me what it was doing there.


We've booked to go to Hanmer Springs today, though I'm not much looking forward to the drive.  The one to Murchison was a bit winding and hilly but not as bad as the Blenheim to Nelson one; today's drive may be much the same it seems.

*Curiously enough I don't seem to have mentioned the jug/kettle that had been peed in, in London, in the posts I wrote at the time. We'd been in this hovel of a room for three days right near the end of our five month trip, and hadn't used the kettle for one reason or another - probably because the room wasn't pleasant just to sit around in, and we'd eaten out all the time.  On the last night I went to fill it up with water, opened it, and discovered someone had used it for a toilet at some point.  We'd paid £40 pounds for this room, with breakfast in the cafe downstairs included.  That was around $120NZ at the time.  Phenomenal rip off.

Back in our own bed

My rough calculations as to how many beds we slept in while we were away from home comes to just under thirty, some of which we slept in more than once.
Some were drastic, most were okay. Probably the best one was at my sister-in-law's place in Northampton. They'd bought a new bed before we came (I think for us, in fact), and it was very good to sleep in.
Perhaps the worst was in a room above a cafe we stayed at in West London. The middle leg was broken, and had to be propped back in place. Consequently sleeping on it was a bit of a ‘take care’ situation, in case it suddenly collapsed.
On the Continent we found that in Germany and Switzerland, they don’t have pillows the same shape as those at home. They’re large and almost square, and virtually flat, and it’s hard to know how they’re supposed to function. We never quite found out.
Some Continental hotels put two single beds together as though they were a double. You discovered the gap fairly quickly. Others were double beds, but they had separate covers on them. This worked quite well, except when Celia threw her cover over on mine. Still, it’s something she does at home anyway, so what’s the difference?
Many places don’t use a top sheet any more, including many of the places we stayed at in England. And they use duvets almost everywhere. I found the problem with these was they were often too heavy for the summertime, and I’ve lost count of the number of nights I woke up sweating.
The great thing about it all, I suppose, is that we became more flexible about just getting on and sleeping, whether it was in our tent with airbeds, or in a king size double bed in Valencia. Many places don’t have curtains heavy enough to keep out the light – many places, especially in Spain, don’t have curtains at all. So sleeping under these conditions is a test of how tired you are and whether you’re going to make a fuss about it.
Anyway, we’re home, and we’re back in the bed we belong in – and it’s great.

Going Attractions

When you go to the cinema you often see a board advertising ‘Coming Attractions.’ I’m inclined to think I should post about ‘Going Attractions,’ all those things we didn’t quite make it to while we’ve been overseas.

I have this feeling that when we get home some people will say, But why didn’t you visit the….? (Enter a word of your choice, such as the Louvre, or the Prado in Madrid, the latest musical, Covent Garden, or…)

Partly the reason we didn’t was budget constraints. Partly it was laziness – making the effort to get to some things proved beyond our combined energies. Partly it was a rather laissez-faire attitude to the attractions. If we missed them we missed them. Simple as that. They’ll still be there, and we won’t be.

In the end, there’s only so much you can see, even in six months. And if you’re not in London for much of that time, you won’t see much of what’s on in London. (Even when we were there, the 50% discounts for several theatres still amounted to tidy sums).

If you miss getting to Paris or Madrid, you’ll miss the big museums. But why didn’t you make the effort? This may be your only opportunity!

Yup. But the problem was also that we were continually swamped by choice. There is just too much in the world to try and catch up with. And the bigger the city the worse the choice gets, until in the end you’re inclined to stay home and watch the telly out of enforced apathy.

Partly this holiday was also about revitalising ourselves, and sometimes that involved nothing more than sitting beside some nondescript stream and reading.

Still in London

Another day in London. We met up with an old friend, Cathy, and had lunch with her, then walked down the road to the Science Museum and checked it out. It’s a massive place - five storeys - and full of quite remarkable things. Unfortunately, like so many of these places, you can’t take it all in at one go, and it gets tiring trying to absorb all the info and exhibits. There are lots of hands-on items, and both the adults and kids were having fun with these.
Later on we went to Hamley’s, the huge toy shop - and another five storeys. It was absolutely packed with shoppers, and toys, and lots of happy faces and people - adults and kids - having fun and enjoying themselves. Quite a few of the staff were demonstrating toys and having a ball playing with them: a tiny helicopter that actually flew around people’s heads, cardboard planes that would invariably return to the person who’d set them off, racing cars with front wheels that could go into a 360 degree turn and so would never get upset by any angle, a wipe-off board which a young guy was drawing coloured pictures on with great ease, three or four guys playing with a more update version of the yo-yo. One boy of about seven or eight was having a great time clapping his hands and making a whole rack of teddy bears shake - clapping was what set them off. Occasionally adults would join in the fun. Around the store were waist-high boxes with walking fluffy toys in them - little dogs that yapped, a drummer boy, a giraffe that moved its long neck up and down. I was very tempted to get the giraffe, I must admit.
We were out of our hotel room by eleven this morning and didn’t get back till around 8.30, so both of us were whacked. I’ve been reading the Hitchcock book while Celia snores.

Back to London again

We travelled to London today, partly to box up the extra stuff we’re sending home separately, and partly to catch up with one or two people (and London itself) who we won’t see again for a while. And thirdly, to check out with Korean Air as to whether we could alter the dates for our return. We’ve decided we want to come back a bit sooner. Korean Air was very helpful, and will do the alteration for free! So we’re going to leave England on the 26th November, rather than the 2nd of December.
Korean Air is situated in Piccadilly, so after we’d been there we wandered back along the street looking at the shops, including one extraordinary place (called Andy and Tuly) that supposedly sells waistcoats primarily, but had nothing but cufflinks in its windows, hundreds of pairs of them. And all of them priced over the £100.
Crown Relocation, who are sending our extra stuff home, couldn’t have been more helpful. They provided everything, were very pleasant with it, and best of all: we managed to get everything we’d taken with us into the two boxes.
We’re staying in a rather unusual accommodation: it’s over a Café in North West London - South Ruislip, to be exact. The café obviously caters for drivers and other blue collar workers and its food is good old-down-to earth English; the room we have isn’t the best we’ve had (!) but for three days it’ll be okay. The leg of one of the beds ’broke’ when a certain wife sat on the bed after we arrived, but the leg has obviously been broken for a while. I told the owner, and he feigned surprise - I say, ’feigned’ but it may have been genuine. The room has a tv, fridge, microwave and a kettle - the latter item is something that’s always been missing from European hotel rooms.
I drove all the way into Ruislip today - a first. I haven’t driven in London at all before. It certainly wasn’t as bad as the previous two times we came when we got stuck in long traffic jams and the brakes heated up and failed.
The Indian community is apparently celebrating Diwali - or else there are a lot of people using up unused fireworks out there. One enthusiastic lot let a whole pile off while we were standing at the South Ruislip station this afternoon - it was a bit pointless since none of the lights could be seen. However, there was a much more timely display later on, when it was dark, while we were sitting in a café in Shepherds Bush having milkshakes (with NZ icecream in them).
We had a meal in the West End, at a some sort of noodle house in the Haymarket. The food was great: I had a chicken satay and Celia a large noodle soup with chicken. This was after we’d spent some time exploring the five storeys of Waterhouse’s - good grief. Too many books, but I finished up buying one on Alfred Hitchcock and his movies anyway, by Patrick McGilligan.
Then we got the bus back to Shepherd’s Bush, pointing out well-known places as we passed them, checking out the Christmas lights in some of the major shops (Fortnum and Mason’s is celebrating its tricentenary and have done the Twelve Days of Christmas as their window display. Hugely detailed and wonderful conceived.
We also stumbled on the Orlando Chamber Choir rehearsing for their performance tonight of Handel’s Jephtha. It was a bit bitzy, as you’d expect, but worth sitting in on all the same.

All quiet on the East Anglia front

We went back to Sheringham yesterday. Sheringham, as you might remember, is Celia’s other ‘home.’ On the way we called in at Gresham Church where her parents are buried, along with her grandparents and aunts and uncles. We’d been there once before, back at the beginning of our English stay. Yet again we forgot to take the camera - or rather I did. It’s in my man bag which I haven’t been using much since we got back to England.
Celia dropped her handbag out of the car while we were there, and only discovered later that she didn’t have her cellphone. She’d picked up everything that had dropped, she thought, but obviously the cellphone went somewhere different. Anyway, we weren’t aware of having left it in Gresham until this morning when I tried ringing the phone to see if it was in the car somewhere or around the house. A woman answered, instead. She said she’d found the phone yesterday and had picked it up, thinking it probably belonged to one of the locals. We’ve arranged to go and get it when we get back from our London/Northampton trip. (We leave tomorrow and come back Wednesday.)
We didn’t do anything particularly exciting in Sheringham. Celia just wanted to ‘breath it in’ again. Even managed to avoid picking up anything in the op shops, though we did find four Ian Rankin books that we haven’t read going at £2.50 each.

Snooze level

Another quiet day. Virtually all of interest we’ve done is book ourselves a room in South Ruislip and go and see one of Celia’s brothers.

We’re going up to London on Friday for three nights for two reasons. One is to say goodbye to a couple of our friends, and the other is to drop off a pile of stuff at a removal company that’s being sent home separately. One of my daughters works for the NZ branch of this company and has arranged for our excess stuff to go at a super cheap rate. So yesterday we sorted through the books we’ve bought and the other items, and the clothes, and organised what we’d send that way and what we’d take with us. Hopefully everything we want to send separately can go. If not, we’ll have to do a bit of a rethink.

York, Day Two

We spent a second night at the camp site near Acaster Malbis last night and a nasty cold night it was too. With rain.
(Before I forget I came across two more peculiar village names today, both within spitting distance of York and of each other: Askham Bryan, and Askham Richard. I kid you not!)
Fortunately the pub is only a few yards down the road, so we stayed there both last night and the night before until about 9.30. It was warmer than inside the tent.
Both of us had a dose of homesickness last night, and debated whether we should change our air tickets and fly home on the next available plane. Hang the expense, we said.
Came to our senses, but it took a bit of time.
This morning we were going to head south again, still trying to get to the elusive other village of Crowle (and Mamble) but two or three cellphone calls to places south didn’t encourage us much (one was actually closed, in spite of being listed as open all year around), and Celia’s tooth was playing up again, and she finally got an appointment for 4.30 this afternoon, so that kind of put the kibosh on going anywhere today.
Plus our nephew rang and said he was coming to York tomorrow, and would we like him to take anything excess back home with him? Would we! It’ll be nice to meet a familiar face: think that’s part of our homesickness. I keep saying to Celia that I want to meet somebody, anybody that I know from home. But we haven’t so far, which I’ve found disappointing. It’s not as though such a thing is an impossibility: last time I was in England, on the second day, I met someone I knew, in London. And when Celia was over here, twenty-plus years ago, with our daughter, there was a similar occurrence, one that was even more amazing. My daughter went out with some of her English relatives, to Milton Keynes, and they met my cousin from New Zealand…

Towards York

We had another look at Crowle this morning before we left the area, but couldn’t get into the Library because it didn’t open till 2 pm, and couldn’t get into the church because there was no local vicar any more. Did get into the Regen shop (a kind of charity shop, though I’m not clear what group it was supporting). Picked up another couple of pair of cufflinks to add to the dozen or more I’ve bought since I came here. One of these was of Big Ben (though it took the shopkeeper and me a while to work it out).
Thought we’d take a look at Scunthorpe, which is close by. It’s been highly redeveloped in the Centre, with new shops and pedestrian malls everywhere. We thought that was all there was, but some of the older buildings remain. Plenty of op shops, of course, but not a lot else that was exciting.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned a chain of shops over here called Poundland. We first came across one of these in Kentish Town, (in London) and they have a remarkable variety of goods, many of them top quality. How they manage to get to sell them at a pound a piece is something they know and I don’t, but they’re obviously very successful. They’re nothing like the $2 shops in NZ, which mostly seem to sell el cheapo stuff.
Anyway, after an all-you-can-eat lunch for £4.95 each in a Chinese restaurant, we moved on towards York. We haven’t quite got to York yet, because by the time we got here it was getting late enough, and we wanted to get our tent up somewhere. The place we went to first said it was booked out, although there was little evidence of it at that point; they helpfully sent us next door (there were at least three camping grounds in a row) and the man there led us on his bicycle to our pitch which is next to the river that flows through the strangely-named village (another dormitory one, I‘d guess) of Acaster Malbis - sounds like some sort of odd wine, doesn‘t it? Seems as though the Acaster part relates to the word, Castra, which means a Roman camp. Those Romans must have been everywhere...!
Before we’d got the tent up completely we were visited by a duck and her family of eight ducklings - nearly full grown. They even made their way into the tent checking out whether we had any food hanging around. Bloomin’ cheek.
Celia has had a toothache for the last few days, and we’re definitely going to have to find a dentist tomorrow: she won’t be able to carry on treating it with Panadol.

Wimpole Hall

While travelling down to London on Tuesday, we went into Royston, and discovered that Wimpole Hall was just along the road. This is another of the seemingly endless National Trust places, and has a working farm attached. In fact, people have been farming on this spot since before the Domesday Book was written, which makes our individual lives seem rather insignificant. Wimpole also has a large walled garden, with a great variety of dahlias in particular, along with the usual vegetables, and scarecrows - one is a Humpty Dumpty not yet fallen off the wall. And it has very extensive walks.
We got to the House after we’d been to the farm and through the gardens, so we’d already done quite a bit of walking. The sight that greeted us on arriving at the house, however, was something the National Trust presumably hadn’t provided: hundreds of swallows flittering and scattering around the façade, in preparation for doing their major trip overseas. They were swooping and diving and clinging to the front of the building and in general making a wonderful spectacle.
The House itself is yet another example of the wonders of a past age, and how money was spent wisely on all manner of beautiful things. But perhaps what was most impressive to us in this House was the servants’ level. Down in the basement, of course, but not without windows looking onto the grounds. In fact, one of the bedrooms down there would have made a great room for any guest, with its lovely views across the grounds. There was a steward’s room, with a writing desk and table for the other male servants to press their clothes, and there was the housekeeper’s room, with a small piano which she no doubt could use to while away her (very) few idle hours.
While I don’t remember a lot about the other floors of the house - unfortunately after a while all these great houses tend to blur into one big amalgam - I do remember that there was one long room that had originally been three smaller ones. It had become a room for walking in on wet days, or for putting on concerts, or playing the piano in. Another large room had been, for a time, converted into three small rooms by one of the more impoverished ladies of the house. Doors in this room were covered over, the wonderful plaster ceiling was obscured and in general there had been a lack of concern for the look of the place. Yet another room now houses all the odd sketches and paintings and drawings: pictures of servants’ livery, of various carriages, dozens of extravagant cartoons by some forgotten political satirist, pictures of horses.
Rudyard Kipling’s daughter married into the family that owned the house, early in the 20th century, and she was the final owner. There are a number of books and papers by Kipling on display.

Yes, I know this is a long post

On Monday we spent the night in a tent at a camp site called Quiet Waters. On Tuesday we were in London, so slept in beds again, but last night we tented in a place that was anything but quiet. To say that having Niagara Falls nearby would have been peaceful by comparison would be an understatement. The camp site was fine, (though we were almost as far away from the toilet block as it was possible to be), but it was within the flight path of some local airport, and jets went over with great regularity. That would have been okay, but the M25 was just up the road as well, and there was a constant noise with no obvious cessation. It was there when we went to sleep, and there when we woke. We had to drive on it briefly this morning, and there were trucks by the thousand.
The name of the place we stayed at last night has gone from my mind at the moment, but it was in the very north of London - and rabbits seemed to be allowed to run wild. Though not in the camping area, thank goodness. The woman who ran the place gave us a brochure for the Camping and Caravanning Association (I think that’s the order it goes in) and after looking through it we thought it would be worth joining. It gave us a much wider range of camp sites, and as members we’d get in considerably cheaper. In fact, when we did sign up, the woman gave us back the five pounds we’d paid as non-members, and then gave us a discount on the price as well!
I forgot to mention that we had lunch yesterday with another old friend whom we hadn’t seen since I was last here: an Irish Catholic nun who was on the course at Stephenson Hall where Celia and I met. This sister now lives with three others in a large house in Mottingham which shouldn’t have been too long a trip from where we were staying on Tuesday night, but in fact it took twice as long as we’d planned, due to the usual London traffic. She has had gum cancer in the last year, and has had a terrible time with it, not to mention operations not working as well as they should. While we were there she got yet another call from the consultant, telling her when she could go back to another go at the problem, one that she hopes will bring the whole thing to an end.
Today has been a long haul from that London camping site to one in a place called Corley, which is just out of Coventry. We weren’t supposed to be anywhere near Coventry, but something went wrong with our calculations.
Our intention for today had been to visit a little town in Worcester called Crowle. Once we’d been there we would go onto a camp site near Worcester city itself. However, we first got sidetracked by discovering Waddesdon Manor in the village of Waddesdon. Waddesdon Manor? Doesn’t sound anything special. Well, that’s what we might have thought until we discovered it was actually built only around 150 years ago by one of the Rothschilds, who wanted it as a place to have dinner parties and such during the week. So he built it along the lines of a French Chateau, on an enormous scale, with huge gardens and parks, and then began collecting umpteen wondrous articles from around the world. It has paintings by every painter you could name, especially Gainsborough; it has wonderful porcelain by the mile; it has statues and bric-a-brac, and endless decoration. It’s quite overwhelming, and there’s no way I could do it justice. In fact, we’d have had to stay there all day to even take in half of it. As it was we were a little hurried, and Waddesdon didn’t get its due.
After this Celia wanted to see if we could pick up a slightly larger tent - the one we’ve borrowed requires us to wander around on our knees, and since that isn’t quite our normal mode of movement, it’s a little difficult. It’s been adequate and kept us dry and reasonably warm, but Celia being Celia wanted to ‘explore the possibility’ of larger accommodation. That was where the day went slightly out of kilter. We looked up on the Net to find a camping place that sold tents, and decided on somewhere near Stratford upon Avon. However it happened, I don’t know, but our Sat Nav took us off up past where we thought we ought to be going, and next thing we knew we saw a sign: Welcome to Coventry. We didn’t actually believe it until some time later when we checked it with someone in a shop!
Anyway, the first place we looked for proved extremely difficult to find, and several wrong starts and wrong turns made us a little fretful. Quite fretful, in fact. Eventually we found the place only to discover that caravans were their big thing and tents were not. In fact, the bloke in there was so offhand and casual about us as customers, and kept saying to his offsider (I don’t know anything about tents) that I said to the woman who finally did offer some help: is he always like this?
She redirected us to a much better and bigger place - a huge place, in fact - where they not only knew how to treat customers but had everything you could wish for. And now I’m typing this in a tent that is stand-uppable in. Which is good.
But the day wasn’t finished. Since it was late we decided to find somewhere near Coventry to stay in our new tent. The first on the list was so difficult to find that I spent a quarter of an hour in a pub with the publican and his two barmaids trying to figure out where the heck it was. We eventually found it and apart from being almost non-sign-posted, there was little sign of any amenities, any life, anyone else staying there - anything except a bunch of rough looking caravans that had seen better days. I refused to give it any more time in the day, and we headed for another one, that is vastly superior. Where it took us three-quarters of an hour to put up the new tent. We’ll improve, no doubt!

God is Good!

Yesterday we travelled down from Cambridgeshire to London. We made a long stop on the way at a National Trust house, which I’ll write about in another post.
Our trip into London was both what we expected and more than we expected. We haven’t really driven in the capital much, apart from our trip to Rochester, and this time we were actually having to go through areas that were very built-up and traffic-heavy. So it was stop-start, brake-accelerate, in and out of first and second gear (we could well do with an automatic) and in general rather stressful (though to give me a modicum of credit, I kept my cool - and I wasn’t even driving!)
The trip took far longer than our poor little Sat Nav had estimated at the beginning, because there were so many blockages and hold-ups (a normal London day, it seems). In the end, we were about five to ten minutes from our destination when Celia suddenly yelled that the brake had given up the ghost (well, she communicated that without words almost), grabbed the handbrake and we swerved to the side of the road. Fortunately we weren’t going fast, so it wasn’t a completely awful moment. We held fire for about ten minutes, while I suggested that perhaps with all the braking we’d been doing the brakes had overheated and given up temporarily. Celia gave things another go, tentatively, when we thought it might be safe, but they were still kaput.
Frazzlement.
We looked up the number of the AA on the Net: our little mobile connect friend was working wonderfully at full speed, as has done so everywhere in London. There was a number to ring for mobile phones, so we tried that. After some discussion as to who we were and why we should be ringing them, we were informed that there was no reciprocal agreement between the UK and NZ, as we’d been informed, and that just to get someone to come out would cost us £99! To join, according to the friendly lady, would cost even more. Meanwhile Celia was looking at the AA page on the Net where there was no indication that the price was anything like that. In the end we said we’d think about it.
By this time I was needing to go to the loo rather desperately (it’s one of the hazards of travelling) and because I’d seen a boy talking to the a man in the house we were parked outside, and because the bloke had seemed friendly enough, I thought I’d try and see if he’d let me use his toilet.
He was extremely friendly, and when I’d done my bit, he asked what the problem was with our car. I explained. He said, just give me a minute to get the kids in bed, and I’ll come and see if I can do anything. While we waited he must talked to his wife because she appeared and suggested we come in and have a cup of tea and that she was just ringing her Bank who covered her family for roadside mishaps to see if they would help us.
Amazingly that was fine: as long as she was with us when the RAC driver arrived, we’d be covered. Isn’t that extraordinary? We sat in the couple’s front room and talked about who they were and who we were (he’s a publisher of little children’s books - Little Tiger Press) and apart from the fact that we were still feeling rather frazzled by the incident, it couldn’t have been a more pleasant experience. (We’d called to the place we were going to, to tell them we might be running late - and they rang back suggesting a similar approach to the problem!)
But the two virtual strangers were like a couple of angels sent from heaven. Bless ‘em, as they say a lot over here.
Anyway the RAC man arrived, and of course the brakes were fine. No oil on the road, no obvious problems except that the brake fluid was hot. He recommended we get the car to a garage in the morning and have the fluid flushed and changed. And then followed us all the way to where we were staying for the night to make sure we got there safely. And we got there at the time we were supposed to!
This morning we went to the garage our overnight hosts recommended and they did the job within an hour! We thought we might be looking at a matter of days. Since then, we’ve driven twice through London traffic with the same stop-start issues, and the brakes have held.
Good old God.

On the road again

After a couple of days recovering from the Luxembourg leg of our trip, as it were, we’ve now begun the next stage: tenting our way around England for about three weeks. The idea of tenting rather than going to places where we have a proper roof over our head has been debated for a few weeks; Celia wants to save money and certainly this approach will help. But I’m not the world’s most enthusiastic tent person. Especially when it means we have to set up every night in a new place and take down every morning.
Well, tonight’s the first night, and we managed to get into a caravan/holiday home place by a river in a village called Huntingford Abbots. (Yes, I know.) The village is full of old thatched roof houses, and some more modern ones that fit into the scheme of things, and it’s very quiet. It’s near the town of Huntingdon.
We came here via Newmarket, a place that was a bit of a disappointment. Probably not Newmarket’s fault at all, but having read so many Dick Francis books in which it appears, and listening at the moment on a cassette in the car to yet another of Francis’ Syd Halley stories, perhaps my expectations were too high. I didn’t think there was much atmosphere in Newmarket, and I only saw one jockey the whole time we were there. Perhaps we should have gone there to see the races, as I’d suggested a while ago.
We were going to check in at a camping site nearer to Newmarket, but we noticed in the book as we were heading there that we couldn’t park our car beside our tent. Which would have been painful when it came to hoisting all the gear out of the car and into the tent, or when we were cooking and so on. As it is we seem to have taken over the place.
Anyway, tomorrow night we have to be in London (New Malden, to be precise, which is more like Kent than London proper) and we’ll be sleeping in a real bed there. So we’ll hardly have got used to tenting than we’ll be back to ‘normality.

Rochester and a party

Back into Norwich yesterday for a short visit with the aim of trying to find a travel agent who could tell us more about rail travel on the Continent. Neither of the places we went to were much on to it; seems they don’t handle rail travel a lot. So in the end we went back to the online info in the evening, and are trying to work from there.
Today we drove down to Rochester in Kent, via the M25 at one point, and the bridge at Dartford. Four lanes of traffic on our side all slowing up to pay a pound toll (see picture). The bridge is massive, a great creation slung from towering pillars. And it rises way up in the air before hitting it’s peak and coming down again. Quite impressive.
We drove to Rochester because we were attending a ‘welcome ceremony’ for a recently-adopted child. She’s near to two, and has the energy of a fireball. Her father is Cockney Indian, so there were a lot of his Indian relatives there making us welcome. Her mother had friends from the library where she used to work. And there were various other ring-ins like us (we‘re not related to the family, but my daughter in NZ is). One of the librarians used to be in the Poetry Library which is situated in the Festival Hall building on the fifth floor; she‘s now in the British Film Institute Library - just as intriguing!. The poetry library has nothing but 20th and 21st century poetry in its stock: two copies of nearly everything, one for borrowing, one for the collection. Another friend at the party was a poet, Patience Agbabi, a lovely London-born woman from a Nigerian background. We’ll have to try and track down some of her poetry; though from what I read on the Net it sounds fairly radical!

The Pedlar of Swaffham

Yesterday we visited Swaffham. There were plenty of op shops there, but little else to capture our attention. Maybe we’re getting blasé.
Stephen Fry was making some film or tv item there. He was standing in front of a pub in the main square that had a false name over the top of its real name, and was contemplating life, since nothing else seemed to be happening. Several very bright lights were shining on him, but the crew were sitting to one side chewing the cud. We walked past him, went to a bookshop, browsed around for a time and walked back again. He was still in the same position, and nothing else appeared to have happened.
The main church in Swaffham had a little old lady offering us information about the place. She was very helpful, and we learned things from her we wouldn’t have by just wandering around. Carvings of figures on the pew ends - a newish set and the old original set - were of the Pedlar, about whom there’s a charming story.
When he was struggling to survive, he had a vivid dream about London Bridge and all the shops there, so, when he awoke he set off to seek his fortune. On arriving, after a long journey, he met up with a shopkeeper who scoffed at his dream, but told him that he’d also had a dream: of a pedlar in Swaffham who dug up treasure from underneath an oak tree in his back garden. The pedlar said nothing, but turned back towards home. When he got to his garden he dug down and found a pot full of gold coins. On the pot were Latin words which he couldn’t read, so he asked someone what they meant. They told him: Underneath me lies a treasure richer than I. He dug again, and found even more gold.
The pedlar, whose name is generally considered to be John Chapman, shared his fortune with others, and contributed to the building of Swaffham church. He’s acknowledged still in the town by a statue in the square and by being seen on the town’s signage.
One other interesting thing about the church. There was a large tapestry over one of the small altars. Paua shell was used in part of it - a very small part of it. In the brochure about it, the word is curiously spelt: Pahwah!

Some of the news is bad

I would hesitate to say to the English, ‘get over it’ in regard to rain, though I might say it to some who complain loudly when they've only had thunderstorms and some short heavy downpours.

To those who live in the middle of the country where the floods have been horrendous, I extend my deepest sympathy. I know from NZ news of floods that it takes months and sometimes years to get over the effects of floods. Unless you’re actually affected by it, you think it’s a two-day wonder.

We’ve been immensely fortunate with the weather really – ‘we’ being the Crowls. Sure we’ve had rain, and some massive thunderstorms, but overall since we’ve been here it’s been lovely. Only one day has been cold that I can recall, and the weather’s been fine enough in general for me to wear sandles almost since I got here. And short sleeved shirts. This is almost unheard of.

The photo is of a woman trying to get to work in Knightsbridge, London (yup, London).

Limited Choice

After the bomb threats in Piccadilly Circus in the last couple of days, I’m not sure that I’m dead keen to go to London to see any of the big shows anymore; at present it doesn’t seem like the safest part of town to be in.

And the other aspect of the big shows is that so many of them are recycled pieces or revivals:

Billy Elliott: the musical (recycled film)
Blood Brothers – been around forever
Cabaret – been around forever (and been filmed)
Chicago – been around forever and been filmed)
Dirty Dancing: the classic story on stage – (recycled film)
Fiddler on the Roof – been around forever and been filmed)
Kismet – been around forever and forever – and been filmed
Les Miserables – been around forever
The Lion King – (recycled film)
Lord of the Rings – (recycled film) (And can you imagine this saga being reduced to an evening's musical entertainment?)
Mamma Mia! – recycled music
Mary Poppins (recycled film)
The Phantom of the Opera – been around forever and been filmed
The Sound of Music – been around forever and ever and been filmed and shown forever

Out of these shows only The Lion King, Mary Poppins and Mamma Mia! get enough stars to warrant making the effort to go.
That leaves just two shows that are original pieces: The Drowsy Chaperone, and Spamalot. The DC is about a modern-day theatre buff whose favourite 1928 musical comes to life. Though this is a Tony award-winning show, and stars Elaine Page, it doesn’t get many stars. Spamalot, it turns out is another recycled piece: it’s Monty Python and the Holy Grail turned into a musical. However, it does get the fingers up as worth going to.
When I was in London last time, there was always so much on you didn’t know what to go to, and got to the point where you went to nothing through having so much choice. Now it’s the reverse: so little that’s really worth the effort. And when I was here last time, I went to Fiddler on the Roof after having seen it already in Sydney, Australia. The Sydney version was vibrant, and breathtaking; the London edition, which had been going for ages, was a total bore.

Locked In!

One thing that has changed here in Britain since I was last here, I think, is the sense of being security-conscious. When we were in London, during a very muggy spell, there were never any windows opened, and even the door to the outside, which was actually slightly below the street (so it wasn’t particularly obvious to a passerby), was kept shut. Here in Norfolk, all the houses we’ve been in so far have locks on the windows – we haven’t been able to find the keys to the windows in the place we’re staying at just now – and there are keys and bolts and safety chains everywhere. Even the car we’ve bought has got a security code on it that won’t let you start it up until it’s entered.
Coming from NZ where we now lock doors after years of never bothering (even the daughter we stayed with before left, and her partner, are still casual about locking doors overnight), it gives a bit of a sense not so much of security as claustrophobia. I know that London has suffered a number of nasty shocks since I left, in terms of terrorism particularly, but I wouldn’t have thought that Norfolk was quite as badly off.

London, part two

On Thursday morning we roused ourselves out of our jet lag and, with our friend, made our way on the bus to Regent St, where our bank is. Suddenly we were back in Korea again, by which I mean that someone directed us to the right floor in the building, told us how long we’d have to wait, showed us where to get a free cup of coffee, where the toilets were, and in general treated us as worthwhile customers. More than that, the person who saw us in due course was exceptionally friendly and had everything ready to go for us. (And she had just been speaking to her friend from Attleborough, where we were due to stay in a few days’ time with our relations!).
After that we made our way to the Southbank, because my friend wanted to show us the refurbished Festival Hall. We finished up having a very nice lunch of paninis with roasted courgettes, humus and mint – interesting combination. After this we had the first of our many long walks around London. I’d forgotten just much walking you have to do: there’s plenty of transport (buses, trains, tubes, etc) but that doesn’t mean you never have to use the old-fashioned process of one foot after another. Anyway, we walked along the embankment remembering places we knew from the past, and in general re-acquainting ourselves with everything.
The Tate Modern was new, and we headed for it. It’s an interesting building – must contain some hundreds of thousands of bricks – and is enormous. Unfortunately, the exhibitions I saw didn’t grab me greatly. I think it was that they just weren’t modern paintings of the sort that I enjoy: lots of stuff that gives modern painting a bad name, even though some of the artists, like Francis Bacon, are huge in the art scene.
The following day we wound up on the Southbank again (after having done a patch of time in Camden Town, which was crowded). We had some very large and tasty filled rolls (handmade, as it were, in a Greek/Italian? place in Camden Town). We watched a guy painting, very meticulously, the railings along the Embankment. I spoke to him and asked how much he had to do – he claimed ‘down to the mouth of the Thames’ but I think he may have been kidding. He said he’d only done two sections of the railings since he started in the morning; that’s how slow the job was. In view of the number of buskers in the area I told him he should have put out a basket for some cash. I felt there was something familiar about his accent, and said so to Celia. She went and asked him where he was from. Taranaki in New Zealand...!
Footnote to the last bit: we went to church this morning in Wymondham (pronounced Windham) with our neice and her two children. Of course, we met someone who was married to a New Zealander, and he turned out to be from Rotorua.

First London days - part one

Arrived in London late on Wednesday. Nearly didn’t get into the country because the customs official I met up with decided that I really was some ancient terrorist (something that I felt my passport photo made me look like) and questioned me pretty thoroughly about what I was going to be doing, whether I had any money, how long I was staying, whether I’d be working, whether I’d be bleeding the country dry or not and so on. Celia had gone through customs with ease, and we only found out later that I should have gone through with her. Instead I started out in a queue of some 200 people. After she got through (in the British line) she waved at me to move into another lane, and, after I’d finally figured out what she was on about, I got into a lane with no one in it!
Anyway, we got out of there, found our bags without any problem (which I regarded as a miracle in itself), and didn’t even have to go through any bag search or whatever. But then the fun started. Remember that we now carrying: a lap-top in a case with umpteen cords for cellphones, lap-top, Ipod and so on; Celia’s handbag; her backpack; my backpack (full of books and such); and pulling two suitcases which between them weighed 40 kg.
We discovered that it was better and cheaper to get the ordinary underground (from Heathrow) directly through to Kentish Town (where we were going) rather than the ‘Express’. This meant changing at Bank (if I remember rightly – things are getting hazy by this stage) and going onto the Northern Line. That would have been okay, except that at the changeover of lines we found we had to climb up two flights of stairs because there was no escalator!
Anyway, we got to Kentish Town and I pulled out my instructions for finding our friend’s flat. Somehow I missed the fact that it was only two blocks away from the station (at least we were going in the right direction) and as a result we were still trying to find the street several blocks later. Someone took pity on us and re-directed us back along the road, by which time we were at a point of exhaustion. It was very muggy (and remained so during our three days in London) so we were sweating profusely.
But! We finally got to the flat, dragged our bags down the stairs to the doorway, and voila! our friend’s son greeted us with great friendliness, even though the last time he saw us he was only four…