A Post-hoc Overview of the 2010 Trip

Basically I thought this was a damn fine trip.  I make that comment a day after getting back with my body still very inclined to reject me as a result of the plane trip!

As we drove back from Sydney Frances and I talked a bit about the highlights and seemed to conclude that there were too many good bits all a bit different to the others.  So instead I'll start off with the three big ticket B-interests and see what stands out.
The Big 3
Buildings:
This was initially intended to be an alliterative allusion to the Cathedrals, which started the whole thing off.  However one should also include the National Trust places we went to.  Possibly York Minster wasn't as good as expected, but possibly:

• our expectations were too high; and 
• we also went there on Day 1 when our brains were cabbage. 

On the other hand, two of the less shouted about Cathedrals (Bristol and Gloucester) were very nice in a somewhat lower key way.  In both those cases the people helping out in the Cathedrals were extremely pleasant without being at all pushy.

WRT to the National Trust places, those which stood out were Laycock, Anglesey Abbey, Fountains Abbey and Stourhead.  All excellent buildings with good interpretive material.  The last three also had very extensive and attractive gardens.  The decision to join the National Trust was certainly an excellent idea (and we more than saved our membership costs by the free admissions.

Birds:
Another success story.  I observed or heard (well enough to identify) 117 species, of which I hadn't previously recorded 13 anywhere and 44 of which were not on my (memory created) UK list.  Many thanks to Ron Johns and Paul Holness for their great knowledge, guidance and, above all, hospitality.

Again joining the RSPB was a good idea.  I am sure we covered the membership fee by some free admissions but basically it was nice to able to know what was where.   This was backed up by the purchase of  "Birdwatching in Britain A site by site guide"  Redman and Harrap.  None of the sites they suggested were failures, although everywhere was subject to the cry of  "This is the quietest time of the year.  Come back in migration or Winter."  Perhaps.

Beer:

I managed to try a large number of beers in sufficient quantity (half pint or more) to record a view on their appeal.  Thanks to the Royal Norfolk Show Food Hall I also had a sniff at a couple more breweries that are not recorded therein since they (wisely) gave out small free samples.  In essence there was only one brew that I thought inadequate and a number that were excellent.

In several places - notably in Norfolk - we found pubs that were well rated in the Good Beer Guide that had recently shut.  It is possible that this was explained by a guy I was chatting to in the plane coming home.  He observed that many pubs are now owned by a major company and the landlord (in the pub operator sense of the word) is basically a tenant: if the pub starts to do really well the owners increase the rent and the operator finds themselves losing money and pulls out (or becomes bankrupt and gets pushed out).  If this is the case, it is one more problem introduced by the managerial philosophies pushed by Reagan and Thatcher (boo, hiss).

Other decisions

There were a number of other decisions made in planning the trip which worked out brilliantly.

Selecting our accommodation through the Visit England page was a basic strategy.  Without this we would have wasted at least one day per week trying to find somewhere to stay.  As it was we had three lovely places with excellent hosts!

Flying with Emirates.  Part of the reason underlying this was an initial thought of breaking the flight for a brief stay in Dubai.  Given the climate there thank goodness we didn't do so.  However the airline was entirely adequate and I suspect will be taking a lot of custom off QANTAS etc. 

Car rental:  We selected Alamo and a small diesel car through Expedia.  This was entirely satisfactory with the car (a Skoda Fabia) having all the power required and being small enough to fit through the tiny country roads we used.  It gave us about 52 mpg overall which compensated for the extra cost of fuel in the UK so that cents per kilometre were almost the same as for our Subaru in Australia.

 Other items recorded/thought about
Weather

Astonishingly good apart from the first day which was appalling.  As everyone has told us, since returning home how cold it has been in Canberra it sounds like another good idea has been proven.

Language

I was a bit surprised at the weakness of the accents in the Southern areas.  Perhaps we didn't mix enough with people who haven't travelled enough to 'knock the edges off' their larynxes or perhaps they are all subject to so much mid-Atlantic gibberish through the media that regional accents are vanishing.  Even with that being said it was notable that a couple of people at the Royal Norfolk Show sounded 'normal' and we suddenly realised that they could probably find their way around Darling Harbour quite easily!

Officialdom

Other than the repetitious and annoying signs everywhere on the roads this was very little in evidence.  I only recorded two instances of jobsworthiness (a parking inspector at Helmsley and an administrative person at Durham University).  I guess we could include the business of transit passengers having to go through security at every stop under this category, but I prefer to regard that more as the modern equivalent of painting stones and other traditional ways of handling the unemployable and socially challenged.

Moving forwards

This is the first of the daily entries, for those who don't wish to read all the bon-mots and wisdom in the pages about planning.