B Wales/England

3

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Day 3. 17th June. Wales/Glosteshire/Warwick/

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We began the day again with our B&B breakfast, a hearty full English breakfast along with tea, toast, fruit, yogurt, cereal and oats (which is something these Brits seem to take for granted that everyone will eat this much in a morning meal). They sure know how to make a pot of tea though. Our waiter was totally a young Manuel from Faulty Towers – except competent, basically he was Spanish and working in a hotel who was a bit flustered that we sat at the wrong table, it wasn't set for breakfast he said, this means it didn’t have any tea cups. :P

Then off we went again, via some of Great Britain’s best beaches BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, Beach? Try, mud infused sand about two metres wide, some slight ripples in the water and all grey and rainy.

We saw some more wild Welsh ponies. This time an even bigger herd.

The guy at Costa coffee (England’s Starbucks) had an amazing Welsh accent (one of the nicest I have heard) We asked him where it was from exactly. And he replied. “iz froom jbdjibvuoedooooo n jbivbi vayeleeeis ohhh abbberrr deeeeooon. Gargle gargle.” Love it!

Heading through Sawansea (Wales) the tyre warehouse fire was still burning so we got diverted yet again, the traffic can be pretty horrific. So we now have now spent more time in Swansea (sitting in a car) then we spent in Bath (looking at magnificent ancient Roman ruins). lol

Back across the bridge and back into England, bye for now Wales, see you again next week. And now off to Gloucester, pretty much for the soul purpose of chasing some cheese down a hill. This is the town where annually a competition is held where hundreds of ballsy men chase a giant wheel of cheese down a ridiculously steep hill. The prize? The cheese of course.

So we stopped off and bought a wheel of cheese and then headed up the hill, my god it was steep. We didn’t run down the whole way. For one it was fenced off (seems the council might be concerned about liability or something. Can’t imagine why.) And secondly, there was no freaking way I was going to walk all the way up this hill just to die falling back down. It was so steep. Like, crazy steep. Cooper’s Hill, look it up. So we chased our cheese roll down the last bit of the hill and took some stupid touristy snaps of it. It may sound a bit stupid, but this was exceptionally fun. We do love to do idiotic things like that.

Then we headed off to Warwick Castle, alas we only made it to the ticketing booth. This was due to the fact that I was dry retching at the sight I saw. The noises being made by kids I could hear over the wall, didn’t exactly scream legitimate historical sightseeing, but they certainly did scream. The next turn off was the posters everywhere of half arsed recreations of dungeon scenes (there is a dungeon room, something like a haunted house in side show alley) the posters associating the place with the TV show Merlin, the gift shop that sold YoHo Diablos(association with castles???? Anyone????). And the 25quid entry fee, each. Now I’m not a scab that won’t pay to see amazing things, I would have paid double that to see Stonehenge, what I am against is paying that much for Disneyland. So we saw a bit of the town instead, its pretty remarkable. These buildings that don’t have straight walls, the brickwork warps along the sides and it is truly beautiful.

Then we drove on a bit more, there is a long way between toilets here and we are working hard on this whole bladder transcendence thing (when you eventually reach a state where you are able to overcome the discomfort of needing to pee)

We did eventually find a rest stop which had a feature that all rest stops need. Pokies. Naturally, when that need to gamble strikes you’ve just got to go I guess.

After that we went to Nottingham. Yes the very same Nottingham that Robin Hood is told to come from. Here is yet another incredible city where the modern meets medieval. The mix is yet again stunning. We saw a mansion that was built upon the burnt ruins of a castle. It is built on top of a cliff which has a network of caves and carved archways, tunnels and stairs. An incredible structure that looms above the city.

The real reason we came to Nottingham though was to eat at Jamie’s Italian, this is one of Jamie Oliver’s restaurants. Jamie is the only celebrity chef that I even remotely care about. And I love him so. Not only do I want to marry him and greatly respect some of the issues he pushes such as healthy eating in schools and free range produce but I also love his cooking. I have a few books of his and it is amazing what the man can make me capable of cooking. I love the practical simplicity yet refined flavors. So it meant a lot to me to eat at this restaurant. The food was amazing. The best crispy squid I have EVER had. And this is my favorite dish anywhere so that is saying a lot. Great mushrooms then wild boar and venison salami. Divine pasta dishes and the best dessert I have ever had. A pavlova dish with berries. So light but just bursting with flavors and textures. Yuuuuuuummmmmmm! I want Jamie to open a restaurant in Canberra. The price was also fantastic, 47quid for three entrées, two mains, two desserts, a mocktail and a cocktail. Wow!

Spending the night near Sherwood forest in a B&B called Marion’s manor, and yet it is run by a Marion. J Time to sleep.

 

Wednesday, 22 June 2011

Day 4. 18th June. Sherwood Forest/Lincoln/York/Yorkshire Dales

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We made our way out today and went for a stroll around Sherwood forest and played Robin Hood.  This means I ran around and climbed a few trees. One woman passing by walking her dog commented, “that’s a bit risky isn’t it.” In an actually pretty rude and judgmental way. Do English people never climb trees? Not even kids? It was an odd moment. Anyway, I was having fun.

It amazed me that people have this amazing location to walk their dogs in. We chatted to one lovely older woman who said she came here everyday, lucky cow. :P This place is so beautiful, and we were greeted by squirrels.

From there we went to Lincoln to look at the Lincoln Arch and Cathedral. As we were driving around Lincoln trying to locate the Lincoln Arch we drove past one turn on my suggestion that we should turn left to try and find it. As we did this I commented, “Oh, look to your right at that arch that you can drive under, cool”

Ahhhh, maybe that arch is the Lincoln Arch, the only Roman built arch you can drive under in the world. Duh! So a loop back around and we found it and had a good look and explore. It is still so mind blowing that here in the middle of a normal functioning town full of people running their businesses and buying their groceries is an arch built by the ancient Romans.

From there we went a little way to the Lincoln Cathedral, holy amazement! It is a little bit big, like freaking huge. We came here for really one reason (which I will get to) but I have to admit the cathedral was well worth it. This is the fourth church I have ever been in in my entire life. (One in India, and two for funerals).

The reason we came was to see the Lincoln Imp. There is a 14^th Century legend about two Imps sent to Lincoln Cathedral by Satan to cause mischief. Apparently they tripped the Bishop over and smashed some chairs and tables. An angel appeared and told them to stop. One did and cowered behind pillars but the other continued and threw stones. So the angel turned him to stone. There he sits in the Cathedral, part of the stone carvings. This was important to us because my grandmother often talked about this story and one of the pieces of jewelry I inherited from her when she died was a pin with the Lincoln Imp on it. Getting turned to stone? A bit rough for tripping someone over I think.

We also got to see half of the Magna Carta (the other half of which was at Parliament house in Canberra). I was pretty excited about this. :D

From Lincoln we went to York. Now I know I have already talked about how beautiful the mix between modern and medieval is, how mind blowing it is that people live around this history and how amazing the sheer length of this history is. Well York substantially raised my standards on all these fronts. The city is huge and shares a mixture of Roman, Viking, Medieval, and every British era since. It is incredible that for over 2,000 uninterrupted years this city has been inhabited by humans. At least, who knows what archaeological discoveries could be found beneath of prehistoric people.

We got on a hop on-hop off bus. One of those open top red jobs that drive around with an audio tour. This was quite fascinating and the best way to see a whole city. We have used then in New York, which is interesting because New York is actually very like York with its varied and colorful – albeit shorter – history. I could have spent a lot longer in York, as in a few weeks. But alas this is a taste testing trip, the goal is to see as many things as we can in a very limited amount of time with the intention of coming back to these places one day in the future for the extensive, in-depth viewing.  

From there we made our way to the Dales of Yorkshire. Now I need to address a few oddities of our Sat Nav, Elizabeth Wooton-Bassett, as she has been named. Now Elizabeth seems to be quite insistent that we see a few of her favorite sights in tiny little towns. She also seems quite adverse to town bypasses. She seems to take us on the most round about ways that can not possibly be the proper way to our destination. Now this is a bit annoying, but admittedly we have seen some interesting things in our incomprehensible squiggle driving at Elizabeth’s request.

There are a lot of wind power generators that we have passed, they are magnificent. I have always loved them because they are honestly beautiful and also are such a symbol of modern environmental responsibility. I love it.

Driving through the Dales was brilliant. The scenery was some of the best I had seen ever. Glowing green fields divided into rectangular paddocks by stone walls. They criss cross the countryside – which is steep hills on both sides – and it is dotted with white sheep. The stone walls were phenomenal, just imagining how long it would have taken to build so many dry wall fences. And also the sheer amount of stone that it would take. I think it must have been a multi purpose venture, one to fence the sheep and two to clear the fields of half exposed stone to make the land suitable for grazing.

We had an interesting time stopping and attempting to take a timer delay photo of us together on the side of the road. Between the camera going flat, the unstable surfaces to rest the camera on, the wind that kept blowing said camera over and the stinging nettle I sat on, interesting, yes.

The B&B was lovely and we headed across to the next town for a pub dinner where finally I got to drink a pint with some local lads. Finally. Just had a nice chat about cultural differences, accents and such. They were headed to another town to a club and offered for me to tag along, but alas they didn’t have enough room in their car. Would have loved that, but it was not to be.

Sleep will also be good, another big day tomorrow.