Advertisement
Published: August 21st 2012
Edit Blog Post
Welcome to the North
The Angel of the North – stupendous sculpture by Anthony Gormley at Gateshead in Newcastle, honouring the steel industry which made the city great, erected in 1998 on the site of a disused coal mine This trip is a love affair with the UK.
Rhys is a complete Anglophile (he only married me so he can enter British territory whenever he likes) and I am the typical immigrant – born here but brought up in New Zealand - a citizen of both but belonging to neither.
He has fantasised about retiring here, but a complete lack of summer has cured him of that. I always feel like I’m visiting as a foreigner, but after four months I have to admit I’m British through and through apart from an accent most people presume is Australian (- worse than the Essex one I had to start with).
Why I’m happy to be British:
The British are polite – they’ll apologise for everything and queue patiently, even when they don’t need to. When picking up our Edinburgh Tattoo tickets I asked about the need to queue as we had been told people start queuing 2 hours beforehand. “You don’t need to”, said our Scottish ticket lady. Then why do they? “Because they’re English”, she answered!
The British are reserved. Don’t try to talk to them unless you’ve been introduced (or when out walking or
Moveable bridge
Walking bridge over the River Tyne from Gateshead to Newcastle – it swivels on huge hinges to let boats under – brilliant! in pubs where the best conversations can happen).
The British are experts at putting up with things. Commenting on the lack of summer, several people have told us – “sometimes we just don’t have summer, we just put up with it”.
Putting up is what has made Britain strong, survive the blitz and no doubt ride out the recession that is tearing Europe apart. Britain is like a big, flowery drag queen – she will survive, powered by eccentricity, stubbornness and an unfailing belief in her own beauty.
And what a year to be British and in Britain.
Who knew the Queen’s Jubilee was such a big deal? Who knew the Olympics would be such a success – the most medals ever for Team GB, no terrorists, no traffic gridlock…and summer even put in a late appearance.
The Olympic closing ceremony was the best party ever – what could be more evocative than Ray Davies singing Waterloo Sunset?
So the love affair continues.
We had a week in the middle of Scotland at Kenmore on the banks of Loch Tay, an absolutely stunning landscape when the rain clouds cleared enough for you to
Dunstanburgh Castle
The Northumberland Coast is embellished with stunning castle ruins dating back to the 12th century see it.
It’s the kind of place that makes you realise how at home the Scottish must have felt when they went half way round the world to end up in the South Island. Beautiful lakes, stark mountains, dense forests and a howling wind that comes from the Antarctic just like the Arctic blasts in Scotland.
A few days in Glasgow brought us face to face with holiday crowds, despite the wintery conditions – I guess they’re used to it.
The wonderful thing about Glasgow is its fascinating and free city museums. We optimistically took the open top tourist bus on our first day and passed the newly opened Riverside Museum – stunning architecture but from what I’d read it sounded suspiciously like a transport museum focussing on Glasgow’s ship building history. “That sounds quite interesting,” says Rhys…”I’d like to do that…”
The next day dawned still wet and grey, so I thought half an hour in a transport museum to humour the bloke wouldn’t be such a bad idea.
Three hours later we dragged each other out – brains full of fascinating information, feet museum-sore, much impressed at the scope, quality and creativity of
Art at the castle
Peace Camp - one of 8 installations being created on remote areas of the UK coastline for the London 2012 Festival, had just finished being installed outside Dunstanburgh Castle. I thought it was wonderful. Rhys thought it was silly. the place. We gamely tried to ‘do’ the Kelvingrove Art gallery and Museum that afternoon, but it was also huge and impressive, so we went back again the next day. Bad weather doesn’t matter if you’ve got good museums.
Next was the event I’d been looking forward to since a cold, windy and depressingly long wait for a ferry in Morocco had led us to meet the lovely Sarah, a Kiwi living in Edinburgh on a brief trip to stock up on sunshine.
“Are you planning to come to Edinburgh for the festival”? she asked. We were coming to Scotland, but thought the fair capital at festival time would be outside our budget. My wistful comments about always wanting to see the Tattoo were obviously poorly disguised and an offer of staying at Sarah’s flat was made.
To shorten the story for you, not only did we see the fabulous Edinburgh Military Tattoo, but experienced the incredible, amazing, mind-blowingly-enormity of the Edinburgh Festival…and we’re only talking about the Fringe Festival here, not the actual high-brow-ballet-orchestra-opera festival, which was not only way beyond our reach in terms of ticket prices, but didn’t hold anywhere as much appeal as
Lindisfarne Castle
on Holy Island – built in 1570 from stones from the ill-fated and ruined Lindisfarne Priory the Fringe.
You don’t really have to buy tickets to anything to experience the Fringe festival. We paid for one new musical production and one comedy show (a fresh young stand-up called Naz who is a real prince and 14th in line for the Turkish throne) but a ridiculous number of comedy acts play at free venues such as ancient pubs with four floors of rooms separated by beer-sticky stairs, wonky walls and flakey floors.
The hat/tin/paper cup is held out at the end of the show, but there is also plenty of obligation-free entertainment to be found at street theatre venues – High Street becomes one huge busking stage, complimented by a continual parade of the young and beautiful – theatre graduates hawking their ‘ground breaking’ new show… Antigone in the style of the 1940’s…Vampire thriller romances (clearly a popular style this year).
So many young hopefuls, so many fliers advertising ‘the best show of the Fringe’, so many theatre graduates who’ll be lucky to get a gig at Starbucks let alone be a star.
Exhilarating, exhausting, like a thespian Russian roulette – how can you possibly know what’s going to be a great show?
Berwick-upon-Tweed
Berwick Town Hall from the walls – just as Lowry painted it so you just stumble upon something that tickles your fancy…
I’ve been to many music and theatre festivals, but this was an experience of another dimension - the sheer number of events happening around the city at any one time is mind boggling. The Fringe programme was as thick as a phone book.
I’ve kept the fliers for a couple of guys we saw – just in case they DO become the next big thing. Thanks again Sarah and Dan - Edinburgh has been a highlight of the trip for me.
Leaving Scotland was hard. Bagpipes, men in kilts, redheads – what’s not to like? Well – the weather actually and our fingers were all pruney from being constantly wet, so we’re southward bound.
The little Ka which has taken us 7000 miles (11,000km) around England, Wales and Scotland is going back to the nice man we bought it off, then we’ll be spening a week in my favourite place in the world - London - before saying a tearful goodbye to Moya who is lucky enough to be calling London home.
Then we're boarding the Eurostar for our next adventure – France!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.143s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 56; dbt: 0.05s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Zeb
non-member comment
wow
hey guys, what a trip, love the pics fantastic. Keep it coming...the blog I mean :)