Last day in Dorset. Sigh.
I went to Abbotsville to the Swannery. I'm sure we came here as children, although I'm also sure I never appreciated the wonderful little village of Abbotsville. I found a parking space on Rosemary Lane, and ducked behind one of the high walls to put on an extra shirt under my tee shirt. There was a courtyard with about five horse stalls, and a couple of the horses put their heads over the half-doors to check out what I was doing!
It just goes to show - I parked about 2 miles from the Swannery as it turns out, and I walked the two miles rather than drive closer to the place where the swans were nesting!
About 100 nesting pairs, and at least 400 bachelors and bachelorettes hanging about. There was a grand feeding twice a day, and they all flapped in close to get their share of cracked corn. The eggs are supposed to start hatching Wednesday - I am just two days too early. The guide told the story about one of the first pairs to settle in - the male was killed by another male during some territorial battle and the keepers were concerned because a female can rarely survive on her own. The male guards and protects her, and may even sit on the nest to give her a break once in a while. Coincidentally there was a male whose mate was unsuccessful in hatching her single egg last year, and he came back by himself to these breeding grounds. Well happy ending - they got together and are acting as a pair. When the keeper told the story you could hear the affection and excitement in his voice so I guess this is a big deal in the world of swans.
This has been a nesting area for over 600 years, and these are one of the few groups of swans that don't belong to the Queen. Anna Pavlova came here in the late 1920's and danced some of Swan Lake in her tutu - there are pictures!
Back safe and sound to Dorchester. I saw the statue of Thomas Hardy and went by the house commonly acknowledged to be the home of the Mayor of Casterbridge in his story. I tried to go in the old courthouse and see the cells and underground tunnels that were used to go back and forth to court in the old days, but they were not open yet for the summer.
My last adventure in Dorset was to walk in the rain along one of the paths that parallels the road and then wanders off into the woods. Really pleasant gentle rain and a nice way to end my stay here.
Back to the hotel for dinner, early bed, and a drive to the airport to turn in the car and fly out Wednesday morning. I hope to drive across the Salisbury Plain and see Stonehenge but don't plan to get out the car.
One of the reasons my typos can be counted in the thousands is because of the midget keyboard for this IPAD> Don't get me wrong - I love the IPAD and love the keyboard and wouldn't be writing all this if I didn't have them, but it will be nice to get back to a grown-up keyboard again.
That's all for tonight. I am very weary and ready to get back home.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Sunday - Portsmouth
Left about 9:00 for Portsmouth. My current favorite old time author ('scuse me - old tyme author), is C S Forster. I loved the Horatio Hornblower series on TV and read all thirteen books once in the wrong order. Ron downloaded them onto my Kindle, so I have been reading them in the correct order during this trip. The Victory is Nelson's flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and is exactly the type of ship Horatio used to sail. So far in my reading he has progressed to being the post captain of a ship of about 20 guns or so and the Victory was over 100 guns, but the time period is the same and things like a midshipman's sea chest and the 12 pound cannons and a million other details really came to life for me. I also toured the Warrior (1860), took the Harbour Tour and went through the Maritime Museum. Portsmouth is a booming port, and there were modern battleships, fishing vessels and transport ships as well as the historic Warrior and Victory. There is also the Mary Rose, a ship that went down with all hands in the 1600's, but they are rebuilding that museum and I didn't get to visit it.
Nelson died on board ship during the battle, and his body was packed in a brandy barrel for the 3-month trip back home to England. The ship is manned by the Royal Navy and they all look so tidy and neat in their uniforms.
There was a man - retired bosun - tying knots. I bought something called a man rope knot - it took him about three hours to tie it, and is can be used as a paperweight. Just a ball of unraveled rope with a fringe on top. Very cute!
The Maritime Museum was very hands on - I got to wear and tack a toy sailboat across a fake pond with a huge wind generated by a fan. Yet another advantage of coming this time of year - no competition from the kids that would normally be fighting over this exhibit. I also chose the correct type of shot and loaded and fired a 12 pound cannon (virtually, anyway) and blew alternately the rigging down and I hulled the side of an enemy ship. Very bloodthirsty and fun.
It started to rain while I was in Portsmouth. I can't complain (well, I can but shouldn't - there has been a lot of wind but very little rain during my whole trip).
Oh I forgot - I finally got to see "oakum" - shredded rope. Hornblower used it to bulk out his silk stockings so his skinny legs would look more presentable, and apparently it was also used as toilet paper!. The guide mentioned that last little tidbit as some young boys were handling the sample - perfect timing on his part and the oakum was dropped to the deck accompanied by loud moans and groans by the boys.
Came back to the room and sat with the window cranked open. The 11-slot car park is directly under my window and I finally went over to watch as I heard a car going back and forth at least 20 times trying to park in the middle one of the three parallel spots in the lot. I have been fortunate every time I've come in and out and been able to get a good space. I have already cleared it with the front desk that someone will come park my car if I don't get one of the good spaces - I am not comfortable with tricky parking at home with my automatic car and a left hand drive. I can see crumpled fenders everywhere if I were to try it here.
Found out the crop with the yellow flowers I see everywhere is rape seed - used to make canola oil(?) A lot of local feeling about planting so much instead of food crops, so there must be a lot of money in it somewhere.
The "Cat Eyes Removed" signs are to warn drivers that the little reflective lights down the middle of the road have been removed. Apparently some study somewhere said that drivers pay more attention if there are less highway signs to distract them, and this was interpreted to mean that these little lights should be removed. It is hard to believe that will result in safer driving on country lanes where both directions of traffic share the same lane and there are no street lights!
Great supper tonight - scallops (with the little pink 'corals' still attached) at the Old Tea Shop across the street.
Nelson died on board ship during the battle, and his body was packed in a brandy barrel for the 3-month trip back home to England. The ship is manned by the Royal Navy and they all look so tidy and neat in their uniforms.
There was a man - retired bosun - tying knots. I bought something called a man rope knot - it took him about three hours to tie it, and is can be used as a paperweight. Just a ball of unraveled rope with a fringe on top. Very cute!
The Maritime Museum was very hands on - I got to wear and tack a toy sailboat across a fake pond with a huge wind generated by a fan. Yet another advantage of coming this time of year - no competition from the kids that would normally be fighting over this exhibit. I also chose the correct type of shot and loaded and fired a 12 pound cannon (virtually, anyway) and blew alternately the rigging down and I hulled the side of an enemy ship. Very bloodthirsty and fun.
It started to rain while I was in Portsmouth. I can't complain (well, I can but shouldn't - there has been a lot of wind but very little rain during my whole trip).
Oh I forgot - I finally got to see "oakum" - shredded rope. Hornblower used it to bulk out his silk stockings so his skinny legs would look more presentable, and apparently it was also used as toilet paper!. The guide mentioned that last little tidbit as some young boys were handling the sample - perfect timing on his part and the oakum was dropped to the deck accompanied by loud moans and groans by the boys.
Came back to the room and sat with the window cranked open. The 11-slot car park is directly under my window and I finally went over to watch as I heard a car going back and forth at least 20 times trying to park in the middle one of the three parallel spots in the lot. I have been fortunate every time I've come in and out and been able to get a good space. I have already cleared it with the front desk that someone will come park my car if I don't get one of the good spaces - I am not comfortable with tricky parking at home with my automatic car and a left hand drive. I can see crumpled fenders everywhere if I were to try it here.
Found out the crop with the yellow flowers I see everywhere is rape seed - used to make canola oil(?) A lot of local feeling about planting so much instead of food crops, so there must be a lot of money in it somewhere.
The "Cat Eyes Removed" signs are to warn drivers that the little reflective lights down the middle of the road have been removed. Apparently some study somewhere said that drivers pay more attention if there are less highway signs to distract them, and this was interpreted to mean that these little lights should be removed. It is hard to believe that will result in safer driving on country lanes where both directions of traffic share the same lane and there are no street lights!
Great supper tonight - scallops (with the little pink 'corals' still attached) at the Old Tea Shop across the street.
Saturday, May 11, 2013
Saturday
Up and at 'em early today.
I stubbed my toe getting into the shower last night - the wall of the tub is about two inches higher than my knee! It is a long and narrow tub with a shower curtain and one of those hand held shower positioned way up high - the shower head is probably located at about seven feet up! Good water pressure though and plenty of hot water, so who cares?
There are heated towel bars. I have never understood the whole idea of a heated bar. Terry cloth is not conductive at all, so you only get two or three one inch strips of heated towel. What's the point?
I remember hearing the expression "tickety boo" sometime in the past, and I know Foyle's driver Sam used it in one episode to mean that everything is just as it ought to be, so tickety boo!
I went to Weymouth today. My father was in the civil service and was posted to Portland for about 18 months when I was about 10, and we lived in Weymouth. I recognized our house right away. It has been divided into flats sometime during the last 50 years and the front and back gardens have changed tremendously, but the house still looks the same. I recognize the balcony looking across the street over the bowling green to the pebble beach and the English Channel. There used to be a soft coal cellar and a hard coal cellar (both little rooms under the house) and one of them was given over to my sister and me as a playhouse. That section of the house was rebuilt to provide a passageway for parking in the rear for the tenants of the flats, but one little door was still intact. The garden where mymother planted vegetables (I remember rhubard plants and my brother teasing me with worms) Is not longer there, but there are still a couple of fruit trees in the back. Same ones? Maybe not, but I can pretend.
The gardens between the road and the beach have been changed, but the old bathing huts are still there and the mechanical clock is still functioning, although unfortunately it hasn't been set up for the season yet and just looks like a dirt circle - much smaller than it used to be! This is the only mechanical clock still working in England! It is about 10 feet in diameter, and the face was planted with different flowers during the year. One of my strongest memories. How nice that it is still there and I got to see the dirt circle but what a shame they didn't plant it and put the hands back on two weeks ago. I'm sure they would have if they's known I was coming.
I drove around Weymouth and went across the land bridge to Portland, but didn't recognize anything else. I couldn't find my old school. I used to walk instead of take the bus to save a farthing to buy furniture for my doll house. We wore uniforms with drtaw hats during the summer months and had rice pudding with strawberry jam in the middle every day for lunch. Most of the students were boarders but my brother and I were day students. I drove around for awhile, but didn't ask anybody about any schools because I don't really remember anything but the hats and the rice pudding.
On leaving Weymouth I went to Osmington and then to Sutton Poyntz so I could see the White Horse. This is a huge horse carved into the hill in homor of King Edward (don't check my facts - they are just hearsay - no brochures to be tound). It is several hundred feet tall, and the chalk makes it look very white against the green fields. I couldn't walk close enought to get a good picture, but maybe somebody who knows how to do all the photoshop tricks can make my snapshot clearer. I really enjoyed thinking all day that I was redriving the same roads my father must have driven over fifty years ago, looking for the best access. I wonder if he was holding his breath the whole time like I am?
I ate lunch at the Springhead Arms at Sutton Poyntz. I just gotta say it "Quaint, quaint quaint, picturesque over and over again." Little stream running through the village, thatched cottages, lots of marked Public Footpaths and the whole works. I walked along one of the public footpaths to get as close as possible to the White Horse, and I had to open gates and shut them again so the sheeps wouldn't get out! I have several souvenirs of the field with the sheep in it - I hope I can scrape those souvenirs off before I get in the car again!
I came back to Dorchester and spent the rest of the afternoon in the Museum. Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset and all of his novels are set here. He was my favorite author for a while, and I am inspired to go back and reread some of his books now.
Oh no, the computer is sending me funky messages. I hope I don't lose this post.
I stubbed my toe getting into the shower last night - the wall of the tub is about two inches higher than my knee! It is a long and narrow tub with a shower curtain and one of those hand held shower positioned way up high - the shower head is probably located at about seven feet up! Good water pressure though and plenty of hot water, so who cares?
There are heated towel bars. I have never understood the whole idea of a heated bar. Terry cloth is not conductive at all, so you only get two or three one inch strips of heated towel. What's the point?
I remember hearing the expression "tickety boo" sometime in the past, and I know Foyle's driver Sam used it in one episode to mean that everything is just as it ought to be, so tickety boo!
I went to Weymouth today. My father was in the civil service and was posted to Portland for about 18 months when I was about 10, and we lived in Weymouth. I recognized our house right away. It has been divided into flats sometime during the last 50 years and the front and back gardens have changed tremendously, but the house still looks the same. I recognize the balcony looking across the street over the bowling green to the pebble beach and the English Channel. There used to be a soft coal cellar and a hard coal cellar (both little rooms under the house) and one of them was given over to my sister and me as a playhouse. That section of the house was rebuilt to provide a passageway for parking in the rear for the tenants of the flats, but one little door was still intact. The garden where mymother planted vegetables (I remember rhubard plants and my brother teasing me with worms) Is not longer there, but there are still a couple of fruit trees in the back. Same ones? Maybe not, but I can pretend.
The gardens between the road and the beach have been changed, but the old bathing huts are still there and the mechanical clock is still functioning, although unfortunately it hasn't been set up for the season yet and just looks like a dirt circle - much smaller than it used to be! This is the only mechanical clock still working in England! It is about 10 feet in diameter, and the face was planted with different flowers during the year. One of my strongest memories. How nice that it is still there and I got to see the dirt circle but what a shame they didn't plant it and put the hands back on two weeks ago. I'm sure they would have if they's known I was coming.
I drove around Weymouth and went across the land bridge to Portland, but didn't recognize anything else. I couldn't find my old school. I used to walk instead of take the bus to save a farthing to buy furniture for my doll house. We wore uniforms with drtaw hats during the summer months and had rice pudding with strawberry jam in the middle every day for lunch. Most of the students were boarders but my brother and I were day students. I drove around for awhile, but didn't ask anybody about any schools because I don't really remember anything but the hats and the rice pudding.
On leaving Weymouth I went to Osmington and then to Sutton Poyntz so I could see the White Horse. This is a huge horse carved into the hill in homor of King Edward (don't check my facts - they are just hearsay - no brochures to be tound). It is several hundred feet tall, and the chalk makes it look very white against the green fields. I couldn't walk close enought to get a good picture, but maybe somebody who knows how to do all the photoshop tricks can make my snapshot clearer. I really enjoyed thinking all day that I was redriving the same roads my father must have driven over fifty years ago, looking for the best access. I wonder if he was holding his breath the whole time like I am?
I ate lunch at the Springhead Arms at Sutton Poyntz. I just gotta say it "Quaint, quaint quaint, picturesque over and over again." Little stream running through the village, thatched cottages, lots of marked Public Footpaths and the whole works. I walked along one of the public footpaths to get as close as possible to the White Horse, and I had to open gates and shut them again so the sheeps wouldn't get out! I have several souvenirs of the field with the sheep in it - I hope I can scrape those souvenirs off before I get in the car again!
I came back to Dorchester and spent the rest of the afternoon in the Museum. Thomas Hardy was born in Dorset and all of his novels are set here. He was my favorite author for a while, and I am inspired to go back and reread some of his books now.
Oh no, the computer is sending me funky messages. I hope I don't lose this post.
Friday - Dorchester
I sadly checked out of the Merchant Hotel today. IT was a wonderful hotel, with great food and great staff. I hope I am as lucky tonight.
I have driven 43 miles so farmuch more confident about driving. I would choose not to go on the little roads that are two narrow for two cars to pass, but I don't panic when I get off on one by mistake.
I went to Tavistock from Truro - this is the "jumping off" spot to drive right through Dartmoor. Tavistock is beautiful. I have hesitated to use the word "quaint", but I could say it over and over again and not come close to describing the town. I could stop every two seconds and take pictures in all four directions and still o
I have driven 43 miles so farmuch more confident about driving. I would choose not to go on the little roads that are two narrow for two cars to pass, but I don't panic when I get off on one by mistake.
I went to Tavistock from Truro - this is the "jumping off" spot to drive right through Dartmoor. Tavistock is beautiful. I have hesitated to use the word "quaint", but I could say it over and over again and not come close to describing the town. I could stop every two seconds and take pictures in all four directions and still o
Friday #2
as Fish Friday! (I just hit one key accidentally and the *&^&^( screen freezes up on me)
I came back to the room last night and had problems with the computer. I couldn't get access to the wi-fi provided by the hotel, so I just abandoned all efforts.
I came back to the room last night and had problems with the computer. I couldn't get access to the wi-fi provided by the hotel, so I just abandoned all efforts.
Friday
Checked out of the hotel and hit the road. I stopped at a grocery store (Marks and Spencers) and bought an instant package of Yorkshire Pudding and some Bird's Eye Custard. Hope it is as delicious as I remember.
Onto the moor. I never did see the prison and have no idea where it is, but I spent about an hour driving across Dartmoore. Saw several hikers, lots of wild ponies, and several big black ruffled birds that I think might be moor hens. Sweeping vistas of something that looks a lot like sedge grass around the beaches at home.
I had no ambition to go for long walks on the moor. It seems like the silly heroines in books (the same ones who go down into the dark celler when the electricity is out to investigate strange noises) always decide to go walking on the moor and get caught in sudden mists that don't allow them to see more than a couple of inches in front of them. I was even warned by the hotel staff before I left, but I never went more than 500 yards from the car, and even then it was only when the way was clear and I wasn't going over the crest of a hill and might lose my way. Very tame. I did get out several times to try and get close to ponies or cows, but was able to sneak up on only two apparently deaf ponies close enough for pictures. I did see a lot of mist in the distance so at least I can pretend that I was at risk of being lost. There was a fearsome wind blowing all the time, so that may have dispersed any possible mists anyway. Oh well, the handsome stranger will have to find another heroine lost on the moors because it wasn't me.
I have left Cornwall now that I have gone past the moor. There is an old rhyme that I remember from one of those 'lost on the moor' books. It may have even been one of Daphne Dumaurier's books - it went "When you hear Tre, Pol and Pen, you know you are speaking of Cornishmen".
Dorset is beautiful. The names are very different - I passed a village called Piddletrenthide on the road! Again those rolling hills and cows and sheep and some fields of bright bright yellow flower that I will try and remember to ask about. I also want to ask about a sign I have seen twice now "Cats Eyes Removed". I hope I will find that means some idiosyncratic and harmless thing like wart removal.
Checked into the Wessex Royale Hotel on High West Street in Dorchester. Good room with good water pressure and another lovely duvet on the bed. There are crumpets on the menu. I have a lowering feeling these are very much like croissants, which I don't care for because they are too airy, but we shall see.
Walked around the town yesterday. Very hilly, with medieval churches right next to little shops advertising sales on children's clothes. I had a cream tea at the Horse with the Red Umbrella tearoom. They had a sign apologizing for the name of the tea room and explained it by saying this was the site of a playhouse, and the last play had that name. The Dorset and the Cornish clotted cream are historic rivals. I couldn't tell much difference myself, but the scones I had at the Horse .... tearoom were certainly superior to the scones I had back at Charlotte's Tea House in Truro. Yum!
Terrible supper - they were out of fish and chips by 6:00 on Friday (advertised as Fish
Onto the moor. I never did see the prison and have no idea where it is, but I spent about an hour driving across Dartmoore. Saw several hikers, lots of wild ponies, and several big black ruffled birds that I think might be moor hens. Sweeping vistas of something that looks a lot like sedge grass around the beaches at home.
I had no ambition to go for long walks on the moor. It seems like the silly heroines in books (the same ones who go down into the dark celler when the electricity is out to investigate strange noises) always decide to go walking on the moor and get caught in sudden mists that don't allow them to see more than a couple of inches in front of them. I was even warned by the hotel staff before I left, but I never went more than 500 yards from the car, and even then it was only when the way was clear and I wasn't going over the crest of a hill and might lose my way. Very tame. I did get out several times to try and get close to ponies or cows, but was able to sneak up on only two apparently deaf ponies close enough for pictures. I did see a lot of mist in the distance so at least I can pretend that I was at risk of being lost. There was a fearsome wind blowing all the time, so that may have dispersed any possible mists anyway. Oh well, the handsome stranger will have to find another heroine lost on the moors because it wasn't me.
I have left Cornwall now that I have gone past the moor. There is an old rhyme that I remember from one of those 'lost on the moor' books. It may have even been one of Daphne Dumaurier's books - it went "When you hear Tre, Pol and Pen, you know you are speaking of Cornishmen".
Dorset is beautiful. The names are very different - I passed a village called Piddletrenthide on the road! Again those rolling hills and cows and sheep and some fields of bright bright yellow flower that I will try and remember to ask about. I also want to ask about a sign I have seen twice now "Cats Eyes Removed". I hope I will find that means some idiosyncratic and harmless thing like wart removal.
Checked into the Wessex Royale Hotel on High West Street in Dorchester. Good room with good water pressure and another lovely duvet on the bed. There are crumpets on the menu. I have a lowering feeling these are very much like croissants, which I don't care for because they are too airy, but we shall see.
Walked around the town yesterday. Very hilly, with medieval churches right next to little shops advertising sales on children's clothes. I had a cream tea at the Horse with the Red Umbrella tearoom. They had a sign apologizing for the name of the tea room and explained it by saying this was the site of a playhouse, and the last play had that name. The Dorset and the Cornish clotted cream are historic rivals. I couldn't tell much difference myself, but the scones I had at the Horse .... tearoom were certainly superior to the scones I had back at Charlotte's Tea House in Truro. Yum!
Terrible supper - they were out of fish and chips by 6:00 on Friday (advertised as Fish
Friday, May 10, 2013
dorchester #2
Too may problems trying to type. It keeps seizing up on me. I'll try and find a better connection tomorrow.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Thursday - Helston
In 1970 a farmer was driving out in his fields on his tractor and he fell through the ground into an old tin mine tunnel. I don't know what happened to the farmer, but the government excavated until they had uncovered all the old mine tunnels to make sure there were no more cave-ins and to seal up possible emissions. Poldard was a working tin mine only from 1720 - 1780, when they closed it down because the ore was pretty poor quality. They've turned it into a great museum now, and there are tours that sound great but unfortunately my borderline claustrophobia was activated at 19 feet below surface level, so I didn't get to see much. They go down to 135 feet, but even in the entrance the ceiling was less than six feet high and the granite walls that had been dug out by hand were way too close for comfort. There were areas where kids could pan for tin with shovels, just like you can pan for gold up in the mountains. There was a tin shop and places to make colored sand mementos and a continuously looped newsreel about tin mining and so on. It is one of the first "touristy" places I've seen, but very rustic and low-key compared to our glaring commercialized style of presentation.
During the war (per programming on Foyle's War) the British took down all their road signs to better confound the enemy in case of invasion. I've decided that they still haven't put them back up! There is a place called Flambard'sVictorian Village just outside of Helston that was on my list. I saw a sign that read "Flambard's 800 yards" but never saw another sign or any part of the replicated village, shops, rides, gardens, etc. Now how and why did they manage to hide all that when I know I got within 800 yards of it? I am sort of weary of looking for things and juggling the gear shift, parking and slinky roads, so I decided to go back to the hotel and take it easy for the day. It looks like rain anyway, and there is a miserable wind blowing.
I've said how sorry I am that TomTom doesn't break into applause when I cleverly follow her directions exactly, but I realized today how happy I am that she doesn't yell at me when I screw up.
I did come back, it did rain, and I took a hot shower and made myself a cuppa and had a lazy afternoon. Of course, I forgot to turn the outlet on so I had to wait about 30 minutes for the water to boil. Oh well, it was delicious.
I have a reservation tomorrow in Dorcester. I will leave pretty early so I have time to walk a little in Dartmoor. May is the time when all the public footpaths have to be claimed by the villagers walking over them so they won't revert back to the barons and earls, so I hope to see lots of people trudging along with their hiking boots and walking sticks. I don't think I am going near the prison, but who knows?
I'm not looking forward to packing up and leaving this wonderful hotel. This hotel has been top-notch in every way, and I will miss the room, the water pressure, the food and the helpful staff.
Goodnight, dear diary.
During the war (per programming on Foyle's War) the British took down all their road signs to better confound the enemy in case of invasion. I've decided that they still haven't put them back up! There is a place called Flambard'sVictorian Village just outside of Helston that was on my list. I saw a sign that read "Flambard's 800 yards" but never saw another sign or any part of the replicated village, shops, rides, gardens, etc. Now how and why did they manage to hide all that when I know I got within 800 yards of it? I am sort of weary of looking for things and juggling the gear shift, parking and slinky roads, so I decided to go back to the hotel and take it easy for the day. It looks like rain anyway, and there is a miserable wind blowing.
I've said how sorry I am that TomTom doesn't break into applause when I cleverly follow her directions exactly, but I realized today how happy I am that she doesn't yell at me when I screw up.
I did come back, it did rain, and I took a hot shower and made myself a cuppa and had a lazy afternoon. Of course, I forgot to turn the outlet on so I had to wait about 30 minutes for the water to boil. Oh well, it was delicious.
I have a reservation tomorrow in Dorcester. I will leave pretty early so I have time to walk a little in Dartmoor. May is the time when all the public footpaths have to be claimed by the villagers walking over them so they won't revert back to the barons and earls, so I hope to see lots of people trudging along with their hiking boots and walking sticks. I don't think I am going near the prison, but who knows?
I'm not looking forward to packing up and leaving this wonderful hotel. This hotel has been top-notch in every way, and I will miss the room, the water pressure, the food and the helpful staff.
Goodnight, dear diary.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
Wednesday - Penwith Tour
The very first day I started planning my trip, I found the Penwith tour online and couldn't wait to go. It was as wonderful as expected, even though the weather let me down for the first time.
I drove to Penzance, parked in all-day parking and boarded the #300 bus that goes through Porthcurno, Land's End, the Greevorr Tin Mine, St Ives, Marazion and back to Penzance. I had visited some but not all of these places a couple of days ago, but this open top double decker bus with the hot pink seats let me sit back and enjoy the view. Well, sort of. The roads were still narrow and twisty, and this bus is a lot bigger than my car so the death-defying cliff-hanging turns were even more dangerous than before but this time I could just look off to the sides and enjoy the views. I could get off the bus several times during the tour if I wanted to explore on foot and then catch the next bus.
Off to one side are treacherous cliffs and off to the other dozens of little patchwork farms, each with stone walls about waist high, overgrown with mosses, gorse, hawthorn currant brambles and lots of other wild growth. I saw lots of horses, hundreds of cows, and hundreds more sheep. A couple of the horses looked almost like Clydesdales with their huge hairy front feet (fetlocks?). All traffic was stopped for about 20 minutes while a herd of cattle crossed the road. There were four men herding them along, but to my disappointment I didn't see any dogs. The Westminster Dog Show has a lot to answer for. It seems like their "working dog" category includes all these wonderful herding dogs but they must be just a theoretical myth. The cows did seem very well-behaved and obedient so maybe the dogs were just taking a day off, having trained the men to do their job for them.
When I look back at my pictures from today, I see that I am still more impressed by the widths of the roads than by anything else! Many times the bus or an oncoming car would have to pull over and stop, hugging the side of the road, to enable safe passing. I never heard a horn honk or an angry reaction - it was almost like a well choreographed ballet. When I am driving and that happens, I suppose I don't remember any honking or rude gestures but it never seemed so simple when I was the one pulling over or assuming the oncoming car would be gracious enough to do the same.
St Ives is perfect. You can almost believe the past fifty years haven't happened. I sat in the harbour and watched the tide come in. This used to be the pilchard (disgusting little fish like sardines) capital of the world, but the pilchards have disappeared and the mackerel fishing that took its place never brought in the big bucks like the pilchards. Artists discovered the steep cliffs and wild beauty of the place though, and it has become an art colony and a tourist center. I am so fortunate to be here now. School doesn't let out until the end of May, so the tourist business hasn't picked up for the year, There is aa famous Tat's Art Gallery here, with the attached Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Gallery. I enjoyed those very much and then saw signs for a "craft fair". I followed the signs all over town, thinking maybe I could see some local amateur art, and found a church bazaar sale with tea cozies and handmade earrings. Nothing too interesting I'm afraid. This was not the talent that has made St Ives famous.
The temperature was the same as it has been the whole time I've been here - about 65 degrees. Great temperature for walking around and working up a slight sweat (Oops, I forgot - we southern ladies glow, we don't sweat). Anyway, walking around in 65 degree weather is a whole lot different from sitting on the top of an open bus with a brisk wind blowing. Adding insult to injury, it started to rain. One of the women on top of the bus with me insisted it was just sea spray from the ocean, but it was rain. I think we were making sure we wouldn't be the first to chicken out, so we both sat there in the gentle (ha!) rain and punishing winds for about 45 minutes until it finally stopped. The sun came out them, and the day was beautiful but I was very cold all day. (She reached in her handbag at one point and pulled out a little bag of jelly beans and asked me if I wanted a sweetie.)
I met a woman from Denver in St Ives. She couldn't wait to tell me every detail of her experiences and where I should stay and what I should do, etc. I hope she was just showing off her ugly egocentric self to me because I was a fellow American and doesn't impose that side of herself on the locals. After all, we are supposed to be amateur ambassadors, aren't we?
The place I ate lunch had a table covered in what looked like copper. I was watching the people at the table next to me, and the guy spilled ketchup on the table. He wiped it up with a napkin and few minutes later and the acid in the ketchup had eaten into the copper, leaving a bright pinkish scar on that beautiful table top. I looked closely at my own table after that, and saw lots of little scars. It looks like they fade over time but never disappear. How horrible. I asked my waitress and she was not sure if it is really copper, but said the stains will never completely disappear.
All the horses I saw were covered in blankets and the sheep had their woolly coats but the cows had nothing! It seems like they would get as cold as the horses.
I made it back from Penzance to Truro and my hotel without one wrong turn! I am still expecting a pat on the back from the TomTom but it still doesn't realize what a big deal it is for me to drive that far with no wrong turns.
I went into the lounge and ordered a pot of tea as soon as I got back. This is the first time I have been warm all day!
I take my Kindle with me everywhere and I am reading Horatio Hornblower again. That is one of my favorite stories ever, and I think I could reread it over and over again. I took it to read in the lounge and finished one book and couldn't remember the next in sequence. I have a list on my phone, so I trudged through all three flights of stairs and five fire doors just to find out what was next. The first time I read it (there are over a dozen books in the series) I read them out of order so this time I am determined to do it right. I am definitely going to visit Portsmouth (maritime museum and Nelson's Trafalga are there) so I am getting in the right frame of mind with my friend Horatio.
Being a fan of Foyle's War series, I am also hoping to go to Hastings. I am definitely visiting Weymouth, where my family lived for a little over a year when I was little, and I think that will be back to the little windy roads according to the map I have. I will suffer those roads to try and find our old house, but I will not suffer them to visit Hastings.
Tomorrow the general plan is to visit Helston, the flambard experience (recreated Victorian village) and the tin mine museum at Poldard. It is not supposed to rain, so I am looking forward to another good day.
Goodnight dear diary. (I like saying that). I can't remember what Anne Frank called her diary, but I understand the impulse to turn a journal into an animate thing.
I drove to Penzance, parked in all-day parking and boarded the #300 bus that goes through Porthcurno, Land's End, the Greevorr Tin Mine, St Ives, Marazion and back to Penzance. I had visited some but not all of these places a couple of days ago, but this open top double decker bus with the hot pink seats let me sit back and enjoy the view. Well, sort of. The roads were still narrow and twisty, and this bus is a lot bigger than my car so the death-defying cliff-hanging turns were even more dangerous than before but this time I could just look off to the sides and enjoy the views. I could get off the bus several times during the tour if I wanted to explore on foot and then catch the next bus.
Off to one side are treacherous cliffs and off to the other dozens of little patchwork farms, each with stone walls about waist high, overgrown with mosses, gorse, hawthorn currant brambles and lots of other wild growth. I saw lots of horses, hundreds of cows, and hundreds more sheep. A couple of the horses looked almost like Clydesdales with their huge hairy front feet (fetlocks?). All traffic was stopped for about 20 minutes while a herd of cattle crossed the road. There were four men herding them along, but to my disappointment I didn't see any dogs. The Westminster Dog Show has a lot to answer for. It seems like their "working dog" category includes all these wonderful herding dogs but they must be just a theoretical myth. The cows did seem very well-behaved and obedient so maybe the dogs were just taking a day off, having trained the men to do their job for them.
When I look back at my pictures from today, I see that I am still more impressed by the widths of the roads than by anything else! Many times the bus or an oncoming car would have to pull over and stop, hugging the side of the road, to enable safe passing. I never heard a horn honk or an angry reaction - it was almost like a well choreographed ballet. When I am driving and that happens, I suppose I don't remember any honking or rude gestures but it never seemed so simple when I was the one pulling over or assuming the oncoming car would be gracious enough to do the same.
St Ives is perfect. You can almost believe the past fifty years haven't happened. I sat in the harbour and watched the tide come in. This used to be the pilchard (disgusting little fish like sardines) capital of the world, but the pilchards have disappeared and the mackerel fishing that took its place never brought in the big bucks like the pilchards. Artists discovered the steep cliffs and wild beauty of the place though, and it has become an art colony and a tourist center. I am so fortunate to be here now. School doesn't let out until the end of May, so the tourist business hasn't picked up for the year, There is aa famous Tat's Art Gallery here, with the attached Barbara Hepworth Sculpture Gallery. I enjoyed those very much and then saw signs for a "craft fair". I followed the signs all over town, thinking maybe I could see some local amateur art, and found a church bazaar sale with tea cozies and handmade earrings. Nothing too interesting I'm afraid. This was not the talent that has made St Ives famous.
The temperature was the same as it has been the whole time I've been here - about 65 degrees. Great temperature for walking around and working up a slight sweat (Oops, I forgot - we southern ladies glow, we don't sweat). Anyway, walking around in 65 degree weather is a whole lot different from sitting on the top of an open bus with a brisk wind blowing. Adding insult to injury, it started to rain. One of the women on top of the bus with me insisted it was just sea spray from the ocean, but it was rain. I think we were making sure we wouldn't be the first to chicken out, so we both sat there in the gentle (ha!) rain and punishing winds for about 45 minutes until it finally stopped. The sun came out them, and the day was beautiful but I was very cold all day. (She reached in her handbag at one point and pulled out a little bag of jelly beans and asked me if I wanted a sweetie.)
I met a woman from Denver in St Ives. She couldn't wait to tell me every detail of her experiences and where I should stay and what I should do, etc. I hope she was just showing off her ugly egocentric self to me because I was a fellow American and doesn't impose that side of herself on the locals. After all, we are supposed to be amateur ambassadors, aren't we?
The place I ate lunch had a table covered in what looked like copper. I was watching the people at the table next to me, and the guy spilled ketchup on the table. He wiped it up with a napkin and few minutes later and the acid in the ketchup had eaten into the copper, leaving a bright pinkish scar on that beautiful table top. I looked closely at my own table after that, and saw lots of little scars. It looks like they fade over time but never disappear. How horrible. I asked my waitress and she was not sure if it is really copper, but said the stains will never completely disappear.
All the horses I saw were covered in blankets and the sheep had their woolly coats but the cows had nothing! It seems like they would get as cold as the horses.
I made it back from Penzance to Truro and my hotel without one wrong turn! I am still expecting a pat on the back from the TomTom but it still doesn't realize what a big deal it is for me to drive that far with no wrong turns.
I went into the lounge and ordered a pot of tea as soon as I got back. This is the first time I have been warm all day!
I take my Kindle with me everywhere and I am reading Horatio Hornblower again. That is one of my favorite stories ever, and I think I could reread it over and over again. I took it to read in the lounge and finished one book and couldn't remember the next in sequence. I have a list on my phone, so I trudged through all three flights of stairs and five fire doors just to find out what was next. The first time I read it (there are over a dozen books in the series) I read them out of order so this time I am determined to do it right. I am definitely going to visit Portsmouth (maritime museum and Nelson's Trafalga are there) so I am getting in the right frame of mind with my friend Horatio.
Being a fan of Foyle's War series, I am also hoping to go to Hastings. I am definitely visiting Weymouth, where my family lived for a little over a year when I was little, and I think that will be back to the little windy roads according to the map I have. I will suffer those roads to try and find our old house, but I will not suffer them to visit Hastings.
Tomorrow the general plan is to visit Helston, the flambard experience (recreated Victorian village) and the tin mine museum at Poldard. It is not supposed to rain, so I am looking forward to another good day.
Goodnight dear diary. (I like saying that). I can't remember what Anne Frank called her diary, but I understand the impulse to turn a journal into an animate thing.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Tuesday
I sat talking to George and Pat for about an hour after breakfast. They were planning to go back home, but we solved the problems of the world before they left. They both have very proper feelings (which means they agree with me) about immigration laws, general world financial outlooks, reality shows and gun laws. I avoided politics because I didn't want to embarrass my self or my country with my abysmal ignorance. He has retired from the airlines and they have traveled to the states (Blue Ridge Parkway and Washington), Kenya, South Africa, and on and on. They are the best type of conversationalists - they talk a lot and listen a lot. They recommend New Zealand as the perfect holiday spot.
Back down into the town for me. I needed to get toothpaste (Marks and Spencer) and check out the local laundry coin-op facilities. I finally found the only one in town - way on the other side of town so it would be about an hour's walk for me, and it would cost 8.80 pounds for washing, detergent and drying. I think I'll splurge and get the hotel to do mine for me tomorrow. I could recycle all my clothes again for a third wearing each, but I didn't come prepared for 14 days undie-wise so I have to do something.
I tried Boots first for the toothpaste and then ended up at Marks and Spencer. I didn't want to get Crest or Colgate. I ended up with something called Totalcare. It was the cheapest (1.5 pounds) and I can pretend it is official English toothpaste. I refuse to read the small print on the tube and find it is made in India!
The other errand I had assigned myself today was to buy a legitimate rain hat. I looked onllne before I left home and found several for about $20, so I decided that I would wait and buy one when I got here. Well. Apparently we are in the "summer hat" series, and no waterproof ones were to be found in all of Truro except for one that was too small to stay on my big head if the wind blows, and another one that cost 62 pounds! I withstood all the salesman's persuasive arguments and decided that even if that particular hat looked great on me and was fully insured and replaceable at half price for the life of the hat (?) that I would do without. Oh well. It didn't rain today anyway despite the forecast so I'll just take my chances.
I did have one other errand - I went to the Post Office and checked into the costs of shipping a box back home. I haven't bought anything except the GPS and the key chain, but my luggage has grown. It must be the 5,000 brochures I have collected. Needless to say, the mailing costs are prohibitive. I will be better off throwing away some clothes if I can't get my suitcase zipped when the time comes. Since I have the car until the night before my flight, I won't worry about anything until the last minute.
The line at the post office was very long. There were six windows open, and I still stood in the line, 'scuse me - the queue - for about 20 minutes. When I got up to the window I happened to get the branch manager, and neither of had any clue of the conversion of 10 pounds to x kilograms. I have a conversion program downloaded onto my US phone that doesn't have to be connected to the internet so it is working, but I didn't figure that out until later. I kept thinking "14 pounds equals 1 stone" which is true enough, but unhelpful. The man in the next queue finally heard us and knew the conversion rate, the postmaster was able to give the correct unwelcome approximate cost.
In all the stores I went into (and there were many, looking for that #$^^&^ rain hat) there were lots of store clerks roaming and offering to help. I would like to think it is the terrific British courtesy, but I have seen and heard so many safeguards against theft I think they are really looking out for shoplifters. I have not heard an American accent the entire time I've been here, including in London, so that works in my favor in getting attention and help when I need it.
I sat in the library for about an hour this afternoon. There is a room with a large window looking out over the street where 7 or 8 men sat in comfortable chairs reading the newspapers. The bathroom (always called "the toilet", never the restroom or the bathroom) was off that newspaper room, and I went it in. I was as nasty as you's expect a toilet to be when used mostly by men. I left and found another one on the next floor that the men were apparently too lazy to walk up to, and it was very decent. Several of the toilets I have used here have attendants on duty and they sort of hover around while you are using the facilities. I had looked up the tipping etiquette before I cam, but now I can't remember it. I have never yet tipped at a restaurant - I have been watching others to see what they do, and no tips! One of the really great things is there is no tax added on to items. The price listed on the tag already has the VAT (value added tax) included, so if something (goods or food) is listed at 2.5 pounds, that is exactly what you pay.
I visited the Cathedral this afternoon and it is staggeringly beautiful. It is the Mother Church of Cornwall. It incorporates St Mary's Church (1200's), has a "world renowned" pipe organ, 76 stained glass windows and the arched ceiling is about 200' tall throughout! As you look up at the high altar you see the carved reredos and huge stained glass windows behind that. There are intricate panels telling various biblical stories, and there is one rather large (maybe 4") piece of blindingly blue patch inappropriately in the center of one of the panels. This was the only damage done to the cathedral during WWII and it was done by a local boy playing with a rifle!
The Royal Cornwall Museum was interesting but not fantastic as I had hoped. For five pounds I got an annual pass that is good for one year. I told the curator I only wasted a pass for two hours, but it was a year or nothing. I doubt if I would go again even if I lived a little closer than I do. There were some marvelous paintings of fishing boats and women and village life in St Ives, a terrific doll's house with wonderful Victorian furnishings, and a lot of artifacts from the bronze age through the early 1900's. Nothing on smuggling, however, which I was a little disappointed in. They had a space for a biscuit from the siege of Mafeking, with one bite taken out, but it had been removed because the watercolour done by the soldier that saved his biscuit was starting to fade.
I spent a lot of time today sitting on benches through the town and eavesdropping on conversations and heard some more things that I am familiar with through books or movies but enjoyed hearing in real life: cigarettes are "fags", "..about five years....ish". Conversations were about children, lack of work, and how to get rid of the pigeons constantly underfoot.
I went to Charlotte's Tea House for high tea at 4:00 - the proper tea time. A cream tea would be tea with milk or lemon, scones, jam and clotted cream. For high tea you get a sandwich too, so that's what I had for supper - crab pate and cucumber sandwiches, tea, scones etc. I have wanted to taste clotted cream forever, and I was a little disappointed. It tastes halfway between butter and heavy cream. The presentation was beautiful - a little two tiered serving dish, a pot of tea (including a strainer), a pot of hot water to dilute the tea, a little pitcher of milk, and a glass and silver bowl with irregular lumps of brown and white sugar. Apparently Cornwall and Devon have on ongoing battle for the best clotted cream and I will have it again but I was not as impressed as I hoped I would be with this Cornish version. The tea house I went to is probably a little touristy, but it is also the place locals go to for a special occasion so I suppose that was a fair trial.
The last thing I wanted to see in Truro was the Assembly Hall. Old exterior with an interior that was not maintained and is now a pasty shop downstairs and offices upstairs. I couldn't find it and had forgotten to take my notes on its location with me, and it wasn't mentioned on the map of Truro streets, so I asked in the shops and the old gentlemen walking their dogs around town. Nobody had any idea! I finally went to the tourist bureau in City Hall and they told me where it was. Turns out it was the Warren's shop I had visited my first day here!
On getting back to the hotel I followed my now-familiar routine. Bathroom (everything is backwards - the flushing mechanism is on the right instead of the left!), check to see what needs recharging and start cycling those items through my two adapters, purr out all receipts and record them, shower and tooth brush, plan the next day's trips, and then go online and check bank, email and blog. The bank and email are very frustrating because they seem to run a couple of hours behind (email) and a couple of days behind (bank) so I am sort of operating blind.
Another wonderful day, and I am peaceful and content at the end of it.
Goodnight.
Back down into the town for me. I needed to get toothpaste (Marks and Spencer) and check out the local laundry coin-op facilities. I finally found the only one in town - way on the other side of town so it would be about an hour's walk for me, and it would cost 8.80 pounds for washing, detergent and drying. I think I'll splurge and get the hotel to do mine for me tomorrow. I could recycle all my clothes again for a third wearing each, but I didn't come prepared for 14 days undie-wise so I have to do something.
I tried Boots first for the toothpaste and then ended up at Marks and Spencer. I didn't want to get Crest or Colgate. I ended up with something called Totalcare. It was the cheapest (1.5 pounds) and I can pretend it is official English toothpaste. I refuse to read the small print on the tube and find it is made in India!
The other errand I had assigned myself today was to buy a legitimate rain hat. I looked onllne before I left home and found several for about $20, so I decided that I would wait and buy one when I got here. Well. Apparently we are in the "summer hat" series, and no waterproof ones were to be found in all of Truro except for one that was too small to stay on my big head if the wind blows, and another one that cost 62 pounds! I withstood all the salesman's persuasive arguments and decided that even if that particular hat looked great on me and was fully insured and replaceable at half price for the life of the hat (?) that I would do without. Oh well. It didn't rain today anyway despite the forecast so I'll just take my chances.
I did have one other errand - I went to the Post Office and checked into the costs of shipping a box back home. I haven't bought anything except the GPS and the key chain, but my luggage has grown. It must be the 5,000 brochures I have collected. Needless to say, the mailing costs are prohibitive. I will be better off throwing away some clothes if I can't get my suitcase zipped when the time comes. Since I have the car until the night before my flight, I won't worry about anything until the last minute.
The line at the post office was very long. There were six windows open, and I still stood in the line, 'scuse me - the queue - for about 20 minutes. When I got up to the window I happened to get the branch manager, and neither of had any clue of the conversion of 10 pounds to x kilograms. I have a conversion program downloaded onto my US phone that doesn't have to be connected to the internet so it is working, but I didn't figure that out until later. I kept thinking "14 pounds equals 1 stone" which is true enough, but unhelpful. The man in the next queue finally heard us and knew the conversion rate, the postmaster was able to give the correct unwelcome approximate cost.
In all the stores I went into (and there were many, looking for that #$^^&^ rain hat) there were lots of store clerks roaming and offering to help. I would like to think it is the terrific British courtesy, but I have seen and heard so many safeguards against theft I think they are really looking out for shoplifters. I have not heard an American accent the entire time I've been here, including in London, so that works in my favor in getting attention and help when I need it.
I sat in the library for about an hour this afternoon. There is a room with a large window looking out over the street where 7 or 8 men sat in comfortable chairs reading the newspapers. The bathroom (always called "the toilet", never the restroom or the bathroom) was off that newspaper room, and I went it in. I was as nasty as you's expect a toilet to be when used mostly by men. I left and found another one on the next floor that the men were apparently too lazy to walk up to, and it was very decent. Several of the toilets I have used here have attendants on duty and they sort of hover around while you are using the facilities. I had looked up the tipping etiquette before I cam, but now I can't remember it. I have never yet tipped at a restaurant - I have been watching others to see what they do, and no tips! One of the really great things is there is no tax added on to items. The price listed on the tag already has the VAT (value added tax) included, so if something (goods or food) is listed at 2.5 pounds, that is exactly what you pay.
I visited the Cathedral this afternoon and it is staggeringly beautiful. It is the Mother Church of Cornwall. It incorporates St Mary's Church (1200's), has a "world renowned" pipe organ, 76 stained glass windows and the arched ceiling is about 200' tall throughout! As you look up at the high altar you see the carved reredos and huge stained glass windows behind that. There are intricate panels telling various biblical stories, and there is one rather large (maybe 4") piece of blindingly blue patch inappropriately in the center of one of the panels. This was the only damage done to the cathedral during WWII and it was done by a local boy playing with a rifle!
The Royal Cornwall Museum was interesting but not fantastic as I had hoped. For five pounds I got an annual pass that is good for one year. I told the curator I only wasted a pass for two hours, but it was a year or nothing. I doubt if I would go again even if I lived a little closer than I do. There were some marvelous paintings of fishing boats and women and village life in St Ives, a terrific doll's house with wonderful Victorian furnishings, and a lot of artifacts from the bronze age through the early 1900's. Nothing on smuggling, however, which I was a little disappointed in. They had a space for a biscuit from the siege of Mafeking, with one bite taken out, but it had been removed because the watercolour done by the soldier that saved his biscuit was starting to fade.
I spent a lot of time today sitting on benches through the town and eavesdropping on conversations and heard some more things that I am familiar with through books or movies but enjoyed hearing in real life: cigarettes are "fags", "..about five years....ish". Conversations were about children, lack of work, and how to get rid of the pigeons constantly underfoot.
I went to Charlotte's Tea House for high tea at 4:00 - the proper tea time. A cream tea would be tea with milk or lemon, scones, jam and clotted cream. For high tea you get a sandwich too, so that's what I had for supper - crab pate and cucumber sandwiches, tea, scones etc. I have wanted to taste clotted cream forever, and I was a little disappointed. It tastes halfway between butter and heavy cream. The presentation was beautiful - a little two tiered serving dish, a pot of tea (including a strainer), a pot of hot water to dilute the tea, a little pitcher of milk, and a glass and silver bowl with irregular lumps of brown and white sugar. Apparently Cornwall and Devon have on ongoing battle for the best clotted cream and I will have it again but I was not as impressed as I hoped I would be with this Cornish version. The tea house I went to is probably a little touristy, but it is also the place locals go to for a special occasion so I suppose that was a fair trial.
The last thing I wanted to see in Truro was the Assembly Hall. Old exterior with an interior that was not maintained and is now a pasty shop downstairs and offices upstairs. I couldn't find it and had forgotten to take my notes on its location with me, and it wasn't mentioned on the map of Truro streets, so I asked in the shops and the old gentlemen walking their dogs around town. Nobody had any idea! I finally went to the tourist bureau in City Hall and they told me where it was. Turns out it was the Warren's shop I had visited my first day here!
On getting back to the hotel I followed my now-familiar routine. Bathroom (everything is backwards - the flushing mechanism is on the right instead of the left!), check to see what needs recharging and start cycling those items through my two adapters, purr out all receipts and record them, shower and tooth brush, plan the next day's trips, and then go online and check bank, email and blog. The bank and email are very frustrating because they seem to run a couple of hours behind (email) and a couple of days behind (bank) so I am sort of operating blind.
Another wonderful day, and I am peaceful and content at the end of it.
Goodnight.
Monday, May 6, 2013
addendum ro monday
I woke too early for breakfast and read what I wrote yesterday. I didn't mention the reason I stopped in Newlyn. Newlyn is a fishing village between the busy Penzance and the picturesque Mousehole. I had not planned to stop there, but as I was driving along the coast road was looking at a park on the side of the road and i saw some people playing bowles! I thought it was cricket at first, but found a place to park the car(about a mile down the road) and walked back and found them bowling away. There were four games going on, and everyone was dressed in crisp white outfits. Not exactly uniforms, but close. Men and women on the team.
Now this is really frustrating - the screen isn't scrolling so I only see the first sentence of this entry. I make so many errors usually because I can't backspace and I hate to see what a literary mess I am making now.
More later.
Now this is really frustrating - the screen isn't scrolling so I only see the first sentence of this entry. I make so many errors usually because I can't backspace and I hate to see what a literary mess I am making now.
More later.
After dinner Monday - same frabjous day
I think I was in Marazion when I left off writing. The town is old (1257) but is most famous for being right across a little waterway from St Michael's Mount. Elizabeth and I visited St Michel Mont when we were in France, and this is her little sister. It was built back before time began by the giant Cormoran, whose wife brought him all the rocks he needed by hauling them in her apron. She dropped several rocks, most notably Chapel Rock, and he was so angry he killed her! He lived on his mount out in the ocean all alone until Jack came along and killed him and ended the race of giants. The legend doesn't mention any beanstalks, so I don't know is this is Our Jack.
Sitting at the Godolphin Arms (I am such a sucker for great-sounding names) you can see the causeway is only partially visible. George and Pat had come to this area by 10:00 AM and walked over the causeway; by 12:30 it was mostly underwater. (They had to take a boat back).
Since Cormoran, the isle has been used to defend the harbour at Penzance, as a trading center, and as a mystical retreat. I am eating my lunch (Cornwall crabcakes) outside at the Godolphin Arms. There is a large terraced eating area with about 10 picnic tables, and we are atop a 20 foot sea wall make of huge granite (?) boulders. Down on the sandy beach there are all sorts of interesting things going on, most notably a maypole. About twenty people are holding ribbons and quarreling about who is supposed to go which way. Lots of dogs, both on the terrace and down on the beach. Several huge Irish wolfhounds (not belonging to the same people) and many more little terrier types.
You can rent or buy a windbreaker, and several sunbathers or families with children have erected these - about 10' of canvas with maybe 6 long poles anchoring it in the sand. The parents and children have great fun piling sand between the beach and the bottom of the windbreaker and then they have their own peaceful warm patch of beach to enjoy. Those without windbreakers have to content with a very brisk wind blowing sand and whatnot over them, and it is probably pretty chilly to be sunbathing unless you are protected.
as I sat there, the causeway slowly disappeared and by 2:00 PM it was completely covered.
There have been lots of shipwrecks along this area of the coastline, although local folk deny charges of "wrecking" - deliberately enticing ships to the rocks along the shore line by false lights.
I've been here five days now, and I'm starting to get a little lonely. I get into conversation with lots of chatty people, but there is not one I can share a secret snicker at some of the "quaintness" or share a dropped jaw moment at the stunning scenery. That will probably be to this advantage of this journal I am writing though - I like to ramble on and on and am doing it in writing instead of verbally!
I left Marazion, back through Penzance, and visited Newlyn and Mousehole, then back up to St Ives, Resruth and home to Truro. I stopped the car a million times for pictures, and wanted to stop a million more. Some of the roads were so small that two cars can't pass - I took pictures just to prove to myself that I had actually driven those roads and come out okay. On the way home I finally got back onto a respectable road, and negotiated 7 roundabouts with a problem. I was disappointed the Tom didn't congratulate me and applaud. I blew it on the 8th roundabout though, but got back on track pretty quickly. I had planned to stop at a pub for supper, but was exhausted after about two hours of the small roads. I expect to sleep well again tonight, but it won't be as much from the walking and adventuring as it will be from the clenched teeth and deathlike grip on the steering wheel for the past hours.
I decided against the male voice choral. Janet and Evelyn from the hotel are going - they drove down from Bristol just for this performance, but I would not appreciate it enough to fight the weariness.
Great supper here at the hotel. They are very lucky in their chef - everything I've had here is superb. Tonight I had freshly made mushroom soup and hot and spicy prawns with salad and sweet chili dip. I have such great meals and I don't think it's just the "this is my holiday and I'm going to enjoy everything to the max" attitude, although that probably helps.
They tell me they will do a load of laundry for me here - 5 pounds per wash load and 5 pounds per dryer load! That will be about $15 to do one load of wash! Tomorrow it is supposed to raid so I am not driving out but will stay in town and I will add looking for a laundromat to my list. I am planning on going back to the cathedral where I can look at everything closely without feelling I am committing sacrilege, going to the Museum, have a cream tea with clotted cream at Charlotte's tea house, and finding a genuine English rain hat.
Sitting at the Godolphin Arms (I am such a sucker for great-sounding names) you can see the causeway is only partially visible. George and Pat had come to this area by 10:00 AM and walked over the causeway; by 12:30 it was mostly underwater. (They had to take a boat back).
Since Cormoran, the isle has been used to defend the harbour at Penzance, as a trading center, and as a mystical retreat. I am eating my lunch (Cornwall crabcakes) outside at the Godolphin Arms. There is a large terraced eating area with about 10 picnic tables, and we are atop a 20 foot sea wall make of huge granite (?) boulders. Down on the sandy beach there are all sorts of interesting things going on, most notably a maypole. About twenty people are holding ribbons and quarreling about who is supposed to go which way. Lots of dogs, both on the terrace and down on the beach. Several huge Irish wolfhounds (not belonging to the same people) and many more little terrier types.
You can rent or buy a windbreaker, and several sunbathers or families with children have erected these - about 10' of canvas with maybe 6 long poles anchoring it in the sand. The parents and children have great fun piling sand between the beach and the bottom of the windbreaker and then they have their own peaceful warm patch of beach to enjoy. Those without windbreakers have to content with a very brisk wind blowing sand and whatnot over them, and it is probably pretty chilly to be sunbathing unless you are protected.
as I sat there, the causeway slowly disappeared and by 2:00 PM it was completely covered.
There have been lots of shipwrecks along this area of the coastline, although local folk deny charges of "wrecking" - deliberately enticing ships to the rocks along the shore line by false lights.
I've been here five days now, and I'm starting to get a little lonely. I get into conversation with lots of chatty people, but there is not one I can share a secret snicker at some of the "quaintness" or share a dropped jaw moment at the stunning scenery. That will probably be to this advantage of this journal I am writing though - I like to ramble on and on and am doing it in writing instead of verbally!
I left Marazion, back through Penzance, and visited Newlyn and Mousehole, then back up to St Ives, Resruth and home to Truro. I stopped the car a million times for pictures, and wanted to stop a million more. Some of the roads were so small that two cars can't pass - I took pictures just to prove to myself that I had actually driven those roads and come out okay. On the way home I finally got back onto a respectable road, and negotiated 7 roundabouts with a problem. I was disappointed the Tom didn't congratulate me and applaud. I blew it on the 8th roundabout though, but got back on track pretty quickly. I had planned to stop at a pub for supper, but was exhausted after about two hours of the small roads. I expect to sleep well again tonight, but it won't be as much from the walking and adventuring as it will be from the clenched teeth and deathlike grip on the steering wheel for the past hours.
I decided against the male voice choral. Janet and Evelyn from the hotel are going - they drove down from Bristol just for this performance, but I would not appreciate it enough to fight the weariness.
Great supper here at the hotel. They are very lucky in their chef - everything I've had here is superb. Tonight I had freshly made mushroom soup and hot and spicy prawns with salad and sweet chili dip. I have such great meals and I don't think it's just the "this is my holiday and I'm going to enjoy everything to the max" attitude, although that probably helps.
They tell me they will do a load of laundry for me here - 5 pounds per wash load and 5 pounds per dryer load! That will be about $15 to do one load of wash! Tomorrow it is supposed to raid so I am not driving out but will stay in town and I will add looking for a laundromat to my list. I am planning on going back to the cathedral where I can look at everything closely without feelling I am committing sacrilege, going to the Museum, have a cream tea with clotted cream at Charlotte's tea house, and finding a genuine English rain hat.
frabjous day #2
All the English seem to speak in more complex sentences and use more sophisticated words than we do at home. Maybe it's just the accent that makes them all sound so much more intellilgent than we do.
When the service people are speaking, they are so polite. "May I see your credit card please?" I am trying to speak in a low, slow voice so that I don't sound too much like the abrasive American tourist, but I don't believe I am fooling anybody.
A little more about the driving. I have only once gone to the wrong side of the car to get in , but I can't seem to learn to look to the right instead of the left for the rear view driving mirror. I have stopped turning on the windshield wipers every time I want to use the turn signal, and my left hand automatically gropes for the gear shift when I need to slow down or speed up.
After the tennis courts, I walked along the promenade (of course, now that I am so accustomed to life over here, I call it "the prom" just like the locals) and watched some small sail boats and a couple of hardy toe dippers. A couple of kids were in the water waist deep, but most people were just walking around like me. Even though today is a big holiday here, there are no crowds and the streets are not filled with traffic.
I bought my first souvenir! A Cornish pop top can opener. It only cost 3.99 pounds, and was the only thing I could find that says "Cornwall" on it. No "I love Cornwall" or any of the corny hats or miscellaneous tourist junk to be found. I am trying to be very conservative with money - I am fitting mu food budget but still enjoying the foods on my list by going to good places to eat and eating an appetizer (called "little bites") or soup; and by going to places like St Michaels Mount and looking at the outside but not going in. I am paying so much for parking and gas that I am trying to conserve elsewhere. MY philosophy is to let the cost be the guide, but not to deny myself an experience I will regret later. The GPS was certainly an unexpected expense, but it is so wonderful and has gotten me out of a couple of bewildering "getting lost" experiences I probably would have paid double the price had I known.
Water is 2 pounds per bottle! It's the incidentals like that one that are really scary. How do people afford to live here? I can't believe they make phenomenal sums of money, but they must.
A lot more to write, but it is dinner time and I am starving. Tonight there is a famous men's chorus performing in the town hall that I am planning to go to with some friends met at the hotel.
More later.
When the service people are speaking, they are so polite. "May I see your credit card please?" I am trying to speak in a low, slow voice so that I don't sound too much like the abrasive American tourist, but I don't believe I am fooling anybody.
A little more about the driving. I have only once gone to the wrong side of the car to get in , but I can't seem to learn to look to the right instead of the left for the rear view driving mirror. I have stopped turning on the windshield wipers every time I want to use the turn signal, and my left hand automatically gropes for the gear shift when I need to slow down or speed up.
After the tennis courts, I walked along the promenade (of course, now that I am so accustomed to life over here, I call it "the prom" just like the locals) and watched some small sail boats and a couple of hardy toe dippers. A couple of kids were in the water waist deep, but most people were just walking around like me. Even though today is a big holiday here, there are no crowds and the streets are not filled with traffic.
I bought my first souvenir! A Cornish pop top can opener. It only cost 3.99 pounds, and was the only thing I could find that says "Cornwall" on it. No "I love Cornwall" or any of the corny hats or miscellaneous tourist junk to be found. I am trying to be very conservative with money - I am fitting mu food budget but still enjoying the foods on my list by going to good places to eat and eating an appetizer (called "little bites") or soup; and by going to places like St Michaels Mount and looking at the outside but not going in. I am paying so much for parking and gas that I am trying to conserve elsewhere. MY philosophy is to let the cost be the guide, but not to deny myself an experience I will regret later. The GPS was certainly an unexpected expense, but it is so wonderful and has gotten me out of a couple of bewildering "getting lost" experiences I probably would have paid double the price had I known.
Water is 2 pounds per bottle! It's the incidentals like that one that are really scary. How do people afford to live here? I can't believe they make phenomenal sums of money, but they must.
A lot more to write, but it is dinner time and I am starving. Tonight there is a famous men's chorus performing in the town hall that I am planning to go to with some friends met at the hotel.
More later.
What a frabjous day!
I don't even know what "frabjous" is and I don't know who said it in Alice in Wonderland, but it feels like it means what I feel right now. This is Monday, bank holiday, I am can now say I have been lost in Penzance, Marazion, Mousehole (pronounced Mowsel) St Ives, and several places in between. Amazingly the car and I have come through unscathed!
First to Penzance. Good road all the way (2 four lanes, no shoulder) and I lost my barely controlled fear of driving by the time I had reached Penzance. I am in love with my TomTom, now affectionately called Tom for short, because I just set it for the town and tell it I want the car park, and follow directions. Well, that is a slight exaggeration. Tom is truly great, but I don't understand roundabouts, and there is one every 50 feet or so. Some are very small, about 10 feet diameter with bricks set into the pavement so you could drive right over them. Easy to see and maneuver around those. The middle sized ones are fine too - maybe 200 feet in diameter, maybe planted, four or five roads intersecting. The horrible ones don't look like circles at all - you can't see the other side, and you think you just made a right turn when in fact you have started around the roundabout (or vice versa). Thanks to roundabouts, I have now had driven on teeny tiny roads that two card can't pass each other on! I have pictures because I will have to remind myself that I really did negotiate some of those roads. Since this is such a hilly country, the roads can't be widened a couple of feet to accommodate real cars, and both the country side and the towns are filled with these miniature roads.
The rolling country makes for great scenery and since I survived the driving, I guess I approve of beautiful roadsides instead of practical and safe roads. There are hedges all along the roads, and lots and lots of deep yellow flowered gorse bushes. They are very prickly, and smell like coconut sun tan lotion close up.
In Penzance I walked along the harbour and then through parts of the town. I stopped and watched some tennis players in the park and even chased a couple of balls that flew outside the fence for them. There have been seagulls ever since Truro, and there are many other chirps and warbles going on. A gardener or an ornithologist would be appreciating all the things I am seeing and hearing in an informed way; I am just enjoying it.
The voices from the tennis court are very carrying - it is in a little dip in the ground. Four courts, all occupied, and I am hearing the most hackneyed British phrases that don't sound hackneyed at all: "Cheers, mate" "oh that's lovely then" "pardon me my love""right-ho". I haven't heard the following yet: "the loo" (everyone calls it the toilet!) or "ta" or "cheerio"..
First to Penzance. Good road all the way (2 four lanes, no shoulder) and I lost my barely controlled fear of driving by the time I had reached Penzance. I am in love with my TomTom, now affectionately called Tom for short, because I just set it for the town and tell it I want the car park, and follow directions. Well, that is a slight exaggeration. Tom is truly great, but I don't understand roundabouts, and there is one every 50 feet or so. Some are very small, about 10 feet diameter with bricks set into the pavement so you could drive right over them. Easy to see and maneuver around those. The middle sized ones are fine too - maybe 200 feet in diameter, maybe planted, four or five roads intersecting. The horrible ones don't look like circles at all - you can't see the other side, and you think you just made a right turn when in fact you have started around the roundabout (or vice versa). Thanks to roundabouts, I have now had driven on teeny tiny roads that two card can't pass each other on! I have pictures because I will have to remind myself that I really did negotiate some of those roads. Since this is such a hilly country, the roads can't be widened a couple of feet to accommodate real cars, and both the country side and the towns are filled with these miniature roads.
The rolling country makes for great scenery and since I survived the driving, I guess I approve of beautiful roadsides instead of practical and safe roads. There are hedges all along the roads, and lots and lots of deep yellow flowered gorse bushes. They are very prickly, and smell like coconut sun tan lotion close up.
In Penzance I walked along the harbour and then through parts of the town. I stopped and watched some tennis players in the park and even chased a couple of balls that flew outside the fence for them. There have been seagulls ever since Truro, and there are many other chirps and warbles going on. A gardener or an ornithologist would be appreciating all the things I am seeing and hearing in an informed way; I am just enjoying it.
The voices from the tennis court are very carrying - it is in a little dip in the ground. Four courts, all occupied, and I am hearing the most hackneyed British phrases that don't sound hackneyed at all: "Cheers, mate" "oh that's lovely then" "pardon me my love""right-ho". I haven't heard the following yet: "the loo" (everyone calls it the toilet!) or "ta" or "cheerio"..
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Sunday
Perfect room. I can enter my room through the outside from the car park, or wend my way inside: down the hall, up two steps, up one step, through the fire door, up a flight of steps, through a fire door, up two steps, fire door, fire door, flight of steps, fire door, hall, fire door, switchback steps and into the lobby! Not for the faint of heart.
Walked down into the town. As steep as the hills in Seattle - about 15 minutes down and 30 minutes back up! I wandered down the streets, gazed over Truro river (pretty small although there is an old rusted lock standing open and I watched two paddlers go by. I went into Truro Cathedral (Church of England) and they were about halfway through the 6th
Sunday sung eucharist service. The reader was the President (a female canon!) and she had a beautiful voice. The choir of about 30 voices (some young boys all the way up to granddad) was amazing. I am going back to the cathedral one day this week - when it is not a Sunday I will be able to look around a little more. It is stunning - carved stonework and intricately carved wooden walle, vaulting arches at least 100 feet tall and massive 50 foot stained glass windows all around and especially up in the front. Gorgeous flower arrangements and a baptismal font in a nook off to the side that must have taken 50 craftsmen several years to complete. There were about 100 people in the congregation, and everyone was intent on making the right responses (as I was). I participated in the communion, and had a wonderful mystical and satisfying connection in awesome surroundings.
More walking. I had a genuine Cornish pasty for lunch. They can be all kinds, but I had a sterak pasty with potatoes and carrots. The thing that makes it as pasty instead of a pie is the shape - distinctive turnover with one rolled side that the tin miners of old could hold with their tin-contaminated nasty dirty fingers while they ate the other side of the pie. They say one woman would take on the delivery service - drive in her horse-drawn cart past all the tine miners cottages each morning to collect all the wrapped pasties and then take them to the tin mine. They would sit on the smelted tin sheets to stay warm until dinner time, and then each miner would find his own lunch that his wife had packed for him that morning. The one I had was pretty good, but I don't think I'll waste another lunch on a pasty.
I can tell this is a good hotel I am in because the toilet paper is very luxorious! I am bring a sample back home with me. It is not ply that I can separate out, but it would be about 10 ply if it was.
It has just dawned on me - there were no road side billboards during the entire drive yesterday. No big hotel or restaurant signs in the town either. It makes it a little confusing to find places, but much more peaceful than the glaring advertisements we see everywhere at home.
I had come back to the hotel twice during the day, so I traveled up the long weary hills to the hotel from the town three times by the time I came home for dinner, only to find out the hotel dining room is closed on Sunday! Back all the way into town. Very few things were open at 6:30 on a Sunday, but I found a wonderful Italian place and had Bucatini All'Amatriciana - fat hollow spaghetti with a spicy sauce with pancetta and carmelized onions. I am trying for English experiences all the way and this was not too English, but it certainly was a delicious exception.
Most of the people I see are in family groups. I will see two or three young men or women but most of the groups look like they might be family groups, teenagers to grandparents. There were several groups like this in the restaurant tonight, whooping it up like they were friends and not family.
I pulled my weary self back up to the hotel one last time and I am bringing my journal up to date. I have made my plans for tomorrow - I'll brave the roads again and go to Land's End, St Ives, Penzance, St Michael's Mont and Mousehole. The distances between these places are small, but I don't know how far I'll get on that list. It is supposed to rain on Tuesday so I will spend that day in Truro again - going back to the cathedral and visiting the museum - supposed to be one of the best in Sornwall. I'm hoping to learn about the smuggling that was rampant during the 1800's. Then Wednesday I'll finish my north shore destinations and start on the south shore - Poldard Mine, Falmouth, Flambard's Experience and Pendennis Castle. I'm not sure about the exact sequencing there, but I'll look it up the night before.
Goodnight, dear diary.
Walked down into the town. As steep as the hills in Seattle - about 15 minutes down and 30 minutes back up! I wandered down the streets, gazed over Truro river (pretty small although there is an old rusted lock standing open and I watched two paddlers go by. I went into Truro Cathedral (Church of England) and they were about halfway through the 6th
Sunday sung eucharist service. The reader was the President (a female canon!) and she had a beautiful voice. The choir of about 30 voices (some young boys all the way up to granddad) was amazing. I am going back to the cathedral one day this week - when it is not a Sunday I will be able to look around a little more. It is stunning - carved stonework and intricately carved wooden walle, vaulting arches at least 100 feet tall and massive 50 foot stained glass windows all around and especially up in the front. Gorgeous flower arrangements and a baptismal font in a nook off to the side that must have taken 50 craftsmen several years to complete. There were about 100 people in the congregation, and everyone was intent on making the right responses (as I was). I participated in the communion, and had a wonderful mystical and satisfying connection in awesome surroundings.
More walking. I had a genuine Cornish pasty for lunch. They can be all kinds, but I had a sterak pasty with potatoes and carrots. The thing that makes it as pasty instead of a pie is the shape - distinctive turnover with one rolled side that the tin miners of old could hold with their tin-contaminated nasty dirty fingers while they ate the other side of the pie. They say one woman would take on the delivery service - drive in her horse-drawn cart past all the tine miners cottages each morning to collect all the wrapped pasties and then take them to the tin mine. They would sit on the smelted tin sheets to stay warm until dinner time, and then each miner would find his own lunch that his wife had packed for him that morning. The one I had was pretty good, but I don't think I'll waste another lunch on a pasty.
I can tell this is a good hotel I am in because the toilet paper is very luxorious! I am bring a sample back home with me. It is not ply that I can separate out, but it would be about 10 ply if it was.
It has just dawned on me - there were no road side billboards during the entire drive yesterday. No big hotel or restaurant signs in the town either. It makes it a little confusing to find places, but much more peaceful than the glaring advertisements we see everywhere at home.
I had come back to the hotel twice during the day, so I traveled up the long weary hills to the hotel from the town three times by the time I came home for dinner, only to find out the hotel dining room is closed on Sunday! Back all the way into town. Very few things were open at 6:30 on a Sunday, but I found a wonderful Italian place and had Bucatini All'Amatriciana - fat hollow spaghetti with a spicy sauce with pancetta and carmelized onions. I am trying for English experiences all the way and this was not too English, but it certainly was a delicious exception.
Most of the people I see are in family groups. I will see two or three young men or women but most of the groups look like they might be family groups, teenagers to grandparents. There were several groups like this in the restaurant tonight, whooping it up like they were friends and not family.
I pulled my weary self back up to the hotel one last time and I am bringing my journal up to date. I have made my plans for tomorrow - I'll brave the roads again and go to Land's End, St Ives, Penzance, St Michael's Mont and Mousehole. The distances between these places are small, but I don't know how far I'll get on that list. It is supposed to rain on Tuesday so I will spend that day in Truro again - going back to the cathedral and visiting the museum - supposed to be one of the best in Sornwall. I'm hoping to learn about the smuggling that was rampant during the 1800's. Then Wednesday I'll finish my north shore destinations and start on the south shore - Poldard Mine, Falmouth, Flambard's Experience and Pendennis Castle. I'm not sure about the exact sequencing there, but I'll look it up the night before.
Goodnight, dear diary.
Saturday - driving on the wrong side!
Wonderful night in the Yotel. I will be staying here my last night too, so it is comforting to have that locked in. You can check in for a couple of hours or for overnight, so it is perfect for weird flight plans. I will be leaving at 7:55 am so I don't have to worry about getting up at some miserable hour and finding transport to the airport, etc.
Highly recommended.
Went to pick up my car at Green Motion - located at a Holiday Inn about 5 miles from Heathrow. The first car they tried to give me was very small. No trunk so everything in the car would be visible to all the thieves I have been constantly warned about so I upgraded tosomething a little larger with a trunk. Got every kind of insurance available j-i-c and took off around that parking lot. First concern - the GPS doesn't work! Turned out you have to download UK maps. Duh! Sounds simple now, but everything we had looked at online said oh yeah, GPS will work everywhere. At least I was not the only naive one - Ron made the same assumptions. That is one critical piece of equipment. I can barely get from my house to the Y at home without the GPS so I'm not ever going to try it. The car rental place would happliy provide me with one for only 11 pounds per day, so I went to the local Tesco (as close to a Wal-Mart as the English get) and bought one forr 68 pounds. Cheap at the price I think. It is a TomTom, very user friendly and very fast response. Beautiful posh English voice telling me what to do and where to go.
I took the M4 and M5 motorways down south. Three lane each way called a dual carriageway and just like the interstate. Driving on the left is easy on these roads. The most difficult thing is learning to look to the left instead of the right for the rear view mirror! The car is a Peugeot, and stick shift. The first 30 minutes were pretty hairy - getting used to the stick, using a new GPS, dealing with the rain (first I'd seen all trip) and remembering to stay to the left. My worst habit was tending to wander to far to the safe side of the road, but there are thos same corrogated bumps to let you know if you've gone off the road so that kept me pretty straight. I drove about 5 hours yeaterday, and the four hours that were on the interstate were easy-peasy. The one hour that was wandering off the motorway into a little town for some lunch was terrifying. These villages were all established before care, and the twisty little roads require someone with a surer sense of the car than me. New plan - stay off the small roads! I have pictures I can look at any time I want to scare myself silly again.
Got safely to Truro (thatk you TomTom) and found my hotel for the next six nights. It is terrific. Small but cosy. Had a wonderful dinner of carrot and orange thick soup with a mixed green salad. The hotel has a lounge with a bar, and I had a glass of Merlot after donner, looking over my guidebooks and fell into conversation with George and Pat, from Hobiton (about 2 hours east of here). They had heard me talking to the hostess (who checks you in, tends the bar, and helps with the food orders) and scuttled over to sit near me in the lounge. They are travellers themselves, and looking for conversation. They said it is nice to have a visitor who wants to visit someplace besides London. They have been on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and spent some time in WAshington and Boston so they had plenty to tell as well as plenty to ask. It was a wonderful conversation, and I had a great evening.
I had about one hours worth of rain on the trip down from Heathrow, but have had absolutely gorgeous weather every other day. I came prepared for rain but am happy to be disapponted in my expectations. According to the front desk, Tuesday will be wet and miserable but every other day this week should be just like today. The temp is about 12 degrees centigrade (65 or so in the real world).
I always thought they used kilometers, but they use miles.
Off to my cute little room for the night.
Highly recommended.
Went to pick up my car at Green Motion - located at a Holiday Inn about 5 miles from Heathrow. The first car they tried to give me was very small. No trunk so everything in the car would be visible to all the thieves I have been constantly warned about so I upgraded tosomething a little larger with a trunk. Got every kind of insurance available j-i-c and took off around that parking lot. First concern - the GPS doesn't work! Turned out you have to download UK maps. Duh! Sounds simple now, but everything we had looked at online said oh yeah, GPS will work everywhere. At least I was not the only naive one - Ron made the same assumptions. That is one critical piece of equipment. I can barely get from my house to the Y at home without the GPS so I'm not ever going to try it. The car rental place would happliy provide me with one for only 11 pounds per day, so I went to the local Tesco (as close to a Wal-Mart as the English get) and bought one forr 68 pounds. Cheap at the price I think. It is a TomTom, very user friendly and very fast response. Beautiful posh English voice telling me what to do and where to go.
I took the M4 and M5 motorways down south. Three lane each way called a dual carriageway and just like the interstate. Driving on the left is easy on these roads. The most difficult thing is learning to look to the left instead of the right for the rear view mirror! The car is a Peugeot, and stick shift. The first 30 minutes were pretty hairy - getting used to the stick, using a new GPS, dealing with the rain (first I'd seen all trip) and remembering to stay to the left. My worst habit was tending to wander to far to the safe side of the road, but there are thos same corrogated bumps to let you know if you've gone off the road so that kept me pretty straight. I drove about 5 hours yeaterday, and the four hours that were on the interstate were easy-peasy. The one hour that was wandering off the motorway into a little town for some lunch was terrifying. These villages were all established before care, and the twisty little roads require someone with a surer sense of the car than me. New plan - stay off the small roads! I have pictures I can look at any time I want to scare myself silly again.
Got safely to Truro (thatk you TomTom) and found my hotel for the next six nights. It is terrific. Small but cosy. Had a wonderful dinner of carrot and orange thick soup with a mixed green salad. The hotel has a lounge with a bar, and I had a glass of Merlot after donner, looking over my guidebooks and fell into conversation with George and Pat, from Hobiton (about 2 hours east of here). They had heard me talking to the hostess (who checks you in, tends the bar, and helps with the food orders) and scuttled over to sit near me in the lounge. They are travellers themselves, and looking for conversation. They said it is nice to have a visitor who wants to visit someplace besides London. They have been on the Blue Ridge Parkway, and spent some time in WAshington and Boston so they had plenty to tell as well as plenty to ask. It was a wonderful conversation, and I had a great evening.
I had about one hours worth of rain on the trip down from Heathrow, but have had absolutely gorgeous weather every other day. I came prepared for rain but am happy to be disapponted in my expectations. According to the front desk, Tuesday will be wet and miserable but every other day this week should be just like today. The temp is about 12 degrees centigrade (65 or so in the real world).
I always thought they used kilometers, but they use miles.
Off to my cute little room for the night.
Friday #5
I certainly didn't think I would ever get to Friday #5 5 but it flipped out on me again!
The other think I am so happy about is that with all the walking and climbing stairs I am doing, I have not been sore or weary one time! I am very tired at night, but my 20 walking daily for the last couple of months plus the occasional pool/gym has really paid off. Yeah!
The other think I am so happy about is that with all the walking and climbing stairs I am doing, I have not been sore or weary one time! I am very tired at night, but my 20 walking daily for the last couple of months plus the occasional pool/gym has really paid off. Yeah!
Friday #4
One of the really frustrating things to a computer idiot like me is that I try to do something like but in the British pound key and it somehow appears in the wrong place on the screen and then freezes the screen up! The last two "publish" requests and the reason I am on Friday #4 is because the screen froze up and I had to abandon #2 and #3 before I was ready.
Anyway, a coke is 2 pounds 50 pence, which is about $3.25!
Back to why I am so happy. I am booked into the Yotel tonight. Little rooms with beds like train berths. There are about 30 rooms at Heathrow, and as you walk along the corridor you see there are two steps up to one room, and two steps down to the next. This is so the bed in one room is actually underneath the bed in the room next door! There is a little bathroom attached, and I was so happy to be looking forward to a night spent there and out of the Windsor House Hotel I could dance a jig for joy. This is an adventure and I don't expect everything to be absolutely wonderful every minute of every day, but the Windsor House Hotel sucks the big one! They asked me to fill out a performance card as I was leaving and I was able to say truthfully that the people were helpful and I would tell my friends about the hotel. I DIDN'T write down exactly what I would tell my friends, but if you are ever going to London and want an anti-recommendation, just ask me. You had to walk sideways to get from the toilet to the show in the shared bathroom two hallways away, there was never any hot water, the adaptor got so hot I was afraid of an electrical fire, the two flights of stairs I had to go up and down to get to me room were so narrow and windy I was afraid of falling, and it was noisy. One the bright side however, it was right around the corner from Earl's Court underground station, across the street from Barclay's and an internet cafe, and it was clean.
I seem to have a little part of my brain that always has a "what if.." scenario playing in the background. I first had a real panic about my lost luggage; when that was solved I started being afraid the electrical adaptors would not work and I couldn't recharge 2 phones, IPAD, Kindle, and worst of all that my CPAP wouldn't work right. As soom as those worries were resolved, I began to feel embarrassed because of no toothbrush (one day only) no hot shower (two and a half days). Next it was cash availability. I never had any problem using debit or credit cards, but you have to carry a little cash to and that was not working out at first. Availability of a room for ths night causes a little angst but I have reserved ahead for 7 nights now so I can let that part of my worrywart brain relax for a while. One of the worst and most persistent fears is driving on the left-hand side of th road. I am just ignoring that one right now and enjoying the park.
I am looking back over what I have written and see lots of typos, poor grammar and bad phrasing. I have given this blog address to my family, Red Hats, and fellow card players. If either of you is actually reading this, know that I am not leaving all the errors in on purpose but I can't go back and correct anything without losing the draft!
Another thing that adds to my very elevated sense of well-being today -
Anyway, a coke is 2 pounds 50 pence, which is about $3.25!
Back to why I am so happy. I am booked into the Yotel tonight. Little rooms with beds like train berths. There are about 30 rooms at Heathrow, and as you walk along the corridor you see there are two steps up to one room, and two steps down to the next. This is so the bed in one room is actually underneath the bed in the room next door! There is a little bathroom attached, and I was so happy to be looking forward to a night spent there and out of the Windsor House Hotel I could dance a jig for joy. This is an adventure and I don't expect everything to be absolutely wonderful every minute of every day, but the Windsor House Hotel sucks the big one! They asked me to fill out a performance card as I was leaving and I was able to say truthfully that the people were helpful and I would tell my friends about the hotel. I DIDN'T write down exactly what I would tell my friends, but if you are ever going to London and want an anti-recommendation, just ask me. You had to walk sideways to get from the toilet to the show in the shared bathroom two hallways away, there was never any hot water, the adaptor got so hot I was afraid of an electrical fire, the two flights of stairs I had to go up and down to get to me room were so narrow and windy I was afraid of falling, and it was noisy. One the bright side however, it was right around the corner from Earl's Court underground station, across the street from Barclay's and an internet cafe, and it was clean.
I seem to have a little part of my brain that always has a "what if.." scenario playing in the background. I first had a real panic about my lost luggage; when that was solved I started being afraid the electrical adaptors would not work and I couldn't recharge 2 phones, IPAD, Kindle, and worst of all that my CPAP wouldn't work right. As soom as those worries were resolved, I began to feel embarrassed because of no toothbrush (one day only) no hot shower (two and a half days). Next it was cash availability. I never had any problem using debit or credit cards, but you have to carry a little cash to and that was not working out at first. Availability of a room for ths night causes a little angst but I have reserved ahead for 7 nights now so I can let that part of my worrywart brain relax for a while. One of the worst and most persistent fears is driving on the left-hand side of th road. I am just ignoring that one right now and enjoying the park.
I am looking back over what I have written and see lots of typos, poor grammar and bad phrasing. I have given this blog address to my family, Red Hats, and fellow card players. If either of you is actually reading this, know that I am not leaving all the errors in on purpose but I can't go back and correct anything without losing the draft!
Another thing that adds to my very elevated sense of well-being today -
Friday #3
I haa choice of Thai, Indian or cafe food, and I picked the cafe. One of the foods on my to-do list was a cheese and pickle sandwich, and it was great! The pickle sauce was pretty strong and sweet, but didn't overwhelm the cheddar cheese and onion on the sandwich. I had it on grainery bread (light wheat maybe?) with a Beck's beer and a cream tart which I took with me to the Park.
The grounds of the park are gorgeous. There are several ponds (HUGE ponds) and a wonderful assortment of exotic ducks swimming around. A lot of mallards, but a couple that I didn't recognize that were beautiful with multi-colored heads and cute little identifying tufts of feathers sticking out here and there. (I guess they were identifying - they meant nothing to me except unusual beauty but I'm sure a bird lover would immediately recognize them)
I didn't go into the house although I'm sure it was magnificent. I enjoyed the park, the ponds, the ducks, and the few other tourists.
£
As I was sitting under a massive Cedar (Lebanon Cedar maybe?) watchi£ ng the ducks and eating my custard tart, I was thinking "At this exact moment in time, I am absolutely, perfectly happy".
Some of the things that added to my happiness: I had managed to figure out how to access cash funds after several unsuccessful and frustrating trials, including a panicked call back to the US and Ron. My talking to the BOA "partner" - Barclay's Band, and Ron's intercession with BOA were both unsuccessful, but my second appeal to Barclay's was with a bank official who told me it would work, and lo and beholld, it did! He did nothing different, but Ron said it was the power of that bank official's positive thinking that did the trick. Whatever it was, hooray!
The next wonderful thing was finding a great hotel in Truro (deep in Cornwall) with a beatiful setting, car park attached, and a decent price. Prices here are very high. We knew this beforehand, but there is always a lot of sticker shock when you see that a bottle of water costs more than twice as much as at home. A coke is
The grounds of the park are gorgeous. There are several ponds (HUGE ponds) and a wonderful assortment of exotic ducks swimming around. A lot of mallards, but a couple that I didn't recognize that were beautiful with multi-colored heads and cute little identifying tufts of feathers sticking out here and there. (I guess they were identifying - they meant nothing to me except unusual beauty but I'm sure a bird lover would immediately recognize them)
I didn't go into the house although I'm sure it was magnificent. I enjoyed the park, the ponds, the ducks, and the few other tourists.
£
As I was sitting under a massive Cedar (Lebanon Cedar maybe?) watchi£ ng the ducks and eating my custard tart, I was thinking "At this exact moment in time, I am absolutely, perfectly happy".
Some of the things that added to my happiness: I had managed to figure out how to access cash funds after several unsuccessful and frustrating trials, including a panicked call back to the US and Ron. My talking to the BOA "partner" - Barclay's Band, and Ron's intercession with BOA were both unsuccessful, but my second appeal to Barclay's was with a bank official who told me it would work, and lo and beholld, it did! He did nothing different, but Ron said it was the power of that bank official's positive thinking that did the trick. Whatever it was, hooray!
The next wonderful thing was finding a great hotel in Truro (deep in Cornwall) with a beatiful setting, car park attached, and a decent price. Prices here are very high. We knew this beforehand, but there is always a lot of sticker shock when you see that a bottle of water costs more than twice as much as at home. A coke is
Friday continued
I want to save this every couple of paragraphs because I have been so frustrated by losing entries, so I will just keep track of things by the name of each post.
Anyway, the walk was lovely, and I am enchanted by the English surroundings. There is a narrow bike lane between the sidewalk and the parked cars - looks strange but is very practical as it allows plenty of room for the bicycles to move safely. They highly encouragepublic transport and 'green' transportation like walking or biking, and often offer discounts on food or entry fees to reward the good guys. Most of the houses share a wall -like row houses with two or four, five, six....houses sharing side walls. They are called terraced houses, and each house can be made of completely different material or different architectural styles. They can also be very large (4 or 5 rooms per floor it looks like) or pretty run down looking. The medium to high-class houses all have waist-high brick walls or hedges between them, and the front yard is usually bricked or paved and will be used as the parking area for the resident if there is no parking on the street.
Anyway, the walk was lovely, and I am enchanted by the English surroundings. There is a narrow bike lane between the sidewalk and the parked cars - looks strange but is very practical as it allows plenty of room for the bicycles to move safely. They highly encouragepublic transport and 'green' transportation like walking or biking, and often offer discounts on food or entry fees to reward the good guys. Most of the houses share a wall -like row houses with two or four, five, six....houses sharing side walls. They are called terraced houses, and each house can be made of completely different material or different architectural styles. They can also be very large (4 or 5 rooms per floor it looks like) or pretty run down looking. The medium to high-class houses all have waist-high brick walls or hedges between them, and the front yard is usually bricked or paved and will be used as the parking area for the resident if there is no parking on the street.
Friday
Lots of trouble getting access, and then when I finally do this little IPAD doesn't accept or publish the entry! I lost two drafts, and am going to try again.
Friday morning I took advantage of the free breakfast at Windsor House - definitely the bets thing about this hotel. Toast, tea, strawberry jam, hard boiled egg. Very nice start to the day.
Took the underground back to the airport. Stored my luggage (until 3p, when I can check into the Yotel here at the airport. On the advice of an underground attendant, I bought an all-day ticket for trains and buses anywhere I want to go. The amount I now know about the public transportation system is amazing! I understand all about Oyster cards and one-day returns and open tickets, after making several costly mistakes about each one. '
'My first stop today was Osterly Park - about 6 stops on the Picadilly Line. Osterly Park is a huge house maintained by the National Trust. It was about a ten minutes walk from the underground station. The walk itself was lovely (a very British adjective used for everything from great food to beautiful scenery to the moment in a conversation when the American finally 'gets' what the kind Britisher is trying to explain!
Friday morning I took advantage of the free breakfast at Windsor House - definitely the bets thing about this hotel. Toast, tea, strawberry jam, hard boiled egg. Very nice start to the day.
Took the underground back to the airport. Stored my luggage (until 3p, when I can check into the Yotel here at the airport. On the advice of an underground attendant, I bought an all-day ticket for trains and buses anywhere I want to go. The amount I now know about the public transportation system is amazing! I understand all about Oyster cards and one-day returns and open tickets, after making several costly mistakes about each one. '
'My first stop today was Osterly Park - about 6 stops on the Picadilly Line. Osterly Park is a huge house maintained by the National Trust. It was about a ten minutes walk from the underground station. The walk itself was lovely (a very British adjective used for everything from great food to beautiful scenery to the moment in a conversation when the American finally 'gets' what the kind Britisher is trying to explain!
Thursday, May 2, 2013
End of the day...
After straightening out all the luggage problems I had the "full English breakfast" so I would be superpowered through the day. The real thing that sold me was the description of the items included: sausages, bacon (looked like ham to me) baked beans, free-range egg, grilled flat mushroom and grilled tomato! Delicious and about enough for 3 people.
I made notes about everything I saw today and I will just list the notes so when I read this back to myself after a couple of years perhaps I will remember the great experiences (and forget the frustrations)
- lot of languages incl Indian, Pakistani, German, Swiss (?) Vietnamese, several middle eastern languages
- I can only get wi-fi at Barclays and a wi-fi cafe. Don't know how long I will have it avalable
- the internet cafe is a little room at the top of a set of winding, narrow stairs. Very old and dirty - about 15 users each time I've been here
- Sat in the front seat of a double decker bus - hairy. They can turn out of the bus lane back into traffic on about a two foot radius, and I have to close my eyes because I think the bus will bump into a car or a person any minute! (I saw a sign posted on the back of one bus - bus drivers wanted. Anyone who applies must be suicidal)
- Got lost in the underground maze twice. I kept a little drawing of the maze I was going through so I could find my way back out again. The underground passages lead from one train/tube station to another, and bisect streets and carry on their winding ways under several blocks! A real Mario challenge!
- Walked past Harrods department store. Huge (block and a half, maybe), and looks like a palace! The windows are fabulous. Great Gatsby theme, with slinking ladies draped all around.
- Went to Hyde Park. Rotten Row is still in business where the Regency ladies showed off their side-saddle skills. Saw a couple of horses, along with bike trails, walkers, and lots and lots of tourists. There may have been a few real Londoners present too - several men in suits were laying on their suit jackets catching a snooze. Speaking of suits - the guys in the little food market near me were wearing suits to shelve groceries!
- Saw several statues of Nelson and war memorials - very impressive bronze mega-statues mounted on marble blocks about the size of my house.
- Elizabeth - I passed Baker Street Station, but I couldn't detect any tract of your visit 8 years ago. I didn't get off the bus for that one, so 221 Baker Street will be remembered at the TV stage, not the 'real' thing.
- Ron - when I was on the rail this morning coming back from the airport, the train announcer kept saying we were coming up to "Cockfoster" station - pronounced very slowly and carefully. I know you would be rolling if you were here.
- There are still lots of red telephone booths (and some of them still contain telephones) and the policemen still wear "bobby hats". I saw a car that I think was a police car, but it was disceetly labelled "Royal Borough of Kensington" instead. The driver was wearing a police uniform though.
- I love looking at the taxi cabs. They have enough room in the back for fold-out seats so they are elongated and look like toy cars. The little yellow license plate strips (yellow in the back, white in the front) really look like toys licenses - they don't have the colorful pictures or individualized plates like we have. I'm sure the numbers are more meaningful to others than they are to me.
- I have walked at least 250 miles ('scuse me - however many kilometers that should be) today and plan to sleep like a baby tonight.
I made notes about everything I saw today and I will just list the notes so when I read this back to myself after a couple of years perhaps I will remember the great experiences (and forget the frustrations)
- lot of languages incl Indian, Pakistani, German, Swiss (?) Vietnamese, several middle eastern languages
- I can only get wi-fi at Barclays and a wi-fi cafe. Don't know how long I will have it avalable
- the internet cafe is a little room at the top of a set of winding, narrow stairs. Very old and dirty - about 15 users each time I've been here
- Sat in the front seat of a double decker bus - hairy. They can turn out of the bus lane back into traffic on about a two foot radius, and I have to close my eyes because I think the bus will bump into a car or a person any minute! (I saw a sign posted on the back of one bus - bus drivers wanted. Anyone who applies must be suicidal)
- Got lost in the underground maze twice. I kept a little drawing of the maze I was going through so I could find my way back out again. The underground passages lead from one train/tube station to another, and bisect streets and carry on their winding ways under several blocks! A real Mario challenge!
- Walked past Harrods department store. Huge (block and a half, maybe), and looks like a palace! The windows are fabulous. Great Gatsby theme, with slinking ladies draped all around.
- Went to Hyde Park. Rotten Row is still in business where the Regency ladies showed off their side-saddle skills. Saw a couple of horses, along with bike trails, walkers, and lots and lots of tourists. There may have been a few real Londoners present too - several men in suits were laying on their suit jackets catching a snooze. Speaking of suits - the guys in the little food market near me were wearing suits to shelve groceries!
- Saw several statues of Nelson and war memorials - very impressive bronze mega-statues mounted on marble blocks about the size of my house.
- Elizabeth - I passed Baker Street Station, but I couldn't detect any tract of your visit 8 years ago. I didn't get off the bus for that one, so 221 Baker Street will be remembered at the TV stage, not the 'real' thing.
- Ron - when I was on the rail this morning coming back from the airport, the train announcer kept saying we were coming up to "Cockfoster" station - pronounced very slowly and carefully. I know you would be rolling if you were here.
- There are still lots of red telephone booths (and some of them still contain telephones) and the policemen still wear "bobby hats". I saw a car that I think was a police car, but it was disceetly labelled "Royal Borough of Kensington" instead. The driver was wearing a police uniform though.
- I love looking at the taxi cabs. They have enough room in the back for fold-out seats so they are elongated and look like toy cars. The little yellow license plate strips (yellow in the back, white in the front) really look like toys licenses - they don't have the colorful pictures or individualized plates like we have. I'm sure the numbers are more meaningful to others than they are to me.
- I have walked at least 250 miles ('scuse me - however many kilometers that should be) today and plan to sleep like a baby tonight.
Merrie old England!
I'm sitting on the cold hard floor in a crowded tube station at Earl's Court - right around the corner from my hotel. The Windsor House Hotel - it sounds a lot more grand than it is.
Got in last night about 9:20 local time. Great flight - free moview the whole way and I had an aisle seat with an empty seat neat to me. Couldn't have been a better flight (except for the miserable food).
Once I got through immigration, the misery began.. My checked bag wasn't on the carousel. All friendly helpful airport personnel had left for the day and no one was willing or able to listen to my problem. They shut down the entire baggage claim area so I gave up about 11p and startd trying to sort my way through the railway system to get to my hotel, and still didn't find all those ehlpful friendly people to steer me in the right direction. Finally got to my hotel after about an hour and £60, only to find my toom three flights up, no elevator, no hot water, no complimentary toiletries for someone like me with no baggage, and a toilet across two halls and three doors to the leftl. Of course, I tripped over the step trying to find the bathroom in the dark, but made it through the night without serious problems and woke up to a better day.
I discovered I can do a back and forth trip to Heathrow for only £11, found my suitcase and many apologies, came back to hot water, clean clothes and my toothbrush! This is the first time I have brushed my teeth with anything but an electric for over 10 years! A pretty minor new experience amidst all the really exciting ones I am having.
I looked out the windows on the return trip from Heathrow, and just wallowed in the English-ness of it all! Lots of ivy pouring over all the buildings, chimneys everywhere with a million different types of chimney pots on top, walled gardens, and everybody is speaking with an English accent! (Except me, but I will work on that)
I am at an internet cafe - hey - they keyboard is different and I have had to retype half of this because lots of the keys stick and the shift key isn't in the right position.
Don't know if I will be able to keep this up, but I will try. Thinking about you poor suckers stuck in the old routine back in the states! Going to do some real sightseeing now.
Got in last night about 9:20 local time. Great flight - free moview the whole way and I had an aisle seat with an empty seat neat to me. Couldn't have been a better flight (except for the miserable food).
Once I got through immigration, the misery began.. My checked bag wasn't on the carousel. All friendly helpful airport personnel had left for the day and no one was willing or able to listen to my problem. They shut down the entire baggage claim area so I gave up about 11p and startd trying to sort my way through the railway system to get to my hotel, and still didn't find all those ehlpful friendly people to steer me in the right direction. Finally got to my hotel after about an hour and £60, only to find my toom three flights up, no elevator, no hot water, no complimentary toiletries for someone like me with no baggage, and a toilet across two halls and three doors to the leftl. Of course, I tripped over the step trying to find the bathroom in the dark, but made it through the night without serious problems and woke up to a better day.
I discovered I can do a back and forth trip to Heathrow for only £11, found my suitcase and many apologies, came back to hot water, clean clothes and my toothbrush! This is the first time I have brushed my teeth with anything but an electric for over 10 years! A pretty minor new experience amidst all the really exciting ones I am having.
I looked out the windows on the return trip from Heathrow, and just wallowed in the English-ness of it all! Lots of ivy pouring over all the buildings, chimneys everywhere with a million different types of chimney pots on top, walled gardens, and everybody is speaking with an English accent! (Except me, but I will work on that)
I am at an internet cafe - hey - they keyboard is different and I have had to retype half of this because lots of the keys stick and the shift key isn't in the right position.
Don't know if I will be able to keep this up, but I will try. Thinking about you poor suckers stuck in the old routine back in the states! Going to do some real sightseeing now.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Getting started
time to start my official trip blog, because I have my ticket, my suitcase, my electronicss almost set up, English money on the way, and I
really am anxious to get going. My electronics aren't really ready yet because I need to learn to use this rather odd and unintuitive word processing program. It doesn't correct mygrammer or spelling and I expect to see some pretty weird stuf
ok,'`
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Elvis has left the building
Today is Saturday, and I have nine days left in the countdown to departure date!
Lots of trip chores completed yesterday and today - downloaded latest version of iOS onto cell phone (royal pain in the ass, but mostly a pain for Ron and not me - I contributed about 3% of the solution and he waded through everything else); got seven day supply of sleeping pills free j-i-c; photocopied passport etc for emergency backup; bought a couple of little traveling things (I love little zip bags and travel-sized doo dads); picked up English pound notes from the bank, and figured out how many undies, pj's and outfits to take (8, 2, 4). I amplanning to do laundry once or twice during trip and I have never minded wearing the same trousers two days in a row as long as I don't get rained on or have to slog through muck.
Went to Brian and Chasity's at 6p to celebrate Sara's 60th. Her birthday was actually Thursday and R and I had taken her out to lunch at Cracker Barrel but tonight was a surprise hot dog dinner with Brian, Maggie et al. Ethan ran into the room, saw R and me, and headed back out the other way! He was not afraid of us, but very happy to ignore our existence.
I left the part early because tonight was the Little Theater presentation of "Elvis Has Left the Building". We (the Culture Club, as Ruthie grandly calls us) have season tickets and this is the next to last show. We have seen Smoky Joe's Cafe (terrific - could have seen that three nights in a row at least) and Dracula Bites (okay with a couple of laughs) and Sherlock Holmes (Elizabeth came with me to that one)., I am truly amazed at the fantastic performances we have seen. Not the typical little theater presentations. There is rarely a weak actor in the cast, and the stage sets and lighting and direction and everything are always wonderful Tonight's performance was amazing. The story is about Elvis' manager promising to provide a free Elvis concert to erase gambling debts. The real Elvis disappeared so his manager (Colonel Tom Brady maybe? I can't look in the program to check the name because the programs are collected at the end of each performance in an attempt to "go green" and reduce the number of programs printed. Anyway, the manager tries to train his awkward, nerdy assistant Roscoe to impersonate Elvis. The first scene sets up the characters and the situation, and it is a little heavy and slightly painful as the first acts of most comedies seem to be. The laughter starts in the first second of the second act, and the audience is almost hysterical after about five minutes of watching Roscoe the nerd faithfully follow every one of the instructions given to him (tilt your hips, jiggle your knee, lower your chin, lower your shoulder, etc). Roscoe is a master performing increasingly grotesque gymnastics, and they managed to keep the hilarity going the entire second act. What a great show!
I am not going to give in to my compulsive side and review and rewrite this. It is too awkward on this midget keyboard and I don't even have a mouse to help me edit so I will post without editing. If I can actually keep a journal for a week, I will commit to keeping it up for my trip. I hope I will, because I love rereading the Elizabeth's journal entries and my replies during her semester abroad.
Friday, April 19, 2013
Gotta start somewhere.....
I've put off trying to see if I can make a decent post on this blog using the teeny time keyboard with no mouse and missing all my familiar "tricks" that I use to my my writing a little more interesting than just usual blah blah. My fingers are too large to hit the correct key every time; I can't figure out how to use the symbol for the pound key,and without the mouse I am having a difficult time cutting and pasting. I can't find spell check,, and the keyboard is too sensitive....in this short paragraph I have had to back up and erassssssse things like the extra sss's in the word erase (I did that one on purpose, but I have corrected several that were don't accidentally.
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