Day One

And the journey continues.  The day after returning from the Quantocks, I’m off to Rye – conveniently in almost exactly the opposite direction.  As it happens that’s how Q-V have all worked out as if it’s some cosmic plan to maximise my traveling distance.  My legs are definitely feeling better today, though I keep getting some pain in my right hamstring.  So it gets scientifically treated with Ralgex and that and the freeze spray both get added to the rucksack.

Before I can get going, a necessary chore has to be done – voting in the Local Council elections.  I’m disappointed to only have 2 to choose from – though luckily I haven’t met either of them in meetings.  I was looking forward to deliberately spurning the UKIP candidate but unfortunately there wasn’t one.  I’m even more disappointed when I walk outside and am accosted by my ex-manager who has parked here.  She accompanies me back up the road and prattles away while I answer in monosyllables.  Thankfully, she goes into work and I get to head off and start my journey.

As usual, we start at the train station.  I avoid the disappointing coffee they serve here and wait about a minute before a train to Paddington arrives.  I manage to snare a set beside a lady who is engrossed in her magazine.  Though not engrossed enough to avoid reacting as she reads what I have typed about her into my iPad.  I wouldn’t have mentioned her had she been taking less obvious interest in what I was typing.  She, of course, says nothing.  As the journey progresses, it turns out that her phone ringer is the same as mine.  So every time someone texts her, I think someone is calling me.  It takes about 8 texts for me to ignore the phone.

So why am I going to Rye?  Fans of this blog (which I am now reliably informed is now a sturdy 4 people) will remember that I went to Ludlow due to the Lone Pine Adventures written by Malcolm Saville (https://www.malcolmsaville.co.uk/serlp.htm).  Some of the books in the series were centred in Rye, the first of which is the Gay Dolphin Adventure.

All right, you in the back, less of that.  Malcolm wrote in simpler times.  Don’t judge.

Anyway, it’s a sunny day and a great start to this journey.  Interrupted occasionally by the woman beside me getting another text message I settle down to The Professor’s House by Willa Cather.

The journey is without much incident and I get up at Paddington ready to leave the train.  As I do I see a table with three teenagers sat at it, who are all involved in the over-exaggerated eye-rolling that seems unique to children of that age.  As I head towards the Spiral Line, I wonder at what age we lose the ability (or desire) to do that and almost immediately find that some do not as a brusque woman coming in the other direction does an excellent eye-roll (accompanied by a loud “TUT”) as I don’t leap out of her way.  Her mood was probably not helped by me laughing at her.

I then find myself stuck behind my first wheeled suitcase of the trip.  I, of course, do not roll my eyes and tut.  Instead I just let out my breath in a loud “Huff” to demonstrate my displeasure.

And so the Spiral Line takes me to another old friend on my journeys – St Pancras INTERNATIONAL.  Which I love as much as ever.  Once again I fight my way past the crowds waiting for the Euro Star, past the Fortnum and Masons and other shops that we poor hoi-polloi would normally not be allowed into and onwards to the dark corner that non-international trains are allowed to stop at.  Today I’m taking a train to Margate and I shudder quietly and wonder how I have sunk so low.  No wonder St Pancras INTERNATIONAL hides it in a corner.  It’s not too bad though as I don’t go all the way to Margate.  Instead I’ll be changing at Ashford INTERNATIONAL (which, as stated before, is now in the Thesaurus under the heading “polishing a turd”).

As I approach the barriers, another passenger has the temerity to speak to the two hi-viz jacket clad women that are deep in conversation.  Their response demonstrated beautifully the way that customer service is value by this organisation.  One of them lazily turns to the passenger, points to someone at the other end of the barriers and says “There’s someone there you can ask.”  They then turn back to their undoubtedly vibrant and educational conversation.  Glad that I have nothing to ask them, I head onto the train and snare a table.

It’s a bit embarrassing when the conductor wakes me up to check my ticket.  I was sat at the table with my book still held up in front of me and initially he just thought I was ignoring him.  Somewhat red-faced I get out at the steel and glass polished turd of Ashford INTERNATIONAL.

While there I head into Starbucks for a lemon muffin and a cappuccino.  I completely confuse the barista when she asks for my name and I have to repeat it – twice.  She writes it down with the same distaste that I would imagine she would have is I’d told her I was called Hitler.  I sit outside of the delightfully uncomfortable sloping wooden platforms that are laughably called seats.  They manage to provide nothing that you need from a seat in terms of comfort and makes me feel very unwelcome.  It’s a relief when my train arrives.

I grab my second table of the day and set about making myself look unapproachable.  Its worked once already today and does so again – though time it might be due to the four people with learning needs that are sat behind me and who are talking animatedly.  They’re not actually over-loud – its just that no-one else is talking and they provide a soundtrack to the journey to Rye.

Once we get past Appledore the countryside on both sides of the train is very flat with occasional hills rising above the plain – I suspect (and later confirm) that these mark the old coastline.  Everything is wonderfully green apart from the occasional field of yellow rapeseed.  Nothing else stands up from the plain except pylons and a windfarm in the distance.  It’s still sunny but clouds are building up – the darkest of which seem to be over Rye.

Rye is a very odd little town.  It has lots of little winding streets (some of which are cobbled).  The whole place has the feel of a maritime town – it just isn’t beside the sea any more.

There are loads of antique shops, most of which advertise “bric-a-brac”.  I remember similar shops from Plymouth and know that this is code for “tat”.  So I don’t go into any of them.  I find a quiet little cafe for a burger and a peroni.  It’s still sunny and I’m keep to explore.

I head up to the Ypres Tower where I get some of the answers about why Rye has such an odd feel.

The Ypres Tower, like most of Rye, is on top of a hill with some excellent views over the plains to the east and south of the town.  In the tower is a small museum that shows the old coastline.

The yellow line on the above picture is the coastline as it existed in 1594.  I have a chat with the guy running the tower and he tells me that the estuary was regularly dredged up to that point.  But apparently the Town Council agreed to stop dredging it to allow it to silt up in order to create grazing land for sheep.  Which is exactly what it is today.  This decision was made against the wishes of the townsfolk who all relied on the sea for their livelihood – at this time, Rye was the second largest port on the south coast.  Corruption in a Town Council?  It seems that politicians do not change, but coastlines do.

I have a wander around and find some interesting items in what is a tiny little museum.

I then have a chat with him about flooding.  He tells me that each year the highest winter tide gets within an inch of the top of the sea defences, but a comination of high tide, storms and the wind in the right direction are needed to cause a breach.  He can’t remember the last time that it happened, though the media gets over excited about it every year.  Maybe they read the Gay Dolphin Adventure because it happens in there!

I continue to head around town, following a series of geocaches that one group has put together.  This is a truly interesting town with some lovely places to look at.

I get about half of the geocaches, but it’s such a nice series that I drop a message to the people who made them to thank them for their efforts.  They were a great way to see most of the town.

And that’s what I’ve done.  The only place I haven’t seen yet is the Lamb House – famous because Henry James lived there for about 20 years.  I’m not sure I want to visit it as if the house has the same effect on me that his books do and there would be the danger of me slumping into a coma.  He is one of the few authors that I would heartily recommend you do not bother to read.  It’s not like Austen where I can understand why some people might like them, his books are just tedious drivel.  And he even manages to make a ghost story boring.

So instead of risking coma, I head for my hotel – The River Haven Hotel.  As opposed to my last hotel, breakfast is included and I have to book in (how flash).  I’m also encouraged to east at their restaurant.  I’m a bit dubious until I see they offer a cheese board – so I book a table.  I plan to have dinner and then stroll to Camber Castle afterwards.  Now I should point out that the receptionist has a look on her face just like the barista from earlier.  I wonder if I’m speaking some dialect that confuses the locals.  Who can say.

Dinner goes rather well – steak and ale pie and chips followed by the cheese board.  Despite the insistence on booking, I’m the only customer and I end up having a long chat with the chef.  He’s just re-building the restaurant having taken over 6 weeks ago.  His main problems is the frequency with which he checks I’m enjoying my food – the first time I hadn’t actually taken a bite.  But it’s a tasty meal and a good cheese board and I hope they do well over the summer.

During dinner the heavens open so the planned excursion is cancelled and I head to my room where I get going on my next book: South West Coast Path (Falmouth to Exmouth).  I can’t see this one lasting long.

Day Two

It’s a comfortable room and I sleep well.  The start of the day is somewhat marred by the shower refusing to pump out anything other than tepid water, but I struggle through and head to breakfast.  As predicted, the last book was quickly devoured and I’m now on The Nun by Denis Diderot.

I have a full English breakfast, which isn’t bad.  Not as good as Morrison’s though and I suspect the mushrooms are tinned.  Seriously, you’re here on the edge of farmland and you’re using tinned mushrooms?  There is a waitress this morning to cope with the stress of dealing with the two of us that are in breakfast.  She is obviously a fan of the previous chef as I hear two conversations that start with “when Anthony was here..”  I’m sure the chef just loves that.  There is then a lively discussion about bacon and the relative merits of crispiness.  It seems that Anthony used to serve limp bacon that was grey.  That gives me a pretty good clue about why he left the job and I head out to settle my tab.

It’s overcast today and the age-appropriate hoody goes on as I head for Camber Castle.  This is to the south east of Rye and involves walking across farmland to get to.  Farmland which is all rough grazing for sheep.

I can somehow never feel much affection for sheep.  (Again, less sniggering in the back row!).  There are two basic reasons for this:
1) They seem to be perfectly happy running around with large amounts of faecal matter smeared all over themselves.  It makes me look at Arran sweaters twice as I wonder how mush faeces has had to be scraped off them;

2) Sheep always stare at you with the same vacant expression used by the teenagers who congregate outside a McDonalds.

They are also irretrievably stupid.  These sheep stand and stare at me with their blank-minded expressions and watch as I walk past.  Then, and only then, do they run away.  Stupid, stupid creatures.

Anyway, I head towards Camber Castle.  This is a very odd place as it is on its’ own in the middle of the relentlessly flat fields.

It looks as though it could be a folly, but it was built as part of the coastal defences.  Then the coast moved making it effectively useless.  It’s quite an interesting edifice, though you can’t get inside most of the time.  English Heritage owns it and (as the board outside tells me) you can get tours around it at 2pm on the first Saturday of the month between August and October.  Clearly they are keen for people to visit.

I circumnavigate it and then head back towards Rye.

I have a final wander around Rye.  I planned to pop into the Heritage Centre but it doesn’t open on Thursdays.  (No heritage allowed in Rye on a Thursday?”)  I decide to see if I can find the model for the Gay Dolphin (Damn you, QUIET in the back row) and head up Mermaid Street.  At the top I find the Mermaid Inn which has been there for centuries and undoubtedly is the model for the Gay Dolphin as it matches the description in the book.

Happy to have found this, I spot the building opposite where the house owners have taken an odd decision in naming their house.

This is not the only odd naming decision I find as I’m wandering around.  There are a whole series of puns on “Rye”(Slice of Rye and Pocketful of Rye) as well as a generally odd naming of shops (The Devil in Rye – “sinfully good food” and Ethel Loves Me).  But they are friendly and helpful, so when they have named something oddly, they make sure to put up an extra sign so that you know what kind of shop it is.

I think that’s so helpful because otherwise I would never have worked out what “The Pette Shoppe” sells.  I also find that Rye is remarkably community focused and I find a Community Centre, a Community Hub and a Community Shop – none of which are anywhere near each other.  I also find the police station.

This is actually an old police station, and I eventually find the new one – which looks almost as unused.

Like many police stations, this one is a victim of cutbacks and so is only open from 13:00 – 16:00 and is closed on weekends and Bank Holidays.  A pretty sad state of affairs.

So I head back to the train station where I notice for the first time that the platforms are oddly offset.

I settle down with my book and listen to a long and confusing conversation a man is having on the phone where he is explaining to someone that he’ll be arriving by bus.  He then has to backtrack and explain that he’s getting a train first.  He ends up explaining this three times before finishing his call and then calling someone else and having exactly the same confusing conversation.

I have packed trains all the way back to London.  As I get out at St Pancras INTERNATIONAL, I am cheered up by the sight of a woman tripping over her wheeled suitcase.  My cheerful mood is dampened when my ticket doesn’t work at the barrier and I have to summon an attendant for assistance.  And I have to do the same at the next barrier.  This time, someone else has a problem as his ticket isn’t a through ticket and he does not understand why it won’t work on the Underground.  He keeps asking what he should do now and the attendant, rather than telling him to buy a tube ticket, gets to the end of his patience and yells “I don’t know! I only work on the Tube.”  I suggest the man goes and buys a ticket, which he does and I eventually head down to the tube.

And then have the same problem at Paddington.  This time the attendant has taken her shiny, easily seen hi-viz jacket and dirtied it up so that it blends into the background.  Luckily I spot her and she grumpily helps me – grumpy as now there are a lot of people who want her help.  I have one final barrier before getting to the train.  As I approach there is a woman who is trying to get through using her seat reservation ticket.  She will not listen to the attendant and I hear her say “If I miss my train you will be in trouble, and you have already annoyed me.”  I get the feeling I’ll be here for some time, but the attendant steps past here to help me and I head through listening to her voice fading behind me.

The rest of the journey is uneventful and I think about Rye.  It’s a lovely little town and I’d recommend a visit there.  I wouldn’t want to stay there for more than a day unless I was using it as a basis for a walking or cycle tour.  Or unless there was a smuggling operation going on that could be thwarted by a group of children, in which case it would be well worth it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day One

• Baseball cap – check
• Wash bag – check
• Waterproof coat – check
• Unfeasibly heavy walking boots  – check
• Age- appropriate hoody – check
• Towel – check
• Appropriate number of books – check.

What can the above mean? Well, clearly that this years’ set of journeys is about to begin.  The above was a harder list than it would appear to sort out – the age-appropriate hoody had disappeared during my move and the task of finding it was akin to Schliemann finding Troy.  Also, what is an appropriate number of books?  Hmm – two train journeys, two overnight stays.  Normally three would be sufficient (two is actually sufficient, and the third is an emergency book).  However, as I’m already halfway through one book, four is the final figure scientifically arrive at.  There’s also a bag of cables, plugs and chargers to go along with my iPhone and iPad.

But the preparations are ready, and I’m off to the Quantocks.  When I’ve spoken to people about these journeys the second questions to be asked is always “What are you going to do about xx?”  “xx” varies between Q, V, J and Z.  (The first question is always something checking my sanity or asking me to repeat myself).  I always knew Q was going to be challenging.  Various cheats were suggested to me:

a) The Queen’s House

A possibility – but a bit sad only travelling 2 miles.

b) Kew

Tempting – I liked the idea of the pun.  But as I used to live about half a mile from Kew Gardens I wasn’t hugely keen on it.

Which did leave me with a problem as there aren’t many places in England that start with Q.  Of course I did consider approaching the problem from a completely different angle and just visiting Q.

There are a couple of problems with this:

1. Q is n omniscient, near-omnipotent, pan-dimensional being who could be anywhere in the universe. So he’s unlikely to be within reach of the UK train network;
2. Q is remarkably irascible and his response to my usual level of sarcasm will probably result in me being turned into a Mellanoid Slime-worm;
3. Q ISN’T REAL (probably).

All of which is the preamble to saying that I decided to go to The Quantocks.

The day starts sunny and with me sat impatiently at home.  My ticket is a Super Off Peak Ticket (again) which means I can’t start my travels until 10:30.  Unless, of course, I sit around at home with my bag packed and my increasing level of impatience leads me to head out far too early.  I think you know by now which option I selected.  And so, I head off to Slough Railway Station.  The sunny day tricks me into wearing a T-shirt and leaving the hoody in my pack.  As I walk down the road I see an excellent example of parenting – a young woman pushing a child in a pushchair, one hand holding onto a toddler’s hand while she is totally engrossed in something earth-shattering on her phone.  Marveling at her advance social skills, I get to the station without incident, get my ticket and head out to the platform.

I feel strangely euphoric and stop at Pumpkin for a cappuccino and a blueberry muffin, my euphoria stopping me from remembering my previous disappointment at the flavourless coffee they serve.  One sip and my taste-buds forcefully remind me and the cappuccino ends up in the bin.  The blue berry muffin is pretty good and loaded with so much fruit that it has compromised the structural integrity of the muffin.  By the time the train arrives I look like a blueberry serial killer.

My book, by the way, is Of Human Bondage by W Somerset Maugham.  Put the smutty minds away please, it’s not about that sort of bondage.  Not a bad book though – if a tad overlong.

The train arrives and a woman steps in front of me to get on carrying a clear plastic sack half full of rubbish.  For a moment I think this is someone making an avant-garde statement about capitalism, but it turns out just to be the cleaner.  Disappointed, I manage to snare my first table of this years tour – which I manage to keep to myself for the whole journey.  Across the aisle two young women are having an animated conversation, despite the fact that they are both texting as they speak – proof that women really can multi-task.  I would like to be able to ignore their conversation but cannot and soon know more about eye-liner and moisturiser than I would ever wish to know.  That and the fact that one of them just broke up with Piers after they had an argument over text.  I avoid eye contact with the Cliche Twins and return to my book, hoping that the tickets aren’t checked between here and Reading.

I start to wonder which platform my train will be leaving from at Reading Station.  Will it be 7B?  Virtually every other journey west of Reading has gone via there and I’m starting to think that the rest of the platforms are just there for camouflage.  I get there and, yes it’s 7B.  Once again vying for its’ title as the Coldest Place in the Universe, I sit shivering on the platform.  I have 20 minutes to wait, though someone is messing with me as every time I look up, the train is delayed by another minute.  After a while, it’s like watching a car crash – I want to stop myself  looking at it, but I just have to check!  Eventually the train turns up and I snag a seat in the warm.

Once we’re underway, I head for the toilets and discover that it’s an automated one.  Getting in I turn around to look for the button that closes the door – to find there isn’t one.  While I’m searching for it a voice repeatedly tells me to “Please lock the door.”  Well, yes I will as soon as I can close the damned thing.  Eventually I look behind me and find the controls – nowhere near the door.   I close and lock it and am then faced with the dilemma faced by all men when urinating on a train – stand or sit?  Sitting to urinate always seems odd, but standing on a moving train does run the risk of…spillage.  I naturally take the only route I can and stand.  Successfully navigating this hurdle, I then turn to wash my hands and find there are no taps, only sensors that you pass your hands under to get soap, water and hot air.  What a shame the water sensor seems to be non-functional.  Grabbing some toilet paper, I try to wipe my hands clean and return to my seat, wishing I had some hand gel in the rucksack.  I continue reading while trying not to touch anything — not easy.

I get distracted by the woman sitting slightly ahead of me across the aisle.  She clearly takes a relaxed view to traveling on the train as she is slumped in her chair with her laptop on the flap in front of her.  She has taken her shoes off – I can tell as she has her left leg raised with her foot braced against the seat in front of her at the level of her laptop – giving me an excellent view of her animal-print socks.  Her relaxed posture is offset by the fact she has one hand on her forehead and she keeps muttering “Jesus” to herself — not totally to herself obviously, or I wouldn’t have heard her.  I am a bit concerned that the son of God has been emailing her, until I realise she has a headset on and she is talking to someone on it.  I also then realise just how intrusive I’m being, so I plough on with my book.

Taunton station arrives without further incident.  Some of my friends have been posting pictures of stations recently but I decide not to include Taunton as it is a particularly unattractive edifice.  As I head into town, I walk through a really shabby area and to my joy see that this is where my hotel is (The Royal Ashton).  I can’t check in until later, so head on into the Town Centre and discover what seems to be the hotel’s main selling point – it’s only 100 yds from the police station.

A friend on mine had warned me that Taunton was a bit of a hole.  I ignored his comment as he lives in Bristol, and therefore his judgement is questionable.  However, As I walk to the Town Centre, I find myself agreeing.  There’s little here to impress – unless the sheer volume of undertakers is something that impresses you.  I walk past four in a very short space of time.  One even has a linked hospice and a remarkable good deal on cremations (£1150 for basic – book now to avoid disappointment).  This makes me think there is a largely elderly population, but I then spot 6 tattoo parlours (3 on the same corner).  An elderly rocker population?

As I get into the centre of town proper, things look slightly better.  Taunton seems to have suffered a lot less than other town centres around the country and has markedly less closed shops and pound shops.  It’s also got some nice architecture – a lot of which are around the paved road in the centre.

My main aim this afternoon is to get some maps of the Quantocks so I can plan my walk into the hills tomorrow.  I head into the Tourist Information Office, grab a map and a bus timetable before continuing my exploration.  As I walk around, I have to agree with my friend – there isn’t much here to recommend it, although there are some places of interest.

I also find this place:

I have to wonder just how much competition there is for the Taunton Deane Borugh Council & Somerset County Gazette Curry Restaurant of the Year.  But they seem very proud of winning it four times.

I look for somewhere decent to have lunch and give up and head for Nando’s.  As I sit down, it occurs to me that I haven’t heard any regional accents at all.  As I mull over that, I do some checking to find out where the cinema is.  I have tickets for this evening and want to make sure I get there in good time.  To my surprise, I find that it’s right out on the edge of town and will be quite a hike to get there.

Chicken finished, I head back over the river towards the hotel.  I’m very disappointed that it’s not the River Taunt -instead it’s the river Tone, Taunton meaning “town on the Tone”.  Whatever it’s called, it’s not hugely scenic.  As I head back, I find myself getting increasingly frustrated with the pedestrian crossings, all of which seem to end up with stationary queues of traffic and the pedestrian signal still telling you that you cannot cross.

I head back to the Royal Ashton Hotel and check in.  The hotel is alright – that is to say, there’s nothing essentially wrong with it.  On the other side, there’s nothing that makes me excited or want to stay here again.  It’s also the only hotel Ive come across that provides this:

In case it’s not clear, that’s a sink, electric hob, microwave and fridge.  Like I said, odd.

I still have 3 hours to go before the screening at the cinema is due to start.  But the Map function on my iPhone reckons it’ll take me over an hour to walk there and I rationalise that as it’s outside town, there must be a load of other things there that I can do while waiting.  So I head off, first dumping the walking boots I’ve been clumping around in for a much lighter pair of trainers.

My route goes through some extremely depressed areas – I’m not looking forward to walking back through them after dark – as well as some much nicer areas which have some interesting buildings scattered amongst them.

I later learn this used to be where the lepers were made to live.  As I progress, the route takes me through some more modern estates and then sends me along the verge of a dual carriageway — and then across is.  Which is exciting.  Eventually I get to the cinema over 2 hours before the film starts – and then discover that there is nothing here except a Hollywood Bowl and a McDonalds.  It looks like I’m going to be sat in the foyer eating junk food for 2 hours.  But I give it a go, show my ticket to the guy behind the counter and ask if he can swap it for an earlier screening.  Luckily for me, he has no problems doing that and I find myself blindly groping my way to my seat just in time for the previews.

And then I sit there for over 3 hours.  The film – Avengers; Endgame.  Wow – what a great film.

 

At the end of the film, I leave completely satisfied and glad I made the effort to see this at the cinema.  I then start the long hike back to the hotel – shorter as this time I look at the map myself and come up with a route that is 20 minutes shorter and doesn’t mean I have to walk along the verge anywhere.  It also takes me alongside a quite attractive part of the Tone.

As I get closer to the hotel, the skyline is dominated by the floodlights from the Somerset County Cricket Ground.  Though as I look at it, I am reminded of HG Wells’ martians and expect them to use their heat rays on the church.

But there is no cry of “UuuLaa” and I get back to my hotel without incident.  On the whole, this has been a good start and I’m looking forward to tomorrow.

Day Two

The next day dawns early for me – I wake up at around 3am and I doze fitfully from then onwards.  Nothing to do with the room, that’s just the way my sleep pattern seems to work.  Today I’m off to the Quantocks proper and my plan is to get a bus to Crowcombe and then walk the hills to Bishop’s Lydeard.  It looks like about 10 miles.  I don’t know how long it will take me and although I’d like to get to a pub for lunch, it might not be possible.  So I head off to Morrisons to grab some provisions – and to fortify myself with their Big Breakfast (no tomato, please).

Which is simply splendid.  Great start to the day and I head up to the Train Station to catch my bus.  It’s a fine, sunny morning and as I sit waiting for it it strikes me how quiet it is here.  Although there is a minor hum of traffic, it’s far less than I’m used to and the main noises here are birds singing.  It’s almost like being on holiday.

The bus driver is incredibly friendly and agrees to give me a call when we get to the Crowcombe stop.  As we drive along, I can see the line of hills to the east, which look distressingly high.  I fervently hope they’re a bit lower at Crowcombe — they’re not.  I have finally managed to find some people with local accents, though far milder than I expected.

Crowcombe itself is a little village nestling at the foot of the Quantocks.  I get off and start to walk towards the hills.  I have put together a route on the map and as I progress I’m glad to see that I haven’t lost my map-reading skills.  Just as I think this, I realise I’ve missed the first path I could have taken so I decide that I didn’t want that one anyway and trudge onwards.

As I head out of Crowcombe, the road heads up a 1 in 4 incline.  All I can hear as I head up it is me – boots clumping and creaking, rucksack creaking and my heavy breathing.  I stop for a breather and notice another noise – my heart thumping in my chest.  I realise I’ve been approaching the hill as though I was 25 years old, so I head on at a much slower and more measured pace.  I pass a few people working the fields and a cheerful man driving a tractor.  As I toil up the hill, I encounter someone jogging down it.  He grins and says “I’ll be like that on the way back up.”  I grin and choke back my response of “Yeah, if you add 10 stone and 20 years, mate.”

Forty five minutes later, I get to the top of the ridge-line just south of Crowcombe Park and look back to get an excellent view across the valley.  My Fitbit has my heart-rate at 140 and I’m feeling every one of my 55 years.   I get a bottle of water out of the rucksack and take the opportunity to rehydrate. I check the map and I am where I wanted to be – on the MacMillan Way West.  I plan to follow this to Cathelstone Hill.

While I’m recovering enjoying the view, a lady comes along with her two dogs and I’m clearly a threatening looking fellow as she puts them on their leads.  Of course, she could be worried about them attacking me but I fancy my chances against 2 overweight spaniels.  She walks past clad in her windbreaker and green wellies while I face one of the most disgusting things known to man – putting a wet rucksack on over a sweaty shirt.  With a shudder I complete this task and head on.

The path runs along the ridgeline and gives some lovely views to both east and west.  It’s largely sheltered by trees, which often make it feel more enclosed than it actually is.

It is possible to take a lower route that heads down towards West Bagborough but I decided to maintain my elevation (a lesson well learned when playing Tomb Raider.)  As I get down to my first waypoint, I stop for a discussion with someone heading in the other direction and we compare maps.  As I walk on it strikes me that hiking/walking is one of those pastimes that creates a community that encourages people to talk to each other.  I know that I strike up conversations much easier than I ever would when I’m in town.

As I approach Wills Neck, I’m faced with a decision – the slow hard way or the short extremely hard way.

The right hand route is clearly going to be tougher – but I’ll be over it much faster.  So that’s the route I choose.  I then find it’s steeper than I thought and delightfully unstable underfoot, so I’m very hot and sweaty when I manage to scramble to the top.  The top is more like moorland and with Exmoor ponies everywhere.

Actually, I though they were horses but I’m reliably informed they’re ponies.

I carry on and get to the point where I could head down to West Bagborough and a much shorter walk.  Despite my legs and feet aching, I’m enjoying this and so I decide to head on.  The Macmillan Way West now heads along a bridle path at the edge of a wooded area.  And so I get to deal with a route that should be straightforward and simple, but has been churned up into a glutinous morass by the horse-riders that have been using it.  So instead, I get to take a more indirect route which involves clambering over ankle-turning roots and along narrow paths.  I mutter darkly to myself as I imagine people called Jacinta and Harnsworth as they ride to and fro deliberately making walking a living hell.

By the time I’m two thirds of the way I’m definitely flagging.  The MWW now heads along roads for a short while and skirts some attractive woods where the bluebells are out in force.

While the road is harder, it’s easy to walk on.  Then I have to cut up through the woods to the summit of Cothelstone Hill.  The path is small and twisting and gets progressively steeper until I come out of the woods and onto the bare top of Cothelstone Hill.  This is one of those hills with about 3 false summits but, gasping, I get to the top where I am rewarded with an excellent view in all directions.  My job is dulled when a woman walks by carrying a Starbucks cup and I have visions of a service station just over the brow of the hill.  This turns out not to be the case and after some more water, I head down towards Bishop’s Lydeard.

The descent is worse than the ascent in many ways.  My boots are increasingly uncomfortable and the steep descent is putting a lot of strain on my knees.  I have a bit of a navigational mishap on the way down through the bluebell woods and end up going down what is obviously a mountain biking track.  Eventually I come out at Cothelstone and head down some minor roads to Bishop’s Lydeard.

Bishop’s Lydeard is a village with an impressive church at its’ heart.

It also contains the Lethbridge Arms, where I stagger inside and order some suitable refreshment and their Chip Shop Platter.

 

My legs tell me that I deserve this.  My feet tell me that they’re going to kill me in my sleep.  A group sits close by and I smile as I finally listen to the thick Somerset accents I had been expecting – so thick I almost need subtitles to understand the conversation I’m eavesdropping on.  I’m not the only one to have trouble with it – the landlord has to get them to repeat their order twice before he gets it right.

The food is great, but when I go to stand my knees have locked up and I hobble down the road to the bus stop.  Luckily it’s only 200 yards.  All I want to do now is get back to the hotel and get these boots off – I really wish the hotel room had a bath in it.

I stagger back to the hotel and collapse.  I’d planned to go out this evening, but fall asleep and wake up just in time to watch Bake Off: The Professionals and then asleep again.

Day Three

I have a terrible nights sleep.  The fridge (or something in that bizarre kitchen unit) is making a loud humming noise, so I wake up at about 1am and get broken sleep from then on.  I eventually give up at around 8:30am.

The plan for today is to do some geocaching while I wait for my Super Off Peak ticket to be valid.  I’ve checked it on the Trainline app and found the first valid train to be at 10:30.

I head out to find that it’s lightly drizzling – like the diffident touch of a vicar when you stand on his foot.  My knees are suffering today so I’m wearing my trainers and as my boots won’t fit in the rucksack, I have them lashed to the back of it.  I head to Morrison’s where I’m tempted to have the Big Breakfast again – but as I’m not walking much today, I go for scrambled eggs on toast instead.  They are pretty good – and that’s pretty much the last good thing that happens this morning.

The geocaching does not go well:

#1 – Did Not Find (DNF) – behind a locked gate;

#2 – DNF micro hidden in an ivy covered tree.  (A “micro” is a cache that is less than 1cm square);

#3 – DNF – hidden at the end of a fence which either requires scaling said fence (which is at the top of a steep embankment into a river) or fighting through a hawthorn bush;

#4 – DNF – micro hidden in a huge multi-trunk tree;

#5 – DNF – another micro hidden in an ivy covered tree.  But which one?  There are 6 here.

What makes it worse is that the last 4 are part of a series.  A series is usually constructed so that you can easily get from one to another.  This one continually crosses the Tone – at places where there is no bridge.  By this stage, I have wet feet due to walking across fields and am rapidly losing my patience.  My comments on the caches get less and less complimentary.  I do, however, find a “living sculpture” – the Willow Cathedral.

The Willow Cathedral is apparently home to birds and spiders – but all I find is three-quarters of a bicycle and a pile of beer cans.  I give the geocaching one more try – and succeed!

The last cache for the day is at the train station.  It looks easy but requires a lot of highly suspicious lurking around peoples cars.  As I’m doing this I look across the station to see a train stationary at one of the platforms – and , yes, it’s the one I want to catch.  I start to head for it just as it pulls out, leaving me with a one hour weight for my next train.

So I settle down in Starbucks and wonder if I can nurse my cappuccino for that long.  I have started a new book – Nerilka’s Story by Anne McCaffrey.  It’s a novella set in her “dragon” world of Pern and as I read it I smile to myself as I imagine George R Martin’s horror at a story that contains less than 100 characters and takes less than 4000 pages to tell.  It also doesn’t need an ego the size of Jupiter to write it.

Chuckling to myself, I nearly miss the next train – I had assumed all London trains would use the same platform (after all, that’s what happens virtually everywhere else!).  Luckily I spot my mistake with 5 minutes to spare and get to the platform just as the train pulls in.  I then manage to snare one side of a table – it’s flagged as reserved from Plymouth but the man sat opposite says no-one has been there so they clearly aren’t on the train.  I and my rucksack take possession.

At Reading, they try to fool me with another platform charge, but I’m onto them now and I find my connecting train patiently waiting for me.  I have a brief conversation with a woman who seems to have recently been through a particularly powerful wind tunnel.  She is complaining about the Departures Board – specifically the “Next Train to..” board which fails to take into account the time that it takes someone to get to the appropriate platform.  I run through a whole range of sarcastic responses but instead I shrug and grin and return to book.  I then get to listen to her having a good moan to the man with the refreshments trolley.  I consider telling her about the Trainline app – but decide not to get involved.  I’m also feeling smug as the train is crowded and I’ve managed to keep a double seat for the final leg of the journey.

Once back a Slough, it’s a blessedly short stagger home where I can get ready for R.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day One

As with my previous journey, preparation is key for this trip and so I am up early.  In fact, I am up at 2am playing Red Dead Redemption 2 and at 6am I decide that maybe I had better sort out the rest of my preparation.  As well as the usual attire, I dig out a thick MA1 jacket and my trusty three-ton walking boots.  These are not walking boots for the light-hearted.  These are not ones that are worn for idly rambling around fashionable locations in the Home Counties.  No, these are boots that have been to Egypt, Wales, Scotland, the Lake District and Croatia and are the hard man of walking boots.  They are now nearly 20 years old, and have never been cleaned.  They are probably the best £100 investment of my life.  (Except for the £100 I sent that nice Nigerian Prince who emailed me last month).

The day starts off beautifully sunny, so I pack everything in my rucksack and head out with no jacket, just a t-shirt.  At which point I remember that its December.  But I persevere and as I walk into the centre of Slough I get a lot of strange looks from people who are far more suitable dressed.

Their strange looks may also be due to something else.  As I walk along I bird flits across the street and my brain clicks into “select Varmint Rifle, shoot” mode – yes, I’ve been playing that game far too much.  I also find myself making sure I don’t walk too close to people – because if you do that in RDR2, the NPCs start to complain and eventually shoot at you.  Yes, definitely playing the game too much.

Unusually I’m not ambushed on the way to the station and now I face the excitement of using my E-ticket.  This involves showing a QR code on my phone to the automated barrier which then lets me through.  It’s magic!  Or technology.  I am both excited and worried – what if I lose my phone?  What if my phone runs out of power?  It occurs to me then that it would be exactly the same as if I lost my paper ticket.  Great way to be ecologically friendly though — but I wonder just how green the trains are themselves.

The journey today is a long one with 2 changes.  So just to make things exciting, the first train is already running 6 minutes late which is going to make the change very risky at Reading.  I really don’t want to miss my connection as the journey is already going to be over 3 hours.  However, the train finally arrives and I settle down to finish off Howards Way.  Which I’m really enjoying, despite his views on Cambridge.

My reading is undisturbed by people as the train is remarkably empty.  Everyone has a double seat to themselves and the only sound (apart from the train) is the polite murmur of distant conversation.  Highly tranquil, but doesn’t exactly give me anything to write about.

Or does it?  At the next stop two women get on and (contrary to the rules of this train) sit beside each other.  One is having an animated conversation on her phone.  When she finished, the two talk – though it’s unclear whether they are actually speaking to each other as they never look at each other, instead being glued to the screens of their phones on which they are continuously texting.  They finally make eye contact as one starts to describe a mutual acquaintance who assaulted an unnamed third party.  I’m hoping she names the people as by then she has the attention of not just myself, but the entire carriage.

Her discourse is interrupted by the conductor and I then have the excitement of showing her my e-ticket.  I hold up my phone, she holds up hers and the flaw of the system then becomes apparent — a moving train is not exactly a smooth platform.  However, eventually the technology works and my ticket is accepted.  With a “Thank you, Mr Barkham” she moves on.  Hold on, the QR code includes my NAME?  With a shudder at what other secret information the code may hold, I return to my book.

When we get to the delight that is Reading Station, I have 5 minutes to make my connection.  Or have I?  When I get to platform 7b (back again, like a particularly nasty curry), the signs aren’t working so I have no idea whether my train has been or gone.  I check and confirm this is the right platform – and that my connection is running 7 minutes late.  This makes life easy here — but not at Winchester where I had an 11 minute gap between trains.  If this one is delayed much further, I won’t make that connection.  I now become convinced that the rail network is deliberately taunting me.

The train arrives and I pile on to another largely empty train.  As we proceed, the trolley lady arrives.  Though as she is the quietest trolley lady ever, I nearly miss her as she moves ninja-like down the aisle.  She is clearly trying not to disturb the businessman halfway down the carriage who is loudly talking on his phone so as she passes me she apologetically whispers “anything from the trolley?”  After she moves on, even the businessman goes quiet and we head south in silence.

The silence is broken by an overly loud announcement over the tannoy.  “Arriving now at Basingstoke, Basingstokeaaaaah.”  I have no idea why he chose to add the extra syllable but it has been so quiet on here that it just stands out even more.  This is clearly his way of doing things though and on time we arrive at “Winchestaaaah”.

The train arrives in good time for me to grab a cappuccino and a cherry bakewell to fortify myself for the longest stretch of the trip – the 2 hour journey to Weymouth.  The coffee is really tasty (far better than Patisserie Valerie).  It’s very pleasant at the station as the sun is still blazing away and I hope it will be like this tomorrow as Portland is going to be very exposed.

This train apparently stops everywhere and is much busier.  I manage to snag a double seat to share with my rucksack and settle down.  The level of conversation is much more normal, though seems loud after my two silent trains.  Behind me are two Germans who are young, loud and mildly annoying.

I look at the extensive list of stations we are stopping it and realize this is the same line I used to travel every couple of weeks when I was delivering training courses in Bournemouth.  So the names are familiar, but little else about them is as I usually slept through most of them.

The Germans behind me keep up a constant stream of conversation.  It’s not that loud and provides a sort of background music – a bit like a Teutonic “Girl from Ipanema.”  What is annoying is the fact that one of them somehow manages to stretch his legs under my seat and kick my feet.  Just how tall is this guy?  He must be like the Slender Man.  While I consider remonstrating with him, I then worry about turning around and finding that it really is Slender Man – so I manfully put up with it and consign such thoughts to the back of my mind where I can pull it out for a suitably disturbing scenario later on.

The train itself is incredibly smooth.  So smooth that it pulls into one station without me actually noticing it stopping.  Mind you, that’s probably due to the fact that the train is moving glacially slowly due to issues on the track ahead.  Normally this would bother me, but I have nothing planned for the rest of the day, so I can settle in to enjoy my book.

My reading is briefly disturbed as someone who was sat on the other side of the aisle decides to swap seats and to take the seat on my table directly opposite me.  And I can see absolutely no reason for him doing this.  I consider it might be for a better view, but the view is exactly the same on both sides of the train.  Maybe he’s a spy and he thinks I’m his contact?  I keenly look forward to being passed a note or to hear him whisper a pass phrase.  I suspect I am going to be disappointed.

The train gets so far behind time that they cancel half of the scheduled stops to try and get it to Weymouth before Christmas.  The Germans slip out at Poole, as does the spy.  The carriage is now mostly empty and I find myself missing Das Madchen von Ipanema.  It is highly relaxing though and, as is usual practice for me on a moving vehicle, I grab some sleep.

As the journey draws to an overdrawn close, the sun disappears and is replaced by cloud.  It now feels much more like December and the light makes it seem much later than 1pm.  I check the forecast for tomorrow – rain.  Oh, won’t that make it a fun day!  The cloud is suitable though – Hardy country doesn’t loom appropriately in the sunshine.

As we arrive at Weymouth I realise that my well-planned packing this morning failed to include my wash bag — time for some emergency shopping.  As I get off the train I can hear gulls and smell the sea.  I also reflect on the fact that I’ve been on three trains and only had my ticket checked once — and as there is no barrier at Weymouth, I walk straight through the station and into the town.

A seaside town in December is a strange place.  There is a general atmosphere of desuetude as I wander through an extremely pointless subway to get to the beach.

After I posted some of my photos, someone comments that it looks remarkably like Russia.  I can kind of see what they mean.

I find my B&B, but it’s too early to book in so I head off to the south and find the centre of Weymouth.  It’s all pretty boring and standard and I can’t really see anything here which would make me rush to Weymouth as a holiday destination.  Then again, it is December so it’s probably not at its’ best.  As I walk through the shopping centre there are other people shuffling along while one of the street drinkers plays Christmas Carols on a penny whistle.  It’s remarkable haunting and a great way to make carols sound seriously creepy.

I finally find a pub to grab some lunch in.  I’m the only customer and drag the two barmaids away from what must have been a fascinating and stimulating conversation judging by the poisonous glares I am given when I have the temerity to disturb them.  When I order food, the barmaid snaps “What table are you sat at?”  as though I was going to disappear in the seething mass of humanity that is going to miraculously appear.  I point at one and she stabs in the number with all the subtlety of Graham Norton on Eurovision Night.

While I’m waiting for what will undoubtedly be a disappointing burger and chips, she is vindicated when 2 other customers arrive and sit at a table.  Clearly she would now be completely unable to remember which of us is which.  Luckily as she had written down the table number, she manages to bring me my dinner — which is surprisingly good, although they’re really mean with the chips.

Given the extremely unwelcoming staff, I then head off to my B&B – the Redcliff  (https://www.redcliffweymouth.co.uk/).  I meet Sue the owner who is really friendly.  Although the room is small with a lovely view of a back yard, it’s clean and nothing to grumble about for £29.70.  The only sticking point is that breakfast is served from 08:30 and I want to catch at 08:22 bus.  Sue promises to get me some toast.

I have a relax and a doze before heading out to find some dinner.  A friend I’ve been chatting to online has warned me that the forecast is dreadful for tomorrow, so it looks like I’ll be getting very wet.

I do some checking online and end up at the Homemade Pie and Ale House (http://www.thehandmadepieandalehouse.com/).  The food is excellent and I have a fine steak and ale pie.  My only complaint is that it is served on a remarkably stupid plate.

I pass this feedback to the barman who nods and laughs  “Yes, lots of people say that.”  So change the damn plates then!  But seriously, if you visit Weymouth, this place is right by the train station and the food is very tasty.

Now replete I walk back to the Redcliff.  As I do, I pass hotel after hotel full of diners obviously having Christmas meals.  Just as obviously they are all OAPs and it feels like I have stumbled into Heaven’s waiting room.  With a feeling of “there but for the grace of God”, I head to my room.

Day Two

I sleep well despite the incredibly loud plumbing.  I check outside and it looks moist…though not actually raining so I hope that my friend is wrong and I’m going to get away with it.  So I dive into the shower – which turns out to be the first mistake of the day.  It turns out that as I’m at the top of the house, I have to run the shower for quite some time before it becomes hot.  So I’m standing there – too cold, too cold, too cold, ahh fine, fine, fine, too hot, too hot too HOT!!  And now it’s too cold again.  Despite my struggles with the plumbing, I get showered and dressed and then try to make a discrete exit from the house.  Now my three-ton walking shoes are a definite liability as they are also incredibly loud – not just from the clump as they hit the floor but from the way they creak loudly.  So I’m pretty sure I wake everyone up as I exit the building.

I queue up for my bus with a group of delightfully garrulous schoolchildren and we head off for Portland.  As I had (as usual) done no research I assumed that Portland would be relatively small, so I’m surprised as the bus passes Chesil Beach and I see the island rising up in front of us with the houses of Portland clinging to the side of the steep hill like limpets.  As we pass the small harbour I overhear someone saying that they are planning to have cruise liners stop here.  I find that hard to believe as there is nothing here.

The bus continues through Portland which reminds me more and more of the towns in the Lake District.  It then passes into some farmland followed by what can best be described as a massive council estate.  I’ve asked the bus driver to let me know where the best place to get off is and he drops me in the middle of the estate, directing me down a lane that all the school children are heading down.  They seem to be heading for a prison on the top of a hill — as I get closer it becomes clear that this prison is in fact their school.  It also becomes clear that I’m getting some very odd looks from the parents escorting their children to school, so I put on my best “I’m not a serial killer look” and head on.

The path heads in completely the wrong direction and winds through the council estate.  I am the only person walking around and see very few moving vehicles, so it starts to feel as though I’m on one of those fake towns that the Americans dropped nukes on just to see “what would happen.”  Eventually, the path leads onto a more rural road and along a clifftop towards Portland Bill.  Bleak is a good word to use here.

There’s quite a wind coming off the sea but luckily the rain that was forecast has decided to keep clear, so I have what can best be described as a bracing walk down to Portland Bill lighthouse.

No, that’s not it – that’s somewhere for watching birds.  I’d thought it might be Portland Bill initially, but then as I got closer, I could see the real lighthouse in the distance.  As I get closer, I find a pub that clearly could have been the template for The Slaughtered Lamb.

Basically, everywhere around here would be a great place to murder someone.  With that cheery though in mind, I plod on and finally approach Portland Bill lighthouse.

I’m sure this are is usually busy.  Today it’s just me and 4 men who are lurking suspiciously around their car.  I wonder what they’re doing, and then find out as they launch a drone and fly it around the lighthouse.  It’s having as many problems with the wind as I am, so it’s not up for long as I head out to the point.

This would be a great time to grab something to eat, but there is absolutely nothing here, so I head back towards the nuclear council estate.  This time, though, I decide to take the coastal path.  It’s a very bracing clifftop walk with the stretch of Chesil Beach visible in the distance.

It’s a great walk back and I manage to find myself at the bus stop I was dropped off at – and I arrive just in time to sit on the bus.  As I open my new book “Grave Secrets by Charlaine Harris), I am distracted by a family who are getting very excited as one of them has worked out how to gamble on his phone.  I never realised people could get quite that excited at winning 14p.

The family soon leaves and it then becomes clear that this is the OAP bus as I am soon the only person on the bus that wasn’t alive during the Second World War.  As I try not to listen in to June and her concerns about her health, I look up to see on old lady giving me evils — either I’m sitting in her seat or I’ve accidentally kicked her dog.  I’m not sure which it is, but as she doesn’t have a dog with her I assume it’s the seat thing.  Seeing as she has been able to sit down, I stubbornly stay where I am.

Back in Weymouth, I stagger straight onto a train and begin the ridiculously long journey home.  This time it takes me over 4 hours and by the time I stagger through the door I’m knackered.  It’s only then that I realise that my jeans are covered in mud — which may well be why the old lady was glaring at me!

Anyway, my journeys for 2018 are over.  Q-V will be completed in April/May 2019.  I hope to vaguely entertain you then!

 

Welcome to the blog if you’ve never read it before.  If you were looking for something entertaining and useful, you may well have let the internet lead you down a blind alley.

Once again there has been a delay between my peregrinations and me writing this blog.  There is no excuse for this, and I now find myself in a different flat writing this up.  So, welcome to 2019 and the first of (hopefully) 8 updates this year.  O and P were both completed in early December 2018.  Q – V will be completed by the 16th May 2019.

And so at the start of December I am off again.  I decide to prepare for the journey in the only sensible way – by getting up at 4AM to play Red Dead Redemption 2.  As a result, I am somewhat nervous about my journey being interrupted by train heists but despite this obvious threat I get myself ready for an early start.  At 08:00 I leave the house, the baseball cap and age-appropriate hoody supplemented by a thick green MA1 jacket as it’s pretty cold.  I’ve also packed a towel, having learnt from my trip to Evesham.  As I walk to the station, rain-clouds are looming in the same way that youths in Slough loom around McDonalds.

I arrive in plenty of time for the 08:59 direct train to Oxford – which is, naturally, cancelled.  I’ll now have to use a stopping train, so I give myself solace by grabbing a cappuccino and a bacon bap.  I am momentarily confused by the question “Do you want that heated up?”  I bite back the sarcastic comment that leaps to mind but as I have my breakfast I do have to wonder just how many people decide to have a cold bacon bap.  The platform where I’m waiting is uncomfortably moist and I plunge into my book – Rescuing the Spectacled Bear by Stephen Fry.  It’s the first of his books I’ve read for some time and as usual I’m enchanted by his ability to turn a phrase:  “bowels griping like a Silesian fishwife” particularly strikes me as funny, though I then pause to wonder why they have to be Silesian?

The platform is largely empty with more activity outside the station where three of the street sleepers are indulging in an early morning beer.  Even so, when I get up to throw my rubbish away, my seat is taken from some ninja who appears from nowhere and sits huddled in a lime-green & black parka with little more than his nose showing.    I am reminded that I might need something similarly robust for “P”.  My ruminations are interrupted rudely by the arrival of the train – which then sits there for 10 minutes.  Finally, we are off.   I have a table to myself while on the other side of the gangway three people are crammed around a table.  One has a bizarre interest in railways and he starts recording as the train leaves Twyford station.  This gives him an excellent (if blurred) view of a series of hedges and cuttings.  I can think of no reason why he should want to do this, but he carries on recording all the way into Reading station.

My train at Reading will be leaving (as usual) from platform 7b and so I return to the delights of the stuffy waiting room and the delightfully aromatic toilets – ah, the memories of when I was a neophyte traveler. Reading station has changed though, in that they have now employed a surprisingly aggressive woman to walk up and down the platform and bellow at people to keep behind the yellow line.  I amuse myself by watching as she meanders too and fro screaming at people at the top of her voice and I wonder if she’s ever scared anyone under the train.  Luckily it doesn’t happen today and I board without incident (and without being yelled at).  I’m excited when I sit down as this train has an “at seat catering service.”  I wonder what riveting new approach to service this is and when it arrives it is revealed to be….a lady with a trolley.  Ah the powers of marketing.  I finish my book, which is brief but entertaining and would probably be of interest to two friends of mine who are planning to visit Peru next year.  (Which, of course, I completely forgot until I wrote this up).

On the approach to Oxford I wonder what I’m going to be looking at while I’m there and decide to, as usual, wander aimlessly.  I had considered a walking tour when I was there, but all the ones I found online concentrate on two things: Harry Potter and JRR Tolkein.  Apparently, the second best seat of learning in the world has nothing to offer the traveler except in its’ links to the cinema.  So I decide not to book one.  As a result, when I arrive at Oxford station I start to wander in the direction of the Town Centre.

As I head in, I find I quite like this town (much though I really want to dislike it).  It’s relatively calm and every street seems to have a nugget of interesting architecture for me to take poorly framed photos of.  On the way in, I find myself near Oxford Castle, so decide to have a look inside.

I find that tours are at specific times and while I’m considering this, I head into the gift shop where I am assaulted by a ton of Harry Potter rubbish.  Seriously, did nothing else happen here?  Buying nothing but a bookmark, I head onward, grabbing another poorly framed photograph on the way.

As I pass the Town Hall, I spot the memorial to the fallen in WWI.

Unlike other places, Oxford seems to have decided to hide theirs away in a corner.  Shame as I think they’re quite evocative.

Oxford contains the two things I had expected to see: impressive architecture and annoying people on bicycles.  It has both in abundance.  I resist the temptation to clothes-line a particularly annoying cyclist, and concentrate on enjoying the casual way that interesting architecture is around every corner.  It’s a bit weird though as so much has been re-purposed that it’s difficult to tell what buildings are actually for.  At the corner of St Aldate’s four such buildings have been converted into banks and as I walk down the road I only belatedly realise that I have just walked past the Town Hall rather than another branch of Nat West,

But as I head out towards the playing fields, the sun comes out to drive off the rain – that eye-wateringly bright sun that we get in winter (which, as we all know, is coming) and which means I am wandering around squinting at things and making half of my photographs pointless due to the glare. There are still some seriously great sights though.

Just around the corner from this magnificent edifice, I pass a tour group just as the tour guide says “Has anyone here heard of Lord of the Rings?”  I briefly regret not having my bound copy with me so that I can hurl it at his head.  Is this place just about Potter and Elves now?

I wander on muttering dark mutterings to myself and wondering how much it would cost to put out a contract on Peter Jackson.  But I can’t stay angry for long (despite everything my friends say) and the beautiful buildings soon cheer me up – especially when I get to Radcliffe Square.

Shame I can’t go inside.  But instead, I head around the corner to the replica of the Bridge of Sighs – which to my surprise is nowhere near anything even vaguely moist.

I then head around the Bodleian library and find myself in front of Blackwells — which is a huge temptation as it is nearly Christmas and I can always do with more books.  (An opinion not shared by the people who helped me move house).  Instead, I head into the town centre for some food.  Having been introduced to a Patisserie Valerie by a friend, I go for that and find one which is rather bizarrely placed around an escalator in a department store.  I order in a bizarre way which is apposite to this blog as everything begins with C – cappuccino, ciabatta and cheesecake.  Clearly healthy.

The food is pleasant but insanely over-priced.  I would also appreciate them actually serving the coffee hot, rather than at slightly warmer than absolute zero.  I, of course, do not complain.  Instead I concentrate on a couple of things.  Firstly, I use my newly purchased mobile charger to re-charge my phone — definitely a useful purchase.  Secondly, I start my next book:  Howard’s End by E M Forster.

When I leave the store, the rain clouds are looming and I wander through the town centre.  It’s weird – the place is packed and seems far more like a Saturday than a Sunday.  While wondering what to next I arrive again at the corner of St Aldate’s and spot the Carfax Tower.  Given the chance of an aerial view, I have to take it so I head inside and find yet another tiny spiral staircase.

Despite this, I head up to the top and am rewarded with a truly excellent view of the Oxford.

As I eagerly look around, it’s clear that some people come here for a very different reason.

I could stay up here for quite some time enjoying the mild feeling of vertigo as I peer over the edge – but the rain-clouds have stopped looming and decided to advance on the city.  So it’s time to head back down – at which point I find out that the staircase is far more difficult to negotiate on the way down.

Desirous of not getting soaked, I head back to the station and have a return to Slough via the delights of Reading station.  My slow walk home is under threatening clouds, which rather generously hold back until I’ve got in before starting to bucket down.  I look out and hope that this won’t stick around – “P” is a lot more exposed than Oxford was.

 

First of all, an apology to both of my readership for the delay in posting this.  I’ve just completed O & P and done the planning for Q-V so I’m extremely lax in posting.  The reason is that this was the only visit that I’ve done so far that was a disappointment.

Anyway, the day dawned at the excellent Ashdale Guest House in Matlock Bath.  The euphoria of now being more than halfway through is supported by a substantial breakfast and I reflect how great it is to be in a part of the world where “black pudding” isn’t a swear word.  My stay at the Ashdale has been marvellous and it’s with energy and enthusiasm that I head out.  My odd Super Off Peak ticket won’t be valid for some time, so I head out to collect some Geocaches around Matlock Bath.  For those of you not knowing what they are, here’s a photo of one.

That doesn’t really help, does it?  Basically, it’s a good excuse for a wander around Lover’s Walk and a chance to explore some more of Matlock Bath – which I find very attractive indeed.

I work my way down to the train station and try to work out exactly what a Super Off Peak ticket entails.  While I do, I run through the reasons for going to Nottingham.  Let’s face it, there’s only one:

Though I freely admit, I sometimes mix it up with this one:

Now I know there is more to Nottingham than Sherwood Forest, but it’s about as valid a reason for going somewhere as I’ve had so far, so off I go.  Or I will, once I’ve sorted out which trains I am allowed to use.

Aha. Finally I’ve worked it out.  The ticket is valid on trains heading into London after 11:35.  It’s valid out of London between 10:05 and 15:34.  Wait a second, my journey is technically towards London, so which rule applies?  And when I’m going home tomorrow, my train won’t leave London until 16:00, so does that mean my ticket is valid?  I have no idea.  I now realise why they have decided to simplify the ticketing system – because this is not straight forward.

While I wait, I tuck into my next book: Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote.  Which is incredibly short.  So short, that I finish it before arriving at Nottingham and so switch to The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken.  Quite a contrast in styles.

The train from Matlock Bath is a single carriage train.  When I get on, I’m faced with a bicycle that has fallen across the aisle from where it’s been stored.  A highly embarrassed middle-aged man in lycra rushes up to put it back and explains that it fell over as he has too much in his panniers.  He then proceeds to put it back in exactly the same place.  The rest of the journey is punctuated with crashes and repeated apologies as the bike repeatedly falls over.  I think of suggesting that he store it differently, but actually this is just too entertaining.

I think that the conductor will probably come and help but after 25 minutes she hasn’t got halfway down the carriage.  For her, this is a social occasion and checking peoples’ tickets comes very low on her agenda.  And there are quite a few.  The leg room on this train is minute and I have to sit across two seats – luckily it doesn’t get busy enough for someone to insist on sitting by me.  At Belper two more cyclists get on and use their own bikes to block the other one in place – to the relief of the crestfallen owner of the original bike.  Of course, the problem comes two stops later when he wants to get out and I end up watching their Jenga-like antics as they try to extricate his bike.

All that (and my two books) keeps me well entertained until I arrive at Nottingham.  The sunny morning at Matlock Bath has disappeared and the sky is overcast with a chilly wind.  This is not an auspicious start.  I decide to grab something to eat before I start exploring and head out of the station.

My initial impression of Nottingham is that it is a dung hole.  I walk through an area that is clearly in the throes of rejuvenation (either that or it recently collapsed) and the most interesting thing I can find to look at is a tram.

I continue walking around and as I do, I can see an impressive looking church standing out amongst the surrounding buildings, so I head towards it.

As I get closer, I realise this is no longer a church:

While I’m sure Nottingham is not the only place to have a church re-purposed into a bland, anodyne chain pub this adds to my initial impression, and so my second impression of Nottingham is that it is, in fact, a dung hole.

I find my way to the centre of town and settle myself into a Burger King while I plan what to do next.  From here, I can see several buildings of interest, but somehow I just can’t find the enthusiasm for exploring.  It could be that I’m suffering a bit of fatigue from the last 2 weeks, or it could be that Nottingham is truly uninspiring.

I head out and grab some pictures in the central square.

As I wander around, i find some other things of interest:

After wandering around for about an hour, I realise why I’m not getting into this – for the first time in my travels, I don’t feel safe.  There is no specific threat or concern, I just don’t feel comfortable walking around.  I decide to head off early to the Ibis Hotel – which, as usual, is massively uninspiring.  I grab some food from a corner shop and have an evening in my room, hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Day Two

Not the best night – their much vaunted “commitment to comfort” doesn’t extend to an air conditioning system that works.  Though, I admit the bad was comfortable.

Showers are predicted for today — and once again, the prediction is wrong: it is, in fact, pissing it down.  I have a lack-lustre breakfast, including a scrambled egg that is utterly tasteless and would probably bounce if dropped on the floor (I resist the temptation to test this hypothesis).  For the first time, the jeans go on rather than shorts and the age-appropriate hoodie is on as I leave the hotel.

I’m wet within 100 yards and soaked within 15 minutes.  I find myself running from door to door to try and stay even slightly dry and so I head up past the Exchange and towards the Castle.

The Castle unfortunately doesn’t open until 10 — and I’ve already decided I’m going to be heading for the station by then.  Outside the castle, the rain pours down on a statue of Robin Hood.

Doesn’t look much like Errol Flynn to me.

I’m cold, wet, miserable and still feel vaguely unsafe.  As I make my way to the train station, I go over a canal and snap a photo.

A helpful passer-by says “It’s much nicer when it’s sunny.”  I choke back a litany of pithy responses as I the weather finally defeats me and I take shelter in the train station with 3 hours to wait for a train I am allowed to catch.

I sit in the cold, empty hall and nurse a Cappucino from Costa Coffee.  I am on my last book – The Book of Evidence by John Banville.  I’m not sure it will last me, so I grab a Puzzler Collection to keep me going – it’s quite scary that I remember the first time I did a Puzzler…it was in 1972!

After an hour I work out which platform I need to be on, so I head down there to find a waiting room that is somewhat warmer.  I’m in here alone, except for someone who is sprawled in his seat and snoring loudly.

I wouldn’t be that concerned if this was later in the day, but it’s 10 in the morning.  So I struggle with a moral dilemma – do I check he’s okay or not?  In the end I decide to do the right thing, so I go across and gently shake him.  He comes around with a surprised grunt and I apologise and say that I wanted to make sure he didn’t miss his train.  He looks around, stands up and walks out without saying a word.  That really is the cherry on the top of this bloody awful day.  I return to my book.

The journey back is long and uncomfortable – primarily as I’m in wet clothing and it’s extremely chilly.  By the time I get home, I’m sick of this stupid idea and wonder whether I started it in the first place.

 

So, rather a downbeat end to my travels earlier this year.  I’ve now done O and P and will hopefully get them written up in the next couple of weeks.  As I write this, we’re in the run up to Christmas so I hope you all have a good Christmas and a Happy New Year.  I hope you enjoy the blog and will enjoy it next year when I’ll be doing Q through to V.

For the second time I’m off for a three day trip – this time just after having got back from Ludlow.  However much my bed is telling me to stay, my duty to my readers is clear and I get up early to pack the rucksack (no bloody wheeled suitcase this time) and head out to the station.  Of course, some of my attention to duty may be due to the fact that the train tickets and accommodation have already been booked and paid for, but I prefer to consider my less selfish motivations.  The day starts grey and overcast, but as I leave the house the sun comes out which I decide to take as a good sign.

The trip to the station is as uneventful as a walk through Slough ever gets and I then spend a fun few minutes playing with the ticket machine and getting it to vomit forth an array of tickets covering the next 3 days.  A I pick it up, I boggle at the price of the ticket – and also wonder what a Super Off Peak Ticket is.  There’s nothing around to explain it, and the staff are busy staring off into the middle-distance and I don’t particularly want to disturb them when they’re chewing the cud.  So I decided to try and find out later on — I’m sure it won’t be important.

I sit down on the platform and crack on with my book – The Dictionary of Medieval Heroes – which I am currently plowing through at a fair speed.  My concentration is disturbed by a Chinese man who is perched extremely uncomfortably on the edge of a seat, eating a Cornetto and singing to himself.  I’ll put him down as my first odd person of the day (not counting myself, obviously) and I hope that this bodes well.

The journey to London is also uneventful as the train behaves, I get a seat with no trouble and the serenading man realizes what he was doing and spends the journey in silence.  I hide a smirk as I get off the train and see someone rush past me.  I smile because he is dressed in blue blazer, shirt and tie.  Why is that funny?  Because he has matched that with skinny jeans and blue trainers.  It looks as though he must work behind a counter somewhere and he’s hoping that no-one will ever see his bottom half.  Given that he, like 95% of the population, does not have the physique for skinny jeans I can only hope this to be the case.

The Spiral Line treats me with it usual gentility apart from a massive scrum at St Pancras INTERNATIONAL where it would appear no-one can work out the intricacies of the automated ticket barriers.  I am worried that they have been replaced by something which requires an advanced degree, superior hand to eye co-ordination or a code that only the wisest can de-crypt.  Instead, I put my ticket in the slot as usual and walk straight through.  None the wiser, I head off leaving the scrum behind me and into the halls of my favourite train station.  Now, while I might be typing that with sarcasm apparently many people say it without it and mean it as St Pancras INTERNATIONAL has been voted the 2nd favourite station in the country.

I can only assume that the INTERNATIONAL travelers voted for it, as once again I have to work my way past them and their associated high-brow shops and head for a dimly lit platform tucked away in the corner.  Given that the trains from here go to Corby, Sheffield and Nottingham, I briefly wonder whether they deserve to be tucked away in a corner.  As I wait for my train, I spot some art that catches my eye.

Of course, they’re not on my platform so I head off to my train.  This is a Sheffield train and made up of 7 carriages – 3 of which are First Class and therefore empty.  3 out of 7 carriages?  Really?  I’m not trying to demean people from Sheffield, many of whom I’m sure are fine people, but given the cost of my Super Off Peak tickets I would imagine that the only people who can afford First Class are MPs or people with similarly huge expense accounts.

I trudge past the carriages and find a table to sit it in a carriage which, bizarrely, has signs up stating that none of the seats are reserved.  Seeing as this is being said by the friendly little displays above every seat I dump my rucksack, sprawl across the seat and get back into my book.  I’m peripherally aware of a couple who sit at the table across the aisle from me, and become more aware when someone arrives and tells them they are in the wrong seats.  They then have to admit that, in fact, I am in their seat and they just didn’t want to bother me.  I do the right thing and move to an another apparently unreserved seat – and then 5 minutes later have to move again.  I end up moving three times and I only stay where I am then because the rather polite man who should have been in my seat refuses to take it after the nice couple from earlier explain how often I have moved seats.  There is then an animated discussion about the point of the displays on each seat when clearly no-one has bothered to update them.

There is some brief entertainment when someone who is having trouble getting their luggage tucked behind their seat snaps at another passenger who tries to push past them.  To be fair, the first man was being particularly pathetic but I did think the second person could have waited a bit longer.  Then again, maybe he was aware of the bizarre approach to seat booking on the train and wanted to make sure he claimed his seat before some surly bloke from Slough tainted it by sitting in it.

The train gets going, the journey starts and things do not improve.  For some reason there are two ticket inspectors who both insist on seeing everyone’s tickets.  Seeing as they’re both in the carriage at the same time, I have to wonder which one of them is on some odd work experience scheme.  About 45 minutes into the journey the intercom plays a piercingly loud double chime for no readily apparent reason.  It then repeats this 5 times, successfully waking up absolutely everyone including several young children who start crying.  This is not the best train journey I have ever taken.

It is an absolute pleasure to get out at Derby where I have to take a connecting train to Matlock.  I look for somewhere to sit and find out that in Derby people are so hard that they just have metal bars to sit on rather than seats.  After perching on there for a while reading, I use the facilities.  My brief stint in there is disturbed by an odd toilet cleaner who seems to think that you clean a toilet by going up to each one and just slamming the toilet seat down incredibly loudly.  Of course, they might not have been an employee – they could have been an example of local “colour”.  Whatever the reason, I’m relieved when the tiny 2 carriage train to Matlock arrive and we head off on the last stage of todays journey.

I relax although I feel a bit lack-lustre.  Maybe it’s the journey, maybe it’s just travel fatigue or maybe it’s just general irritation.  While it’s sunny, it’s actually quite chilly and I’m not overly convinced that this is going to be a good trip.  I’ve also noticed that the person doing the announcements has some strange speech impediment and doesn’t seem to be able to pronounce “Bath” correctly.  (I have noticed a similar impediment afflicting  many people who live north of London).  Despite my concerns, we arrive at the quaint little station at Matlock Bath without further incident.

Given the weather and my disappointment so far, I decide to head for my sole reason for coming here – the Heights of Abraham.  These are reach by that most common of Derbyshire transportation methods: a cable car.

These tiny cable cars give a short but spectacular journey up to the Height of Abraham.  Some might challenge “tiny” as they can apparently take 6 people in each one.  That may be so – should they all be munchkins!  I certainly wouldn’t want to be in there with more than 2 or 3 people.  However, I’ve got one all to myself so I can enjoy the view.

The weather is perfect for this and the views are spectacular.  I head to the cafe at the top and grab some lunch on the terrace.

After lunch, I start to explore the area.  This area has been used for centuries as a holiday destination and the tourist area at the top has a lot of artwork – including a statue to commemorate when this area featured during the Torch Relay for the 2012 Olympics.

There is also a viewing tower that I decided I have to climb to get the best views.

I then find that my experiences in Ludlow Castle are haunting me as I find yet another incredibly narrow spiral staircase.

But the view from the top is well worth it.  I have a good look around up here and then head down to the Masson Cavern to go on the guided tour.  This cavern has been used as a tourist spot for centuries although things have progressed somewhat since Victorian times when people were lowered into the caves in a basket.  We get to walk in and have a very instructive tour.

It’s odd being in a cave on such a sunny day, but when the tour finishes and we head outside the contrast makes the view even better.

There is a small museum here talking about the archaeology of the area and I potter around for a while, looking at some of the displays.

I went to Wookey Hole earlier this year and was disappointed as (apart from the caves themselves) everything around it was incredibly tacky and aimed at young children.  The experience here is far better – educational, impressive and well worth while.

But now I’ve seen it all, so it’s time to head down.  I could go back down by cable car, but as it’s a glorious day now I decided to walk down.  I’m writing this 5 months later and my knees still haven’t quite got round to forgiving me.  But, it’s a very attractive walk down into the small town of Matlock Bath – this picture from the bottom gives an idea of the gradient.

Matlock Bath itself is weird.  It is basically one street that runs alongside the river.  It feels just like being at the waterfront at Brighton or Southend: amusement arcades and more fish and chip shops than I have even seen.  There are also a load of motorbikes as Matlock Bath is a meeting point for bikers.  So, as I walk down the road to my guest house, I get to admire some of the bikes – and, naturally, sneer a little at the Harleys.

I’m staying at the Ashdale Guest House (http://www.ashdaleguesthouse.co.uk/)and I’m immediately impressed.  The owners are friendly and the room is large.  I resist the temptation to just crash out, but shower and change and then head out to find somewhere to eat.  I ignore the fish and chip shops and end up at The Fishpond where I order an excellent burger (with black pudding and Stilton) as well as a very welcome pint of beer.

I have a quick check on my finances – they’re looking a bit tight and I hope that the overnights have already been taken out of my account or I might be in a bit of trouble.  But that’s something to worry about tomorrow.  I head back to the Ashdale and I settle down to sleep with the sound of motorbikes going up and down the main road.  What a great day.

 

 

 

And so after 2 days of rest, the time has come to continue my peripatetic adventuring.  Pausing briefly to leave my thesaurus behind, I get ready for 2 days away and wonder to myself if my legs are up to this.  They’re still aching after last weeks tramping around and my knee is definitely feeling a bit wobbly.  As I pack the rucksack for a night away I wonder, not for the first time, if I’m not getting too old for this.  The sight of the age-appropriate hoody is enough to banish such doubts and I’m off on the normal trek to Slough station.

Today is heading to Ludlow.  “Why Ludlow?” I hear you cry (proving once again that the voices I hear are not always my own).  Well, when I was young (yes, all those years ago) I used to enjoy reading a set of books by Malcolm Saville called the Lone Pine Adventures (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Pine_(books)).  They were written in the years after the second World War and come under the heading of what would currently be called *wince* Young Adult Books.  Whatever, they were I enjoyed them and several of them took place in Shropshire in the area near Clun and Ludlow.  I couldn’t go to Clun as C is now way behind us, so I’m heading for Ludlow.  (The Lone Pine books will feature later on in the alphabet as well).

So, suitably armed with nothing but a dated set of Young Adult books for reference, I head off to Ludlow.  The journey today will be long and includes a foray into the wilds of Wales, so I check my rabies shots are up to date and that I have packed the anti-lion cream.  (OK, I didn’t pack the anti-lion cream because I made that up.  But I did pack the Wolverine Ointment, because you never know.)

I manage to arrive at Slough station 30 minutes prior to my train and end up staring at a picture of the Sussex countryside — which does not help improve the vista of Slough station.  I am, naturally, going to take today in a relaxed and sensible way, so I decide to get my first coffee of the day and wait placidly for my train.  Naturally, I almost immediately change my mind and my coffee and I are soon speeding towards Reading on an earlier train.

This gives me a chance to try and finish off Memory of Fire by Holly Lisle.  Still enjoying it, but not finished when I get to Reading.  Sat there waiting for my connecting train, I am momentarily distracted by this man on the platform opposite.

Now some may criticize me for finding his stylistic choices unusual, but lederhosen?  In Reading?  I mean my shorts may look like a fashion mistake, but lederhosen?

The train from Reading to Newport arrives on time and we head off.  It is a quiet train – really quiet.  So quiet that I fall asleep twice, dropping my book on the floor both times.  It’s so quiet, that no-one seems to notice and I am suitably refreshed when I get off the train at Newport.

Now, before I left I had checked on the route and the journey between Newport and Cwmbran was described in an extremely vague manner.  Suspiciously vague.  The reasons for this become clear when I am directed out of the station to wait at a bus stop for a dreaded bus replacement service.  My nerves about this (after all, I am an Englishman alone in Wales) are ameliorated by the extremely impatient man who is having a very entertaining rant about the trains, the bus system, a passing taxi and anyone else who gets in his way.  He decides to get a taxi and storms off leaving me to wonder where the bloody bus is — I’ve just missed my connection at Cwmbran.

After half an hour it turns up and I manage to nab the coveted front seat on the top deck so I get a great view as we leisurely drive up to Cwmbran.  There, we stop at the grandly named Cwmbran Passenger Interchange.  Otherwise known as the train station to the rest of us.  I find myself wishing that the sign was translated into Welsh as I suspect trying to say it would generate enough phlegm to drown a chihuahua.  With that thought in mind I leave the bus and negotiate the legion of staff who are loudly and aggressively demanding to see tickets — though they all ignore me.  Ok, there isn’t a legion, but considering this is a tiny station there are 6 people stood here all doing the same job.  The good news is we don’t have to wait long for the train and the final leg of my journey is underway.

First impressions of Ludlow are not particularly good as the train station is directly opposite a delightfully ugly Tesco.  But even from here, I can see hills surrounding the town, so I press on hoping that Ludlow will not disappoint.  Very quickly I get away from the bland supermarket structure and the road ahead looks as though this little town could be of interest.

As I head up the hill, I spot some really interesting architecture and get close to the centre of Ludlow.

The centre of town has got a real mixture of architectural styles and some very narrow cramped streets, but it works.  There is a real charm about it, despite the fact that there are a huge number of coffee shops and cafes – but somehow it works.  There are also some real throwbacks here — I haven’t seen an Ironmongers for years, but there’s one in Ludlow!

I head through the centre of town until I come to the entrance to the castle.  I resist the temptation to head inside, as I’ve decided to explore there tomorrow.  Today, I’m heading down to the river Terne and as I head downhill I find some more attractive buildings to looks at.

It really is incredibly pretty here.  At the bottom of the hill, I come across an old Mill beside a small park which is quite busy with people enjoying the good weather.  From there I can get access to the river itself and I spend some time pottering around.

After a bit of exploring, I head across the bridge and follow the signs for the Bread Walk.

I wonder why it’s called the Bread Walk and manage to find a handy information sign that tells me that workers used to walk this way and they were paid with bread.  I then turn around and get a superb view up the hill towards the castle.

The walk along here is remarkably relaxing – there are very few people making the walk as the day is quite hot and there is little noise apart from the sound of the river.

Across the river, I get glimpses of Ludlow through the trees and even that has a charm which does not spoil my mood.

Eventually I come to the next bridge, and head back into Ludlow.  As I head back into the centre of town, I see a road-sign which makes me pause.

I head up the hill wondering why the sign is necessary and then I find out why.

This is not a pedestrian path…it’s the road.

I head upwards, shaking my head at the sheer volume of blue plaques on the houses here.  I swear, I saw one that said “Nothing of importance of interest happened in this house.”

They’re thinking of putting the same plaque on this blog.

Anyway, the time has come to head for overnight lodgings at the Ludlow Mascall Centre.  This is one of those place which I would best describe as a B — no breakfast here.  The Ludlow Mascall Centre is part of a community centre and there are only a few rooms here.  I get the key and head up to one of the bizarrest rooms I have ever stayed in.  The bathroom is exactly the same size as the bedroom and the bed is absolutely minute.

I open the wardrobe to find that the rail in it has been set an odd height which wastes a huge amount of room.

As I ponder this conundrum, I realise that I am in a disabled friendly room which explains the height of the rail and the size of the bathroom – but not the ridiculously tiny bed!

I have a quick rest up before heading out for dinner.  I find an Italian restaurant which is very pleasant – or it would be were it not for the children that are being allowed to run riot in the garden.  Despite that, I have a pleasant meal and I head back to the Ludlow Mascall Centre.  As I do, I spot a church down an alleyway and have a quick explore.

After a very satisfying day I head back to my room.  My knee is twinging in a worrying way and the room is stuffy and hot.  I do not anticipate a good nights sleep.

Day Two

And my anticipation was correct.  I have a very disturbed night in the stuffy room, made worse by the fact that the cold water runs warm after half a cup.  By the time morning comes I’ve managed to grab a few hours sleep, but I don’t feel fully rested.

I pack my things and head into the town centre, pausing to grab a couple of geocaches on the way.  I then select Costa Coffee as my breakfast venue of choice and sit outside enjoying a cappuccino and a bacon roll.  Outside is an odd choice as I’m right beside the road, but it was necessary due to the screaming toddler that was being ignored by its’ parents inside.  The small area outside is quite crowded as a result.  I sit there finishing the book I started in the middle of the night – Embers by Sandor Morai.  This is the tale of 2 friends who meet for the first time in 40 years — it seems everything I read at the moment is about my school reunion!! The book is basically a monologue, but is enthralling.  As I read, I become aware of the sound of a flute coming from an upper window.  The music is beautiful and mildly surreal – especially as they swap from classical to pop.  It is one of those moments where it sounds as though your life has a soundtrack and it weirdly adds to my feelings of relaxation.

I finish the book and take out the next one: Dictionary of Medieval Heroes.  That should slow me down a bit.  As I am about to leave, I see a car draw up opposite and the driver gets out and opens up the back to reveal one of the best trained dogs I have seen for ages placidly sitting inside.

I head down the hill and across the river to pick up a few more geocaches and then head back up the hill to the castle.  Ludlow castle is truly spectacular,  It was begun in 1086 and is incredibly peaceful.  As I wander around it is really quiet in here.

I follow the guidebook and wander from tower to tower, until behind a door I spot a spiral staircase.  There is nothing here to say I can’t wander up it so I do — and then discover that Ludlow Castle was built by a tribe of incredibly thin people with tiny feet.

With my huge feet and a backpack on (to say little of my own natural girth), the staircases are tricky to negotiate, but the views you get are well worth it.

I gingerly head back down and into the main keep, where I spend an entertaining hour exploring several more tiny, vertiginous staircases — and the flocks of pigeons that dwell in some of them.  Finally I climb the keep itself.

.. and the views from the top are truly spectacular.

As I head down I see some visitors heading out who couldn’t be bothered to make the climb — foolish people!  I grab some water and look back and think that this is so much more satisfying than the sideshow that the Fort in St Helier had become.  Suitably satisfied, I shoulder my pack and head back to the train station.  Ludlow is a beautiful little town and one I would be happy to return to.

My journey back is long and involved and marred by by the following incidents:

• a strange man sitting by me at Ludlow Train Station and muttering something under his breath before wandering off and balefully glaring at me from an adjacent seat;
• my train being cancelled;
• at Cwmbran Passenger Interchange a man who decides to wait until getting off the train to go to the toilet and then insisting that the bus wait for him;
• the same man then loudly discussing his journey to Barnstaple with the driver, when we all just want him to SIT THE FUCK DOWN!;
• a wifi socket on the train that had a death grip of steel and which I needed to get under the table to remove;
• damage to overhead lines between Maidenhead and Slough.

And despite all that, I’m still in a good mood when I get home.  Which is lucky as I have to get ready for a 3 day trip tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

K is also for knackered as I’m bushed after the last three days and a very long journey home.  As my alarm goes off, I seriously consider postponing K.  But I am devoted to my loyal readers (both of you) and so I lever myself out of bed.  Actually, that’s only one consideration.  If I don’t go today, I’ll have to go tomorrow or Sunday – and as there’s a small wedding going on in Windsor this weekend I suspect the railway station will be slightly crowded.  I’m also meeting two of my friends today, so I’d be changing the arrangements for all three of us.  So, suitably attired and with a very heavy pack on my back I head off for Slough station.

Before I get there, I thought I’d better mention why I chose Kensington – after all, it’s not exactly a long way from home.  Firstly, I wanted an easy one after Jersey – especially as I have a busy next week with L – N.  Secondly. I haven’t been to the Natural History and Science Museums for a very long time – and I used to love them.  That’s why my friends are coming with me as well – they also have fond memories of both and wanted to see what they were like now.  (To make things easier I will give my friends names – John and Janice.  These are clearly not their own names, but subtle pseudonyms chosen to obfuscate their identity.)

I should also mention why my pack is so damned heavy today.  Tonight I am going to John and Janice’s house for our weekly (when we can all get together) gaming night.  Before you start to worry about us and sign us up for Gamblers Anonymous, I will explain that this is for table-top role-playing gaming.  The game that we are playing is called Deadlands – if you are interested, here is a link to a site about it.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadlands.  All you really need to know is that the rule-books are many, heavy and several of them are in my backpack.

So, I stagger off to Slough station.  Getting there I realise that it is less than 12 hours since I was last here.  The major change is that now it is packed with commuters – none of whom have the slightest interest in anyone else as they focus on getting to their train.  As a result, I begin to get irritated as I get bumped, barged, pushed and blocked by a variety of people most of whom seem to have a mobile phone welded to their ear.  When the train finally arrives, it is already crowded and I end up standing.  I do see a seat – but the woman in the seat beside has cleverly used my own tactics of a coat, bag and sullen attitude to keep it clear.  Tipping my baseball cap to her fine use of my own methods, I remain standing and try to read my book.  Today’s book is The Memory of Fire by Holly Lisle.  (A fantasy novel.  Pleasant but generic.)

My attempt to read my book are disturbed by the two young women directly in front of me who are loudly gossiping about people they know and what happened last night.  One is clearly surprised and let’s out a long, drawn out “Whaaaaaaat?”  I’m staggered.  I thought only cliched TV teenagers did that.  At that moment, the train stops at Langley and they leave along with a large number of people of similar age.  I realise they are probably going to Langley College – so the whole brain-dead moron routine makes a lot more sense.  The good news is I can now grab a seat, though I am uncomfortable with my heavy pack on my lap and having to read around it.  But I manage.

Rather than heading for Paddington, I change at Ealing Broadway which allows a gentle stroll across the platform and onto the tube.  The District Line (unlike the Spiral line) remains as it has since I used to travel regularly on it 30 years ago and I soon find myself heading upstairs at South Kensington.  I am (as ever) early, so I head outside and stand in the sun with a cup of coffee and a muffin.  It’s very pleasant – especially as I have that smug feeling of watching other people who are clearly on their way to work.  I finish my breakfast in a leisurely fashion and head back into the station.  John and Janice arrive at almost the same time and we head down the pedestrian tunnel to the museums.

I can remember walking down the street and seeing the buildings come into view and am disappointed that we won’t be doing that.  However, the tunnel ends in good time to get an excellent view as we approach the Natural History Museum.

I recall this building being blackened with grime, so it’s good to see that it has been cleaned.  The entrance is still as impressive as I remember it.

Inside is the cool gloom that I remember and the echoing sounds of other people.  This is somewhat marred by the most cursory security check ever (am I invisible?) and a barrier that forces you to walk right past the person asking you to give a voluntary donation.  My innate stubbornness kicks in at this point and I demur.  (It’s so rarely one gets the chance to demur.  I must look for more.)  To be fair, I will donate later on – just not when I’m being pressured to do so.

The first hall you come into (The Hintze Hall) is as impressive as ever, with the skeleton of a whale hanging from the ceiling.

Around the sides are the skeletons of the things I really remember — and always wanted to see when I was here as a child – the dinosaurs.

Initially, I’m elated — this is just how I remember it.  But as I think about it, I reckon the Museum is missing a trick.  I remember this huge space having the larger dinosaur skeletons in it — a truly impressive place in which to display them.  While the whale is amazing, it isn’t anything compared to the dinosaur skeletons.  Oh well, maybe they will be displaying them somewhere just as good.

Sadly not.  We head for the dinosaur galleries — as do most other people who come in here.  The galleries are set out in an educational way, with plenty of facts and background that is well balanced and instructive.  But is there something of value in the animatronic T-Rex?

Apart from the way it scares small children (always a bonus), I would have preferred just a skeleton.  Due to the way the gallery is laid out, the larger skeletons are either above the main concourse, or alongside walls, so you can’t get a true feeling of the scale of the creatures.  But when they do have the room, the display really works.

We head out of the dinosaur galleries suitably satisfied and head into the rest of the museum.  And then we discover the problem faced by the Natural History Museum.  As we walk past a seated row of 8 people all engrossed in their mobile phones, we realise that apart from the dinosaurs, everything in the Museum can be found on the Internet — and in a better format.  What’s the point of looking at a stuffed tiger when you can watch one on Youtube or Netflix?  Technology has moved on to the point where the Museum is almost redundant.  That feeling stays with me as we continue our tour.

There are some areas where the Museum has worked hard to engage the visitor.  The Earth Galleries have a truly spectacular entrance and then have lots of displays that you can interact with – in much the way that the Science Museum used to.

But here it’s clear that the money that they are asking for is definitely needed.  Lots of the displays show signs of wear and tear.  Several are blurred and faded and need replacing.  It’s actually a little sad.

As we have our lunchtime coffee and cake we discuss this and how the Museum’s priorities have changed.  It’s noticeable that there are now multiple gift shops and cafe’s – undoubtedly for convenience, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it’s also a way to get more money out of visitors.  (Yeah but do they have any bookmarks?  None that I could find.)  Somewhat disappointed, we head for the Science Museum.

Like the Natural History Museum, there is a lack-lustre security check.  This one does actually look in my pack — but seeing it’s full puts him off and he takes my word for it that I’m not carrying anything I shouldn’t.  The pressure to pay is even more intense here, with a much smaller passage to get past the people asking for a donation.  I demur again.

I remember bits and pieces about the Science Museum — mostly the amount of interactive exhibits, but also the impressive Foucault’s Pendulum set up just inside the entrance.  So I look for it.  And it’s gone.  Seriously?  This pendulum demonstrates the movement of the Earth.  It’s truly amazing.  And it’s gone.

Heading in, the first galleries all seem to be about transportation and feels more like going around a motor museum than a science museum.  While there is a developmental flow as you move through history and see the various modes develop, there’s no real interaction.  It feels very superficial.  Given the amount they could include, that is possibly the only way to deal with it but I would have liked something a bit more structured.  Don’t get me wrong, it was interesting.  It just started to get me thinking more about my aching knees and back than it did the science.

As we progressed through the museum, we found several galleries and displays which included the interactive exhibits that I was looking for.  These are now more computer based than physical, but still engage and entertain — some more than others.  But all three of us are starting to flag, so we head out without seeing everything – but planning to return.  There is one vital stop – the gift shop.  After a good deal of hunting I manage to find a bookmark and gripping my prize triumphantly, we head out into the sunny streets.

In the end, they are still the best way to get a free day out in London!  Next week, I have three places to visit and I’m going to spend the weekend resting and preparing.

 

 

And I’m off again!  Two days after the Fake J and I’m heading out to the Real J.  Let’s just clarify that for those people who complained that I was calling Plymouth “fake”.  This blog is the one I intended for J, Plymouth was just shoe-horned in as I was going there anyway.  Besides, how could you complain about being re-introduced to the delights of the National Express song?

Apparently some people can complain about that as it is a bit of an ear-worm.  I can attest to that as I am alternating between National Express and Prorsum Semper Honeste as I get myself ready to go.  To be fair, it’s not the worst ear-worm I’ve ever suffered from.  This is:

 

Anyway, I shall move on confident that you’ll now be stuck with that for days.  So I wrote up the last blog entry and got some great feedback from it which, naturally, encourages me to keep going.  Will you never learn?

Packing this time is a bit different.  I’m going by plane so decide to pack a small suitcase rather than relying on the backpack.  I then pack a smaller backpack inside the suitcase for use while I’m away.  Because that doesn’t seem weird at all, no Sir, it doesn’t.  Because a flight is involved, there is a deal more planning as I have to get a train, another train, check in and then get the flight.  I have planned everything to get me to the airport right at the start of check in to minimize waiting around.

So I get impatient and head off an hour early.  It’s sunny and warm, the baseball cap and shorts are on, the age-appropriate hoodie has been packed and I’m off to Jersey.  Why Jersey?  Well, I only really know two things about Jersey.  Number One: Bergerac

Number Two: Gerald Durrell

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Durrell

Ok, to be fair I know more than that about Jersey because I know about the cows and the fact they were occupied during World War II and they have a knitted garment with long sleeves named after them.  (The last one could, of course, just be rumour but I couldn’t think of a third thing).  But when I think of Jersey, Bergerac and Durrell are the two things that spring to mind.  Why?  Well when I was young I read Gerald Durrell’s books avidly and always wanted to visit Jersey Zoo as he created it.  And Bergerac?  I think everyone of a certain age would agree with me that John Nettles gave us the finest travelogue inspired police show on television for many years.

So, with a desire to visit based on a TV series from the 1980’s and a set of books I read over 30 years ago I head off.  Clearly my vision of the island will in no way differ from reality.

The suitcase causes trouble from the get go.  Although it’s quite light, it’s still a pain to lug it along.  It does, however, have wheels and one of those little handles that allow it to turn into an Andy-tripping machine as I complained about in a previous blog entry.  I give this a go and then find out why everyone with these things walk so slowly.  If you move at any speed other than glacially slow, the stupid suitcase wobbles from side to side until it flips itself over and drags along the pavement like a recalcitrant child being taken to piano lessons.  So I give up and carry it.  I get to the station, grab my tickets and dive onto the train with seconds to spare (and the extra hour that I have due to being stupidly early).  My reason for using the suitcase, by the way, is so that it’ll be a bit more robust in the hold as I think it’s too big for hand luggage.

I settle down with todays book – Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh.  Another book that seems to be about the difference between generations that makes me think about the reunion I went to over the weekend.  It’s a good read and I am only occasionally disturbed by concerns about what I’ve forgotten to pack.

I arrive at Reading where I will have a 30 minute wait.  There are signs everywhere saying that Channel 5 are filming there – presumably a documentary about the least attractive train station.  I make up my mind to avoid that.  After my disappointment in Plymouth, I decide to test a pasty from the Lands End Pasty Company.  Not bad – 7/10.  Needs more meat and more seasoning, but definitely better than the Oggy Oggy disaster.  The pastry is marvellously flaky and for the next hour I am brushing them off my shirt, shorts, bag and Evelyn Waugh.

The train arrives and the normal scrum forms to get on.  Given the fact there are relatively few of us, I don’t bother to get involved.  It strikes me that I’m actually taking a very relaxed approach to the whole journey today – maybe the weather is affecting me!  The journey to Gatwick is all very civilized and as we pass through Reigate we get the constant companion of the North Downs to my left.  It’s all green fields and hills and under the sun is very pleasant indeed.  Gatwick, by contrast, is manic with people charging in all directions dragging suitcases and children behind them.  I still maintain a certain composure as I wander through to check in.  As I get there, I look at the frame you can use to see if your luggage is small enough to be taken into the cabin and, not really expecting it to work, drop my suitcase inside.  To my surprise it slides neatly down into the frame – it fits!  My elation is somewhat dashed when I realise that it fits almost exactly.  There is no handle on the upmost side of the suitcase and there is just enough room for me to slide a hand down each end of it and I have to push my hands together and grip it and then try to slide it out.  It takes a couple of tries before I get it out at which point I look up to see a middle-aged woman who has been watching me and is politely trying not to laugh.  Glad that I have made at least one person happy, I head to the check in where the very helpful lady takes one look at my height and moves me to an aisle seat.

So now I have 3 hours to waster before my flight goes.  I grab a coffee and carrot cake and sit watching four men who are clearly having a business meeting while they wait for their flight.  Chuckling to myself at my good fortune to be on holiday I wonder how long I should nurse the coffee before heading through for the fun of the security check.  I leave it about 45 minutes and head through.  Now, I last traveled by plane a year ago – and as far as I’m aware nothing has changed since then.  However, it’s now clear that my shampoo and deodorant will have to be dumped as 100 ml is the largest size allowed.  I dump them – but manage to ignore the 150 ml can of Ralgex,  I’m glad I hadn’t bought suntan lotion as they would just be something else to replace.  I head through to the gate where I have to stand on a line and look at a camera.  Which doesn’t like me.  At all.  After about 4 rejections, the security officer suggests I remove my cap and glasses.  I do so and get straight through.

Now the luggage gets scanned and I start to question some of the rules.  The iPad mini has to be put through separately, but my phone can stay in my luggage?  I don’t have to take my watch and Fitbit off – that’s a weird one.  The Ralgex catches me out, so my bag gets shoved to one side and opened – along with about half of the bags.  The customs officer looks at the Ralgex and replaces it, saying that it’s below the limit (which it clearly is not).  I sigh, accede and smile sweetly before heading through to the Departure Lounge.

Inside, they have taken a leaf out of Ikea’s book and you now have to take a long winding march through the Duty Free shops before getting to anywhere with seats.  Ignoring the “bargains” I head through and look for the Boots on the other side.  Boots are clearly aware that everyone will need to replace items, so they have deliberately hidden away all the 100 ml items.  They have also got a lot of offers on 200 ml items that make them cheaper than the 100 ml ones.  Hmm.  I’m not too impressed with their business model though I can see why they do it – gives them a chance to cash in twice.

So I then settle down with Brideshead to wait for the Gate to open.  I amuse myself for  a while listening to the couple sat opposite me.  I can’t work out whether they are speaking a foreign language, or whether it’s English but with a very strong accent.  By the time the gate opens I still haven’t made my mind up.  I head through the gate with everyone else to find myself in yet another queue.  This has another facial recognition machine — but this one doesn’t mind caps or glasses.  Or so I am informed after I have taken mine off and am trying to juggle suitcase, glasses, cap, book, passport and tickets.  Whatever.

Eventually I get onto the plane where thankfully I can stretch one leg out into the aisle.  It’s actually not too bad – until the man in front decides to bounce up and down on his chair, ramming it against my knees.  Luckily he stops and falls asleep.  But the flight is nice and short and remarkably quickly I find myself walking out of Jersey Airport.  I’m not sure whether to get a taxi or a bus, but my decision is made for me as a bus pulls up literally as I walk out of the concourse.  I head on and grab the front seat upstairs.  I’m glad I did – given the size of the roads the taxi wouldn’t have been much faster and I get a great view across the bay towards St Helier.  As a school colleague might put it, it’s quite a cerulean scene.

It’s a beautiful day.  The accents on the bus are fascinating – a mixture of English and French and sometimes its difficult to make out what language is being spoken.  The roads are quite small and it reminds me a lot of the Isle of Wight.  A further similarity is the large number of bicycles and motorbikes being used.  Jersey is clearly well sorted for bikes and motorbikes, including making sure there is enough parking.

I will later be assured that Jersey is renowned for politeness and courtesy – but my initial experience is not a good one.  The bus is full and the back of the top floor has got several schoolchildren in.  One has got quite the mouth on him and I (like everyone else) have noticed this due to his predilection for using some of the coarser of the Anglo-Saxon terms available to him.  I have to admit that it’s getting to the point where I was going to ask him to tone it down, but one of the other passengers does it for us.  Shame he’s had too much to drink himself.  It ends up with him swearing just as much as the kid did, slapping the phone out of the kids hand, the kid yelling that he is going to call the police, the man being thrown off the bus and general mayhem and excitement.  I did consider getting out my warrant card and calming things down — but then decided that I can’t evoke my usual air of authority while my knees are showing.  Also, I’m on holiday.  So sod it.

Despite that, I’m in a good mood as I get off the bus and navigate my way across St Helier to the Hotel Sandranne.  I’m glad I’m not driving as St Helier has a large and complex one way system which would guarantee confusion.  However, for a pedestrian it’s not a problem – especially as the drivers are all incredibly polite and keep stopping to let people cross the road.  It confuses me initially – we so rarely see politeness in Slough!

I dump my luggage and then head to Royal Square where I have an average dinner sat outside in cafe style.  I could almost be in France – especially as there are several conversations in French going on around me.  It’s very relaxing and pleasant and definitely a good start to my visit.

Day Two

So here I am at the Hotel Sandranne – which can at best be described as faded chic, and at worst be described as tacky.  The room is a good size, but the bed linen is all pink except for the duvet cover which is floral with ruffles.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a ruffled duvet cover before.  The room has a trouser press (definitely old school) and a fridge.  Not a mini-fridge, a proper fridge which sits and hums quietly to itself all night.  My window has a delightful view of the backs of some houses and looks directly onto a flat roof, which does give me some security concerns.  There’s no welcome pack or anything like that and the Wifi password is grudgingly given out by the receptionist when I ask for it.  (Actually she puts it into my phone without telling me what it is).  However, the bed is comfortable and they do serve a passable full English breakfast.  At breakfast I can see that most of my fellow diners are workmen, two of whom seemed to spend all night sat on the front porch smoking.  I mention this as you don’t often see people in armchairs on the front porch of a hotel.  All in all, I feel the best days of the Hotel Sandranne are many years past.

As I head into the bus station I note the odd naming conventions of the roads in Jersey.  Some are English (Charing Cross, Broad Street), some are French (Rouge Bouillon, La Rue des Mielles) and some have 2 names — although unless my linguistic skills are seriously atrophied they are not direct translations:

I am also somewhat confused by the naming of the road that the Hotel Sandranne is in — Rouge Bouillon.  As far as I can work out the road is called Red Soup.  I cannot imagine how it got that name.  Other names are easier to work out and as I get to the bus station I see some of the evidence of the pride that the residents take in their history.

So, today I’m off to the Zoo.  Some may say that travelling to Jersey just to go to a zoo is a bit of a waste – but I really don’t care.  I’ve wanted to visit here for nearly 50 years and I’m really excited that I’m finally going to get there.  The zoo opens at 10:00 and after a chat with the very helpful customer service lady at Liberation Station I sort out which bus I need to catch.  We have a short chat which involves having to explain my shirt to her (Good grief, it’s like talking to a dolphin).  It turns out she is not a fan of the Big Bang Theory but she still gives me some good advice.  I have about 45 minutes to wait so head out to some local geocaches.  I find one that involves a revolving clock – but it doesn’t operate before 10 am so I’ll return to this one later today or tomorrow.

I return to the station where I pass the time by reading The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers.  This is meant to be a book of horror stories but after the first couple, it’s padded out with some very bland material.

The bus arrives and just before 10 am I arrive at Jersey Zoo.  The zoo is quite small – only 32 acres – but is very well designed and so seems much larger than it actually is.  All of the enclosures are large and so I send a lot of time trying to find the animals.   They are also remarkably well trained.  When I do find them, they always manage to turn away from the camera just as I take a photo.  However, I do catch a few of them out.

The fun of the zoo is somewhat dampened by the arrival of some children – but they are actually quite well controlled and taken around in small groups rather than  a coach load at a time.  I have a really enjoyable wander and then head for the Dodo Restaurant where I am quite disappointed that they don’t serve any poultry at all.  I am very sensible and have soup….and because I’ve been sensible, I then have cake as well.  I then head out for part 2, including feeding time for the gorillas and the orangutans.

The feeding times are excellent as the keepers accompany them with some very informative talks about the animals and the way they are looked after.  It’s good to hear them talk as they both clearly care deeply for the animals they look after and talk about the work they do with them.  Really impressive.  This is definitely a zoo for people who don’t like zoos as the trust does a lot of good work around conservation.

On the way out I manage to resist buying a ton of books (I already have most of them, but it’s a book shop!) and I head back to St Helier happy in the knowledge that I’ve managed to tick something off my bucket list.  Back at St Helier I have a good wander around, firstly down by the sea front and then around the town.  The docks give some great views over the bay and to Elizabeth Castle.

However, low tide does seems to have caused some parking problems for some people.

In town, there is quite an array of artwork to look at.  Some is clearly to do with the liberation.

Some celebrates the produce of Jersey.

And some is just a bit random.

While I was photographing this I asked a police officer what it was about.  He had no idea.  Though he said that it might be because the residents of Jersey are referred to as crapauds as Jersey is the only Channel Island that has any toads on it.  Sounds as good a reason as any, but doesn’t explain why the toad is on top of a column inscribed with the names of crimes.  This road also has a lot of insets on the pavement:

I can only assume these are somehow related.

What it does mean is that a walk around the centre of St Helier is surprising and interesting.  I finish off the day with dinner at the Adelphi (http://www.randalls-jersey.co.uk/pub-guide/st-helier/adelphi-lounge/).  This was recommended to me by the lady at the Hotel Sandranne and is a very good meal.

I head back to my hotel and review the general hilarity and mayhem going on in the WhatsApp group that was created on Sunday.  It’s been a good day and I head to bed.

Day Three

My last day dawns and its farewell to the Hotel Sandranne – which overall gets a 4/10.  It’s still sunny today but chillier so I’m doing a bit of dodging between pools of sunlight to stay warm.  However, as it goes on it gets warmer and the age-appropriate hoodie gets left in the pack.  My flight is at 17:40, so I need to be at the airport by 15:40.  Because it’s me that means I’m planning to leave St Helier at about 14:00.  My first task is to dump my suitcase and get rid of any of the local currency that I’ve managed to accrue.

As I walk around, I notice that there are no high rise apartments in St Helier – nothing over about 6 stories.  So although there has been some development around the docks it doesn’t make a huge impact.  (I later do see some high rise blocks but they are far from the centre of town).  I leave my suitcase in Left Luggage and start off with some geocaches.  The first one takes me on quite a hike out of the centre of the town and into the St Saviour area.  From here there are some great views back over the town and I also find the grave of someone famous.

Leaving Jersey Lillie behind, I head back into the centre of town and then head up to Fort Regent.

Fort Regent looms over St Helier in the same way that Dover Castle does and as I climb up the steps towards it I’m expecting a similar experience.  Imagine my surprise when I get to the top and find that my options are a car park or the front entrance of an Active Gym.  I head inside and speak to the receptionist who confirms that this is the entrance to Fort Regent and I wander inside with a deal of trepidation.  Basically, the entire Fort has been converted into a leisure complex with a central area that is used for an arena (Sarah Millican is performing here in September, folks!)

The central area has been covered and in the whole is billed as follows:

A dedicated children’s play area with PlayZone, arts &crafts, quad bikes, excellent café and free films every Sunday at 9:00 make this a fabulous family venue. Our fully equipment gym caters for all needs or why not have a quick game of table tennis or pool or join one the sports workshops and try something new. Visiting acts and local productions provide entertainment year round plus The View Bar offers amazing views over St Heller whilst you relax with a glass of wine or too.

I am in two minds about this.  One side of me says that it’s great that use is being made of a heritage site and that it is adding value to the lives of many people who would otherwise never use it.  It’s a very efficient way of using something that otherwise would be left to slowly ruin over time.  The other side just keeps yelling the words “Bloody philistines!” in my ear and after a while gets quite annoying.  Despite that, as time goes on my view tends towards the latter as I walk around a site that has existed for centuries and is now being set aside for pilates classes.  There are information panels that tell you about the history of the fort, but they are carefully put up so as not to offend the people who are here to improve their bodies.  In fact they are so carefully placed that some are difficult to find — and if a major event is on, you can’t get to one of them.  But I persevere and find an external walk that allows me to walk around the ramparts.

There are some marvelous views across the bay and out into the Atlantic Ocean.

I am massively disappointed and I head back into town.  My feet are aching which doesn’t help my mood.  As a result, when I see this sign I feel the need to mock.

Oh really?  The best in the world, eh?  Well, we’ll see about that.

Bugger me, they might be right.  Superb pasty, right balance of meat and veg, good seasoning, great pastry.  I can’t fault it.  Buoyed up by that I get my exploring feet back on and see what I can find.  That includes the revolving clock that I missed out on yesterday.

The clock has three scenes on it representing Finance, Tourism and Agriculture and it rotates on the hour.  As it rotates, the clock chimes and plays tunes and is, frankly, the tackiest thing I have seen in quite some time.  If you visit St Helier make sure you see it.  It is to fine clock making what the Eurovision Song Contest is to classical music.

In my wanderings, I find some more art and a maze which is half hedge, half fountain.

It’s excessively entertaining watching someone try to get their child through the maze.  Suitable cheered by the site of other people getting wet, I head back to Liberation Station and board my bus back to the airport.

Today’s book is The Enormous Room by E E Cummings.  It’s the story of what happened when he was accused of treason when working as a volunteer ambulance driver in Paris during World War I.  It’s remarkably good, surprisingly funny and (even more surprising) he uses capital letters!

I get to the airport in good time and then have my usual wrangle with security.  This time the Ralgex is rejected and I point out (in vain) that it was allowed through on the way out.  This time security required watched and Fitbit to be removed.  The security guard is very apologetic –  I can’t really blame him though.

I manage to get an aisle seat on the plane again and we have an uneventful flight which gets us in 20 minutes early.  That’s just as well as it means I catch an earlier connecting train which gets me home an hour earlier.  But it still means that its 21:30 when I walk through the door.  I’m knackered and I wish I wasn’t doing K tomorrow.

And so, nearly a year after starting and 10 months since “I is for…” the journey continues with a trip that originally I wasn’t going to include on the blog.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term “Janners”, the definition is as follows:

janner. Proper noun. (UK, dated, slang) An English person born within ten miles of the sea. (UK, slang) Someone from Plymouth, (UK, slang) The accent and colloquialisms of such people used by the people of Plymouth.

I qualify as I attended Devonport High School for Boys between 1977 & 1980, and this weekend saw a reunion take place down in Plymouth.  Despite living in Plymouth on and off for 2 decades I haven’t actually been back there for 10 years – and only made occasional visits in the decade before that.  There are a variety of reasons for this, which I’m not going to go into in such august and delicate company.

Anyway, I wasn’t going to include the trip as J (the “real” J is planned for tomorrow) but on the first evening in Plymouth I really wanted to write down some things that had happened – and so, dear reader, you get inflicted with an extra blog entry of drivel!  To whet your appetite further, I can tell you that J (the second J) – N will be done over the next 2 weeks and will involve (hopefully) flights, cable-cars, swash-buckling, dinosaurs and undoubtedly some very annoying fellow travelers.  I know you can’t wait, so let’s get on.

Day One

So with some misgivings, a sense of excitement, an age-appropriate hoodie and enough books for 3 days, I head out into the early morning sunlight of Slough.  Misgivings? Many.  I’m off to spend some time with people that I haven’t seen for 37 years and none of them are from the group I used to spend time with.  So I’m not sure how things are going to go.  Apart from that, it’s a warm day even at 06:15 and the shorts are on ready for a good weekend.  I do, of course, forget the baseball cap and as a result I’m writing this with a decidedly red head.  Even the book is appropriate – Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev.  It’s about the difference in attitude between generations and will gel nicely with conversations that I have over the next 2 days.

All starts well with a hike to the bus stop.  I sit down, store the rucksack and reflect on the rather odd journey I’m taking today.  When planning this trip I found that the train ticket was wildly expensive (£50 more than the cost of the flight I’ll be taking tomorrow!).  Car hire was similar and so I fell back on coach travel.  However, to properly start that I have to get a bus to Heathrow.  So, 45 minutes after leaving home, I find myself heading in the wrong direction and become possibly the only person to travel to an airport in order to catch a coach.

For once the people on the bus with me aren’t annoying enough to entertain, so I alternate Turgenev with checking where I am and as a result realise that the bus could do the journey in about 15 minutes, but instead stops absolutely bloody everywhere.  I also discover that my luggage is, apparently, fair game for anyone else to move around for their own convenience.  An American couple join the bus and want to put their suitcases in the storage area, so just move my rucksack and shove it onto a shelf.  I, naturally, say nothing and sustain myself by glowering at them and then return to Turgenev.  Little did I know this would be the start of a trend.

So we arrive at the glittering emporium that is the Coach Station at Heathrow.  I join the small sea of people that are waiting for coaches and, like them, start to stare at the Departures Board which seems to enjoy showing little but “Wait in lounge”.  I wonder whether it’s like a kettle and watching it stops it from changing.  Despite my attempts to will it to change, it doesn’t so I settle down to wait for the coach.  In some ways this is very familiar – I did the journey from Plymouth to London by coach a lot in my teens and twenties and very little has changed about it.

And for some reason, this tune keeps running through my mind:

 

..and that’s why sometimes I laugh softly to myself as I wait for the coach.

When the National Express coach finally arrives I’m a little disappointed that they don’t have trolley service on them any more – though it would have probably started me giggling, so it’s just as well they don’t.  However, the embarkation plan works.  As the time approaches, I lurk close to the doors and as soon as the coach is announced I’m off to ensure I get first in line.  And of course, I’m behind the people who already knew which bay the coach would be coming into and thwarted my cunning plan.  The next plan is to try and get the seats with some reasonable leg room, so having handed my rucksack to the driver I head inside.  Right at the back, conveniently directly opposite the coffin-like toilet I find the seats with the decent leg room and grab one, only to find that it might have leg room, but it certainly doesn’t have arse room.  This is going to be an uncomfortable journey – and unfortunately someone decides to sit beside me so a cramped seating position now becomes a decidedly painful one.  That’s OK though – it’s only a 5 hour journey.  One note here – while clearly I am wider than the normal passenger the pain is not solely my fault as after a couple of hours my traveling companion turns to me and says “These seats are a bit bloody tight aren’t they?”  He is considerably thinner than me, so I am somewhat comforted.  Comforted mentally but not physically – after half an hour I’m wondering what the best way to avoid DVT it.  I resist the temptation to look up symptoms as my mobile phone although I am regularly checking it as other people heading for the reunion are updating our Facebook group.  I’m momentarily distracted by the man in the seat in front of me who is very proud of the fact that he paid £2.40 for his ticket – so much so that he tells the people with him 4 times in 5 minutes.  I have the horrible feeling that he’s going to keep going for the next 5 hours.  Luckily his batteries run down and he keeps mercifully quiet.

As we head down the motorway, I dip in and out of Turgenev in the same way people dip in and out of a jar of Nutella.  No, sorry, that just doesn’t work.  We all know what happens with Nutella.  The first slice of toast gets covered with a thick layer of brown deliciousness, flecked with the occasional sliver of yellow from the butter underneath.  The second comes about five minutes later and this time the Nutella is roughly knifed on in peaks.  For the third we barely wait for the bread to be fully toasted before covering it in Nutella and for the fourth we use our fingers to smear Nutella onto barely warm bread before gobbling it down, leaving ourselves with chocolate-smeared hands, face and (bizarrely) elbows like some avant-garde performance artist demonstrating his piece called “Secret Shame”.

Which explains why I never buy Nutella.

Anyway, I dip in and out of Turgenev in the same way people dip in and out of … fuck it, provide your own simile.  Let’s just say the book isn’t gripping and isn’t helped by the extreme discomfort of the seat.  I am distracted a little early on as I look up and see us sweeping majestically past the hotel at the end of my road.  I check my watch and, yes, it’s just gone 9 o’clock and 3 hours since I left home I have gone nearly 400 yards.  The journey gets lengthened near Reading when, for no reason I can divine, the driver turns off the motorway and heads down to a Park and Ride area where he stops the coach for about 12.7 seconds before heading back again.  The main reason for doing this appears to be the chance for us to sit in a traffic queue before we get back onto the motorway.  The man beside me turns to me and says “That seemed a bit pointless” and I have to agree with him — though the reason becomes clear on my return journey.

Apart from this brief interlude and the increasing pain in my arse and thighs, the journey is relatively uneventful.  We seem to have a set of very low tolerance drivers because we change drivers twice.  I’m sure drivers used to just drive the whole journey and wonder if it’s some health and safety legislation (it isn’t, as I find out on the return journey).  We get a break at Tiverton Parkway and while I normally begrudge the stop as it delays the journey, I’m desperate to stretch my legs.  But before we get off, we get the rules:

• 20 minutes only.  There will be a headcount taken and we will leave people behind if they are late
• Do not bring hot food onto the coach
• We can bring hot drinks on but only if they have lids on

I’m now wondering what the problem with hot food is?  What if the food is warm?  How about food that was hot, but has now cooled down?  Does the lid on the hot drink have to fit?  I am full of questions that I wisely do not ask the driver as he fixes with me with a baleful eye and I head off to buy cold food and a cold drink (because it’s still really warm here, not because I want to avoid testing the boundaries).

I give up on Turgenev and have a chat with the man next to me.  He’s also heading to Plymouth for a reunion – he served there in 1962 and is meeting up with a group of ex-servicemen and women.  We both have a good moan about the price of beer and I help him with the location of his hotel — somewhat marred by the fact that the Coach Station in Plymouth has moved since I went there last so I give him some massively bad advice.

Luckily I spot this error as we approach and I correct myself.  The coach station is now located just off Western Approach and as we approach it is clear that Plymouth is welcoming us in the best way it knows – to absolutely piss down with rain.  The Coach Station exterior has been designed with an eye to form and nothing to do with function.  It looks trendy and interesting but provides absolutely no protection against sun or rain.

The whole area is on a hill so when it rains heavily (like now) a lovely river runs across it — which is where some prat has decided to deposit my rucksack.  As I’m last off the bus, it’s completely soaked – and in about 10 seconds, so am I.  I dart for the lack of shelter provided by the structure (it looks far more effective than it actually is) and get the age-appropriate hoodie out of the pack.  Slip it on, hood up and head out for the guest house.

I head off to Citadel Road and the George Guest House.  It’s wet and bloody cold and I wonder what the hell is going on — I thought it was meant to be warmer down here!  By the time I get there, I’m soaked and it’s a relief to get into the room that I’ll be staying in for 2 days.  I’m right on the Hoe, so I’m looking forward to a good view up to the War Memorial.  Instead I have a lovely view of the backs of some houses with the Guildhall in the distance.  My room is clearly in what used to be the attic, so I can only stand upright in half of it.  This promises to give exciting opportunities for smashing my head open.  But it’s clean and I make myself a coffee before putting on some dry clothes and heading out for the first element of the reunion – a trip around the old school.

I’m due there at 16:00, so naturally I give myself an hour to complete a journey that will take about 20 minutes.  On the way, I take a quick trip down memory lane and stop by one of the places I used to live.

Yup, 45 years on and it’s still a dump.  As I get closer to the school it starts to drizzle, but I want to try and get a photo from across the playing fields.  As I try to find a spot, but am thwarted by the trees that have grown up since I went here, I see another man who seems to be doing much the same.  I suspect that he may be one of the people I’m here to meet – so typically I don’t go and say hello but head on to the school.  I get in there at 15:30 and he joins me a few minutes afterwards – so Stu Evans and I become the first people to get to the reunion.  (Bizarrely, we later realise that he and I live within 10 miles of each other).

Over the next 45 minutes there is a steady stream of people arriving.  It’s weird.  People walk in and I look at them and there is something about their face that is familiar.  A few I can put names to but most have to give their names.  We soon get over the embarrassment of asking and very quickly the Conference Centre is full of the sounds of chatter and laughter.  It starts what is to be quite a strange feeling across the next couple of days – it’s not sad, it’s not maudlin (except for Dave May’s poetry!), it’s not depressing, it’s happy but tinged with a bit of regret.  Part of that regret is undoubtedly for the time that has passed – but it doesn’t feel bad.  Instead it’s exciting to find out what people did and what they are doing now.  I find it quite jarring when I find that 4 people here joined the police after school and have all retired after 30 years in a job that I am still doing — and hell that really makes me feel old!

The journey around the school is fascinating.  Since we were there it has increased in size and taken over buildings that used to be used by another school.  So initially we’re all in unfamiliar territory.  But as we go on we head into areas that are familiar and we all get into conversations about which rooms we used to use for what subjects and realise that after 40 years some things are exactly the same.  The colonnade is exactly how I remember it.

But I’ve got a mission while I’m here.  I was never sporty at school and so haven’t got the memories that a lot of the guys have – or the team photographs that have been shared over Facebook in the last few weeks.  I only did one thing while I was at school that should have been recorded – and I don’t know if it was.  I’ve meant to come back to school to find out multiple times since I left but never have – so now the time has finally come.  Typically, the Honour Board I’m looking for isn’t with the rest of them in the Sixth Form Centre, but there in the School Theatre is the proof that I did go to this school and that I got one thing right:

I know it’s stupid, I know it doesn’t make any difference — but hell it matters to me!  (If you want to know about small things mattering, just ask Tim Hoy about Prefects.  Ask, then prepare to be talking for a long time.  You may need a drink.)

The guy showing us around is justifiably very proud of the school and is very patient with us.  The Sports Hall is amazing as well as the Learning Commons  (you and I would call it a library, but a previous head apparently thought it somewhere people could “graze” for knowledge.  Damn good job I didn’t meet him or there would have been a good deal of mocking!).  By the time we finish we’ve been there for 2 hours, the caretaker is very keen on us going and we head off to our next stop – the Walrus pub.

The Walrus has clearly been selected due to its ambiance rather than the fact that it’s right beside the restaurant.  Wait sorry I meant that the Walrus has clearly been selected due to its proximity to the restaurant rather than its ambiance.  It’s always nice to walk into a pub where the glare of the barman and the regulars makes it perfectly clear that they do not welcome strangers here.  Because its a local pub.  For local people.  The barman was clearly efficiently and effectively trained at the local undertaker school and is one of the few people I have ever met that allow me to use the word “lugubrious”.  He was joined by someone who looked remarkably like Rolf Harris and being children of the 1970’s we left rapidly.

The evening carried on with our dinner at Everest Spice – http://www.everestspiceplymouth.uk/.  A very nice meal and I can thoroughly recommend it.  Unless you’re sharing the room with 24 people on a school reunion which means you will be crammed against a wall and have to suffer a rendition of the School Song.  If you go there, try the Lamb Kathmandu.  It’s excellent.  Unlike the rendition of the school song.

The evening finished at The Bank – a slightly more up-market pub than the Walrus. Not difficult.  Sitting on a kerb drinking Stella would be more up-market than the Walrus.  Plans are made for tomorrow.  We have our formal reunion in the evening, but a group is heading out to the Plume and Feathers and Dave Ware offers me a lift.  So with plans made, I head back to the George.

Day Two

I’m in the only B&B on the planet that doesn’t do breakfast.  I sleep fitfully – nothing to do with the alcohol obviously, and I’m up by 08:00 to start exploring Plymouth.  It’s sunny so the shorts are back on though it’s still chilly enough for me to put the hoodie on from time to time.  As I’m right beside the Hoe, that’s where I head – and it’s as fantastic as I remember.  As I head up to the Hoe, the familiar shape of the War Memorial rises in front of me.

I head past the memorial to the statue of Sir Francis Drake and then across to Smeaton’s Tower.

The Hoe has a ton of memories for me and, as an extra bonus, a couple of geocaches as well – so I tag them while I’m here.  After a good wander around here I decide to head into town and grab some breakfast.  As I’m in the West Country it seems only right to grab a local delicacy so I pick something low calorie and carbohydrate free.

The particular one if provided by the Oggy Oggy Pasty Company who claim to serve “Pasties to Shout About!”  I will happily shout about the pasty I had.  Half of it was empty.  The other half was well filled, but seemed to have no seasoning whatsoever.  The meat was cooked to a temperature similar to the surface of the sun and as a result I still have a burnt tongue.  The main taste was that of the pastry – which was burnt.  2 out of 10.

After my disappointing pasty, I continued my exploration of the centre of Plymouth.

Some things are new like this statue outside St Andrews Church, some are old like this place:

This used to be the Drake Cinema and is the place where I saw Star Wars (the original one!).  Quite sad to see it this way.  But not quite as sad as when it becomes clear that Dave Ware has forgotten his promise from last night and I am left to fend for myself.  Which actually isn’t a huge problem.  I spend several hours wandering around Plymouth, taking in the Barbican, Sutton Harbour and the University campus.  It’s a really interesting day.  The Barbican is in the middle of Pirate Weekend which seems to be an excuse for children to hit each other with plastic swords and for people to play the Pirates of the Caribbean theme at high volume.  But the Barbican itself is still charming with its’ narrow cobbled streets.  Some things have been let go – the Plymouth Mural is now a sad remnant of what it used to be.

Other places were always there, but I had never found them before now.  I walked past the strangely named “Drake’s Place” for years without knowing it was there but it has now been turned into a very attractive park.

And some things are new.  The University campus is completely new and really well put together and there are signs of new builds that are appearing everywhere – and some buildings here are quite striking.

Walking down the streets behind the Hoe, the whole place gives a feeling of shabbiness.  It looks exactly the same as it did when I lived here and doesn’t seem to deserve the sobriquet of “Britain’s Ocean City” that is on all the tourist signs.  But all the guest houses are full, so clearly something is working.  I want to get a photo looking down Armada Way as you used to be able to get a clear shot from the War Memorial right to the other end of the shopping centre – but the trees have now grown up and obscure it.  Annoying to photograph but actually is great for the town as it breaks up the buildings in a very pleasant way.  My feelings about coming back here were mixed but as I explore old stamping grounds I fall in love with Plymouth all over again.

And so on to the final event in a function room of Porters in Looe Street.  Twenty or so people in their 50’s all drinking (well most of us drinking).  What could possibly go wrong?  Luckily nothing does.  It is a really good evening renewing old friendships and hopefully making some new ones.  There is obviously a lot of nostalgia and a huge amount of laughter – and of course a final rendition of the school song (there is a video of it, but I won’t inflict that on you).  We end up at gone midnight eating a greasy burger on the Barbican and then go our separate ways.

It’s an odd feeling.  Do we wish we were all 18 again?  I’m sure we do but more than that what I got was a sense of accomplishment, of maturity and of people who had done some amazing things.  Some of the guys have traveled huge distances to get here – Australia, New Zealand, California.  One even had to get permission to leave Liverpool to attend.  On the previous night Paul Woods had asked me if I would change anything about my life.  On the whole, I have to say that I wouldn’t and that’s the sense I get from everyone here.  My only regret is that I didn’t get to see their stories as they developed rather than having such a huge gap in the middle.  We have all promised to keep in contact and meet up again – I hope we do.

Day Three

Blazing sunshine again and it actually feels warm today as well.  I have a lot of mixed feelings this morning which is a mixture of reaction to last night and the looming fear of a painful journey home.  I sit in Costa coffee drinking a remarkably bland cappuccino and posting on the reunion forum.  As I do, I can’t get “Prorsum Semper Honeste” out of my head and at one point I realise I’m humming it quite loudly.

Leaving before people complain, I head towards the Coach Station, pausing to snap a picture of the sundial…which is wrong by an hour.

As Graham Prisk sets up a WhatsApp group for us I make a half-hearted attempt to get the coach driver to fake a breakdown on the M4 and thus shorten my journey by 3 hours.  He doesn’t go for it.  At least this time I’m alone in my double seat, so I have a pleasant journey back buoyed up by memories of a great weekend and by my current book: The Ring of Thoth by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  It’s a book of short stories and it gets finished before I get home.

So J is for Janners is done.  The “real” J awaits.