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Published: January 23rd 2007
Mal and Al
Taking on the habits of our fathers....I trust you all had crackingly good holidays and saw in the New year in style. Jen and I enjoyed an early Kiwi Christmas dinner with Mal and Bec which involved some most excellent roasted eating and an almost successful pav. Way less sugar than the recipe recommends next time I think. Mal and I had whiskey and rather enjoyed it. Christmas Day was a little less manic and involved the McEwen traditional Christmas brekky of pancakes and champagne (and it was proper French champers too!) and then the rest of the day we lounged around in the warm house, not daring to set foot outside in the cold, and ate drank and undertook merriment. It was most excellent.
To begin with, a summary of work Christmas dos. I had one of my two first off and my team mates and I adjourned from the office on a Tuesday evening down the street and under the ring road to the Oxford Dog Racing Club at Blackbird Leys. Now first of all let me say that Blackbird Leys is exactly the kind of place you’d expect to find a Greyhound track. Odd. So the food was greasy
Stonehenge
See, see how it looms? and the beer was flat and I have to say that the dogs were unexpectedly good fun. I think the collective (myself included) was astonished when I pulled out a £28 winning quinella on the second race. In the end, I did pretty well, £15 up on what I paid to go. Turns out picking the ones with good names is a lot more sensible than picking on form!
That same week we had the Pembroke College staff dinner. The setting was fantastic (I still can’t get over the fact that Jen eats lunch every day in the same dining hall that Samuel Johnson did) and the food magnificent. The port, on the other hand, was our undoing and drinking with Jen’s boss proved to be a bad idea as well. Suffice to say, it’s best we don’t mention port to Jennifer ever ever again. Only mention it to me if you don’t want me to drink it! Finally, at the end of the following week, was the Powwow Christmas do. Once the DJ got over his urge to play carols, we all got rather pissed, certainly enough to wear silly hats and dance the night away. A really
Jen and Stonehenge
See, they're looming again! entertaining evening! Remind me when I get home and I'll show you a photo or two of the bloke I worked for. Worrying.
We also saw in the New Year with Mal and Bec and a South African couple of their acquaintance, Ingrid and Nick. Amazingly, when midnight came we were mildly pissed and in the midst of a very close and competitive game of Trivial Pursuit. Mostly I think it was too cold and we were too wussy to go down to the pub. Even so, an excellent night was had by all.
Anyway, on to Christmas adventures! We decided that with our week off we'd hire a car and go tripping around South West England and see many of the sights that are within about 2 hours drive of home. The car, which I have to mention once, was a pale imitation of the car we hired in the USA. The almighty Ford Fiesta
Style was ridiculously small and I had some trouble actually fitting in. Its enormous 1.25 litre engine spat out about 3 brake horsepower and accelerating from 50mph to 70mph was a heck of a mission. Anyway, I'll grumble more about cars at
Beer by Horse
Only in England.... the end of this missive.
Before I do though, I must extol the virtues of driving to Stonehenge. One leaves the M4 and cruises through the countryside on the A303 and at one point you come over a rise in the road and suddenly there, before you, the stones loom over the road! LOOM I tell you! Then you get up close and they don’t look half as imposing. Stonehenge is not half as big as I expected, but so very much more impressive. The question of whether the £5 admission fee was excessive still remains. However, on this bitterly cold and frosty morning, having collected our audio guides, we spent a good two hours just wandering around the stones. The loom there too. LOOM I tell you! You can’t really get as close as I would have liked, but they really are something. It does make you wonder what on earth they were for. The audio guide postulated all sorts of theories, but with no real basis in fact. The most brilliant remark was “This is a marker stone. We think that there were once four of these and that they divided the circle exactly into four.” The
Tank Crossing
Like old people crossing but somewhat more worrying fact that there is no evidence whatsoever to justify such a theory, except that it would neatly divide the circle into quarters, is just plain silly.
We foolishly trusted the map at Stonehenge that directed us north, through a town called Devizes, (try working out how to pronounce that - I think it sounds something like Deviziziziziziziz) to an Iron Age Fort and hillside horse at Cherhill. We stopped for lunch at Deviziziziziziziz at the pub and saw that the local brewery delivers its beer by horse and cart - the photo’s not great, but you get the idea. Not a bad pub lunch at all - Jen’s Ploughmans included a half kilo of cheddar. We also saw our first British ramblers - resplendent in their wet weather pants and old rucksacks - enjoying a meal and a pint in the midst of their ramble. Oh, and just for a giggle, visit its New Zealand twin city - Oamaru!
The drive to Cherhill took us past Le Marchant Barracks complete with its ‘Tank Crossing’ signs. This address will be familiar to certain people I know who dabble in DBM. It took me a while to work it out….Anyway
we came across the hill and fort quite by accident as it’s not signposted at all. This is not the famous White Horse, that’s in Uffington (I’m going to bike down in the summer and see it. Photos then.) This one was built in the late 1700s by a local doctor who thought that he might just like to have a horse on the local hillside. Odd. The fort itself doesn’t look like much on the ground, but when you look at the satellite photo, it becomes immediately obvious. It was a crackingly good climb in the wind but the views were amazing. The hill itself is also home to the Landsdowne Obelisk. It’s clearly visible for miles around, and is, perhaps, the most bizarre example of filial piety that ever existed. But if one had to put up a memorial to ones parents, why not make it a big one atop the largest hill in the area?
On the drive back to Oxford we cruised by the Silbury Hill and the Kennett Long Barrow. This part of southern England is dotted with large Neolithic earthen constructions and these are two of the most impressive. Silbury Hill is the
A White Horse
What prompted it's construction has never been adequately explained. largest man-made mound in England and one of the largest in the world. Archaeologists claim that it took no small amount of skill to build although despite being heavily excavated over the last three centuries, no one has ever really been able to work out what on earth it was for. The Kennett Long Barrow however is quite clearly a tomb. Used for over 1000 years it contains at least 46 individual burials and has delivered significant quantities of Neolithic pottery. It’s quite an impressive construction that, unfortunately, we couldn’t go into. It might have been a little creepy. Suffice to say that Prehistoric Day (!) in the south west of England was a cracking success. We did get slightly lost on the way home and almost went to Swindon. Almost…..
If there is a city to drive into, it’s Bath. It’s built on the side of a hill and as one comes off the M4, one is greeted first by a pleasant country drive and then this incredible vista of the city opens up before you. The yellow Bath stone almost glowed in the morning sunshine (it was a stunning day) and it’s definitely the best first impression
The Circus in Bath
If it's a circus, where are the clowns? I’ve had of a place ever!
Once again, Jen and I were fortunate enough to arrive somewhere in time for the guided tour. These have proved to be a real asset in several of the places we’ve visited and so we’ll continue to take them! Our guide, Michael, was a Bath resident of some 10 years and had many interesting stories to tell. We were guided through the back streets and introduced to Beau Nash, socialite and professional gambler, and John Wood (Snr and Jnr), architects extraordinaire. Nash effectively made Bath what it is today as the city's Master of Ceremonies for much of the 18th century. It was he who provided entertainment for the privileged classes who convinced other, richer, more privileged people to visit, including members of the Royal Family. The Woods were the architects of much of Bath’s lovely Palladian-style architecture, but they will be most remembered for two structures - The Crescent and the Circus. Check out the photos, it all makes sense then. We were both quite chuffed to see that the Crescent also includes one of the great pieces of 18th century landscape architecture - the haha. Many theories about the origin of
Royal Crescent
Complete with Ha-ha. What's not to love? the name exist. My favourite is the idea that when people came across the haha and fell down it, everyone laughed. Probably a bit off the mark methinks.
The point of Bath, however, is the baths. It’s why people started coming to Bath and in no small part is the reason we came to Bath. Bath is much more than the Baths, but the Baths are an important part of Bath. Sorry. That’s the kind of nonsense that just flows from the fingers. The Roman baths are something quite spectacular. I’m sure they’re dwarfed by the baths of Trajan in Rome, but I really enjoyed them. They offer a real chance to experience how the Romans undertook their little rituals and it’s a really practical example of the Romanisation of a foreign nation. The little things - the mosaic, the temple remains and the stunning underfloor heating - were what made it worth the visit. It must have been a spectacular complex at its peak. Strangely enough, the whole place silted up after the “people called Romanes they go the ‘ouse” and it didn’t get back into regular use until the later Middle Ages, when people got funny ideas
Bath Abbey
Ah, Perpendicular Gothic.... about drinking the sulphurated water. Neither Jen nor I was brave enough to try it though. *chuckle*
The audio guide (British places really go in for these) had commentary by Bill Bryson, which provided a chuckle or two. He said something I found quite interesting though - it’s a shame that we don’t bathe in the Roman fashion anymore. There’s something to be said for taking in a long soak and a massage after a hard day. These days we just go home, flop on the couch and take our bad days out on the family. I think he’s dead right really - it’s kind of like going down to the pub after work on a Friday, but so much more relaxing. Not so keen on the washing with olive oil, but otherwise.
We popped into Bath Abbey, right next to the baths and it was beautiful. A magnificent example of medieval gothic church building replete with some of the most stunning glass I’ve ever seen. The carving was exquisite, the flying buttresses soared and the fan vaulted ceiling was easily the most gorgeous cathedral ceiling I’ve seen anywhere. The church itself was only 500 years old, being
Bath Abbey - Interior
Who'd have thought I'd get excited about a fan vaulted ceiling? rebuilt in 1499 and completed shortly before Henry VIIIs little schism with Rome. It has however, been the site of a monastery and priory for over 1500.
Having had our dose of really old stuff, we pottered up the hill to the Bath Assembly Rooms where the rich and richer used to gather in the heyday of Bath’s popularity in the 1800s. It has the most magnificent ballroom, replete with a pair of glorious chandeliers, as well as card rooms and a dining hall. There was a very nobby wedding going on when we were leaving. However, the point in going was to see the Bath Museum of Costume. This National Trust collection is quite an impressive display of the fashions of the polite classes from the Georgian period onward. Frankly, I think men were better dressed back then. Waistcoats and breeches, all class. There was a surprisingly interesting exhibit about corsetry (fashion not being my most favourite of subjects) as well as a lot of interesting material about social activity in Bath at it’s peak.
Jen and I left Bath wondering if we shouldn’t have moved there instead of Oxford. More than anything, it had the lifestyle
THE Bath
In Bath. Where the Baths are. and café culture that we’re used to, coming from Welly. It’s a beautiful city. However, we did come to the alarming realisation that if we had decided to live in Bath, there’s no way we’d be able to visit the continent. Too many nice places to eat and shop. But, methinks we’ll return before we leave the UK, it’s too nice a place not to.
And then there was Milton Keynes. *Shudder* First of all, it has a daft name and second of all, it has too many stupid roundabouts. Now that I have that off my chest I can fill you in on the more exciting details. We kicked off the day at about 9am at Ikea. Wow. It was like the Warehouse on acid! We had breakfast at in the onsite cafe (not an uncommon thing here) for 99p and while the hash browns were good, the rest of it was definitely a 99p brekky. A nice bonus though. The whole place was loaded with neat stuff (we bought silicone ice cube trays and they rock!) but mostly we went so Jen could pick up a couple of kitchen things and a wall mirror for the bedroom.
That seen to (for about £12) we drove up into the city and I dropped Jen at “The Centre: MK” (I still laugh) to wander the shops while I went off to a much more educational establishment - the British Cryptography museum at the famous Bletchely Park. It was a miserable day, but driving up and seeing the mansion at the end of the drive was a real buzz. The museum was a simple affair, more about the people than the objects. There was an amazing story about THE naval Enigma machine - it was stolen about 15 years ago and ransomed back to the museum for £28,000. The coding wheels have never been recovered. The best bit was that the kidnapper made his demands through the newspapers, mistakenly thinking that they wouldn't talk to the Police and in the end it was a newspaper reporter who turned him in. *Chuckle* The other interesting factoid from the museum was that of the 2000 staff working there at war's end, nearly 1700 were women. This proved to be something of a surprise to politicians at the time, including Churchill, who said that the two women who worked with Alan Turing to
The Gatehouse
Warwick Castle. Not a pleasant climb, I can tell you. But the view, oh the view! break the Enigma code "must have been very well trained," rather than acknowledge that they had any skill at cryptography! The story goes that cryptographers were recruited through a crossword competition - if you cold solve the Times crossword in less than 12 minutes you were offered a "very special kind of war work." They're also just about finished reconstructing a bombe and the Colossus Mark II - two of the earliest computers ever built. The Colossus could even be semi-programmed! Anyway, enough geekiness, suffice to say I loved it! I went back to meet Jen at the mall and had a chance to wander around myself. I can say, without peer, "The Centre: MK" is the most dreadful and horrid place I have ever set foot in in my whole life! So many chavs. So many.....
We polished off the break with a quick drive up the M40 to historic Warwick. (I’m starting to get a handle on this M-road lark now!) The plan was to wander around the castle in the sunshine and then have a wee wander around the city and see what there was to see. The castle itself is fantastic. It’s in remarkably good
Warwick
See, told you it was pretty. nick and the museum displays inside the castle are of real quality. It has a fantastic arms collection, including suits of armour belonging to the Kingmaker, Richard, Earl of Warwick. It also has Oliver Cromwell’s death mask. Very eerie and frankly, it didn’t look anything like THAT picture of Cromwell with which we are all familiar. Check out the photo of me in a stupid hat. Its rooms are divided into period pieces highlighting interesting parts of the castle’s history including Richard’s role in the Wars of the Roses and it’s usage as a noble retreat in the 19th century. The castle is liberally populated with wax figures produced by none other than Madame Tussauds in London. The coolest and weirdest bit of the whole place was the dungeon - it actually has one! It’s not a pleasant place to go. By yourself if would be bearable perhaps, but as it was crowded with tourists, one can imagine how much fun it was during the Wars. It even has an oubliette and that, well, that is spine shivering stuff. It is certainly the consummate touristy castle experience, and Jen and I hope to return in the summer for the jousting,
Cast Iron Hat
From the armoury at Warwick Castle. Doesn't the feather make it look jaunty?! the silly people hitting each other with sticks and the displays from the replica medieval trebuchet. Don’t know what that is? Look it up. :P
We strolled the short distance from the castle walls to take a look at Warwick Cathedral. It’s a magnificent structure, still home to the Beauchamp family crypt (they’re the Earls of Warwick), built on the foundations of a church from the time of William the Conker. I mean Conquerer. The Lady Chapel in Warwick Cathedral is one of the finest in Britain, decorated over several centuries by several generations of Beauchamps. By this point however, our lovely day had become freezing pelting rain and so we called it an early afternoon. However, as I’ve said, we will go back in the summer. It’s really a quite lovely little city and I should like to explore it more!
And so we come to the present day. Imagine, if you will, my disappointment in arriving at work last Thursday and being told that the car I was going to have to drive to Manchester (that's a good 6 hours return) was going to be a...dum dum dum.....Ford Focus rental car. Now I've got nothing against
the Ford Focus, it's a nice enough car, but having been told the week prior by the guys in Fleet that I'd have the work JAGUAR for the day, it was something of a step down. The sods in IT had it and had decided to keep it until Monday. All is not lost though, as I have to visit Cardiff, Avonmouth and Okehampton in a couple of weeks and may have it then. Well, it turned out that I wasn't getting a Ford Focus either, but instead was delivered a Vauxhall Zafira. For the second time in my life, I have been expecting to rent a hatchback and gotten a people mover. Dang! The plus here though is that because it's a rental car, the normal company personal usage rules don't apply. So Jen and I decided to go to Brighton. WEYHEY!
Before that though, I had to go to Manchester. It was a blimming long drive and I am now aware of (and understand the reason for) the M6 toll road. In future, I shall use it. Trying to drive along a 3 lane motorway that runs straight through the middle of Birmingham at morning rush hour
And you thought I looked silly
Funnily enough, carabinier helmets weren't designed with women in mind is.....tedious. But Manchester was nice! Definitely a city on the up and up. I got told by my boss that after my meeting with the depot manager there I could pretty much go home, so at 10:30 I left the depot and decided to go to, wait for it, wait for it, the Imperial War Museum North. Of course I did. Where else would I go??? It was just down the road from the depot as well. So after a quick drive to the local mall for some parking funds, I had a cruise round Trafford Park and the football stadium there (points for anyone who can name the stadium and club!) and admired the rapidly regenerating post-industrial riverside of Manchester. Reminiscent of certain parts of Wellington and Auckland as well. The IWM North was starkly different to the one in London. The London branch was much more about tanks, planes and guns. The Manchester one is all about stories. It's like a giant archive of personal effects and the stories of their owners lives. The gem exhibit was an hourly wall display of photos from the collection along with firsthand narratives to explain them all. It was a very
The Ghost Tower
of Warwick Castle moving and sobering exhibition that I am glad to have experienced. Anyway, lets get on to more exciting stuff: Brighton.
Well, mercifully, it was an absolutely beautiful day - sun, light onshore breeze and not a cloud in the sky. An easy drive down, to be sure, and one leaves the M23 and drives through a fold in the hill and Brighton simply appears. I have to say, first impressions aren't that crash hot and it really seems as if Brighton exists to illustrate the fact that the glory days of British seaside holidaying are over - so much of the waterfront is run down and a bit rusty. It was surprisingly busy for the middle of winter and Jen noted in the morning that if it was like this in winter, what would it be like in summer? I wondered out loud why people would come to Brighton when for the same price they could fly to Alicante? (where the beach is better, the weather warmer and the beer cheaper!) But clearly they still do. It's gentrifying slowly, with luxury apartments replacing many of the Palladian and Regency structures along the waterfront.
The pier is the strangest
Warwick Peacocks
Because what's a stately home without peacocks? thing ever - I cannot imagine why anyone would want to build a rollercoaster on it! Jen and I elected not to take in the rides - they all looked a little....dodgy and neither of us was keen to be taken leave of our breakfast! We did buy some Rock and as candy goes, it's very good. But it's pure sugar, so that's hardly surprising. We visited the Brighton aquarium across the road - one of the greatest in the world when it was built in the 19th C. It had performing dolphins and a chimpanzees tea party. Sounds dreadful! Part of the new, more ecologically minded establishment remains in the original Victorian structure with a fantastic added on tank with a tunnel a la Kelly Tarlton's. Jen and I were fortunate enough to have a very close up encounter with a 200kg loggerhead turtle named Lulu who was as interested in watching us as we were in watching her. Absolutely stunning. We trotted round the Laines - the heart of 17th century Brightenlamstowe (I think) - and lunched before adjourning to the Royal Pavillion. One still gets the same impression now as George's guests would have gotten during the
Brighton Pier
Lit up in the evening Regency. The front rooms are blah -
Chinoiserie in all it's tack - but the grand dining hall is magnificent. Awe inspiring. The music room, at the other end of the building is the same. The Banqueting Room is enormous and dominated by a one tonne chandelier held up by a silver dragon. The only word I can think of is gobsmacked! At the other end of the Pavillion is the Music Room, famous for the 26,000 gilded cockle shells that line the dome. The whole ceiling is an amazing piece of tacky awfulness and we loved it! That's the thing about the whole house - it's all tacky, but when there's that much of it, it's okay! We were also treated to views of the Prince Regent's (who went on to be King George IV) apartments and also those used by Queen Victoria. She had a fireplace in her toilet. Work that one out. It's a stunning building and I've had to flog the interior photos from the official website since we couldn't take any. However, uploading them would be a breach of copyright, so you'll have to look them up yourselves. Sorry! I hope they begin to show
The De Vere Brighton
The Golden Days of Brighton just how magnificent the interior decorating is and that George IV was no less mad than his father! It's really quite a dreadful building, but fantastic to visit! I can't imagine how that kind of 'style' (and I am being generous here!) ever could have been fashionable!
Bizarrely, while we had been in the Pavillion, Brighton filled up with people. Jen commented at 10am, when we arrived, that it seemed busy for the middle of winter. By the time we left, it took 90 minutes to get back to the motorway there were so many people there. Perhaps it was the nice afternoon, perhaps we're just more organised than the locals, but Brighton was humming. I can only imagine what it's like in Summer.
So there we go, all caught up. Exciting adventures I'll rabbit on about in the near future include:
A trip to the Oxford Pegasus Theatre to see Lenny Henry and a couple of weeks after that we're off to London for the weekend to see, amongst other things, Patrick Stewart (a.k.a. Jean-Luc "Make It So" Picard of Star Trek: TNG) in the lead role of Anthony and Cleopatra! The excitement! Oh and our Easter
Lulu the Loggerhead
Stunning. Just stunning. holiday is going to be......*drum roll please*......Estonia!
Don't look so shocked people. I mean really! One last thought: this year is Oxfordshire's 1000th anniversary. Yep, Oxfordshire has been in existence since 1007. Weird eh?
Until later, take care everyone,
Talk Soon,
Al and Jen
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Paula
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Happy Noo Years to you too!!!
Hello to the both of you! I have been having so much fun reading all your adventures, although I am getting very jealous. Sigh... Boring over here, same old stuff... but tell me.. any nice schools to teach at in Oxford? Can me and my alex come visit?? Love, P.