Shropshire Lads and Lasses sept 14th 2013

Tamworth Castle

There is much barking downstairs. Best Beloved has decided if we are going to go at all, then we'd better have gone already. So to keep the old dog happy we went halfway through packing - and left quite a few things behind, like clothes and food.

'But we're only going for a night, and we'll find a pub for a meal,' I was told. So why did I have a nagging recollection that when you are searching for a place to pull over for the night in September, with days getting shorter by the second, the very last thing you are looking for is a pub. Your eyes are attuned to grass verges, hidden laybys, not places thick with cars and traffic. In July you can find a pub, eat a leisurely meal, still have time to do a crossword, file your nails, read War and Peace and then locate a bolt hole. Not so in September. 

But this morning is fresh (ie not actually tipping.) and we are heading south. Why? The weather forecast assures us that the approaching weekend gales will arrive from Iceland at pace, do some running jumps over Scotland at 60 mph and arrive in the North barely out of breath. With luck they might have run out of puff by the time they reach Kent. So we head for Shropshire - Kent is just a dream in the eye of a Duchess,  

and besides we want to see Tamworth Castle.

Thank Your Lucky Stars - you weren't there

We are drawn along the river towards the sound of Country music and find a long lawn below the castle walls full of middle aged people shuffling, spinning, harmonising to the melodious sound of Lucky Stars. (Yes, he really is called that.) I can reliably tell you that no effort whatsoever has been made to enhance his performance. The truck that doubles as his stage probably sells wholesale meat at a local market during the week, and he isn't even sporting a half-pint, let alone a ten gallon hat. We find this rather disappointing. If you are going to sound like Johnny Cash the least you can do is ham it up a bit. But no, this is England, mid-shires, and not a single line dancer cares that he rolled out of bed, forgot to comb his hair and stepped straight into yesterday's T shirt and jeans. Tamworth residents apparently either have neither a sense of occasion nor a yen for flamboyance, but they do like a line dance.  We video it, and notice something strange, if you omit the soundtrack, there is something intrinsically Midwich Cuckoo about 200 sombre adults all marching together twisting, turning, forwards and backwardsing with such robotic precision, in standard issue trousers.  Now I love a Line Dance as much as the next person, ( providing that next person isn't BB ) and was very impressed that the entire town of Tamworth knew all the steps. Have Tamworth  Council cutbacks been so radical that there are no other evening classes! or is there something more sinister afoot? We will never know until the zombie hordes invade a county near you.

Flee! Flee for your lives!

When in doubt eat chips, bacon butties and  beige Nescafé, regulation fodder for a gathering of 1000 Tamworth souls,  provided by a single burger van with 3 aluminium tables.

With luck you might find yourself sitting next to a thirty-something mum. The command comes, 

'Sarah! Don't do that! ' and you turn, expecting a small long-haired child in a pink frock to be picking her nose with a grubby finger, Instead you find a small long-haired dog in a pink  coat, picking a fight with a squirrel.

When Zombies Attack
the only safe place is up a tree

Have you noticed how people are calling their dogs by human names these days? The surrogate baby boom is upon us. In this one park there was a Ruby, a Ben and a Dan - all Man's Best Friend. Modern parents seem to prefer calling their children after buildings, cities and card shops: Gerkin, Paris and Clinton. Sounds like a firm of solicitors to me, but perhaps solid Heathen names are more apt for modern aspiring sprogs, whilst pets have evidently been baptised and brought into the Christian faith.

Why did we come to Tamworth at all? Wouldn't Ludlow with a huge food festival have been a more rewarding destination? Ah, well it depends on what you mean by rewarding. Foodwise, undoubtedly we are the losers here, but Tamworth has appeared in several worthy documentaries in the past few months and was of obvious strategic importance to Aethelflaed, daughter of Alfred the Great  protector of Mercia in the 10th century - since she built the first castle here. It is more recently important  to us, because we like Aethelflaed. Singlehanded she kept the Vikings out of Mercia until she died and then the  buggers got it after all. She died in Tamworth as it happens - in 918 AD. (not BC -  there was very little going on worth writing down in our woad-and-war-torn land back in that particular day. In fact it was so dire Tripadvisor hadn't a single Island reviewer wiling to give feedback, even by ballad. Social Commentators had a nasty habit of turning up on a hog-roasting spit, feedback had a totally different meaning. They therefore sensibly glossed over that millennium with a very useful term - The Insatiable Dark Ages. This description hid just about everything except lots of fighting and very short lives, and was it was indeed a much Darker Age than the ones that followed - largely because they had neither windows, nor daylight saving.

Now, I have a confession to make:

Somehow we missed the statue of Aethelflaed in Tamworth. Well, to be more precise, we did see her from a great height, and even took photos of her back, but owing to the fact she was being precariously pressure-washed by Postman Pat with his little red van, on a wibbly wobbly ladder, she was unrecognisable, and to be honest we were far more interested in this bloke's acrobatics, trying to reach her head on top of an exceptionally tall pedestal. (Hers, not his.) 

This is a picture of how she used to look, and this is our photo. I think you'll agree, she did look more believably ancient in fetching grey and green, but Postman Pat was only doing what he was paid for, and it was mesmerising watching him get drenched without any help at all from Icelandic gales. However, none of this can disguise the fact that we didn't actually recognise Aethflaed  from the back, until seeking the Wisdom of Wikipedia on our return - for which we donated a princely £3 for their efforts. Apparently if every user donates £3 they will still be in business without adverts, so that has to be worth it chaps. But I digress.

'We went all that way and missed her most famous statue!' I groaned, having consulted the £3 Oracle. Then happily remembered Postman Pat and his black and white washer, checked the photos, and there she was! 

 There is some comfort in one thing however: we are just as incompetent, flying by the seat of our britches, as everyone else on this ancient grey and green, uncarved old rock.

Having gagged on some food it is doubtful Sarah, Ben or Dan would have devoured, we climbed the mound to a rather compact little castle atop it - currently being invaded by a wedding party. It makes a change from Vikings so we wait patiently, along with the Great Green warrior and were rewarded by an unusual wedding carriage, complete with roof rack. If the weather had been better would the bride have been strapped aloft?

Move along, plenty of room on top

The castle itself is run by the council and costs £7 each to enter - a 40% hike from the website price, but it's free tomorrow, and will be packed with visitors we are told. 'You won't be able to move!' The woman tells us. We aren't sure if she is warning us or excited by the thought of some living visitors.  We decide to wait for this event, at the same time knowing we would be long gone by morning. We didn't want  to upset the no doubt very long-suffering Council staff on the gate, but isn't it better to keep the price at a fiver and attract more punters throughout the year, rather than overprice it and keep them out until the one day when they swarm the castle walls and threaten to rupture the foundations with their combined weights? Shades of certain greedy cathedrals here, but perhaps there is reason to discourage visitors we have not yet discovered.  All we know is there is a chip butty difference between £14 and a £10, and we ain't either playin' or payin'.

What we need is dinner and a place to pull over for the night, so we head off towards Ludlow, or maybe Ironbridge or Bridgnorth, somewhere else anyway, and end up driving round and round the Wrekin. What is a Wrekin? You may well ask. In Shropshire it is a hill, in other parts of the world it is a company that makes manhole covers, a Trust that longs to inspire Non-sectarian spiritual enlightenment, a Co-educational boarding school, and a sort of nursery rhyme activity without spiders, tuffets or whey.

 We searched for a route to the top of the hill, (since we were in Shropshire, and there is nothing comparede to going round and round the Wrekin like a teddy bear to make you feel familiar with your landscape ) but the only way up it is on foot, so that was that. We lodged below it, neither up nor down so the Grand Old Duke of York wouldn't find us, away from trees that might fall in the predicted gales, and out of puddles that might expand into lakes. Needless to say we did not find a pub on this circuit, and being too exhausted from all that line dancing to drive further, we opened ancient tins and even considered consuming the caviar we have been keeping for an emergency. For some reason neither of us ever feel in the slightest bit like consuming caviar in emergencies - don't know what's the matter with us. Why do egg, bacon and beans always have more appeal? So the caviar has escaped to tell the tale for the third year running.

The Sun sets over another Wrekin day

Sunday Sept 15th

There were no gales overnight, but it's grey as seagulls outside, the sort that swoop and lurch in the wind. Now I'm old-fashioned, I think holidays need sunshine. BB is made of sterner stuff. He says photography doesn't mind - ergo he doesn't either. Lucky he. I like photographs that show contrast, shadows, proof of sunshine being present.

 Isn't September supposed to be  that month full of mellow fruitfulness? It's full of fruits this year, short on mellows, and since it is only three months since the thermals came off in June, I am in an autumnal strop way before it's autumn. But I don't let on. Well, not much, I've just bought a new waterproof and am quite interested to know if it is. (Waterproof)

We head for Bridgnorth which sounds charming. It has two levels of town and a connecting funicular - definitely waterproof.

The War Memorial is Over There!

Going down

The town is pretty, although windows could be shinier, and on close inspection the shops look on the verge of being run down. It is too chilly to linger long, we need lunch. Should we go for an all day breakfast in the 1940's style Wheelhouse cafe, Or find a pub for a roast dinner? There is something a little discouraging about a cafe that boasts it's menu is  rooted in the most impoverished British cuisine of the last war. We opt for a roast dinner. And live to regret it. There are a lot of pubs in the town, but most of them not only look very basic, they are also empty. This is not encouraging. We find the one pub that actually has customers, the Old Castle, and order our roast dinners. They arrive with wizened roasties and a grey heap of expired broccoli. We should have sent it back, but you know how it is when your mouth is salivating and rain has just set in for the afternoon. We ate what we could and felt diddled by the £16 charge for 2 half meals. We think of friends in Ludlow, enjoying a culinary feast and wonder if we are mad not to be there.

Perhaps the funicular cafe could provide pudding.

If a steep spiral staircase is a problem, don't go. The cafe is downstairs with great views of the Severn Valley, and a great view of the funicular mechanisms through an open hatch. Now that is a genuine 1940's touch. In this day and age a sheet of glass shielding the egg and  bacon from grease and dust would almost certainly be installed. That is probably where the great bits end, although the Gluten free chocolate brownie was good, but tiny. Our cake and drinks set us back £10, so not 1940's prices then. In fact apart from the music and pinnies there wasn't a lot to differentiate between then and now. Mo
caccino? But don't be put off, the service was good as we were the sole occupants, although our table wasn't cleared when we came in, and it would have been much enhanced by some sunshine on another day.

Would you park your car here?

The walk around the remains of the castle, leaning further over than the tower of Pisa, was worth doing. Great views of the Severn Valley.  And the ride in the funicular, the shortest railway of its kind in the UK ( £1.20 return,) likewise. We reckon the food would have been better by the river and should we return, we will eat down below.

Wet weather seeps into the bit of you that is catlike, requiring warmth, comfort, it makes you feel like retreating, not advancing. It's a miracle how our hardy ancestors spent most of their lives outdoors in the foul and temperamental English weather. As for the Scots without even britches, now that is just showing off. Let's face it, we have all become nesh in recent centuries. But that is the reality, so we retreated to the Duchess and persuaded her to take us to Lichfield on the way home. 

What a pleasant, spacious town it is. BB thought it might be famous for some notorious modern politician having lived there. I was under the Impression it was a city with significant historical sons to its name. Turns out Samuel Johnson lived there and ran an unsuccessful boarding  school before he took off for London and wowed the English Speaking world with the first ever Dictionary. He also wrote the book I'd take to that over-inhabited desert island. These opening lines are surely the most elegant and comprehensive ever written.

"Ye who liften with credulity to the whifpers of fancy and purfue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect age will perform the promifes of youth and the deficiencies of the present day will be fupplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Raffelas, Prince of Abyffinia'"

Beats me why I actually listened to those whifpers of fancy and purfued the phantoms of hope, having read this cautionary tale and taken to it with such enthusiasm. Swine, pearls and a fair bit of casting went on in my youth in spite of Mr Johnson's best efforts.

There was also Erasmus Darwin grandfather of Charles Darwin who lived in Lichfield, and David Garrick, the actor and playwright, so it is steeped in historical characters and also has a very impressive cathedral and a university. No trace of a modern politician though, although there presumably must be one, somewhere. A Mr Michael Fabricant in fact.such a wonderful name for a person in his line of work, but it seems he is as clean and pleasant as his seat, being one of the cheapest MP's to run, in spite of being a Tory. You couldn't Fabricant it.

Lichfield Cathedral is a splendid building in a fetching pink and black effect. There is no mandatory charge, just a suggestion of a £5 donation, and £2 for taking photos.  It has an unusual arrangement for Maundy Thursday, a unique corridor with stone seats either side, a  Pedilavium, constructed for the washing of the feet of the poor, a medieval custom. It was terminated by Queen Elizabeth I who thought it would be less trouble to just give the poor a few pennies instead. No doubt they thought that was an improvement on getting their feet washed by the nobs, and it is almost a given that she and the nobs preferred not to give alms rather than wash feets.

Zulu Wars Memorial -
No mention of Michael Caine

We missed the Staffordshire Hoard and the Lichfield Angel as it was getting late, but we did see an advertisement in a contemporary journal from Samuel Johnson, offering to give lads tuition at his boarding school.  You have to give it to him, he was a true entrepreneur, though it's doubtful Dragon's Den would have given him two minutes for his new-fangled dictionary. You can hear the dripping scorn of an 18th Century Duncan Bannentyne. 

'Come Fir, why would we want to look up words we already know?' Laughter echoes round the dungeon. Samuel, fresh from his boarding school failure, shifts from one foot to the other, trying to think of a suitable hook for these snotty fish.

'The ingenious idea, my dear firs,  is you can look up the  words you don't already know!'

Duncan is in there like a piranha.

'But if I don't know them, how can I endeavour to look them up, man?'

'Ah, that is the genius! They are arranged in alphabetical in order to affist the feeker.'

'But if I don't know how the word is fpelled how would that help? This is the most ridiculous idea ever conceived!  I'm out!' 

Exeunt the whole den of dragons.

Lots of interest in this building, definitely worth a vifit, and there's a ftatue of King Charles II outside,  looking juft like the dog of his namefake as his face has fuffered a bit of weathering and his ears, forry hair, is flopping very charmingly around his muzzle - I mean face. Quite a neat trick since they are carved out of foft fandstone.

It was Charles who helped restore the cathedral after some religious terrorists blew parts of it up with the first ever explosive mine. Those were the Good Old Days when you could chop up your neighbours because you didn't like the cut of their holy jib. We have a lot to answer for in setting such A Very Bad Example. 

Now it is time to go home past Muckley Corner, Weeford Hints,  and Wigwig. You couldn't make them up, and we didn't need to, someone else had got there first.

Some Days Are Better Forgotten - Monday August 26th 2013

Have you ever had one of those days when every decision you take is the wrong one? Things start off well: we both took a leek in the field, ran peat through our fingers, and understood why the roads resemble roller coasters.

 Taking a Leek

The peat shrinks when the land is drained, the fields sink, the roads buckle. The duchess isn't fond of a bumpy road. She registers her objections by springing open the cupboards, sending loaves and fishes flying. That'll teach BB to drive at 10 mph as we set off for Cambridge.

Taking a break

We've both only the vaguest memories of this University town, and visions of idle hours punting on the river and photographic splendour draw us on. The outskirts aren't promising - the north of the county has beautiful sandstone houses, we are now passing red brick and low grade retail park. We encourage each other; the centre will be worth it. We'd packed and bungee'd the bikes to the Duchess's rear in anticipation of cycling the last few miles so we need to find somewhere to park up. The roads are uninviting, busy,  not as bike-friendly as we'd expected. A-ha! The Park and Ride looms ahead. We pull in... and pull out again. The Good Burghers of Cambridge have decreed they would prefer their inner streets be clogged with campervans, and have accordingly lowered the bar, not raised it. We are excluded from the joys of parking and riding. Feeling not a little miffed, but a lot, we have no option but to search out inner city parking. We grind on through industrial gloom, if we don't stop soon it won't be worth un-coupling the bikes. There is something very unappealing about these roads, I don't want to pedal through a hundred urban junctions, so on we go to the centre of town. It is uninspiring. We cross the Cam, drive along the meadows, peer through trees at King's College, at last an attractive building - but of course there is nowhere to stop, no campervan Mecca to be seen. So we don't stop. A bit baffled by the unfriendliness of this supposedly stunning town, the scarcity of parking and wondrous architecture, first we abandon all hope, then the city itself. Perhaps we could have done better, but we didn't.

You may be unaware that it's against the rules to take bikes for a weekend away and return home without a pedal, but feeling that this day is off to a bad start we don't hold out much hope for the rest of it. We make for Newmarket, hoping for breakfast. BB has fond memories of the place. Neither of us know why when we arrive, but the National Stud has a striking statue that calls for cameras.

A sign says its cafe is open, but the gate is not. Are we supposed to break in? By now, wishing we could find anywhere that might offer us some food, we are beginning to feel outcast. At last a Tesco offers hope. (Yes I  know that's a tautology). I ask a Security guard if there is a cafe for breakfast. "Yes, there is a Costa," he is as linguistically impaired as I am gluten impaired. He cannot understand that Costa is designed solely for cake-eaters. I ask another assistant where we can fnd eggs, bacon, beans. She tries to remember if they come in a tin, or are they frozen? I leave her pondering and since  it is now getting on for lunch we buy a box of creme brûlée ice creams to cheer us up. Be warned they come in threes, and one and a half is too much, but at that price you cant just throw it away. We recommend finding a small child or charity to donate to, or biting the bullet and feeling sick.
Somehow stopping in a Tesco car park to cook our own breakfast feels like an admission of failure, so turning to our trusty Reader's Digest compendium we locate the Hemingfords.

Only One wive at St Ives

They might sound like a posh family from Just William, and I wouldn't be surprised if we passed them en route, but they do provide an excellent bicycling circuit up the river Ouse from Hemingford Abbots to St Ives, and over the river, down the other side to Houghton Mill.



We had lunch, since breakfast has now disappeared over horizon until tomorrow, and we are seriously hungry. The Three Horseshoes Inn, has a hog roast, it sounds yumptious. I think the point of pork in a bap is that you pick it up and eat it like a sandwich. This bap disintegrated into crumbs so it was basically stuffing stuffing into our mouths with a bit of fatty pork. Won't be back for next year's Bank Holiday feast.

Old in the tooth

The Hairy Bikers had been down to the mill the day before, and fixed it, so now it was grinding wheat. Both of us very glad we have a lifetime pass to the National Trust, as it wasn't really worth the entrance fee, although nice to buy some freshly ground Hairy Flour.

Cogitating

BB Googled the map to find a river crossing when we got to the mill. He said we had to go all the way back the way we came, several miles uphill to St Ives. I said I was one of the seven wives that didn't listen to her hubby, and we could push our bikes over the mill bridge...
 Guess who was right?
Back up to Hemingford Gray, into the Duchess and off we go for Stilton.
A strange thing about this one-cheese street is that cheese has never been made here. It's all a bit of a con, but who cares, it is pretty, and anyway that's an interesting fact for a pub quiz. It's amazing what you can learn from the Reader's Digest Book of Towns, published circa 1973. On second thoughts, perhaps they do make cheese there now, our info is 40 years out of date. Forty years! Good grief whatever happened to the time?

Time grinder

Ely, Which Rhymes with Feely August 25th 2013

Day dawns with clopping feet. A horse has got loose in the yard. The gates are open onto the road, but little red riding hood appears in the nick of time to catch the wayward beast and return it to its stall. She tells me her red felt dressing gown is as old as her marriage. They don't make them like that any more - dressing gowns that is. I believe there is still a thriving business in marriages, and in cousins, especially amongst the removed ones. They are always much more productive than their parents, you can tell by the semi-detatched sprogs that follow them about from tent to toilet.

40 years is just a start

Today is the day we go to visit Ely, but first there is breakfast in a kitchen that shows no signs whatsoever there were a hundreds of grazing guests a few hours earlier. I just knew there was a genie involved. The cleanliness and order is slightly disorientating, did we imagine the whole party? I check for Le Booze, the tent is still there.

Is it a welcome or a warning?

100 cards are opened, toast consumed, invitations issued, goodbyes are said and we ask the Duchess to take us away, past balloons with wrinkly skins from their prolonged overnight bath, and on across the fens to Ely. (It rhymes with touchy feely, not the Old Testament prophet, Eli who rhymes with steel eye.)

Silly me, its a war trophy, what else in front of a Cathedral?

Although a tiny city of 18,000 souls, bodies, and attendant clutter, it supports an entire cathedral, complete with canon.(probably both kinds, but the human one was not on show.)
You feel welcomed by the free car parking on Sundays, and free access to the cathedral, and simultaneously warned by the shot that might be fired across your bonnet. It is obviously a town with a tough past. This whole area is so thick with Saxon, Danish and Invasive History you can feel it in the air. Old buildings date back a thousand years, which as I begin to do the same thing, fills me with newfound respect.
 What is it about getting on a bit that makes you want to read biographies, study local history and dig out, or dig up your ancestors? I suspect it is seeing the light at the end of that tunnel.
At ten, that tunnel is a scary black hole, at twenty it's an adventure, at thirty you're too busy bringing up baby to care.  At forty, it might be an escape hatch. At fifty it's a route to grab the best years of your life before they escape you, and at sixty there is no going back. The tunnel has a visible end so you'd better read up about places, the past and cultures along the route before you reach the terminus. There is a refreshing urgency to this quest. Everyone works better to a deadline, and this line definitely has dead at the end of it, so get a move on, cram your head whilst you still have one with working parts.

Ely cathedral is a surprise, probably  because it is the centre of such a small town. Most towns earn their cathedral after a good long apprenticeship. This cathedral recruited it's own town and remained more interested in quality than quantity.
It owes a lot to Aethelreda, virgin bride, and later nun, who founded a monastry here in 673 AD before the cathedral was a twinkle in the eye of an architect in 1170.

Aethelreda, founder of  Ely monastry

 From the outside it's somewhat like the Boston Stump, a square tower dominating the skyline for miles around. From the inside, the square turns out to be an octagon lighting the centre of the nave, all eight panels painted in the 19th century with angels,(sadly not by angels)
 The nave ceiling was subsequently, after many twists and turns of history painted by a 19th century artist, Parry, hanging from the roof so he may well have resembled an angel. He got paid nothing. He came for a year, stayed twelve years and was still paid nothing, so perhaps he was a sort

Happy Birthday Aethelreda

of angel.
Internships it seems are nothing new...

The Original Octagon - don't confuse with Sheffield

I like painted churches, not that you can see the detail of paintings fifty feet above your head, but it is vivid proof that all things, even those beyond normal 20/20 human vision, are worth doing well. To me, a large expanse of ceiling or wall is an invitation for some  giant colouring-in, as BB will attest - so it makes complete sense.  I'd probably like the Parthenon in full colour - apologies to those sucking air through their dentures. It is astonishing what detail, time, and presumably money was thrown into this one cathedral whilst its creators probably lived impoverished lives with little or no pay. I find the evidence of this both sad and extraordinary. In our own secular age such dedication of wealth, and devotion to something purely imagined is a little disturbing, but then the same could be said of our vast temples to retail therapy. What is it that we imagine these days? And what will it be next I hear you ask? Well it's funny you should bring that up because James Burke's latest predictions tell us that in 40 years there will be the most profound human revolution since walking on two feet. He predicts that nano technology will give us all the ability to produce whatever we want from a bit of earth and water in our own personal nano factories. This, he says will cause us to be able to leave the vast

Last tango

cities where the jobs currently are, and live wherever we want, atop a mountain. He predicts society moving back into smaller groupings, as in medieval times, and life as we have always known it - the struggle for sufficiency, for endless stuff, that either keeps us alive or keeps us in luxury, will be a thing of the past. ( The struggle that is, we'll be awash with stuff churned out by our individual little factories.) Self-sufficiency lies ahead on a mammoth scale according to Prophet Burke. I just wish his name inspired more confidence. Ironic really that this plethora of 'stuff' will be created by things too small to see. I find it hard to imagine such a condition of existence. Every part of my life has been dictated by what I can and can't afford. That scarcity has defined my choices, provided the end of the pool to kick off - although sadly not the pool itself. Earning money will be a thing of the past.

Walking in the air

Will it stop wars? He didn't say. Currently they seem to be as popular as ever. Will the different gods still influence our stuff-choices, so we limit what to make for ourselves, or will everyone go nuts and stockpile weapons of mass destruction just because they can? I can't help feeling that Mr Burke speaks for how we might distribute ourselves geographically in the UK reverting to the countryside, especially as earth is the main ingredient for all the stuff we'll be manufacturing, but will it work with sand? And what about old rivalries, tribes, ancient behaviours. Hands up who wants to let go of a perfectly seviceable five hundred year-old vendetta?
I won't be there to see it even if the nano factories could re-manufacture every single part of the Duchess including her engine, bodywork and bathroom  and every single organ of my current body - especially knees.  Echoes of Moses here. The Promised Land and all that. His idea of the Promised Land was milk and honey, mine is replacement body parts.
How about a five thousand year-prediction for mankind Mr Burke?

All this rumination, plus the after-effects of being social animals the day before, have sapped our strength for any further adventures today. What we seek is a place to pull over and chill. We set off in the direction of Cambridge across the fens, aiming for The Five Miles From Nowhere Pub. It sounds just the job.  It is certainly five miles from anywhere, but unfortunately so are the combined populations of Ely and Cambridge. The car park heaves, so do we and we leave for quieter pastures.

There is a tiny road ahead that should do the trick. We take it. After a mile, grass begins to poke through  the tarmac. Quaint. The Duchess is high off the ground so no worries. Then we remember the exhaust pipe, a finer candidate for nano-replacement I cannot imagine - and it lurks only a few inches above even a high-spec road.  This track is now a series of interlinked potholes. We lurch from peak to trough and ahead lies an infinite stretch of pits, pots and patches. As far as Molly Navigator is concerned we are floating above unmarked virgin soil, she's even given up telling us to do a U-turn - a serious state of affairs.

The fields have recently been harvested, so we could perhaps drive across the stubble, but the soil is thick black peat, the sort that John Innes sells in bags, soft and yielding to the tyre, not that we often drive across our compost. We daren't go further, but dare we return? This place is too exposed, no trees for miles, it is not a place to relax. We turn and bump back from whence we came, and somehow that dangling tube - self-evidently very exhausted - remains attached to the Duchess. It isn't even stuffed with peat. Perhaps the Old Girl was a Sumo Wrestler in a past incarnation and retracts it when threatened.

Cambridgeshire Ent Gives the Duchess the Once Over

We find a lay-by, overhung by friendly trees, alongside a field of leeks. One of the Ents checks us out through the side window...

Bikes at the ready - shame we're too tired to use them

Half of the leeks have been slain, and lie like dying soldiers on the killing field. White stems shine as if covered with a light dusting of snow. The caravan that sits in the field centre is eerily empty. Have the inhabitants met the same fate as the leeks? Ent fodder? Good thing we're a bit on the tough side.




This is the place to chill. We curl up with books and enjoy the simple pleasure of the cessation of all things, bar breathing, eating and drinking.

Party Time! August 23rd-24th 2013

FRIDAY AUGUST 23rd - BANK HOLIDAY WEEKEND  - in spite of the fact it isn't the last weekend in August.  Bureaucrats have a lot to answer for, would anyone really have minded if the Monday had snuck into September? Of course not.
There are some things you have to do to avoid worse things, so we left home on Friday evening to duck the Saturday traffic, but we forgot that the days had shrunk since Cornwall. Like the price of a loaf in old money, the length of a day is now only worth half what it was 8 weeks ago, so by 8.30 dusk hadn't just fallen, it had thundered down leaving the Duchess and some giant combine harvesters struggling in the dark. They had a whole field to play in and floodlights borrowed from Mansfield FC. On our side we were wondering how we'd tell a  layby from a ditch. We came on a long straight single track road with wide cropped verges, and by unusual good fortune managed to find the short flat bit. There is nothing worse than a tipsy Duchess in the night, feet or neck braced against her ribs. The trick is to put water in the sink and see which way it tilts, then use the rear stabilisers ( nothing to do with tiny bike wheels) to level the Old Girl off. But do we do that? We didn't get where we are today by winching metal legs in the dark, and should we need to move on in the night it would be impossible to retract them whilst in flight. There is nothing more embarrassing than driving off with your legs carving chunks of turf out of a field.

We pull over, hoping those combine harvesters really are transformers and can squeeze past. Too tired to care, we make a picnic and feel pleased. There is something very liberating about just stopping in your snail shell, with everything you need for comfort through the night. Perhaps it is the closest we get to being cows. There is also an added feeling of Christmas Eve when you stop in the dark - what will you find in the morning? If a cow, with luck, plenty of grass. We found a rural traffic jam.

Rural Okey Cokey 

We had narrowly avoided parking across a crossroad, and watched as a giant hay lorry reversed up the road, brushing our windows in deference to an approaching Leviathan. They did a mechanical dance at the crossroad whilst we ate toast. It was a very satisfying start to the day, the view was fields, sadly no windmills to liven it up, but we felt suitably smug that we'd Done the Right Thing in choosing this particular 20 foot strip of verge out of the millions of other feet that were angled towards bogs and fens.

Now on to the party, a Ruby-do!  I had downloaded the address and postcode into my gizmo's contacts - something I announce with some pride as a demonstration of forethought and competence. BB is suitably impressed - until we find there is no such entry under Contacts, not a whiff of our hosts to be found. BB's expression is quizzical. (That is a polite way of putting it - I can see he doubts my memory, and probably my gizmoid ability,) but I'd had to write out the address on paper ( yes, paper) in order to transfer it from the invitation  email to the address book, so I know it is true Why, you may well ask. The email was cunningly devised with an icon, which when clicked revealed its contents. A genius idea until you tried to copy and paste this coded information. Probably owing to high security needs for  a Ruby-do, copying and pasting just achieved the trans-location of the icon itself, with no content, hence the need to resort to pen and paper. What should have taken me five seconds to achieve took a full five minutes, and then I'd forgotten to press 'save' before exiting. So now we must trawl through a month of emails, but only the first week is visible onscreen. The Duchess is no more equipped with WiFi than she is with a crinoline. Therefore we must align the mobile with the gizmo, something akin to aligning Mercury with the moon, and hope ancient emails will reveal themselves. They do, but the icon - sadly not Byzantine- still refuses to reveal its content.  Molly, our long-suffering navigator prefers a standard Post Code  to mere prayer and supplication so BB is forced into some intricate technical astrology, something he is very good at owing to his legendary patience and intricate knowledge of Ipad-ology ( pronounced ippidology) and WiFi-nautics (pronounced whiffinautics). A connection is finally made via our friends in space, the icon is cracked and we have a Rosetta Stone epiphany as the Post Code is revealed.
Molly is primed, but then we read the rest of the  invitation which says the party runs from 12 noon till 12 midnight. We don't want to outstay our welcome, and since we would like to stay overnight, we need to arrive in time for tea, not lunch, so we make for Stamford, home of those Players from the Minack Theatre.
If you haven't been to Stamford, go. It is a charming town along a river: Continental in that the buildings are all made from the same colour stone, but quintessentially English in design.


Not one building jars, and there's a river, a secondhand bookshop, an entire street of interesting shops with a selection of the very best reflections to be found on this Sceptered Isle. Not the sort of reflection that involves navel-gazing and non-rhyming lyricism, no, the sort that's found in a pond, the very best sort of pond, clear, shiny, and duckfree.
 We are simple folk. We see a reflection and before you can say 'shutter,' our cameras are firing from the hip. How often do you get a compositions like these without spending whole days arranging objets d'arts and waiting for the right light?

They are big on flowers, big on buildings in Stamford

Insideout

If you aren't enchanted then please consider becoming so in the next few seconds because our Gallery of Unusual Reflections is about to  be revealed.

This might be a Stamford nude

As you can see, you get double value from a Truly Reflective Town. The buildings and their doubles, juxtapose things that will never make sense, but enhance life in the way that marshmallow enhances a pointy stick and a bonfire. A ludicrous idea of course, but it somehow makes getting a cold bum and frosty fingers seem brilliant fun. We guess that window cleaners retire to this town just to enjoy the gleam of glass they haven't had to polish themselves.

Possibly lifted from a church

 Like marshmallows on sticks Stamford manages to enhance an already visual feast into a photographic symphony of unexpected fireworks.

Town & Gown

If you can follow that analogy you deserve a mug of hot chocolate.  Please feel free to make one before the next chapter. I would offer a Twix or a Bourbon Download to go with it, but Ipadology has yet to make itself really useful. Online shopping I am sorry to tell you isn't really what it says on the tin. There are postmen involved, and banks, Bank Holidays almost certainly, and the small matter of actually being at home when your delivery arrives. So you're better off nipping out to the offline shop if you need a biccky for that mug of cocoa. If you don't want one, let this fella have it. He's as old as the houses, and as you can see, is the New Look of Stamford.

Fortified by a really rewarding afternoon we set off for the rest of the day. Molly takes us to where still perky balloons hang from a lonely gate post in the depths of God's Flatland. We have a theory He stood here whilst fashioning the bumpy bits further West, and He was heavy. We suspect He also liked a good view with no distraction. For those who live near the Bumps, it is a naked experience this land, nothing betwixt you and the horizon. A full 180 degrees of sky. Good thing we like naked, and clouds. Because yes, it is overcast. Sun yesterday, sun tomorrow, never sun today.
So here we are, crunching up the gravel drive, wondering who and what we will find. There is space for a whole tiara of Duchesses, stables for horses, ( damn why didn't we come in the phaeton?) two little dogs and an invisible cat. How do we know? We have a cat detector on board. BB has the best cat-detecting nose in the business and he wastes no time in setting it to work. A fine run of sneezes and a pill later we are in the bosom of the family. My family, the plains dwelling Sauroses are grazing happily amongst the plates. Magic plates actually. No sooner do they empty than the same food reappears. The sheer genius of endless profiteroles manifesting next to Coronation chicken, coleslaw and strawberries is something intriguing. I never see how the trick is done. Whoever is responsible probably has a relative with a turban in the brass lamp business.

Cousins are a wonderful invention. You can either admit to having them, or pretend you have none. They are the optional extra of family life. Now I happen to collect them, yea truly until the 4th generation ( once removed. ) And, in case you are one of those people who doesn't understand how cousins work, let me first say, they work very hard, and second, anyone who is your own generation is either a first, second or third cousin, etc, their kids however, are all once removed. How hard was that? If you need further clarification ask someone else.
So here we are, BB knows almost no one, but is putting a brave face on it. After greeting those I am actually related to, I make my way towards people I have never met, ask what connection they have to our hosts, explain I am a first cousin of the 40-year-bride. If they look confused, I point to a handsome black and white photo and say, 'my uncle, her father.' Then we're in business. The other guests are a good deal more interesting than me, so I extract information about their lives, careers, specialities and then introduce them to BB. There is the one who is a vet - well there's a small tribe of these, the ones who hail from north of the border who refuse an invitation to spar with BB over Independence, the one who declares himself socially inept but is happy to chat away about his mathematical research and demonstrate a nifty ability to sketch on my iPad. And no, it isn't me, but the lass from Scotland.
There are the ones who go to Cheltenham for religion not racing, the smiling young lovers, the man who trips down the stairs into my arms, and looks horrified. (I try not to mind.) There are those who ride horses, those who'd never dare, those who are band members not only from the sixties, but in their sixties, a sort of square root of musicians, but none brought their instruments so we have only their word for this musical pedigree. There are those who are coming, those who are going, the very young, the very old and the very firmly in the middle - although most with rather less-than-firm middles. There's the  one who buries the atheist dead, the one who regrets buying a laptop, the one who gave birth to a Chihuahua. She is a bitch. A Yorkiehaha by all accounts. Her son is a Security Guard, he has an American accent and a vest to prove it.

Yorkiehaha Mother

And  Son (Once removed)

The variety keeps us intrigued for hours before it is time to repair to our luxurious bed aboard She Who Motors. As we curl up, the heavens having been quite restrained all day - a Good Thing since Le Booze was in a tent thirty yards from the house - decided it was time to drench late drinkers. The rains gallops across our tin roof for hours with a steady reassuring drumbeat. Under canvas it's the one sound which will drive you to sell your tent and trade it in for something more substantial. That is why we are not just smug, but gratified, knowing we didn't waste our money after all. Sorry campers, but this is just the way we all evolve: In adolescence we camp in a tent no bigger than ourselves, in our twenties we acquire rucksacks, a cooking stove and a partner, in our thirties we acquire children to go with the equipment, cooking stove and partner. Our tent now becomes a three bedroomed sprawl with tables, chairs, and a porch. And we need a trailer for all the gear. With relief we now move on to glamping where someone else puts up the tent, provides the beds, fridge, sun loungers, and swimming pool. After a few more fraught summers dealing with teenage parties in the one-man tents next door we finally lose the sprogs, pull a muscle crawling about on all fours and surrender to the very grown up idea of an entirely furnished and equipped house on wheels. That way, if we don't like our neighbours we can up-gearsticks and drive off. Therefore rain has for us a particular sweetness that never fails to make us feel snug. (If you read that as smug, well done.)