We drove to Birmingham today, after having spent most of the morning cleaning up the house we’ve been staying in for a month. Celia doesn’t do a cleaning-up job by halves, so the place is probably better off than it’s been in months! (Nah, my niece is a pretty thorough cleaner too…)
The trip to Birmingham was supposed to take two and a half hours, and would have done if we hadn’t got slowed down in a couple of place. All in all it was a pretty straightforward trip, even if our Sat Nav did seem to be taking us an awful long way south before she sent us west. But we had a couple of mishaps with reading what she said, and had one detour while on the M1, and then another couple when we got to Birmingham city itself. We didn’t either of us see much of the city because we were so focused on Malvina that we had little time to notice anything else.
Anyway, we’re ensconced in a hotel out in the suburb of Edgbaston, which seems to be on one edge of the city (there’s a Welcome to Birmingham sign just along the road). Edgbaston has seen better days, I think, and a major rebuilding program must be due to go on. More than a dozen grand old three-storey houses on the other side of the main road are due for demolition, and the hotel we’re in has seen better days by far. It’s a bit of a rabbit warren. After we’d parked the car round the side of the building, we went in the front and were then taken by the proprietor along two or three corridors and through the dining room (one table and four chairs, tv, fridge, two microwaves), through another corridor and found that our room was right beside where we’d parked the car.
Later on we went out and found a Chinese (sorry, Cantonese) restaurant, and ordered takeaways. While we were waiting we were asked to sit in an area lower than the main restaurant. It smelt dank and musty, and there was no carpet on the floor. Turned out that with all the rain this summer, the place has been flooded out, and they’ve had a real job drying it.
I’m in Birmingham to go to the Pod Camp - not sure what it’ll be like, and whether I’ll enjoy it at all (I’ve lost some of my initial enthusiasm for the idea), and I’ll probably be the oldest there. Time will tell. Celia is going to check Birmingham out on her own tomorrow, which will probably mean we’ll go home with a good deal more than we came with. As it was we loaded up the car when we left the place we’d been staying in for a month.
Showing posts with label sat nav. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sat nav. Show all posts
Saturday, September 01, 2007
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Two hectic days
Two full-on days. We drove back down to Northampton yesterday, aiming to arrive for lunch at 12.30 but were already running late by the time we left, and finally got there at 12.45, which was pretty good considering that there’d been delays on the road. Nothing like the last time we went, though.
It was my oldest sister-in-law’s birthday, and Celia had made her a birthday cake, and bought a bunch of food to take. Far too much food, of course, but that’s always the way with any Crowl celebration. We stayed with my other sister-in-law and her husband, again, and I finally remembered to return the key we’d borrowed last time. It was a blisteringly hot day - the hottest we’ve had since we’ve been here perhaps - and major change after all the rain.
The birthday party went off well, though most of them had to retreat in out of the sun because it was too hot. It wasn’t much cooler inside, however. At the end of the day we offered to take my nephew back home to Milton Keynes. This set up a chorus of ways we should gon to take him there (he doesn’t have his own car at present), and we had to leave in the end, and rely on our Sat Nav as there would have been no consensus from the other four. We went via a back road rather than the M11, and that was much more pleasant, and quicker!
Came home to our hosts and watched Play Misty for Me, Clint Eastwood’s first outing as director. More of that on my other blog.
Slept in this morning, and finally got away about ten. Arrived home at Wicklewood some ten hours later!
We wanted to take a quieter route than the one we’d come down on, and also see some other places. Headed to Wellingborough, which was a pleasant town, with op shops, a church with a spire in the Market Square, and a market in progress. In the church there are a number of new stained-glass windows - new in the sense that they were made in the 20th century. The creator of a couple was John Piper, and these are startlingly beautiful in a modern way, when the sun is shining through them. The woman who greeted us and talked to us about the place said that the minister who’d been there for some forty years (if I remember rightly) had had a way with getting people to part with their money and help improve the church. Consequently it has a mural over one altar painted by a Dutchman called Hans Feibusch (the woman said she’d never got to like it, even though she’d been longer than it has), the several stained-glass windows and several other modern works. Unfortunately the church is in a bad way outside, with the stonework deteriorating rapidly.
We went on to Oundle - don’t ask me how to pronounce it - where all the houses and buildings seemed to made of the same light-grey stone. There was such a uniformity about the colour that it almost didn’t seem real. Probably a very pleasant place, but that stage it was very hot again, and we didn’t stay long. Another church with a spire. (The Norman and Saxon towers aren’t much in evidence around here.)
We were going to go to Peterborough, but didn’t make it due to the fact that we decided to look up my cousin who, with another woman, runs a Christmas tree business. She also works at a full-time job. It took us two or three attempts to get to the place: for some reason our Sat Nav took us to a completely wrong place, recommending we pull into a private driveway where three houses were situated. Two little dogs gave a sort of effort to warn me off, but it was too hot for them to be really bothered. The man gave me fairly clear instructions, and we allowed Malvina to offer to put us on the right road as well, and eventually we got to the place - after first driving up a farm road that ran straight into a field.
My cousin wasn’t home when we arrived, so we walked around the house - and found a photo of one of my NZ uncles was up on the wall, which confirmed that we had the right place at least. And then, after we’d had a cup of coffee, my cousin suddenly turned up as we were about to leave, telling us my NZ uncle was coming along behind with the other woman - on bikes. He’s only 82.
Finally, after this, we headed straight home. It was a couple of hours of travel, and finished up taking us back down the road we’d come from King’s Lynn on Thursday.
It was my oldest sister-in-law’s birthday, and Celia had made her a birthday cake, and bought a bunch of food to take. Far too much food, of course, but that’s always the way with any Crowl celebration. We stayed with my other sister-in-law and her husband, again, and I finally remembered to return the key we’d borrowed last time. It was a blisteringly hot day - the hottest we’ve had since we’ve been here perhaps - and major change after all the rain.
The birthday party went off well, though most of them had to retreat in out of the sun because it was too hot. It wasn’t much cooler inside, however. At the end of the day we offered to take my nephew back home to Milton Keynes. This set up a chorus of ways we should gon to take him there (he doesn’t have his own car at present), and we had to leave in the end, and rely on our Sat Nav as there would have been no consensus from the other four. We went via a back road rather than the M11, and that was much more pleasant, and quicker!
Came home to our hosts and watched Play Misty for Me, Clint Eastwood’s first outing as director. More of that on my other blog.
Slept in this morning, and finally got away about ten. Arrived home at Wicklewood some ten hours later!
We wanted to take a quieter route than the one we’d come down on, and also see some other places. Headed to Wellingborough, which was a pleasant town, with op shops, a church with a spire in the Market Square, and a market in progress. In the church there are a number of new stained-glass windows - new in the sense that they were made in the 20th century. The creator of a couple was John Piper, and these are startlingly beautiful in a modern way, when the sun is shining through them. The woman who greeted us and talked to us about the place said that the minister who’d been there for some forty years (if I remember rightly) had had a way with getting people to part with their money and help improve the church. Consequently it has a mural over one altar painted by a Dutchman called Hans Feibusch (the woman said she’d never got to like it, even though she’d been longer than it has), the several stained-glass windows and several other modern works. Unfortunately the church is in a bad way outside, with the stonework deteriorating rapidly.
We went on to Oundle - don’t ask me how to pronounce it - where all the houses and buildings seemed to made of the same light-grey stone. There was such a uniformity about the colour that it almost didn’t seem real. Probably a very pleasant place, but that stage it was very hot again, and we didn’t stay long. Another church with a spire. (The Norman and Saxon towers aren’t much in evidence around here.)
We were going to go to Peterborough, but didn’t make it due to the fact that we decided to look up my cousin who, with another woman, runs a Christmas tree business. She also works at a full-time job. It took us two or three attempts to get to the place: for some reason our Sat Nav took us to a completely wrong place, recommending we pull into a private driveway where three houses were situated. Two little dogs gave a sort of effort to warn me off, but it was too hot for them to be really bothered. The man gave me fairly clear instructions, and we allowed Malvina to offer to put us on the right road as well, and eventually we got to the place - after first driving up a farm road that ran straight into a field.
My cousin wasn’t home when we arrived, so we walked around the house - and found a photo of one of my NZ uncles was up on the wall, which confirmed that we had the right place at least. And then, after we’d had a cup of coffee, my cousin suddenly turned up as we were about to leave, telling us my NZ uncle was coming along behind with the other woman - on bikes. He’s only 82.
Finally, after this, we headed straight home. It was a couple of hours of travel, and finished up taking us back down the road we’d come from King’s Lynn on Thursday.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Couple of quiet days
We haven’t done a great deal that’s unusual over the last couple of days. I’ve spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to make my bloggers more productive, income-wise, than they are at present; Celia went to Norwich with her 11-year-old great-niece, and hada ball buying clothes for our granddaughters back home; we had a family meal - a Chinese, that cost us a lot in weight-watchers points; I played cricket very badly with my great-nephew, who plays cricket very well; our Garvin Sat Nav continues to take us from A-B and in general we don’t go down the wrong road too often. Although one of the turns we’re supposed to make when coming back from Attleborough to Wicklewood is a few hundred yards beyond the one we have gone down - twice. And the wrong turning (where Malvina cries out in mock alarm: Recalculating!) takes us miles out of the way.
Attleborough (two of them) and Attlebridge and Attleton Green are the only places in the UK starting with the odd word, Attle. According to one online dictionary, the word means: Rubbish or refuse consisting of broken rock containing little or no ore. It’s a mining term. (There now, wasn’t that interesting?)
I’ve been playing the piano again, because there’s a rather-out-of-tune piano here and I can practise as I please. It’s not a piano made in the fair village of Roade by the Pianoforte Company run by Mr Cripps; nope, it’s an Eavestaff made in London, a make I must say I’ve never heard of. Last night we had a bit of a sing around the piano, working our way through some old jazz classics and some modern love songs. The others enjoyed it, even if the piano-playing and the singing were both a bit shambolic.
Just a postscript: I wonder why Buckley’s Canadiol Mixture is such a popular search term? It’s always been one of those names I’ve delighted in; compare it to the modern names for cough mixtures: Robitussin, for example. What the heck does that mean? Does it grab your emotions the way Buckley’s does?
And the ad that goes with Robitussin is awful. Mummy, if we say Bless you when someone sneezes, what do we say when someone coughs? Robitussin.
Robitussin? Good grief.
I've just discovered that Buckley's Canadiol has a rather delightful site - with an ongoing competition where you can send in a photo of your 'bad taste' face, or a story about taking sour medicine.
Attleborough (two of them) and Attlebridge and Attleton Green are the only places in the UK starting with the odd word, Attle. According to one online dictionary, the word means: Rubbish or refuse consisting of broken rock containing little or no ore. It’s a mining term. (There now, wasn’t that interesting?)
I’ve been playing the piano again, because there’s a rather-out-of-tune piano here and I can practise as I please. It’s not a piano made in the fair village of Roade by the Pianoforte Company run by Mr Cripps; nope, it’s an Eavestaff made in London, a make I must say I’ve never heard of. Last night we had a bit of a sing around the piano, working our way through some old jazz classics and some modern love songs. The others enjoyed it, even if the piano-playing and the singing were both a bit shambolic.
Just a postscript: I wonder why Buckley’s Canadiol Mixture is such a popular search term? It’s always been one of those names I’ve delighted in; compare it to the modern names for cough mixtures: Robitussin, for example. What the heck does that mean? Does it grab your emotions the way Buckley’s does?
And the ad that goes with Robitussin is awful. Mummy, if we say Bless you when someone sneezes, what do we say when someone coughs? Robitussin.
Robitussin? Good grief.
I've just discovered that Buckley's Canadiol has a rather delightful site - with an ongoing competition where you can send in a photo of your 'bad taste' face, or a story about taking sour medicine.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Rochester and Braintree
Our trip back from Rochester took all day, but that was okay as we were just wanting to meander. We’d stayed at a Youth Hostel at Gillingham overnight - it was fine, a bit expensive, I thought, and very noisy (not helped by a baby who woke up several times during the night screaming, Mummy!)
We began our meandering by going back into Rochester again. Just a few hundred yards away from where we’d had the party the day before (at the Quaker Hall) we went into Rochester Cathedral. It’s a smaller Cathedral than Norwich, for example, but it has a more welcoming feel as a result. Not only that there was a choir there practicing for Matins, which was at 9.45. So we sat listening to the wonderful music in excellent acoustics, and then joined in Matins by sitting in the choir stalls themselves, just a few feet along from the singers. Apparently they were an ad hoc group. Celia had met one of them the night before at the Hostel, and she told us that they used to sing together in Southampton years ago, but because they’d all gone their various ways they only got together like this once a year or so, and this year they were spending a week singing in Rochester. Fortunately for us!
The cathedral also had an exhibition by Robert Koening in situ. It consists of a large group of figures all carved from lime trees - the trees had all grown in the area near where his family had come from, in Poland. The twenty or thirty figures, men and women, stand all facing one way with pain and hope on their faces. Their clothing is painting in simple colours, though the bumps and bruises caused by the sculpture’s travelling around Europe and England have knocked some of the colour away. There were four other smaller figures, done in greater detail.
We then went on to have a brief look at the Castle, which is literally just across the road. We didn’t go inside the building itself, as it cost more than we felt was justified at the moment, but the castle is still fairly intact given its age.
Set our Sat Nav to go and find the couple who had held the party the day before, to see them once more before we go. They have a house that by NZ standards is very narrow - one room across, and three deep, with presumably a similar arrangement upstairs - and it’s set in a street of similar houses. Still, its value has more than doubled since they bought it, so that’s a plus.
Onto Braintree, where Celia’s niece and her family live. She was surprised we found the place so easily, but Malvina had taken us there fairly straightforwardly. She was in the middle of finishing of an assignment for some higher degree she’s doing, so we didn’t stay too long. We may go back there when we head off to Luxembourg next month. (We’d had a bit of a panic about our possible European travels, wondering whether we needed visas or not, but after some calls today found that any places we’re likely to go to we don’t need them.
We began our meandering by going back into Rochester again. Just a few hundred yards away from where we’d had the party the day before (at the Quaker Hall) we went into Rochester Cathedral. It’s a smaller Cathedral than Norwich, for example, but it has a more welcoming feel as a result. Not only that there was a choir there practicing for Matins, which was at 9.45. So we sat listening to the wonderful music in excellent acoustics, and then joined in Matins by sitting in the choir stalls themselves, just a few feet along from the singers. Apparently they were an ad hoc group. Celia had met one of them the night before at the Hostel, and she told us that they used to sing together in Southampton years ago, but because they’d all gone their various ways they only got together like this once a year or so, and this year they were spending a week singing in Rochester. Fortunately for us!
The cathedral also had an exhibition by Robert Koening in situ. It consists of a large group of figures all carved from lime trees - the trees had all grown in the area near where his family had come from, in Poland. The twenty or thirty figures, men and women, stand all facing one way with pain and hope on their faces. Their clothing is painting in simple colours, though the bumps and bruises caused by the sculpture’s travelling around Europe and England have knocked some of the colour away. There were four other smaller figures, done in greater detail.
We then went on to have a brief look at the Castle, which is literally just across the road. We didn’t go inside the building itself, as it cost more than we felt was justified at the moment, but the castle is still fairly intact given its age.
Set our Sat Nav to go and find the couple who had held the party the day before, to see them once more before we go. They have a house that by NZ standards is very narrow - one room across, and three deep, with presumably a similar arrangement upstairs - and it’s set in a street of similar houses. Still, its value has more than doubled since they bought it, so that’s a plus.
Onto Braintree, where Celia’s niece and her family live. She was surprised we found the place so easily, but Malvina had taken us there fairly straightforwardly. She was in the middle of finishing of an assignment for some higher degree she’s doing, so we didn’t stay too long. We may go back there when we head off to Luxembourg next month. (We’d had a bit of a panic about our possible European travels, wondering whether we needed visas or not, but after some calls today found that any places we’re likely to go to we don’t need them.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Malvina
One of my regular readers wants to know how we came to name our Sat Nav Malvina.
It was a brief but convoluted process. We’d been calling our borrowed Sat Nav, Margarita. Our Sat Nav comes from Garmin, but I think initially I read the company name as Garvin. We couldn’t give our SN the same name as the previous one, so we came to call her Malvina, because of the V in Garvin, and because Malvina is the name of one of NZ’s greatest opera singers. Still confused? You should be!
It was a brief but convoluted process. We’d been calling our borrowed Sat Nav, Margarita. Our Sat Nav comes from Garmin, but I think initially I read the company name as Garvin. We couldn’t give our SN the same name as the previous one, so we came to call her Malvina, because of the V in Garvin, and because Malvina is the name of one of NZ’s greatest opera singers. Still confused? You should be!
Friday, July 20, 2007
My Sat Nav says...
I mentioned a while ago that we’d bought a Sat Nav (as they call them here) - in other words a GPS - for finding our way around the country. We called it Malvina.
Firstly, let me say she's been invaluable. We’d still be trying to find our way out of some back lanes without her. And she's user-friendly and mostly up to date. However, she also seems to have a mind of her own. When we asked her to take us from one large town to another, she would opt for the faster routes in terms of A roads, even though there were often shortcuts she could have used. When we started driving round some of the lanes nearby, on the other hand, she seemed to think that we’d like to go everywhere by back lanes, and we’ve had a frustrating couple of days trying to convince her that she needs to think about the best route, not the one that’s of the same kind as the last one we went on. Much and all as we enjoy country lanes, because there isn’t much traffic on them, they aren’t necessarily the fastest way to get to some places.
I've had to alter this post slightly, changing the pronouns, as I realised that I was calling Mavlina 'it' throughout. Oh, dear.
Firstly, let me say she's been invaluable. We’d still be trying to find our way out of some back lanes without her. And she's user-friendly and mostly up to date. However, she also seems to have a mind of her own. When we asked her to take us from one large town to another, she would opt for the faster routes in terms of A roads, even though there were often shortcuts she could have used. When we started driving round some of the lanes nearby, on the other hand, she seemed to think that we’d like to go everywhere by back lanes, and we’ve had a frustrating couple of days trying to convince her that she needs to think about the best route, not the one that’s of the same kind as the last one we went on. Much and all as we enjoy country lanes, because there isn’t much traffic on them, they aren’t necessarily the fastest way to get to some places.
I've had to alter this post slightly, changing the pronouns, as I realised that I was calling Mavlina 'it' throughout. Oh, dear.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
