It’s funny what you can start to accept as routine, and even start to miss. For example, I miss having polite people regularly bringing me reasonably tasty food. (Margie was surprised that I described the food as tasty; but we flew on Singapore Airlines, and she has been flying with various budget companies, so we’ve had very different airline cuisine experiences.) But there is enough that I don’t miss about flying that the prospect of having to go back is hovering like a gathering storm-cloud at the back of my mind.
The wedding was a little stressful at the beginning (a little bit of rain in the morning, being told I needed to learn how to run a petrol generator, the bouncy castle people arriving when the groom and best man had disappeared to get petrol for the generator and wanting to get set up and paid); but it ended well, with the weather turning agreeable and the bridesmaids looking particularly lovely.
One of the bride’s friends was a folk musician (half of Playing Rapunzel), and played both for the bridal procession and after dinner; and then there was cake. A lot of cake. About six different kinds of cake, served by the happy couple (so they got a chance to say hello to everyone). And all in all, the couple did indeed seem very happy on the day.
The next day was cleaning up, and then Lydia (friend of the couple and native guide) took us off to Nemo’s for dinner. This is a pub next to an old quarry turned diving attraction, with things like cars, a double-decker bus and a small submarine in the water. C and I had traditional pub meals (chicken tikka masala & a chilli burger with cheesy fries), and got even more sunburnt than we’d managed the previous day.
Then it was one more night on the hated air mattress (which invariably deposited me on the floor by the end of the night), and then it was off to pick up our car, pick up some miscellaneous necessities (including a pair of shorts – there has been a heat wave!), and zoom off to Sherwood Forest (via a Services, so that we could see what they were like. This was a mixed day for C – she had the worst coffee she’s ever tasted in a Costa at the Services, but she managed to see her first squirrel in Sherwood Forest.
The oaks in Sherwood seemed big to me, but they’re apparently a lot shorter than they could be — all the good trees have been harvested, leaving only the lighting-struck and fungus-infected (meaning that they all much wider than they are tall). I don’t know whether that contributes to how creepily human some of them looked; I hope I managed to capture some of that in the photos I took. The forest itself reminded me of some of the relatively open wooded areas around Taupo; certainly not the tangled wilds that I imagined from our bush. But I don’t know what the woods were like at the time the legends were forming; and we weren’t there at night, in winter.
(The centre itself was fine, but very once-over-lightly from a history point of view; it’s aimed more at school groups, I would guess.)
Then it was on to York, checking into a nice little B&B called Holmslea Guesthouse. It was too late to buy or visit anything, so we had a walk around the old city instead; and then dinner, and back to plan more of our trip in the very hot rooms. We decided that we’d base ourselves in York for another night, but travel up to Thirsk (and the James Herriot museum), Martin (where Dith’s great-to-the-nth grandparent knocked down Captain Cook’s birthplace, and there’s a museum), and Whitby (a picturesque seaside town where Bram Stoker wrote part of Dracula, and which is featured in the novel), before returning to York.
For the second night, Holmslea had no vacancies, so we had to shift to Astley House. There was no Rick-rolling, but there were a few peculiarities – for example, our four-bed room consisted of bunk-beds and a normal double with a canopy tacked on, and the bathroom was small enough that you had to manoeuvre quite carefully to get on the toilet. But it was cooler, and the view was nice, and they let us dump our bags early; then we hit the road.
I’ve read a few James Herriot novels, and can vaguely remember All Creatures Great and Small (which I might have only watched because it had Doctor Who in it), but the James Herriot Museum was pretty good – I think it helps that it was aimed at a slightly older audience. It was an interesting mix of biographical information, recent rural Yorkshire history, and veterinary science.
The Captain Cook museum, on the other hand, felt slightly more at the Robin Hood end of the museum spectrum; it probably didn’t help that the Maori artefacts weren’t particularly impressive. And there was an odd collection on display about Rapa Nui (or Easter Island), and it’s depiction and status in popular culture, especially the moai. In many ways, this exhibit was interesting for the stuff it didn’t talk about – the fact that moai have been appropriated to mean “mysterious lush tropical Polynesian rest”, when Rapa Nui is pretty cold and bleak. Or that the many moai on display were fibreglass reproductions made by a company outfitting a tiki lounge. Or what might be going on, culture-wise, when people are making plush moai where tissue are dispensed from the nose.
Whitby was pretty neat. Again, we arrived too late to do anything but walk around; but the town was picturesque enough that this was pretty rewarding. I only regret that I didn’t get to buy any Whitby jet; they were famous as producers of Victorian mourning jewelery, and (with the Dracula connection) have apparently become a Goth pilgrimage spot; there was quite a few pieces of jewelery on display that looked like it had been designed to appeal to that subculture. But there were plenty of sightseerers of all types wandering about when we were there. I could imagine popping back for a wander again, preferably when the shops were open.
We grabbed something to eat from the co-op, and then went back and discussed what we would do next. The plan, as it’s now shaken out, is: two nights in Hereford, two nights with Meredith’s family in Wales, and then off to Bath, returning the car on the 7th.
(To complete our itinerary – we’ll do London things until we head over to Paris on the 11th, stay in Paris for a week, head to Ghent for two days, then on to Berlin for a few days, flying to Vienna, catching a sleeper train to Venice, another sleeper to Rome, and then flying to Edinburgh via Stansted. We’ll then get a train to visit my brother-in-law’s family in Oxenholm, then to Hay-on-Wye (via train to Manchester, train to Hereford, and bus). Then it’s a few nights to relax, and back to London for a few days to fly out. All accomodation and travel is booked up except for Rome, Edinburgh, and transport to Hay-on-Wye, so there’s not too much to do there.)
We spent today travelling around York, getting a very knowledgable tour from one of the embroiderers of York Minster, and staying rather too long at the excellent Castle museum looking at the Victorian street that you could wander through, displays on the history of cleaning, and the York dungeons. Then it was back in the car, and off to the Three Counties Motel in Hereford, where I now sit, being told to come to bed. So that is what I shall do.
(This is being posted the next day, from the lobby of our motel, just before we head off.)
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