AWAAGH WI' THE SCOTS

Friday May 28th
I'm writing this from Lochton near Coldstream in Scottish Border country. We are staying with our good friends John and Ros Aitchison who own a farm here. We've been in Scotland since Wednesday after taking an early train from Kings Cross. Four and a half hours later we stepped onto the platform at Edinburgh's Waverley Station. We'd booked into a hotel called the Scotsman, and we were about to follow a set of directions I'd printed up, when we spotted a green door directly across the road. This was the basement entrance to our hotel. Once inside, we learned what a great choice of hotel we'd made. The building was originally the offices and press room of the Scotsman newspaper but it's been converted into a hotel with charming rooms and halls and corridors lined with oak panels and lovely old Scottish prints. The service was superb. Every staff member would greet you with a smile and say good afternoon Mr and Mrs Ryan. Once we'd settled into our room Barbara and I headed out to some exploring. This city is much smaller than London of course, and the architecture is mainly grey stone. It's very easy to navigate and we were soon on the famous Royal Mile and then to Princes Street which is dominated by a huge monument to Sir Walter Scott. There are lots of gardens and lots of double decker buses. And on street corners we passed kilted pipers playing....and playing....and playing!
Barbara and I got on one of those hop on hop off buses and took an hour long tour of the city, craning up to stare at Edinburgh Castle, and down past St Giles Cathedral and tartan bedecked souvenir shops with kilts of every type and sporrans. The cheapest of these were about £20.(Pure tat) But a good kilt can cost upwards of £800.
The Royal Mile is actually a series of connected streets which run down from Edinburgh Castle at one end to Holyrood House (where the Queen stays) at the other.And leading off either side, scores of little closes. Bakehouse Close, Sugarhour Close ,Fleshmarket Close,Carubbers Close, Mary Kings Close (more about that one later) and many more. These are very narrow steep alleyways that run off the main streets. They are centuries old and at one time they all ran down to a waterway which was filled mostly with sewage, but also was used as drinking water. When we reached Holyrood House our bus took up past the New Scottish Parliament House, a somewhat controversial piece of modern Spanish architecture. It's a little beyond here that you break away from the busier streets to a 600 acres public park called Arthur's Seat. This is an enormous cliff which rises high above the city, a bit like Mt Wellington behind Hobart. Whoever originally owned it, donated it to the city. After all there is really nothing else you could have done with it.
We left our bus and walked back along the Royal Mile in search of coffee.
We spotted a charming little place where they served coffee and cakes. You might have described it as typically Scottish only it wasn't. It was Turkish.
Then we went exploring again, this time down one those narrow closes. It opened out into a small square with St Patrick's catholic church in the middle. Inside it was nothing special but for a shrine to Margaret Sinclair. No, we'd never heard of her either. But apparently she lived from 1900 to 1925 and since then she's been credited with some miraculous answers to people's prayers. So much so that there's apparently a bit of a move to declare her a saint. Then we hopped back on the bus and back to the railway station and Sir Walter Scott's memorial. The bagpipers had changed shifts by now, and the entertainment was being provided by a bloke in red tartan kilt and a great big bearskin hat.
It was nearly dinnertime so we found a pub near our hotel, called the Doric where the food was cheap and good, and then home to bed.
We had arranged to meet our friends John and Ros at 11am the next day, so after an excellent breakfast we packed and checked out before doing a bracing walk around the park on Princes Street. The plan was to drive back to John and Ros' later that day but there was still time for some more sightseeing. John's Mercedes hove into view and we threw our bag in the back and set off.
I mentioned Mary King's Close earlier, and that's what we wanted to see. Why? Because back in the middle 1700's the city fathers decided to build what became known as The Royal Exchange.
Now you have to remember that these closes were actually quite steep slopes and they were only about two arms width. They were mostly overcrowded and filthywith something over 600 people living in squalor. So when they built the Royal Exchange, which called for an area of level ground, they simply cropped off the tops of the Close buildings, some of them eight storys high, and built over the top, basically covering over Mary King's Close below. But you still had houses and shops down in the darkness and people continued to live there for a couple of hundred years. The last family to leave was in the nineteenth century. It's only relatively recently that the place was opened up and made safe enough to entice the tourists.
So we spent an hour being guided through a labyrinth of dark passageways and rooms beneath the streets of modern Edinburgh, being shown the tiny hovels and dank airless street, being told stories of how the plague struck the city and the murders that took place here and so on. Of course there are also tales of ghosts and ghoulies too and the guide took every opportunity to scare the wits out of her charges. There are still places where you can stand in the street and look up the sloping thoroughfare to where you can just see daylight above. There were windows and doors but daylight was almost completely absent, hence the somehwat sepia tone of the photo of all of us. It was a fascinating experience and also a highly entertaining one. Feeling slightly exhausted by all this pestilence and misery, we went in search of lunch. Strolling past old book shops and bric a mrac stalls and even a cheese shop, we found a place where we could get a pie and salad for seven quid.
Then Ros and John went shopping while Barbara and I, having spent the morning at the bottom of Edinburgh, set out to go to the top; i.e. Edinburgh Castle. We've all seen this majestic old castle before, when they broadcast the Edinburgh Tattoo on ABC television, but to climb the cobbled roadway and step through the great portcullised gate is another thing again. The castle is perched on an extinct volcano and there have been buildings here since the 12th century. The castle itself is made up of a mix of architectural styles reflecting its role as both a fortress and as a seat of kings. From the parapets you can command a sweeping view of the whole city. Inside you can learn something of the history and view the Scottish crown jewels. On the walls of the Great Hall are displays of broadswords and rapiers and pistols and old flintlocks, and suits of armour. This is still a working barracks and Barb had her picture taken with an obliging group of "squaddies".
Time caught up with us again eventually and we rejoined Ros and John to drive back to their house. On the way we passed the Roslyn Chapel, an ancient stone building made famous in the Da Vinci Code, but with a real non-fictional history of its own. It was undergoing an extensive refurbishment so we didn't go in.
That evening, after a wash and clean up, John said we'd visit what he called Ros' pub. This is a cosy pub up the road, which was saved from closureby the locals all buying shares in it. Thus Ros is now a part owner of a pub. The place is called the Fisherman's Arms and it's quite close to the Tweed River, a popular place for trout and salmon.
And in fact both were on the menu. The smoked salmon was local, the scallops were local, and the delicious shoulder of Border lamb was local too.
Even the two pints of beer which I managed, was local.
Also dining in that evening was a family from Deniliquin who were friends of friends of Ros and John, so we ended the night with them coming back for coffee and John forcing "a few wee drams" of single malt whiskey on us. We slept very well last night!
And today we've done absolutely nothing.

A GREAT DINNER

Tuesday May 25th

Last night Fritha and Anthony, Paul and Katy and Barbara and I went out together for dinner. We met at a restaurant called Rhodes 24. This place is on the 24th floor of the tallest building in London, Building 42, in the heart of London's financial area. It's owned by a well known chef, Gary Rhodes, who specialises in British cuisine. Yes there is such a thing. It was the first place I've ever had to pass through airport style security in order to have a meal.

We had a table by the window, looking out across London as the sun went down. Quite spectacular!

And so was the food. I won't go into the whole menu, suffice to say that every dish was beautifully prepared and wonderfully presented. There was fillet of beef with creamy mashed potatoes served in a separate copper dish with butter melted in the middle. There was monkfish, and pate de foie gras, and even bread and butter pudding and a wonderful array of other dishes. Each course was broken by some sort of palate cleanser, and of course the wine flowed. The waiters just hovered around, not constantly trying to fill us with wine, but there when your glass needed attention. So nobody got drunk and the conversation was bright and cheery.

All in all a memorable evening...and home by midnight.

Then today, after a good night's sleep Fritha and Barbara and I took a wander around Petticoat Lane Market and Spitalfields Market. Petticoat Lane was nothing like I remember it back in the seventies. Then it was very lively with stall holders selling all sorts of tat. Today it is mostly clothing stalls and coffee shops.

The name Spitalfields has its origins in the fact that once this was open fields in the vicinity of one of the hoSPITALS of London...hence ..SPITAL FIELDS. Now it's in the middle of a busy retail area, a bit run down but with lots of colour. Here too are lots of cafes and lunch places and rows and rows of stalls selling clothes and cd's and bric a brac. Our walk by the way, took us through parts of Whitechapel, famous as the haunt of Jack the Ripper in Victorian times. We stopped there for lunch and then caught a bus back to the more salubrious Limehouse. We have some packing to do tonight as we have to catch an early train to Edinburgh in the morning. Tell you about that when we get back!

NOW WHERE WAS I?

Monday May 17th

I swear we are getting too old for all this galivanting about.

Having arrived back in London on Sunday evening we got to bed pretty early. We'd booked on a train to Norfolk for early afternoon on Monday which gave us a chance for a sleep in.

Then we set out once again, this time for a place called Wymondham in Norfolk. Now you would think the name would be pronounced Wye-mond-ham of Wim-mond-ham wouldn't you.

Wrongggg!

It's Windum.

So we discovered from the taxi driver who picked us up at the station later in the day.

Well Wymondham (Windum) turned out to be an absolutely charming town which dates back to Saxon times and is mentioned in the Domesday Book, as an important market town even before the Normans arrived.

It is set in the middle of green pasture with grazing sheep and a winding river called the River Tiffey. The streets are very narrow with many Tudor style houses leaning out over the cobbled throughfare. In the centre of the town is the market square and in the centre of that, a "Market Cross" which was built in 1617AD.

Barbara and I were staying at the Abbey Hotel, aptly named because right across the road is The Abbey Church which was founded in 1107AD. As we were to learn, this place is steeped in history. The oldest pub, the Green Dragon, goes back to the 15th century.and even the railway station is 165 years old.

That's what we picked up in the first few hours in Wymondham. So with a full day ahead tomorrow, we enjoyed an early dinner and a few glasses of wine, before hitting the sack.

Tuesday May 18th

The next morning saw us up reasonable early, with the weather good although a little chilly. After breakfast we headed off with a view to trying to see something of the Norfolk Broads. These are large areas of wetlands and canals which criss cross this county. The lakes were formed after centuries of peat digging which left huge areas of land below sea level. These are mostly fields of pasture with long draiage creeks around them, and these in turn feed the lake areas and canals. So Norfolk is a very popular boating spot.

IOur travels took us back to the railway station, by train into Norwich (the capital) and then out to a town called Lowestoft, then another change to get a local train to the town of Beccles.

In Beccles there are a lot of people who muck around in boats. And of course there are the mandatory ancient church ruins, and narrow streets leading down to the Quay. Barbara and I lunched at a local tearooms which looked like something out of a 1950's Ealing comedy. It was all pink with chintzy decorations. But the food was cheap and nourishing. Fortified we headed down to the Quay hoping to take a boat trip on the Broads. No Luck. It was too early in the season. So we spent the next hour or so walking along the canals past moored boats of all sizes and shapes., and listening to the birds providing a twittery musical background. We stopped on a little track at one stage as a tiny field mouse suddenly appeared busily skittering around. He sisn't spot us and came almost up to us. Then at the last moment he raced off into the grass and froze under some bushes, apparently believing he couldn't be seen.

Then we strolled on and back to the quayside where we bought ice creams with Chocolate Flake bars stuck in them.

We got back to Wymondham in plenty of time for tea. Despite no boat trip, we'd enjoyed a pleasant and quite relaxing afternoon.

Wednesday May 19th

On Wednesday morning we got up early and went for a walk along the river before breakfast. The place was very quiet except for the cooing of doves and the song of thrushes and other birds. We followed the river virtually right around the town, down a very leafy green pathway, and every now and then we could see the old Abbey church against the skyline, with sheep grazing in the surrounding fields. Very rustic.

After breakfast we had only a few hours left. Our plan was to visit the Abbey and a locasl heritage museum and then with luck, try to go back through Norwich and see some of its older parts. But time caught up with us and rather than rush we decided we'd spend a little time at the museum and then the Abbey before catching our train.

The museum used to be part of what was kn own as a "Bridewell" house of correction. By all accounts they were pretty horrible places where people could be incarcerated in terrible conditions for the most petty of crimes. They were appaently reformed and rebuilt in 1785 by a reformer named, believe it or not, John Howard.

Our l;ast visit was to the Abbey, named for St Mary and St Thomas of Canterbury. It was originally meant to serve both the Benedictine monks and the people of Wymondham.

Inside you can see these high vaulted wooden ceilings, and a long nave leading to the altar at the far end. The Monks tower built in 1390, dominates the altar end but that has been blocked off

and is in disrepair. The blank wall has been decorated now with an enormous gilt screen commemorating the dead of WW1.

Our last Wymondham experience was on the actual railway station whose tearooms are a replica of the one in the forties film "Brief Encounter" by Noel Coward. I don't know if you've ever seen it but it starred Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson and was terribly terribly twee by today's standards.

Well this place had tables with seats from old LNER carriages and the walls were lined with photos of Wymondham station staff from the 20's and of course lots of photos of Trev & Celia from the movie. We had coffee there while waiting for our train, and they even sold awful old rock cakes of the sort sold back in those days. We drew the line at them however.

Thursday May 20th

Back in London and Barbara and I were off into town again, this time to meet our son Paul's family, (Paul and Katy and children Oliver and Clare) We were to meet them in Baker Street, so I took the opportunity to visit the alleged address of Sherlock Holmes, 221B Baker St. It was of course all for the tourists but I had to have my photo taken with a Victorian copper outside 221B

Then the family arrived and we set off to explore. We thought the children would enjoy the Tower of London, so they all took one of those hop-on hop-off buses to see some of the sights and we arranged to meet them at the Tower.

We had done this tour before but nonetheless it was very interesting. We all followed a Beefeater guide through the various areas of the Tower, while he explained the history of the place, mainly who lost his or her head here and why. The children were absolutely enthralled by it all. They tried on ancient helmets and examined cross bows and pikes, and listened to the grisly tales of beheadings and murders. Oliver and a couple of other boys were right up at the front when the guide told the story of the little Princes in the Tower and how years later they (and here he looked straight down at them) "dug up the bones of ...two...young.....boys".

And then of course they got to see the Crown Jewels. Clare, who goes in for princessy things, was most impressed and Barb suggested that given that the Queen has so many crowns and could only wear one at a time, she should write to her and see if she could borrow a small one.

Friday May 21st

Packing our bags again, this time heading for Southampton to catch up with some friends Roy and Carol Betteridge.

You may remember we had met them in 2008 while doing that bus tour in Europe. We hit it off with them then, and they invited us to stay with them again.

When we reached Southampton they were waiting to pick us up, and after hugs kisses and handshakes, we drove back to their house, spending the next few hours sitting in their charming garden, while the sun faded and we consumed far too much delicious wine. Oh and we also walked their dog Daisy.

Carol had prepared a superb dinner (with more wine) so there was a great deal of laughter and reminiscing and discussions about kids and the government and lots of other topics, before finally calling it a night.

Saturday May 22nd

On Saturday morning we were in the garden again in perfect Spring weather. The birds were singing and you could smell lilac. We sat and read the papers over coffee and croissants and toast (with Vegemite).

Late morning saw us driving to Salisbury to see Britain's finest 13th Century Cathedral. Even before we arrived there, we could see the steeple standing out against the sky. It is the tallest spire in the country.

Once parked we strolled past Saturday market stalls alongside the River Avon, (not the Stratford one) past the green where Ted Heath (late PM of Britain) used to live, through an ancient city gate into the precinct of the cathedral itself. Everything about this building and its surrounds is just mind blowing. The medieval Cloisters, and within them, the Cathedral Close are said to be the most beautiful in the country. Green lawns with two shady oak trees in the middle, and around them the arched windows of the cloisters It's hard to believe that monks were saying their daily prayers here 750 years ago.

Inside were the tombs of ancient Lords and Knights and Bishops and memorials to generations of benefactors over the centuries.

We spent a couple of hours ooing and ahhing over everything, especially an original copy of the Magna Carta, one of only four surviving originals (c 1215)

Roy suggested we might like to visit old Sarum, which is the old Roman name for Salisbury and there are ruins of those times outside the modern city. But first we visited the Haunch of Venison, and ancient pub for lunch. After last night's wine I only managed a half.

Old Sarum at first encounter seems like a lot of half finished stone walls stretched out over a series of hills and valleys. But in fact this is an enormous fortress which was part of the early settlement of Salisbury. There is evidence of habitation here from 3000BC but the building of fortress centering on one big hill dates to Roman times. Then came the Anglo Saxons and the Normans and they build a palace and castles here.Eleanor of Aquitaine was imprisoned in one of them in 1173. And in 1220 there was a Cathedral built but only the foundations remain today.

Once again, just when you've got your head around places 750 years old, and then you stand in the footprints of people from Roman times and even Neolithic.

Time to go home for a nap prior to going out for a final dinner with our hosts. We had a table at a Brasserie in Winchester run by a celebrity chef called Raymond Blanc.

The meal was absolutely beautiful, very French but not so much that you felt overfed. We managed three delicious courses. But the company was the main thing for us. I don't think we stopped talking until we'd had coffee at home and the late hour finally caught up.

Sunday May 23rd

One last breakfast in the morning sun, and it was time to pack again and head back to Southampton railway station. It was really hard to say goodbye again to our friends, but hopefully we'll come back again some day.

Our train took us this time to Reading where Fritha and Anthony picked us up. We had arranged a family and friends lunch in a fabulous old pub. After a bit of messing about we found "The Royal Standard of England" pub which dates back to Saxon times and has a lovely beer garden. On this fine spring day it was perfect to sit out and enjoy Sunday lunch. Paul and Katy and Oliver and Clare were there, as was Katy's best friend Katrina and husband Brenda and their two daughters, an old friend of Paul's, Terry and his partner and two children, plus Barbara and I and Fritha and Anthony.

The next two hours were filled with the sound of Aussie accents and children playing and the consumption of pints of ale and roast beef with Yorkshire pudding.

And then we drove back to London and sleep. Our trip is winding down but not quite yet. Tomorrow Barbara and I and Fritha and Anthony meet Paul & Katy for dinner at a posh London restaurant.

SPANISH INTERLUDE AND ONWARDS

It's been a while since I attended to this blog, but we've been a bit busy experiencing stuff to put in it.

Going back to one week ago. Friday and Fritha, Anthony and I set off to Madrid to meet up with Barbara. We had some worries about volcano ash and about a threatened strike by BA employees but fortunately they came to nothing. The flight into Madrid took an hour and fifty minutes and was uneventful. Having passed through immigration, Anthony said "Instead of getting a taxi, why don't we have ourselves a little adventure, a use the Metro."

We agreed and we bought tickets on a machine before descending to the underground station. We studied the map and found we needed to make two changes. These were straight forward enough until we boarded a very crowded train. We were squashed in and Anthony suddenly said he thought his wallet had gone. As he spoke, we saw a rather shifty little guy by the door, suddenly step off the train just as the doors were closing. Our worst fears were realised. Not only was Anthony's wallet and credit cards gone, but worst of all, so was his passport.We emerged into the sunlight from the Metro to find ourselves a few meters from the Hotel Nacional

where we were staying. It was located on a wide tree lined avenue called Paseo del Prada, and looked out over beautiful botanical gardens just across the road.

But for now, once we'd checked in, our first priority was to report Anthony's loss and see what could be done. He spoke to the police by phone and they immediately put an English speaking officer on the line. He took a statement and asked Anthony to visit a nearby police station to sign it off. Then Anthony spoke to the Australian Embassy and they took his details. It being the end of the week they could only offer a replacement passport on the next Monday. That meant Anthony would have to stay an extra day. Fortunately he had another wallet with other cards in it, so he decided on a "kismet" approach and we set off to enjoy our time in Madrid.

We went out and a few hundred meters up the crowded street, spotted a nice little bar. Inside we ordered three beers, in large foaming pots. We went three rounds, and every time the beers arrived, they were accompanied by tapas bowls of delicious titbits, meat, fish, chicken and more.

Then, suitably charged we moved on down the street looking for dinner.

We found a place called Museo de Jambon, which loosely means Gallery of Ham.

There are several of these places in the city and as we discovered, their walls are lined with hundreds of cured hams, and the menu is ham,ham,ham, in every edible form.

Needless to say there was wine and dinner included a little ham...delicious!

We got back to our hotel and enjoyed a few more drinks in the lobby bar, and then bed.

Saturday dawned overcast but quite warm so after breakfast we decided to take one of those hop on hop off bus tours around the city. I had to go to the airport in the afternoon to meet Barbara who was flying in from Guayaquil, Equador. So we spent the next few hours admiring Spanish baroque buildings and monuments and lovely gardens and apartment buildings all over the city. There was some kind of festival on and the streets were very busy. Every now and then we'd see families dressed in traditional costume, the women and little girls in long frocks and headscarves with red and white flowers, and the men and boys in white shirts black trousers and flat checked caps.

It was lunchtime so we snatched a quick meal in a local restaurant, and then I set off alone for Madrid Airport, to meet Barbara.

We had arranged to go to a restaurant that evening, which specialised in traditional food and flamenco dancing.

My Spanish is very very limited so I was only able to tell my driver "Aeropuerto", which he grasped allright but he had no English at all and asked me something in Spanish which I took to be "Arrivals or departures", but I wasn't sure and had no means of telling him. I was able to convey the number of the terminal however, and after a couple of mistakes we got to where I needed to be.

Then disaster! I looked at the arrivals board and found Barbara's flight...which was delayed by four hours.

I negotiated the mystery of Spanish public phones and told Fritha and Anthony that we weren't going to make that dinner, and gritting my teeth, settled in for a long wait.

At last four hours later, Barbara appeared dragging her case through the arrival doors.

Great rejoicing and hugs and kisses, then we piled into a cab and headed back to town.

Fritha and Anthony had given the arranged dinner a miss and had spent the evening exploring.

We enjoyed drinks in the bar again, while Barb told us about her fabulous travels in Sth America. Then after a while,fatigue caught up and it was bedtime. (By the way, we'll do Barb's South American experience separately when we get back in June)

In the morning, with the sun shining, we took a Sunday stroll before Barbara attempted to get a seat on the same plane as we were. She was originally booked on a flight which would have got her to Heathrow about six hours later than us. After a lot of messing around she succeeded in getting on our plane due to leave in the early afternoon. Then when we got to the airport we found that BA had put her on a flight for the 16th of MARCH. Impossible, so we had to wait until the BA man got it sorted and we finely headed back to UK late in the afternoon.

Knackered, we got home and crashed. The next two days would be spent relaxing in the rustic peace of Norfolk.

CATHEDRAL FRENZY

Thursday May 13th

In my constant search for bigger and better old cathedrals I took a 3 hour train journey to Durham yesterday. This took me through miles and miles of rolling countryside in that wonderful patchwork of green and gold edged with hedgerows. There are spring lambs all over the place and horses and cows and it's all very rustic, except when you pass through some industrialised town like Peterborough or Darlington or Doncaster. My stop was the last one before Newcastle and I arrived just after noon. I took a short taxi ride through the township of winding cobbled winding streets, not to say that this is an old fashioned place. Some of it is quaint, but there are plenty of Tescos and Waitroses and shopping malls too. What I did find very quaint is the accent of the locals...very Geordie. If you remember that TV series, "When the Boat Comes In", well it was all like that.

In ten minutes my taxi pulled up on one side of Palace Green.

In front of me the great stone mass of Durham Cathedral stood in Norman (Romanesque) majesty.

To one side, a row of very old sandstone almshouses, to the other the centuries old buildings of what is now Durham University Library. And behind me, half hidden by a stone wall covered in ivy, and overhung with blossoming fruit trees, the parapets of Durham Castle.

You could smell the history of this place. Inside the cathedral was all that it promised to be.

There have been bishops here since 995AD so this is a very old building. In fact the building was begun in 1093 and took 40yrs to complete. When you stand in the nave you are immediately struck by the sheer size of it. This is the largest Norman building in the world and when you look at the rows of massive stone columns stretching away down to the high alter, you believe it. And then you look upwards to a vaulted ceiling which seems to reach the sky. I was told the stone ribs which hold the stone ceiling in place were revolutionary for their time, as were the flying buttresses which support it from the outside.

And then you walk slowly along the the perimeters of the nave past medieval tombstones and monuments. There is a shrine to St Cuthbert, an English saint whose remains rest below the floor. He was apparently the founder of a Benedictine monastery in the tenth century.

And in the Lady Chapel, there is a black marble tomb, where lies the Venerable Bede. He was, so my friend Google tells me, an Anglo Saxon chronicler, priest and theologian, born in Durham and died in 735AD.

For a simple antipodean, it is sometimes hard to comprehend history that far back. And then there's Greek and Roman history and so much before that.

I spent so much time drinking all this in, that the clock caught up with me. I had to meet my train at 4pm so I had only half an hour to spend in Durham Castle. Because most of this building makes up accommodation for students of Durham Uni, you can't visit all the rooms, but it seemed to be very much an extension builders dream. The castle was occupied by Norman conquerors at first and they built the round tower or keep to ward off marauding Scots and rebellious locals. Then they were replaced by what were known as Prince Bishops. The theory was that they would get the respect of everyone, backed up with some military muscle when needed. This system worked apparently from 1080AD to the 19th century. And just about every bishop that held the post stuck a bit onto the building. So now there are extra walls and inner courts and long galleries all over the place. And all of them from different architectural periods. If I had to choose one place that impressed me most, it was the Great Hall. You can just imagine the banquets and the booze up that happened here over the centuries. And it is still used today, on a weekly basis, when students of the college, in black tie and dinner jackets, gather for a formal dinner. Like something out of Tom Brown's School-days or Harry Potter, the students occupy the body of the hall at long candle lit tables, while the Masters and their guests sit at "high table"looking down on them. And speaking of Harry Potter, I'm told this area has a bit of a movie history. The banquet scenes at Hogwarts were filmed in the great hall. Also the race around the cloisters which took place in Chariots of Fire, was actually filmed in the cloisters of Durham Cathedral. So there's some modern history, but it really doesn't hold a candle to St Cuthbert and St Bede.

Tomorrow (Fri) Fritha and Anthony and I fly to Madrid to meet Barbara who is coming in from South America. We only have a brief stop there for the weekend, but I expect Barbara will be too tired to do much there anyway.

Before closing I must say it has been fascinating watching the historic political events here over the past few days. Not knowing much about UK politics, I can only say that if nothing much else changes, they are at least changing the voting system from first past the post to some sort of alternative vote. Not quite preferential but it's go to be better than what they have now.

EXPLORING

Sunday

In the past three days I've been doing a bit of exploring around London before heading to other cities. Last Sunday having sorted my photos etc, Fritha and Anthony took me out to Beckenham to see their house. The area is very pleasant, very leafy with lots of parkland close by. Indeed right across the road is the Kent County Cricket Club, and five minutes away is a very beautiful golf club. What more could they ask for?

Monday

Another relatively quiet day, but in the afternoon, despite a somewhat chilly wind and overcast skies, I headed off to Lambeth, and the Imperial War Museum. I've been there before but there are always new exhibits, and plenty of time to spend looking at historical objects and documents, and this is what I did. One of the most moving exhibits is called "The Children's War". It tells the stories of the children of London who were evacuated during the blitz and the stories of the kids of the Kinderstransport, Austrian and German Jewish children who were sent to Britain before war broke out.

But it's the displays of children's personal things, letters written to parents, tiny toys and books that children carried with them, a small pair of round metal rimmed glasses, a miniature copy of Jewish prayers, a handkerchief embroidered by a mother in Austria, possibly farewelling her child for the last time...these are the things that I found most moving. There was one story about a little Austrian girl who arrived in England, alone and frightened. From the railway station she saw across the road, a sign above a shop which said "Gift Shop." In German "Gift" means poison.

The little girl was convinced that she and her fellow refugees were about to be killed. That just choked me up.

Of course there are many many stories, and exhibits of famous battles of the world wars and a score of other wars. I spent several hours wandering through these exhibits, before heading to Fritha and Anthony's place.

Tuesday

Today has been a most interesting one. I spent several hours at St Paul's Cathedral. I took one of those audio supported tours which told a great deal about the significance of this magnificent building. I didn't know that it was the first cathedral built, unconnected to the Roman church.

But it is the architecture and the things inside this structure that are mind boggling. The whole building gives a wonderful sense of light and space. It is almost as if the place is larger on the inside than it is outside.(Rather like the Tardis)

The nave is impressive, but then you walk towards the high altar and under the great dome towering 365 feet above you, one foot for each day of the year.

As it happened there followed, a service which was conducted by a priest. Much of it was pretty much familiar to me as a Mick and I joined the worshippers for half an hour or so. Afterwards I shook hands with the priest and expressed the hope that one day my faith too would have women priests. She replied that she hoped and prayed so too. And then there are the monuments to the great figures of British history. In the crypt there are the tombs of Wellington and Nelson, two huge granite monolithic structures raised on imposing plinths, paying tribute to the heroes of Waterloo and Trafalgar.

And there are monuments too to Churchill, to Florence Nightingale, to Gordon of Khartoum and many many more.

Also in the crypt there is a shop and a cafe. Because photographs in the cathedral are banned, I bought several post cards and then I had lunch in the cafe. I had barely finished when an alarm went off and we were told there was an emergency and we had to leave. There was no fire, and at least I had finished eating. My journey then took me down Ludgate Hill away from the cathedral and on into Fleet Street, then right into Chancery Lane. I came to a place called the Silver Vaults. You go down several flights of steps to a long corridor of underground shop, all of them bursting at the seams with silver. Each shop is indeed a vault, with great steel doors, and inside silver silver silver. The shops are open to the public and you can buy anything in silver that you can imagine. There are silver antiques, jewellery, table decorations, cutlery, coffee and tea services, silver plate, silver trophies, silver statues, silver birds and animals. Got the picture?

There was a lot of silver.

And then back onto the tube heading for my last port of call for today, Highgate Cemetery.

I alighted at Archway tube station and out into Highgate. It was a long walk up a hill to the cemetery, but worth it. This is not a very old cemetery, having only been around since Victorian times, but it has an almost Gothic atmosphere, with hundreds of tombstones and monuments all topsy turvy and overgrown with ivy. It's not the sort of place you'd want to wander about at night. However in the daytime you can find dozens of famous names among the ruins. The most famous monument is that of Karl Marx, but there are many more. George Eliot,(real name Mary Ann Evans) author of The Mill on the Floss and Silas Marner, also Herbert Spencer,British philosopher and sociologist and surprise surprise, the Australian artist, Sidney Nolan. It was getting late and the cemetery was closing, so headed back. Tomorrow I'm going to Durham to see their castle and yet another cathedral.

A VERY QUIET WEEKEND

The relentless pace of travelling has slowed down somewhat. Friday was a very quiet day which I spent either sleeping or working on my photos and blog. And then disaster! All of my photos are on a memory stick, and late on Friday there was a funny little "plunk" and the memory stick along with all its contents simply vanished. As well as photos, the stick contained all my accounts and password details as well as every photo I have taken here and I had deleted from my camera.

So Saturday saw me walking through suburban streets passed all sorts of districts and local markets, looking for a PC World shop to see if they could fix the stick. The walk was interesting enough. The markets were busy places with all sorts of people doing weekend shopping. I was in the Mile End Road and all around me were women in burquas and men in turbans and people shouting their wares in English and Hindi and Arabic and God knows what else. And more importantly everybody rubbing along cheerfully, side by side.

Eventually I found the PC place but they said they could do nothing because the USB wouldn't even load up.

Home again with a new 4GB stick. I realised that I could recover some photos from the recycle bin of Fritha's laptop. And then Anthony found a free download designed to recover deleted data from the camera card. So I have now saved every photo I have ever taken on this camera. Success!

Last night the three of us had a pleasant dinner at an Italian place near F& V's and got home after a few glasses of wine. The only downside was a tummy upset which hit me just before bedtime. I spent a slightly restless night alternating between bed and the loo.

It's Sunday and I am feeling much better. Today we might go down to Beckenham in Kent to see Fritha and Antony's new house. They haven't actually got it yet but the paperwork etc is under weigh. More later.

MORE WANDERINGS

The past two days have involved a lot of walking and a lot of train travel. On Wednesday I decided to revisit our old haunt in the Cotswolds. It's no great distance out of London so I took my time getting to Paddington only to find I had a ninety minute wait for the train I needed. I bought the Guardian and settled down over coffee, and the time passsed quickly enough. The journey out takes about an hour and twenty minutes taking me through miles of green fields patchworked with the gold of rapeseed crops in full bloom. Also depressing towns like Slough and Reading. Slough you might remember is the awful place which was the setting for "The Office" TV series. The one time poet laureate, John Betjemin wrote about Slough...

"Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough.

It isn't fit for humans now."

If you want to get really depressed, I recommend you Google it some time.

Anyway my train eventually tipped me out at Charlbury, about a ten minute bus ride to Ascott Under Wychwood. Except there was no bus was there. And not likely to be one for some time!

So I called the local taxi who did the job for ten quid and there I was back in what I fondly remembered as "our village", where the lilacs were in bloom and the jackdaws soared over the farmhouse across from our place. Lovely! I'll just stroll into the Swan for a couple of pints with old friends. Not!

The pub was closed until 5.30pm.I'd forgotten about pub hours here. So I went across to Crown Farm where our house was and knocked on the door of our old neighbour, Robin. No answer! He wasn't home.

Undaunted I strolled around to the village green and the village shop past the village school. The whole place seemed utterly deserted. I even spent some time sitting on the old stone bridge photographing the River Evenlode. There were some sheep there but they didn't have much to say either. Too busy looking after their spring lambs I expect!

With the afternoon winding down I tried Robin's place once more. This time he was home and stunned to find me on his doorstop. Minutes later I was drinking coffee with Robin and his auntie Dorothy who'd come to stray, and we were talking old times and catching up on all the gossip. Auntie Dorothy said "Why don't you two go and have a drink?" but I said the pub was closed until 5.30 and I had to get the taxi for the station at 10 to 6. Robin said the Swan might be closed but we could go to The Lamb in the next village.

Ten minutes later we were ensconced in the snug of this lovely old low ceilinged pub with pints in hand. I did want to spend a few minutes in our old pub, the Swan, so come 5.30 Robin dropped me off there, and we said goodbye. Just as I was coming around the back of the Swan, Rick the pub owner was coming towards me to open up. He was utterly gobsmacked to see me and warmly invited me into the bar to buy me a beer. Then I bought him one, so that was four pints for the afternoon. The outlook was improving.

All too soon the time caught up and at 10 to 6 I checked through the window to see if my cab was there. He was, so I said goodbye and left. By the time I reached the car park there was no sign of that cab.He'd taken off. I had no chance of catching the train I was aiming for, so there was nothing else for it but to return to the bar of the Swan . Rick was catering for a birthday party that evening, so I just sat in a corner chatting to the locals and enjoying a few more pints of ale.

Then Robin arrived again and introduced me to his mates and the night went on from there, with much laughter and friendly chat. I'm not sure what time it was when I finally phoned another cab and headed back to Charlbury station. I promised that when Barbara arrives in London, we would try to come down for lunch if we possibly can.

I got home to Fritha's place at 11.45 that night, and crashed. After the initial slow start, the day had been just great.

Thursday morning, with something of a hangover from all those pints, I arose at 7.30. I'd booked to take the train to Chester which is about 200 miles or so from London,on the River Dee in Cheshire on the Welsh border. It is a very old city, having first been a major Roman fort which housed some thousands of Roman soldiers a long time ago.

There are the remains of an amphitheatre which I wanted to see, as well as a very old cathedral which began life as an abbey.

My train journey took me from Euston Station to Crewe. Just about every major rail line in Britain passes through Crewe, and indeed if they didn't, I imagine Crewe wouldn't exist. By the time I got to Crewe to change trains it was about 1 o clock and I had three minutes to find the right platform. I did, but only just, and pushed onto a packed carriage bound for Chester. I had to stand in the entrance to the carriage, cheek by jowel with every regional accent coming at me from all directions. Obviously there was something happening in Chester today. Then I noticed that nearly every woman in the carriage was wearing a fascinator and very high heels. It was a race day at Chester, which boasts one of the oldest and smallest race courses in the UK.

Twenty minutes later I was on Chester station while a thousand blokes in suits with a thousand slutty looking women showing off as much flesh as legally allowed, headed across the road to the nearest pub. I thought I was at Oaks Day at Flemington.

Also it was wet and cold so I decided on one of those hop on hop off bus rides around the city. It cost a fiver but at least it was warm and dry. I was glad I did because I could check out what the city had to offer before going back to look more closely. I'm glad I did because there wasn't that much to see. The streets were pretty enough, with all the trees in blossom and many of the houses and shops dating back to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Every second building boasted that black and white style of plasterwork identified with the Tudors.Actually the colours black and white came into vogue in Victorian times. Before that the walls were plain and the beams were just timber coloured. Also that famed Roman amphitheatre turned out to be a small length of ancient wall and an outline of foundations in the ground. I did however, get out at the Cathedral.

This proved to be a very interesting building. There was originally a Druid temple here, and then when the Romans arrived it became a temple dedicated to Apollo. Then came William the Conqueror. He had a nephew, Hugh Lupus (Wolf Man) and the Norman Earl of Chester. He set up a monstery part of which still stands. After Henry the eighth closed the monasteries, the place metamorphosed into a cathedral and was saved from destruction. It's built in a very Romanesque style with arches meeting in a point, and great decorated ceiling bosses.
There is a shrine here to St Werbugh, a seventh century English saint who is the patron of the city of Chester.

So I spent a pleasant hour or so snapping pictures of cloisters, and ceiling bosses and ancient tomb slabs etc. There was a choir of girls from the local Queen's School practicing which provided a charming musical background to my exploring. I found a cafe which was actually in the original great refectory of the old abbey. There's something quite bizarre about sitting in a room eating cottage pie and veg and sipping a latte in the same place where medieval monks once chanted their prayers and enjoyed a haunch of venison.

By the time I left the cathedral it was around three o clock and I decided, having seen what I wanted to see, that it would be a good idea to get an early train before the race crowd, probably thoroughly tanked up by now, arrived back at the station. I think I slept through most of the trip back to London. Back at the flat we watched some of the election night coverage. Not very inspiring!

I cannot understand why they would hold an election on a working day, and why in a multi party

system they have first past the post voting. And then you have people who actually want to vote, being locked out of the voting station at ten pm after queuing for hours. It's mad!

I'm not planning much for today other than this blog. You'll find Barbara has done a couple of blog entries. They are only appearing now because she didn't hit the "publish" button.

She will be on a boat cruising around the Galapagos this weekend.

DOING THE TOURIST THING

The weather in London is starting to look a bit more like spring again, although it's pretty chilly in the wind.

The past 2 days have been sufficiently fine to warrant going out and doing touristy things. Yesterday Fritha and Anthony and I went back to where they used to live, in the area known as Little Venice. It's the junction of two of London's main canals with the huge turning basin where they meet. Every year scores of colourful narrow canal boats gather to show off. They are painted in bright colours and dressed up with flying pennants for the occasion. On the walks beside the canals were stalls selling every sort of tat you can imagine. And there was a lunch tent where we enjoyed baguettes stuffed with crackling and barbecued hog, and pints of real ale. (My cholesterol must have soared). Today Fritha and Anthony went off to work, so I continued the tourist theme and took the underground to Green Park across the road from Buckingham Palace. This of course is where they change the guard each day. The place was crowded with gawking tourists, just like me. And I don't care how anachronistic the whole show may be, it is a stirring sight. At first you can hear the beat of drums and distant martial music and then you see the glint of brass and the bright scarlet uniforms as the new guard, led by the band, comes swinging up the Mall and in through the great iron gates of the palace. For next the half hour there is much shouting of orders as each guard post is changed. Then the band strikes up again and the old guard marches out through the gates and back to barracks.

And then back on the tube to Baker Street, once the address of Sherlock Holmes, and Mme Tussaud's. I had bought my ticket online so avoiding the massive queue outside. And it was worth the visit. The waxworks vary a lot, some of them are extremely lifelike, others less so. The first one I encountered was Morgan Freeman and I had to look twice to be sure he wasn't real. And so it went through rooms featuring movie stars and sports stars and rock stars. I had myself photographed sitting at a coffee table with Audrey Hepburn in her Breakfast at Tiffany's role. Then on to rooms full of famous statesmen and women including Barak Obama, Tony Blair, and many more. Charles and Camilla are there of course, looking as bizarre as they do in real life. There was also a bloke named Adolf Hitler and quite close by, John Howard. That seemed not inappropriate, I must say.

The last bit of the visit leads you down into a dark dank dungeon and the Chamber of Horrors. This is not a place to get stuck behind teenage girls. There are lots of sudden noises and ghastly scenes of murder and mayhem, and this evokes screams of terror from the girls. There are waxworks of famous murderers, Crippin and John Christie and more. And there are bodies dangling from gibbets, or broken on the wheel or being tortured on the rack. All ghoulish stuff!

So that was my day. But the best part was that I spoke to Barbara by phone, after days of trying. I was sitting in the lounge at Fritha's flat, with the Thames flowing by and she was in a boat on Lale Titicaca, between Peru and Bolivia. She's having a terrific time, and raved about Machu Pichu. She hasn't had the opportunity to record her trip in this blog but she's keeping a diary and we'll put it all online when she gets to London. The big worry is that she seems to have bought a lot of stuff and says she needs to buy a new suitcase. Cripes!

CAMBRIDGE

Hello again. Just has a text from Barbara saying she is sitting on top of Machu Pichu having guinea-pig for lunch

The weather in London went back winter yesterday. Being Saturday, F and A slept in and then vegged out so I took a walk along the Thames, then to Canary Wharf for a delicious and healthy lunch of salmon caesar salad. I spent the next few hours in the Docklands Historical Museum. This is housed in an enormous old Docklands warehouse. It covered the history of the wharf area of the Thames from pre-Roman times to the present. There were fascinating exhibits of ship building, and every ancient craft such as rope making and barrel making, Docklands in the blitz and a recreated very sleazy street called Sailors' Walk, complete with the sounds of sea shanties and street sellers. I didn't know that during the war, this is where they built the Mulberry Harbours which were towed across the Channe after D Day. Also PLUTO, the pipeline under the sea, which supplied the Allies with fuel aster the landings.

Enough history! Coming outside I found the weather had turned nasty. I pressed on for home but got only half way before the skies opened. By the time I got back I was soaked to the skin with ice cold water. A hot shower and change made things better and we ended the evening at a nearby Indian restaurant.

Today dawned chilly and a bit wet but we decided to drive to Cambridge for lunch and a look around. It was well worth the effort. Cambridge is like most towns, with supermarkets and businesses all around the edges, but in the centre is the real Cambridge, dominated by the ancient colleges of Cambridge University. After a lunch in an Italian restaurant, we strolled around some of the colleges, Kings College, Trinity, and Gonville and Caius (pron Keys). This last is you'll recall, if you saw Chariots of Fire, was where the stars raced around the cloister against the chiming clock. (Except I later found out that they filmed it somewhere else. More later)

Lastly we visited Clare College which was the only one open to the public. We walked through leafy courtyards then into the college great hall where formal dinners are held. Then out again through Scholars' Garden, with blossoming trees and tulip beds. At the end of the path we walked onto a bridge across the River Cam, and spent a while watching punters guiding the craft up and down. The sun was out by then and with those punts gliding along between the leafy banks of the river one might have been in another more romantic era.Back in London now and an evening front of the tellie.