To the Mother Country

A Post-hoc Overview

2010-07-12T00:51:00.001-07:00

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.

Guide to this blog

2010-04-28T22:44:00.000-07:00

This blog is likely to get a tad large and some folk may wish to only read certain topics: some may wish to focus on the buildings others on the birds or the beer. I could handle this by developing a site map but I think it would look rather like this summary of the Pentagon's plan for success in Afghanistan:

As an alternative I am going to follow two strategies.

The broad set up of the blog is

series of posts dealing with plans and preparations; followed by
a more or less traditional blog which I hope to update on a daily basis while travelling; and concluding with
a set of summaries of the major topics of beer buildings and birds and other stuff which arises and that I consider is worth summarising.

Much use of labels to enable people to focus on topics containing stuff relevant to their topics of interest. The topics will all be listed in a sidebar.

Plans, plans and more plans

2010-03-26T11:29:00.000-07:00

This blog is going to cover our trip to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (thanks to a reader for pointing out the correct appellation) in 2010. Before getting to the plans let us deconstruct that country name:

Britain: OK, although the Britons as a genetic identity probably died out a couple of millenia ago.
Great: once, certainly. Now is more dubious.
Kingdom: Why isn't it a Queendom?
United: The place contains England (OK that wants to stay); Northern Ireland (about half the population wants to stay, even though they have got a separate mention); Wales (got their own Parliament and see N Ireland); Scotland (see Wales); Isle of Man (happy to stay as long as they don't pay taxes) and the Channel Islands (last time I checked they are two States and they are only in it for Foreign Affairs and a cheap army - see Isle of man but the Channellers probably would rather be French).

The big picture of planning was that the trip was to involve touring Gothic Cathedrals and birding sites. The driver of the process was the cathedrals, following the success of a tour of this nature around L'Ile de France in about 1997. There are pages about those attributes elsewhere as linked. This left us three things to book:

Flights;
Accommodation; and
Rental Car.

There seemed to be no real difficulty with flights so I thought the first thing to do was the accommodation in the UK.
Accomodation
This was made relatively easy by Frances finding the Enjoy England website. Indeed the only problem with the site was sorting out the plethora of places they had on offer. We ended up selecting three places as looking rather good:

Ingleby Manor (North Yorkshire);
The Coach House (Norfolk) and
Beanacre Barn (Somerset).

Is it not astonishing that each of these places is not only part of an internet based travel booking system but has its own website. If only the banking system was as good!

We changed our mind a couple of times about the order to visit them, with that shown being the 1st selection and the final one after the Barn couldn't take us for the second week. I wondered about doing the West Country first but it turned out the Glastonbury Festival was on that week which seemed to make it likely that part of the UK is going to be full of punks and junkies. Thus we ended up as shown.

All three property owners seemed most excellent in terms of being very responsive and helpful to us (and it might be noted from the end of the trip they continued those traits even after meeting me). Getting the three places organised took us about a five days elapsed time with Martin putting in perhaps 2 hours contact time.

The only issue was generated by the banks. It appears that to send money to an account in Europe it is necessary to use an International Bank Account Number (IBAN). This seems to identify the bank, the branch and the account. Thus get rid of all the other crap about names etc. Not for WESTPAC. (I have put in the link in the hope that all readers of this page send that company some email advice!)

Having seen the array of stuff they seemed to require for an on-line transfer (most of which I didn't have, and the one bit I did have contradicted info on the Westpac site) I decided to go for a serviced transfer. That got kiboshed because the teller needed the address of the Bank in England. So I sent an email to the owners seeking this info.

Then I got an email from another property which looked as though it should work - even though the IBAN contradicted the WESTPAC advice - because it told me they were dealing with the Royal Bank of Scotland. On doing this online it emerged that all that was really needed was enough detail to identify which of an array of bank names were to be used. It seems that WESTPAC deal with Royal Bank of Scotland under a range of situations and they all have different SWIFT codes. The only one that looked sensible referred to transfers so I picked that and it generated a SWIFT code. There was no need to know the address at all.

So, back to situation 1. The problem was that the info from the owners didn't include the name of the bank. The appearance of the letters MIDL suggested 'Midland Bank' but that was taken over by HSBC some years ago. So I googled GB69MIDL and up popped 4 webpages. One of them, the membership page for the European Museum indicated the Bank name was none other than HSBC. So I included that and again got a list of possible bank names: most of these looked fronts for the Corleone Family or the source of letters advising me that I had won a squillion dollars in a lottery I had never entered; however buried in the middle of it was "HSBC all British Branches" which looked to fit the bill.

What a palaver for something so simple. The offending mob of idiots got a nice email pointing out the problems with the system.

A linguistic aside: in the old days 'bank-robber' referred to someone who robbed banks. These days it is probably used as much to identify the banks as a subset of robbers!

AIRFARES

In early research I had found that Emirates was back being a cheap airline and one of those that flew directly into Manchester (a key driver of this process being to avoid Heathrow). I very quickly found flights that matched our requirements and set about booking the flgihts.

Suddenly I found myself back at the WESTPACsite filling in something from Mastercard Secure "to ensure my security". Having mentioned the s-word you can probably see that this is not going to be happy. Sure enough the screen clears and I am told to contact my Emirates Office. GRRRRRR!

So I ring Emirates and it turns out that the problem was that I hadn't registered with Mastercard Secure before starting the process. Never having heard of this service before it was hardly surprising I hadn't registered with them. The good thing about this was that the young lady taking the booking requested nice seats etc for us.

Back to westpac, on the phone, with a whole lotta short, Anglo Saxon, words in my mind. Their starting point was that only some companies use the Mastercard secure 'service' so it isn't really part of their system. (ie it is Emirates fault.) To get me registered, to prevent a recurrence of this lunacy, we search the WESTPAC site for Verified by VISA!! I pointed out to the young lady - a different one, but also nice - that I used a Mastercard she said "Yes, but if you search for that you won't get to the right place." The short, Anglo Saxon words got almost past my teeth! After 17 minutes we had finished the exercise: as I commented to the young lady, I hope someone was recording the call so that they realised how appalling the system is.

Car rental

We decided this didn't have to be done for a while, so it wasn't.

Google Earth images

2010-03-26T11:20:00.000-07:00

As we have been planning away I have been recording the places we want to visit on a Google Earth file in the hope that I'll be able to transfer it to my netbook and refer to it while away. This post is to provide the ultimate back up of the images.

Things that can stuff plans

2010-03-26T11:00:00.000-07:00

Ash clouds

We decided that we would avoid Heathrow Airport as though it had developed mutated, extra-virulent, bubonic plague. Everyone we have spoken to reckons this is good strategy. So we are flying in to Manchester (it is also close to North Yorkshire).

Stone the sanguinary corvids! Today ( 15 April 2010) flights into the UK are basically cancelled left right and centre due to volcanic ash from bloody Iceland. Just under 50% of flights into Manchester - and a much higher percentage of those earlier in the day - get cancelled First the cod wars; then their banking crisis and now they shovel ash into the way of tourists flying into the UK!

I hope this is well resolved by mid June! The latest stuff (10 May) seems to be that a fair chunk of Western Europe (France Spain Portugal, Ireland ) have shut down their airspace because of a new cloud. Oh well, 6 weeks to go. By May 17 Manchester Airport was stuffed (hopefully for a brief while).

Thailand does military rule!
To add to the entertainment the Red Shirts and the military in Thailand seem to be getting rather antsy. From a selfish point of view one hopes they keep the action away from the airport. From many other points of view one hopes they actually take a good hard look at themselves and realise that what is going on is crap. But they're all politicians so that sentence is extremely naive.

Wireless Internet access

We acquired a netbook last year so that I cold record things while we were in Peru. It did a pretty good job, but of course nowhere in Amazonas had electricity worth speaking of, let alone wireless internet! A problem appeared to arise that it couldn't connect to our home wireless connection, giving weird LINUX error messages about 'receiving offers' and 'persistent databases'.

After spending a lot of time in e-contact with a very helpful LINUX guru and phoning an ex-ABS contact I was still a bit in the dark. Thus I invoked IT Rule 1: flail about at random enough and you will eventually fix the problem. It emerged that somehow a password had been deleted. I replaced it and Bingo! I have now tested it at the National Library and it all looks good!

As at least 2 of our hosts offer wireless access that will be a great outcome.

Navigation
We won't bother with a fancy in-car GPS jobbie. I reckon it would take us 3 weeks to learn how to program it! My version of Linux doesn't as yet link to Google Earth but we have printed off some directions from Google Maps to get us between the main accommodation places (and to/from Manchester Airport).

Other things needed

2010-03-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

As well as the big ticket items there were other things we needed to do:

Join a birding organisation
Join the National Trust of Australia
Get a road Atlas
Get the Good Beer Guide!!!
Sort out mobile phone coverage;
Sort out crrency arrangements

Each of these will be covered below.

Join a birding organisation.

My initial thought was the British Trust for Ornithology: I can't remember why I thought this, but on contacting a British birder of very good repute he rapidly advised to join the RSPB instead. It was obvious from their website that the cost of membership would be way less than the Reserve entry fees (and car parking fees) that we would otherwise incur. Duly signed up.

They have sent us a nice little welcome package including a book of their top Reserves. They enter the list of good guys.

Join the National Trust of Australia

Frances found out some time ago that they have reciprocal rights with the UK NT but charge about 1/4 the annual fee an this should get us, gratis, into all sorts of stately piles in the UK. If, of course, we should come across stately piles we wish to enter!

Unfortunately the ACT Branch of the NTA seem to have learnt their marketing strategy from some dodgy Merchant Bank. In addition to the advertised $95 subscription - roughly double that of the RSPB - they were going to slug us a $35 joining fee. This makes it no more expensive to join the UK NT!

Get a Road Atlas

The deal seems to be publications of the Automobile Association. For reasons I cannot comprehend it is about half price to get them through Amazon than the AA. Whatever, done. The book has duly arrived and looks rather good. It even has the village I grew up in (Mayland) shown and n the right place - in the past the village was either not shown at all (the usual situation or positioned) at the primary school about 2km from the main cluster of huts.

Get the Good Beer Guide

To anyone that reckons this should be a big ticket item I will only say "I know where you are coming from" but then add that I hope the UK has advanced as has the USA where good beer is available everywhere in large and interesting amounts. (It is always good to hope.) To assuage the tender sensibilities of beer fanciers I will ask you to note that I have created a Pommie Beer page in this blog. It will be rather empty until we get there since British beer is damn expensive in Australia.

At first glance it appears that the Good Beer guide is like the AA Road Atlas: it seems to be cheaper to buy through Amazon than from CAMRA! Which is nuts. On second glance I have actually ordered the 2009 edition which cost Stg 1p (plus Stg7 postage) through Amazon rather than the 2010 edition through CAMRA (Stg15 plus Stg7 postage). As I said, this is nuts!

On studying the tome the reason for cheapness appears to be that it is a used copy! I came to this conclusion on noticing a few pencil comments against a couple of items. This then explained why several hundred brews had been highlighted. I counted 89 highlighted brews from the breweries beginning with 'W' (assuming this is a more less representative sample that means well over 2,000 marked in total). My conseqent questions are if the previous owner tried all of these,

how come the book was in such good order?and
was the owners liver in equally good shape?

Mobile phone coverage

Both Frances and I have VIRGIN mobile phones which offer roaming in the UK. However, they also seem to offer a subsidy (approximately covering the entire cost of the project) to Richard Branson's space shuttle program in the charges to each call. The sensible way to go seemed to be to buy a pommie SIM card as soon as we can. The other alternative - relying on UK Telecom phone boxes - is obviously ridiculous, both from our expectations of:

the likely charges; and
the probability of finding one that works anywhere that we are likely to be going.

One of these is high and the other low: guess which is what.

This topic appeared to advance a bit when Frances got an email from the Visit Britain folks spruiking a Global SIM card for which you paid Stg43 and got Stg25 of airtime. Unfortunately they didn't give any info about the call charges other than an assertion that their charges were "up to 75% less than standard mobile charges". This is sort of like "Trust us, we're from a Telecom company!". I suspect that

this company learnt their trade flogging "genuine Swizs watches" off a barrow in the Strand; and
was founded by C M O T Dibbler from the Discworld.

We will see how the plot develops when (or if) I find out what their charges are.

Surprisingly I have not got a response from Visit UK so I explored the vendors website. It is full of that which you find after a herd of bovines have passed through a paddock, which does of course confirm the views expressed in the previous paragraph. Their rates for calls within the UK are 37P per minute, whereas Virgin UK are 20P per minute! The only problem is to find a VIRGIN store - to my astonishment they don't have one in Manchester airport!

In fact Virgin shops turned out to be very hard to find. However on our first day of touristing I spotted a Vodaphone shop in York and as their rates were similar to Virgin I acquired a SIM card from them. The next issue was that my phone was still locked to Virgin Australia, but fortunately there are many shops in the UK that specialise in unlocking mobile phones!

Currency arrangements

We have in the past shown great skill in stuffing up conversions between currencies, in that we have moved money from one to another in such a way that we got the worst rate in both directions. However at the time of writing this the Australian dollar was doing rather well against Sterling so we thought we'd get some £ Sterling while it was cheap.

Obviously we didn't want to schlep around large amounts of folding stuff - we may pass close to Bradford (for example). From reading the consumer information - I should probably get an award for slogging through the 50 pages of PDF this involved - about our Mastercards it appeared that Westpac also had a space shuttle subsidisation program with each transaction attracting charges like a candle in rain forest attracts bugs (not forgetting the arbitrage which is never going to be in our favour). However our financial adviser mentioned an ANZ Travel card as a good thing. Indeed it did so appear on reading another 50 pages of PDF: other than the fact that ANZ get to have our money, earning interest for them while we aren't spending it, the charges are quite minimal (although there is a nasty little 1.1% of each reload, so we worked out what we thought we might spent and put it all in the initial transaction).

Bazza Mackenzie was nearly right.

2010-03-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

This is a variant on my 'brickbats and bouquets" pages of my main blog. With this blog I intend to give bouquets as and when they arise so this is going to be pretty much a kvetch page.

Background

Bazza Mackenzie is a cartoon character invented by Barry Humphries. I am not sure he invented a two word phrase implying that most people from the UK are illegitimate but certainly used it a lot. This post is devoted to those we find who deserve the appellation.

The UK Passport Office.

I believe they are now known as the Identity and Passport Office . Whatever. I had my UK passport effectively cancelled when I emigrated to ensure that I did my two years before leaving the country. I found I could get an Australian one a year later, which saved me about $500 on a plane fare back to the UK, and have never revitalised my British one. I have thought about it several times but on each occasion the rules and rubbish have been such that I have abandoned the project at early stages.

Low points in their past performances have been

the introduction of charges to make a phone call to the establishment here;
moving the office out to the airport; and
charging an arm and a leg.

Additional nadir inducing efforts are:

anyone with an old passport (and my expired 37 years ago) is treated as though they have never had a passport at all and thus have to produce a whole nunch of documents; and
you have to be interviewed (presumably to check that you don't have any bad habits such as lying about WMDs); and
the interview is done at a Post Office Shop.

Again I save myself time and about $200 by sticking with my Australian passport.

Mr Plod and friends

It will not be a surprise that this element is not about the friendly police person depicted by the nice Ms Blyton, nor the old codger from Dock Green who started Saturday evening on BBC in the 1960s. This is about the current crop who seem to share personalities with Toby Meres frm Callan.

It appears from what I have read in the media (who never lie - stuff is on the internet so it must be true) that the UK has the highest level of video surveillance of anywhere in the world. This seems to be exemplified by the presence - according to my AA Atlas - of 4,000 fixed speed cameras. I feel a recording task coming on: how many speed cameras did we see today?

This task was made difficult by the appearance every few miles of a sign about speed cameras. All this meant was that the forces of repression might use an annoyance in the area, not that they had one positioned waiting for our pleasure. Judging by the number of people that zipped past us the devices were rare. I think we saw 1 cop running mobile unit during our trip.

In fact the only place we saw a lot of cops was the Norfolk Show. Of course, there was absolutely no reason for them to be there at all: a better behaved crowd would be hard to imagine.

A taxonomy of pains in the back acre

While thinking about this trip I suddenly recalled a English folk(ish) song "Jobsworth". This is devoted to low order public officials who do nothing but stp other people from doing things. The refrain includes (repeatedly "Jobs worth, jobs worth, it's more than my job's worth". This has led to a challenge on the trip to actually get someone to say "It's more than my job's worth."

Of more relevance to the heading of this section is that there are at least three types of interfering nuisances:

Mr Plod (sworn in and, occasionally, sworn at);
Jobsworths (not sworn in but very often sworn at);
Private security guards (not sworn in and not sworn at, unless you have a very good relationship with a dentist).

I suspect there will ample opportunity to look at all three major types and possibly further develop the classification.

The Loony left

The following comes from the Australian newspaper (which would never ever tell a porky: it is owned by News Limited and if you can't trust them who can you trust?). However, I have just noticed that this was published on 1/4/2010: come in sucker?

A BRITISH grandmother has been heavily fined and electronically tagged for selling a goldfish to a child, triggering criticism of over-zealous use of animal protection laws.
Pet shop owner Joan Higgins, 66, was fined £1000 ($1640) also given a dusk-to-dawn curfew for selling an animal to a person under the age of 16, but her 47-year-old son Mark - also ordered to do community service - slammed the ruling as a farce.
The pair were prosecuted after the local council sent a 14-year-old boy to buy a goldfish in a "sting" operation following reports that their shop, Majors Pets, had sold a gerbil to a teenager with learning difficulties.
The shopkeepers sold the fish without asking his age or how the fish would be cared for, prosecutors said.

I foresee some interesting times ahead. Perhaps I need a page for bizarre media stuff observed while over there?

British Birdtrack

Since I believe strongly that having had the privilege of seeing birds the information gained should be use for conservation purposes, and the British Trust for Ornithology had a stand at the RNS advertising their birdtrack website I decided to give it a go. This was despite some communication with a British Bird Atlas person who convinced me that the whole exercise was unduly complicated. (A reference from Sean Dooley in "Anoraks to Zitting Cisticola" seems appropriate: he defines ornithologists as people who call stamp collecting 'philately' and themselves "onanists".)

The first thing I found was this load of lawyerly garbage: "The BTO has published some health and safety information for volunteer fieldworkers. Please take a few minutes to read this leaflet which can be
found here: http://www.bto.org/survey/h&s_notes.htm Following these simple The BTO has published some health and safety information for volunteer fieldworkers. Please take a few minutes to read this leaflet which can be found here: http://www.bto.org/survey/h&s_notes.htm Following these simple guidelines will help to ensure that your birdwatching activities are both safe and enjoyable." One can feel the enjoyment draining away as one reads!

Then I found that everything was set up for repeated records by people who know the area well. I tried to put in some data for an area of North Norfolk and found that I had to attest that it was all in an area shown in a Google earth image. I didn't have a clue if it was all in that area, and I certainly wasn't going to repeat this exercise for the 15 or so other areas for which I had data. Pass, on helping them.

General stuff

2010-03-26T09:00:00.000-07:00

This page is odds and sods which I think are interesting but can't work out where else to put them.

This page has some interesting insights into English society. Having gone to University in Kent and worked (aka slaved) in Sussex just before I saw the light I suspect the author is a bit too focussed on the area around London rather than the rustic denizens of the area. But then it is possible that things have changed a bit in the last 39 years!

Election issues

Of course we will be visiting the country fairly soon after their 2010 election. Dare one say the first of their elections in 2010? At the time of typing this (11 may 2010) no-one seems to have a clue what the heck is going on! As usual Private Eye seems to have been on the look out for cock-ups! I can see that I will be buying a few souvenir copies of 'The Eye' if it is sold in the hinterland!

By 13 May everything seems to have calmed down with the Conservatives and Lib-Dems now firmly declared as "new-best-friends-forever'.

Plus ca change seems to apply. In the last couple of days (early June) a Lib-Dem minister has quit due to him paying his male partner for a flat and then claiming this as an expense. His replacement has also turned out to have had dodgy financial dealings!

Cost of living

One of the most vivid memories of my migration to Australia in 1970 was how cheap everything was. Many things in Australia were same number on the ticket but it was $ per kilo rather than Stg per lb (in effect things were 4x the price n the UK,

The two particular products I will be looking at will be real ale and petrol. I have got a fair amount of info about the price of petrol In Australia and will be investigating the price of beers in some detail. I expect to complete a page about prices of beer and petrol.

Oil spill
There has been obviously much in the media about the size of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. One website has come up with an innovative way of presenting this in ways that people not familiar with the Gulf region can comprehend. In essence they had mapped the boundary of the slick and developed a small application (in Google maps methinks) to move it to another location. The following image shows it moved to a map centred in Westminster UK.

During our visit;

I didn't really get into the print media while we were in the UK. I purchased a Daily Mail the day after England departed the World Cup ( covered in a daily post).

At one point bought a copy of The Times to find out what the thinking Pom is considering these days. In brief the thinking Pom either:

is thinking about celebs and their (or anyone else's) chest size; or
has vanished from the face of the Earth; or
now reads The Independent! In that regard I note that Aldaily has stiffed the Times but continues to carry the Independent.

I would not dream of suggesting that this has anything to do with the Thunderer joining the Murdoch stable.

The electronic media were initially obsessed with the Russian Spy saga (especially Anna Chapman for some reason note bullet 1 above). They, and the print media, then reduced coverage of that story and became obsessed with the unfortunate Raoul Moat.

All of this must have poetry to the ears of the Government as it completely overshadowed discussion of the Lib-Dems issues in dealing with a trivial little issue such as a complete overhaul of the British voting system (they are trying to emulate Australia but I fear will end up achieving Italy with several hundred candidates for dogcatcher, let alone MP).

Background to Birding

2010-03-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

I have had a number of Field Guides to European Birds for many years. Unfortunately I feel obligated to minimise the amount of stuff to schlep for this trip so I am planning to use "The Hamlyn Guide to Birds in Britain and Europe" Brunn et al . This is primarily because it was printed in 1989 (after a revised text in Swedish in 1986) whereas my other favourite "The Birds of Britain and Europe" Heinzel et al dates from 1974!

So I should be able to identify the birds subject to the limits of my competence. Where are the little blighters? I am hoping that joining the RSPB will assist me to find them (as well as saving a number of $ on entry fees and car parking. My basic planning source will be "Birdwatching in Britain A site by site guide" Redman and Harrap. Reference will also be made to "Wild Britain" by Douglas Botting.

Although this isn't going to be a twitching trip (apart from anything else I am too idle for that) I thought it would be good to sort out what birds I have previously seen in the UK and which I have not. My first thought was that my Birdinfo software would have a good list for the UK: not so it was only 146 species rather than 530+ on the official list from the British Trust for Ornithology. So I am creating my own using the BTO list as a base (fiddled with according to my memory of which birds I have seen in the UK). It is interesting that even though the BTO shows 'International names' for some species they are not always the names I am familiar with. For example they:

list 'Baltimore Oriole ' which has been known in the US as the Northern Oriole for many years (unless talking about the baseball team);
translate the UK Great Northern Diver as the 'Great Northern Loon' while the usual name in North America - where they are far more common - is Common Loon. (In this case the BTO appellation is somewhat egregiously wrong since the more Northern loon is the Arctic Loon.)

Oh well I guess I'll just stop kvetching and update my own list myself.

Background to Cathedrals

2010-03-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

Other than our experiences in Ile de France the initial source of information about the Cathedrals of England was "The Cathedrasls of England" by Pevsner and Metcalf . We have also acquired a book from enjoyEngland.com giving 365 Churches, Abbeys and Cathedrals. As with everything else emanting from the UK we paid a lot less than the Stg5.99 cover price (we got it at Academic Remainders for $A4.95)

The topic has also been informed (I felt nauseous typing that) bymy memory of sites visited by the Mayland Women's Intstitute and Latchingdon Parish Summer outings. At the risk of boring folk with Old Father Flabmeister's memories of days gone by both of those organisations deserve a few words.

The WI was the main organisation providing some sort of social focus for the village of Mayland. This was - and probably still is - a strange little place with a Church somewhat over a mile from the centre of the village, 2 shops and no pub! It appears from the page linked above that the pub situation has changed somewhat - as has the population, which at 3401 would be about 8 times what it was when we lived there (athough I have difficulty guessing how many folk lived at the extension in Maylandsea - mainly a summer enclave). The big events were coach outings to Stately Homes, Cathedrals and (of course) the "seaside". These semed a huge adventure in my youth going to places as far as 40 miles away!

Latchingdon was the next village to the West: - from the linked page it doesn't seem to have grown much since I left - it was always bigger than Mayland in those days. In fact, with only 1 pub listed while I have clear memories (altthough they start to get a bit hazier once I passed 17 for some reason) of 3 very active ones in the village. I attended church in that village after the vicar of Mayland failed to support Dad in a dispute with the Church. It seemed a major trek to go some 2 miles on my bike on a Sunday! Again, the congreation used to organise coach outings to various spots in the summer.

One of my concerns about Cathedrals in the UK is that they are used by the Church as revenue raising facilities. My memory of a visit to Cantebury Cathedral in 1979 was that you couldn't see the architecture for all the mendicant signs. This from the second wealthiest (after Mrs DaGreek) and toughest landlords in the country. I have just got an indication this may be the same, since trying to locate Exeter Cathedral on Google Earth got me about three screens full of commercial crap!

Pommie Beer page

2010-03-26T05:00:00.000-07:00

I have previously referred to Mr B Mackenzie who went to the UK with a suitcase of personal effects (ie cans of Fosters Lager).

In 1971 when I went back to the UK to let my parents know I was staying in Australia I arranged for a couple of slabs of Fosters to be delivered by mail to my parents place. My dad was a little surprised to find the postman staggering to the front door with 48 tinnies in his arms. These days I wouldn't drink Fosters in a fit (unless 1: I was suffering from extreme thirst and 2: there was no other beer available).

My only recent (ie since 2002) experiences of British Beers have been:

a couple of bottles of an Adnams product which were very enjoyable and found in the Plonk shop at Fyshwick Markets. (Note that I am a bit worried about Adnams since this site kept trying to divert me into wine: bugger that, they are BREWERS not whine (sic) merchants).
a bottle of Black Sheep (see below) Riggwelter Ale from the same source. Most excellent beer

However the following list of points will report on what I find on safari later in the year.

I think this might come under the "nice try but no cigar" category. Our first stop, at Ingleby Manor is close to Great Ayrton where there is a Captain Cook memorial marked in the AA Atlas. On Googling this I was linked to an entry in Wikipedia which includes the statement "...in the 18th and 19th centuries was a centre for the industries of weaving, tanning, brewing and tile making." Who cares about the death of the weaving, tanning and tile making industries?

After Frances found a reference to Theakstons in a guide book I did a little research on it and came across a page from 1998. The Good Beer Guide says that the Theakston family have re-acquired the original brewery so possibly they are running both breweries again. The Black Sheep has a webpage also. It sounds like Masham will have to be visited (and possibly Frances will be driving afterwards). [I contacted Theakstons about their opening hours and got back a helpful reply in under an hour! That is what I call a client focus!!]

This was but the start of my theoretical research. My next attempt was to read through the Breweries section of the Good Beer Guide to see which ones were in range. Unfortunately I had noted 7 good looking establishments before I had got out of the 'Bs'. So I went for plan B which was to mark the location of our accommodation on the maps and see what was around them. North Yorkshire and Somerset had a few interesting looking entries at first glance with a Black Sheep (see above) house very close to the Manor. "Our" part of Norfolk looked be suitable for renaming as "Leglessshire" since:

the village we're staying in has a pub tied to Buffy's;
the next village towards Norwich has facility of the Blue Moon Brewery (makers of inter alia Liquor Mortis); and
the 3rd village has house beer by Wolf and specialities from Beeston!

As she is spoke

2010-03-26T04:45:00.000-07:00

Some years back I was reading a Lonely Planet guide which talked about English accents. Their advice was to be very careful about asking people what language they are using, since it might well turn out to be English.

With that in mind I note that the areas in which we will be based have some rather good specimens of the accents available. At least they were available when I was wearing short pants.

A challenge is going to be finding a way of representing these terms in text. To try to kick things off, a great example of the Yorkshire accent was our physics teacher at Maldon Grammar (which was a Government school, despite sounding like the toffee places in Australia where Grammar= huge fees). The brats - myself included - went to fair lengths to get him to refer to the gas given off at a cathode during hydrolysis of water. The way he pronounced the outcome can I think be reproduced as "Boobles of iiidrigin."

A small side issue on this may be recording some of the bizarre names of places, reflecting their genesis in a mediaeval language and changes through the years. The thought has arisen from the name of a village quite close to Ingleby: Rudby Sexhow. Following our trip down the Hume Highway I must confess that English names will mostly seem quite sensible compared to places like Wangaratta, Wagga Wagga and Yarrawonga. (Also, the Australian examples may translate as something just as funny as 'Sexhow'.)

Don't need to be a weatherman ...

2010-03-26T01:23:00.000-07:00

.. to know which way the wind blows. We will disregard the metaphorical intent of Mr Dylan's ditty and instead marvel that this is the last topic raised. Not only is the weather the most frequently discussed issue anywhere in the world but escaping Winter on the Monaro is a large part of the reason for the timing of this trip.

I am not sanguine about the prospect of fine weather. This comes about from:

my recollection of the foul climate when I was growing up in Essex (theoretically the driest part of the UK) which leads me to describe grey drizzly days as 'English weather';
the frequent comments in James Heriot's TV series 'All Creatures Great and Small' about it being a" a fine soft day"; and
looking at the weather for Middlesbrough on The Weather Channel website.

However I will try to record what descends from above each day (and hopefully not grizzle too much about it). I do however have a theory that it is the weather that leads to the stereotype of the whingeing Pom!

Doing the training

2010-03-26T01:20:00.000-07:00

The group with whom we go walking (for plant purposes) on most Wednesdays assess if they should go according to the weather. There have been a couple of occasions recently when they have decided not to go because of the rain, wind and low temperatures. I have complained about this as I felt we needed to get in some acclimatisation before starting this trip. The response has been that I was quite welcome to go out and walk around in it.

This morning (17 June) I did emerge into reasonably steady rain (7mm since 6:30 am), fairly good winds and 8 degrees C. I can see why we are going away from this and just hope that it will be better in Yorkshire in 2 days time!.

18 June: Trip over

2010-03-25T23:00:00.000-07:00

Start of the trip, to Sydney and head off to Manchester.

I have declared the blog to be final apart from any changes which I might make as other things occur to me or I find errors and fix them up Enjoy!!

As seems to be the case these days this trip started with taking the small dog to the friend who is looking after her. Tammy seemed to make herself at home and seemed to get on well, albeit it excitedly, with the friends dog. Here is hoping. (Update: small dog had a brilliant time with a Corgi playmate and excellent care.)

The drive to Sydney was fine, although a slight bummer that the car didn't have cruise control as expected. Fuel consumption was negligible!

We got slightly cranky with Emirates that the online check in seemed to achieve nothing. People who went to the 'normal process' seemed to get through as quick, or quicker, than we did. After this we browsed the duty free shops and saw Penfolds Grange – 2005 vintage – for a cheap $599.00! We ended up in the low-rent part of the international terminal. Somewhere along the way we saw a forecast for Dubai: a temperature range from 32 to 46C. So glad we are not stopping there.

The inflight entertainment was very comprehensive but it took me some time to work out. (I think I was stressing about the drive to Ingleby so not really relaxed.) There was an unusual icon appeared from time to time in the route map sequence. Eventually I realised that one part of it was the cube in Mecca which the hadjis parade around and this icon was indicating the direction of the Holy City. At one point the map showed an airspeed of 957kph and a ground speed of 785kph, which resolves to a head wind of 172 kph. That bit – across central Australia was rather bumpy. The red wine was excellent – 2007 St Emilion appelation controlee. The 'beers' offered were Budweiser (US version); Heineken or Amstel Light. I see a new objectivefor CAMRA!

The airport at Bangkok was rather dowdy. Outside temperature was 33C hot at midnight. After a short leg to Dubai we found it to be 33C there at 5am. The place was a hive of activity in a very impressive structure. A particular hive was the dunnies which seemed to be well undersupplied.

For some reason our plane parked a fair way from the terminal (given the size of the UAE we may have been in the next country). As we bussed to the building I recorded 4 species of birds: probably all on my list from 2005. The amount of construction activity observable as we had headed to the terminal was most impressive: my impression (from the return trip) was that considerable progress had been made in three weeks, but we didn't take a comparson picture. Here is the way over:

The flight to Manchester was reasonably unremarkable except for the number of crying babies in our part of the plane. There were a couple of good views from the plane:

the Burq al Haj in Dubaii: currently the world's tallest structure (not visible through the murk); and
a large (say 50 turbines) wind farm about 1km offshore in the North Sea. The mst astonishing thing to me was that at 10,000m (ie 10 kilometres away !!!) altitude even my crappy eyes could see the blades turning! (I didn't have the camera ready for taking a snap of these.)

19 June: To Ingleby

2010-03-25T22:00:00.000-07:00

Arrive Manchester, drive to Ingleby Manor. Probably do sleep!

The immigration guy was very chatty and friendly. No way was he a jobsworth! In fact Manchester airport was very good in all respects.

The hire car was picked up in a very friendly way. It is a turbo diesel Skoda and rolls along very nicely (especially as it has cruise control.) As predicted by the AA Atlas we are using there are speed cameras everywhere, including a long stretch on the M56 which used average speed. Despite all this many cars went past me, who was sitting on 70. (I assume that is still the motorway limit – there are no signs to say so! ) As we have driven around it is very difficult to work out where the speed cameras are. There are many signs - in some cases 4 or 5 within 2 miles - but rarely do I spot a camera. In fact these are mainly the equivalent of "speed cameras may be used in this area" and not an indication of a fixed item: however I am still amazed that anyone in the UK who travels more than 10 km from home has a driving license.

While trying to work out where we could park in Middlesbrough I spoke to a couple of Middlesbrough Wardens. They said they didn't do parking, so couldn't help me but were very friendly.

Our visit to Middlesbrough was generally a bit fraught as I had basically had it – by this time we'd been travelling for 38 hours with not much sleep so I was stuffed. We got some cash and some groceries and that was about it. We found our way to Ingleby Manor where we were greeted by our very charming and friendly hostess and introduced to the Gun Room which is excellent.

A fair number of birds were seen on the way. First was a wood pigeon, and the best a kestrel (defined as best because I like them)!

The weather was ungood. 13C , overcast and windy. Our hostess said that the previous week it was 26 and sunny! No particular linguistic items, but the average denizen of Middlesbrough has an accent that could break rocks. (On the flight to Dubai we spoke to a young guy from York and, when speaking to us, he had a strong accent but when he was talking to another bloke at full speed I could not understand a word!)

20 June: York and Rievaulx

2010-03-25T21:00:00.000-07:00

It's Sunday so go to Church. Probably two churches: York Minster and Beverly Minster. This should balance the number of pubs and breweries scheduled for later in the week.

I went for an early morning prowl (after waking at 4am that wasn't hard – the issue was waiting to a time not to disturb others, not daylight, which starts at 3am). Added a few birds to the list.

Off towards York with no problems on the country roads. Then we got to the A19 where we needed to go South. Due to road works various intersections were closed so we went North for 3 miles first. As we were following an old horse float this was not fast, and neither were the 5 miles back South. Whatever: we then headed off to York, at which fair city we were directed to a car park about 3 miles from the centre. We then moved on to the try to find a car park closer to the Minster.

The first one we found astonished us by charging Stg1.7 an hour. As we would be gone for 3 hours that would be Stg 5.1. Apart from sticker shock we didn't have that amount of coins (and being helpful the machines didn't take cards or notes). We shifted to another park, outside a Sainsbury's and when we later went shopping got our fee back!

The Minster was, as usual for cathedrals, half covered in scaffolding. The streets were full of cyclists many of them on 'novelty bikes'. It emerged they had been to a cyclists service “Bless thy chain set and keep thee from the path of punctures”?

Inside the cathedral it was surprisingly light compared to the European and US cathedrals etc we had visited. However the proportions were definitely Gothic and soaring. The choir part of the service was OK although they were drowned out by the organ (or perhaps the sound was absorbed by the soaring ceilings). I didn't take any pictures of the cathedral - possibly due to brain-death - but they had a good display of work being done on restoration including some of the figures used as decoration. I liked this one, especially the coins which thoughtful folk had added.

We then wandered the streets of York, well crowded by tourists and visited a Vodaphone shop to get a SIM card. This was done – a great pity my phone still appeared to be locked to Virgin!

Having decided not to extend the driving by 30 miles each way to Beverly we headed back to Ingleby by the scenic route. There were hundreds of motorbikes on the road. It emerged they had been to a rally in Duncombe Park and were using the chance to go flat as a maggot on the twisty road. As there was a sign talking about 45 motor cycle casualities in the last 5 years I guess the challenge was real. They, and the cops looking after proceedings did a good job of clogging the market square at Helmsley so we didn't stop there but headed off to the National Trust place at Rievaulx Temples – an old folly looking down on a ruined Abbey. An interesting wander, scoring wrens and a Robin! I didn't take any images of the National Trust site, which was really just a path along a ridge with a couple of imitation Greek temples, but here is one of the ruins.

Back at the Manor we then did a short walk to avoid going to sleep at 4pm!

The weather was pretty good: lots of sunshine, little wind and a top of about 18.

21 June: Flamborough

2010-03-25T20:00:00.000-07:00

The main business is Flamborough Heads and other cliffs in the area. There are a few other spots on the way back and forth,

We woke fairly early and by 7am were on the road heading towards Bempton Cliffs. We took a route along the Northern and Eastern side of the Moors. This was quite an interesting drive as we actually got to see some heather! (Most of the North York Moors National Park appears to be farmland of one sort or another: presumably there are some limitations on what the owners or tenants of the land can do.) Here is a piccie of the moors, followed by a close up of the cottage.

The last several miles were through villages again which were merely tiresome and made life navigationally stressful.

However we eventually arrived at the cliffs, and used our RSPB membership to sally forth. What a fantastic place.

Frances made a call at some point that it was like an Amazonian claylick with heaps of birds flying around and sitting on the cliffs (or the sea below). The two most notable species for me were Kittiwake and Fulmar because both were lifers:

the kittiwakes were in tens of thousands - many with chicks;

fulmars were much less common, but once the eye was in (thank you UK birder for pointing out the stiff wing jizz) they were quite easy to pick up on the wing and the beak was very obvious when sitting.

Also excellent were the gannets and auks:

Razorbill (with a big fat dark bill);
Guillemot (with a fine pointed bill); and best of all (see entry for Day 18 for a close up of these at Portland Bill).
Puffins with a very colourful bill when not hidden under a wing).

Another person was heard to comment that in total there were 250,000 birds on the cliffs. I would have thought there were more, but it is a good number.

After about three hours we left and headed back along the coast road home. This was quite scenic but villages and towns every few miles. It was rated an A road but made the older bits of the Princes Highway look like a freeway. I cannot imagine what it will be like in a few weeks when the holiday season is in full swing with every second car towing a van or boat.

After a few bits and pieces, and reflections on how signs at crucial turns do not have the name of the place you are heading for, we got to Middlesbrough where I got my cell phone freed from the influence of Virgin Australia so that I could use a UK SIM card. This was done successfully (although I am not sure how legally, but since I am well past my contract date with Virgin I don't care).

The weather was excellent. Lots of sunshine and topping out at about 24. Is this really Northern England?

22 June: Durham and Salthome

2010-03-25T19:00:00.000-07:00

Leeds is Kultur: Art Gallery and Fairburn Ings (birds) and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park!

The first day of the BIG 3: high success with buildings, birds and beer.

After an exercise walk around Ingleby Greenhow we headed off for Durham, principally to check out the cathedral. En route we stopped to buy our first fuel ( I keep wanting to call it petrol – fortunately I stuck diesel in the motor). Fuel consumption has worked out at 49.6 mpg, not bad with a mixture of motorway, urban and very rural roads.

A pretty simple drive into Durham, and by following our eyes got a park close to the cathedral. This was in a private park and was a tad cheaper than the council one in York. However, this place let you pay post hoc (so you didn't have to guess how long you'd be) and gave change so you didn't get ripped off. I don't see this as a public/private distinction, just that York Council employs some jobsworth prats.

Durham cathedral was magnificent. Possibly the best cathedral I have ever visited anywhere for magnificent architecture. Unfortunately photography was not allowed (presumably because it reduced guidebook sales). It was huge in every dimension and followed Norman designs: according to Francs' guidebook it was the first place to use pointed window arches which were subsequently used everywhere. We read that a service has been given every day for more than 900 years!

We thought the glass was better than Chartres (ie it actually was clean enough to let light through) and much better made than York (which was very cluttered with lead). However the space wasn't full of light but dim enough to feel impressive. By clicking my tongue I rated the acoustics as very good- I'd love to go to a full on choral service here.

The two most impressive memorials were:

the tomb of the Venerable Bede (about 900 years old); and
the miners Register which recorded the names of miners killed in accidents at each mine. 6 July 1951 was not a good day at one mine, to which the book was open as they lost 10 guys that day. Its a tough area.

On our way to the cathedral I had stopped to scope out some cormorants in the river and felt a dog brush against me. On looking round it was 3 fat skinheads in police uniform with a very scruffy and old looking pooch. We came across them later and they seemed to have some plain clothes colleagues emerging from the market with 'substances' which the dog was detecting. The dog also snuffled some citizens but didn't detect whatever they were carrying.

I met the first jobsworth, in the shape of a woman who said very officiously that the courtyard of the castle (now part of the Uni) was closed. I merely said “yes” in response, rather than “go tell someone who gives a damn”.

Our next stop was Salthome Reserve run by the RSPB. This was a stunning place where everything was well set up and managed but they had avoided turning it into a zoo. It was quite bizarre to find such a great place in the middle of a very heavily industrialised area. They had quite a lot of punters there – my guess was 60 cars at any one time in the car park (and June/July is the worst time of the year). I recorded about 28 species in the two hours we were there, with many of them breeding. 17 of these were additions to the trip list.

The two images show the visitors centre (with the cooling towers from a “power from waste" station in the background) and a flock of Grey lag Geese sailing off with a petrochemical plant as background. It says something about the importance of the place that signs started on the A19 about 5 miles (and 4 major intersections) away. Perhaps this is the sort of thing to which some folk aspire for Kelly's Swamp in Canberra. Other than the 'Field of Dreams' approach – if you build it they will come- the first job is to get reliable water in the place and the second is to staff and manage the place properly. I would say that Salthome would be a good model to follow., and the RSPB would be a good source of expert advice.

We then moved on a tad to the Teesmouth National Nature Reserve to see the nesting avocets. It astonishes me that when I was growing up there was huge excitement about a pair of these nesting at Minsmere in Suffolk, and now they are in a heavy industrial area several hundred miles North. We also saw 38 seals (a mixture of common and grey seals) hauled out on a mud bank a tad further away.

All of this had induced thirst so we repaired to the White Swan in Stokesley for refreshment. Frances had a cider while I inhaled two good brews from the Captain Cook brewery: Black Porter and Slipway Ale.

A few linguistic and cultural observations.

A Burger King in Durham was offering the chance to watch the World Cup final with Jimmy Greaves. I hadn't heard of him for many, many years but he is obviously still big news in the UK.
An advertising sign (for beer) in the heavy industrial area on the North of the Tees; “Same colour as a footballers wife. But better tasting.”
When in the pub we couldn't eavesdrop as we couldn't understand the locals talking between themselves. However when they talked to us they slowed down and the accent greatly reduced.

23 June: Yorkshire Sculpture Park

2010-03-25T18:00:00.000-07:00

Durham.

That was yesterday and today was the day our plans from yesterday got implemented. As I found that the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) didn't open until 10am and we were awake etc and breakfasted by 6:30 I thought we could slightly vary our route and swing by Fairburn Ings (an RSPB reserve) on the way to YSP.

This turned out to be a great idea as we saw lots of birds at the Ings (I think basically a set of revegetated waste heaps). Everyone we met there as frindly and I added 5 species to the trip list. (Another 2 were added at YSP, bringing the total for the trip to 68.) The best bird was a Whooper Swan, of which I had only seen 1 before (at Jamaica Bay in New York, where its 'tickability' was questionable at best). On checking with a local this one was quite sound.

After a brief thrash down the M1 past a power station – surely the inheritor of Blake's approbation of “dark Satanic mills” we got to YSP. What an absolute blast! I rate the place at least as good as Storm King in upstate New York. I will not add any images until I get back to Carwoola and can resize them, but I took 60 snaps today and they are mainly quite interesting. A special page will be created.

There was a special exhibition of the work of David Nash who does things with wood. The things done include

setting fire to it,
assaulting it with a chainsaw (and I suspect various other mechanical devices); and
letting it fall into a river and filming it over a number of years as it rolls downstream. (This one is weird as he lost it for a while and thought it had gone out to sea, but it re-emereged from a sand bar so the project is ongoing.)
Building a set of steps on commission by YSP

Other highlights were

3 Andy Goldsworthy walled things (the Hanging Trees were my favourite);

many Henry Moore's
Barbara Hepworth's Family of Man series; and
a set of Caros.

One issue about the place was finding out what works were: it was frequently a problem finding the labels which could be several metres from the work.

The works of Elizabeth Frink featuring male nudes were quite fun. It was livened up by the visit of a horde of schoolkids (of rather tender years and non-Caucasian backgrounds) who proceeded to touch 'sensitive' parts of the art work in a fair number of inventive ways, which I will not go into here, to keep the porn police at bay.

There was quite a trek involved in viewing this place. I would guess we covered about 6kms (horizontal, and fair bit vertical) at a minimum. I was interested to see that here, like most everywhere else was well supplied with molehills. I suspect ths means that agricultural chemical use has been got somewhat under control. As a general comment it was very pleasing to find that dogs were largely welcome in most parts of YSP. as long as they were on a lead this included the areas with grazing cattle and sheep.

The distant view include a huge concrete tower/radio mast On asking a passing local this turned out to be Emley Moor Tower: the tallest free-standing stucture in Europe. It replaced an earlier steel version that had succumbed to cold and strong winds and crashed. I have put in a link to this in Wikipedia.

The beer report for today is not good. We went to the Dudley Arms in Ingleby Greenhow to find they sold commercial beers. I tried Calders 70 (an average mild) and Tetleys Midsummer madness which was flat warm and tasteless – a summary of what CAMRA set out to overcome.

As usual we could not understand much of the local conversations. One bit – by a young male person could be reproduced as “Hour mooch cud yer erve ud?” which we think translated to “How much could you have had?” Also on the linguistic line, Frances invented a new collective noun: 'an inadequacy of road signs'

24 June: Cook memorial, Nunington, Helmsley; Fountains Abbey and Masham

2010-03-25T17:00:00.000-07:00

Touring NW Yorkshire including Masham (so Frances may well be driving back to Ingleby).

24 June started with a bit of birding around the Manor. This added 2 species to the trip list and was all the birding that was done today.

After breakfast we headed off to visit the Captain Cook Memorial on top of the Moors. After a few misunderstandings of the map we scaled the initial part of the Cleveland Way (it was rather steep through a farm) and turned off on a track (also part of the Way) through a forest. I noticed some local was sitting at the intersection and once we had turned, he nicked off: was he watching us or am I just parnoid? This was pleasant walking. After a couple of kms we ascended once again to the memorial positioned on the edge of the moors.

The plaque really boosted Cook as a paragon of everything. Interestingly the only other country which got a mention was the Friendly Isles which is I think Fiji. A small quarry was nearby, indicating that the stone was not carried a great distance. Being on the edge of the Moor the view was pretty good. It was also rather exposed to the increasingly strong wind and gave one a closer look at the approaching cloud. We retreated.

We headed South towards Helmsley on a small and scenic road. This was far less busy than it had been on the Sunday. At some point we stopped to check out the Church of St Hilda, in honour of Frances' Mum. I think Durham had some some information about her (the Saint, not the Mum) but left off the 'a': I will check when we get back to internet contact.

On,on, and a descent to look at Rievaulx Abbey from the road. The village here was very pleasant with another old church and our first thatched house. Back up a steep hill (hoping we don't meet a tour bus coming down) and on to Helmsley. We sorted out the parking situation, where the warden, a jobsworth if ever I saw one, was engrossed in the racing pages of his newspaper. We spent quite a bit of time in the excellent church with great murals (inter alia listing all the vicars since 1129).

The Castle seemed to be a charged entry ruin, so we just peered over the wall and left. Getting back to the car, the jobsworth was no longer evident: I presume that he was either in the pub or, having made his selections, in the betting shop investing his day's take.

The reason we had come to this area was to visit Nunnington Hall, a National trust property. I rated it as OK, but rather run down. There were heaps of people there and I suspect we made a reduction in the average age! There was a nice display of photographs by a female singer who was performing there in the evening (and seemed to be a big deal, but I had never heard of her - and cannot now remember her name). The entry hall featured an array of endangered species mounted on the wall – I suppose that is why they are now endangered! The gardens were very interesting especially in the way the orchard was allowed to remain natural (apart from the fruit trees). They also featured some industria size compost bins, in a part of the garden accessible by backhoe.

There were other places to go so off to Ripon and Fountains Abbey. This included a descent of Sutton Bank (the Western edge of the Moors here) with all sorts of injunctions against taking caravans down it: it is always a good thing to ban caravans from anywhere but this road didn't seem unduly alarming.

Getting through Ripon was a challenge since it seemed to be the town that roadsigns forgot. (We did see a sign to the 'Dog Sanctuary at Catton.) However we got to Fountains Abbey (another National Trust site) eventually. It was a huge place and rather well set out. It was interesting that while the lawns were manicured, weeds were growing in the ruins which were the reason for the whole thing. Perhaps there is a NT rule that weeds make it look like a real ruin? A small church we found near the end of the walk – about 4 km if we hadn't wimped into the shuttle bus - was very elaborately decorated inside. A herd of deer were grazing nearby and provided many photo opportunities.

We then did a blat to Masham to visit breweries. Make that singular since Theakstons shut at 4:30. Ban Old Peculiar Ale! I certainly think it is peculiar for a beer outlet to close at that time. The Black Sheep Brewery was still open so I had a couple of halves of excellent beer (but not Riggwelter as we had too far to drive).

I might as well have had another few ales since the next village seems to have been where the sign-post ignorers practised their craft. We eventually found our way back to Stokesley where we had a meal and a couple more ales in the Spread Eagle . Quite a few people in the pub, many of them old ladies (ie females who looked about our age). They seemed to be in two classes: those who were drinking spirits and those who were drinking tea.

That is it for this day.

25 June: Heading for Norfolk

2010-03-25T16:00:00.000-07:00

Some places on the far side of the Pennines. This may be a sacrificial lamb if things get out of kilter earlier in the week.

25 June was a transfer day. We left Ingleby at 7 (having taken some photos of the garden and the fantastic avenue up the drive).

We then battled the road “works” (no-one was in sight, let alone working) on the A19 and on down the A1(M), M622, M18 and M180. The only notable sight on this stretch was the number of power stations in South Yorkshire: if they are coal fired the place is climate change hell, if nuclear, I am glad we didn't stay there, and am sorry I didn't get a few DNA samples from the locals for later study.

After this stretch of easy driving we turned on to the A15 for a drive down to Lincoln. This is a two lane road with continual heavy traffic. No wonder it is a casualty red spot. After an our we got to Lincoln where the cathedral stood out from afar. Parking was easy to find (and compared to York modestly priced.)

The cathedral was magnificent both in terms of architecture and information. They also were not fussed about photographs being taken so I took a few. The wood carvings were by William Fairbank and the pots/candleholders by Robin Welch. The latter are apparently at the technical limit of what can be achieved on a potters wheel.

Much of the stained glass was glorious. I was particularly taken by that in the chapter house which told the story of the Cathedral. My best image was that of the roundhead soldiers attacking the Cathedral. The most colourful pane 'in life' was of the Great Fire which trashed much of the building in 1142. In image it was naff, so you won't get to see that. One set of chapels are devoted to services and included memorials to people killed in the Indian Mutiny and the South African War (aka the Boer War?)

An interesting aspect was the material about the Lincoln Imp. This was a small carving depicting an evil imp. As far as I could work out, the chief challenge was being able to spot ut without detailed directions. We and others when we were there failed. With directions it was merely interesting to try to work out why one had bothered. It's better to see an image of the cathedral towers.

The only annoyance about the place was a gardener using a motor mower in the cloisters. This totally stuffed our peaceful cup of coffee. Probably it was more than his job's worth to come up with a quieter alternative.

We found our way out of Lincoln and headed for Norwich(ish). In Kings Lynn we took a pause from the heavy traffic on carriageways designed for drays, and entered our first Tescos. What a horrible place, especially compared to the peaceful Sainsburys in York. It is hard to put my finger on what was bad, but everything seemed garish and tawdry: rather like a Lowest Common Denominator exemplified. It was also crowded and I will blame Tescos for most everything wrong with the UK (except the genetic defects induced by nuclear power stations).

Moving on down the A47 we found that Ripon was only a practise run for Dereham in the matter of bad signage. (see a couple of day's time for more on Dereham's signs.) We got to Norwich when we didn't expect to and fought our way back to Wymondham and thence to Wicklewood where we met up with Mary and have now established base camp 2 at the Coach House.

26 June: Norwich and Wymondham

2010-03-25T15:00:00.000-07:00

Transit from Yorkshire to Norfolk. Probably call in to Lincoln and Peterborough Cathedrals en route.

Obviously that lead-in was superceded as we did that yesterday.

After a good sleep my day started with a walk to the Church. This included three additions to the trip list (now 74 sps). The church was quite small and plain but had memorials from the 18th century (one of the local documents talked about there being two churches until the 14th century, so it was seriously old). The most attractive feature was an array of embroidered kneelers.

The first external business of the day was to visit Wymondham, the biggest village in the area. A music festival was happening there and Saturday morning's activity was a school band performing in the market square. They were a school band, and sounded better when a bit further away. We then found our way to the Abbey. This had been an abbey and a church in combination, but following the dissolution of the monasteries the Abbey had been demolished and only the church was left. It was quite an extraordinary building:

the ceiling was supported by angel buttresses (that were very resistant to being photographed);
a very ornate altar screen had been built; and
a sign set into the floor mentioned services being held there for more than 900 years.

The next stop was Norwich where Frances toddled off to the Cathedral and I went to search for an internet cafe. Both were successful after initial frustration at finding all the car parks were full.

The 'cafe' was in the Library and was very effective. I was able to check emails (finding out that Australia had a new Prime Minister) but since I didn't want to put my pendrive near a public computer, not upload anything to the blog. I had gathered the impression from the Biking Birder blog (a guy trying to visit every RSPB Reserve within a year, by bike) that libraries were the go. This library was in the Forum - a huge building for community use, financed from lottery funds in about 2000. As well as the library the ground floor seemed to be in use as a speakers corner where every left wing “human conscience” group in the area had a stall! Even someone selling the Big Issue!

Then to the University of East Anglia to check out the Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts. Frances thought this was pretty good but to me it was more or less the Sainsburys emptying out their attic (with, it must be said, some goodies therein) and the alleged curators of the collection refusing to give information about the many works but 'letting the work speak for itself'. Post-modernist crap: wood and stone are pretty silent. From my view the best stuff was a sculptor - John Davies – who had managed to capture the look and feel of the 'living sculptures' found in many tourist sites (folk imitating the Statue of Liberty etc). Sort of art imitating art.

The next activity was to go back to Wymondham for a beer. Unfortunately, and despite what was said in the Good Beer Guide, the pubs listed in that tome were shut until 5:30. This did mean we had several opportunities to walk past a wedding being held in the Methodist Church. The emphasis on bright colours so evident in Tescos was very present here in the attire of the 'ladies': unfortunately so was the level of taste.

I went for a short stroll round the village before tea. This revealed a huge number of Wood Pigeons (at least 50 in one field) and a surprising number of Greenfinches (4 in a row on a phone line). The windmill was a disappointment as the sails were laid on the ground beside it.

27 June: North Norfolk

2010-03-25T14:00:00.000-07:00

This day is to be birding in North Norfolk with Ron Johns.

And a fabtastic (I like the typo so have left it alone!) day it was too. I think 4 lifers (Bittern, Montagu's Harrier; Bearded Reedling {also known as Bearded Tit by traditionalists and Bearded Parrotbill by my listing software!}; and Dartford Warbler plus a lot more additions to the UK and trip lists.

The religious edifice for the was North Elmham Chapel (or Cathedral,take your pick). It was a ruin, of a stone chapel built on the site of a wooden cathedral. We spent about 5 minutes there on our way to Salthouse. A bonus from this site was a helpful explanation about the problem of dog poop; which in terms of number of signsn erected on the topic is the major problem afflicting the UK. The example at these ruins explained that it was about a parasitic infection for grazing sheep.

Before getting to the birding I must comment again on the road signs (or rather the lack of them) around Dereham. Heading North we followed signs happily until we suddenly came to a T-intersection with no signs to anywhere we wished to go. Of course we chose wrong so went about 2 miles out of our way. Heading back South at the end of the day I tried plan B: going through the centre of the town. This meant we went about 4 miles out of our way and required a lot of rules of thumb and prayers to get back on the right side of the A47! UNGOOD.

Once we actually got to Salthouse and met our friend Ron, the day ascended from the pleasant to the excellent.

The first sighting was of a Little Owl which, instead of roosting in a tree 30m off the road, was perched in a dead tree right beside the road. We got stunning views of the lovely little chap.Of course I didn't have my camera ready: instead here is the ultimate picture of a field of poppies (and an incidental old ring roller).

Next target was Montagu's Harrier which Frances was the first to spot as it cruised over the paddocks near its nest site. A truly lovely harrier and we even got to see male and female attempting a food transfer. (Marsh Harriers were more common - at one point 4 were seen in almost a kettle: probably a family.)

After adding Corn Bunting (now an unusual bird in many places) we got to Titchwell RSPB Reserve where many goodies were hoped for. I will start by saying they were delivered in large order. A Bittern was seen flying across the reeds – yes, a good clear view, not a cryptic haystack in the reeds - and a flock of juvenile Bearded Reedlings (or Tits or Parrotbills) appeared for our delectation. Amongst the waders, Ruff in breeding plumage; Spotted Redshank and Black-tailed Godwit (breeding plumage) were highlights.

After lunch (see below) we went to hunt for Dartford Warblers. We got to Kelling Heath - with a lot of blooming heather- and after a few local enquiries (and a phone call or two) a male Dartford was kind enough to present itself for ticking. This was a bird that had apparently adopted a family of Stonechats (also seen and not a bad bird at that). It appeared shortly after a steam train went past and we drew the obvious conclusion that Dartford Warblers can be attracted by imitating steam trains!

The trip list is now 94 species!

In the matter of beers I was antisocial enough to add a beer to my sandwich at lunchtime. How could one not sup an Oystercatcher Beer on a day's birding? It was brewed in the vicinity of the White Horse at Brancaster Staithe and was very pleasant. Getting back to Wicklewood we attended the Cherry Tree pub, one of two owned by Buffy's Brewery. Several of their brews listed in the Guide seem to refer to psittacoids and I chose a pint of Norwegian Blue. A pleasant taste and a good texture to finish off an excellent day.

After visiting James Cook's birthplace in Yorkshire, today we drove through Nelson's birthplace at Burnham Thope. This village is also known as Chelsea on Sea due to the number of denizens of that Borough who have shacks here. We were told of a place purchased for Stg650k about 4 years ago now being worth Stg2m! Another village with an interesting history was Stiffkey (pronounced Stookey) where the vicar in the 1910s was found to be a little enthusiastic in his assistance to fallen women. After being defrocked (the vicar, not the women, although that was probably where the vicar went wrong) he joined a circus where he was killed by a lion! The pub in the village was, possibly coincidentally, called the Red Lion.

Today was also the day (which the Daily Mirror referred to in a headline as “The Battle of Britain”) when England played Germany in the World Cup. We couldn't gloat to our friends about the result but it was amusing to hear the BBC commentators introduce the story with a rant about a “clear goal” being disallowed and then go on to say how the Germans had outplayed England everywhere. It will be interesting to see how many cars are drivng around with the little flags on, and how many bedroom windows are decorated with the cross of St George today. I might buy a newspaper as a memento mori.

28 June: Bury St Edmunds, Lavenham and Constable country.

2010-03-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

Cambridge and Anglesey Abbey

Noo, didn't do that.

Let us carry on where we left off. I acquired a copy of the Daily Mail which had a headline “If The Few had defended the way England did, we'd all be speaking German” and then got a bit critical. The name Douglas Bader was invoked a few times, with the comment that the England goalie didn't have two wooden legs as an excuse! Surprisingly there were still a few flags around today, but nowhere near as many as yesterday! (Note from the future: a few die-hard - or lazy - supporters still had flags up at the end of the trip!)

Our Monday began with a trip to Bury St Edmunds. A nice drive with the end made lively by a truck hiding a crucial sign. At the edge of town was a huge factory area – it seemed to be processing sugar beet. We found a parking area in the historic district (although unlike Europe it wasn't posted as such). The place was beautiful with nice gardens and friendly squirrels.

Adjacent to the gardens were the ruins of the Abbey. Thank you Henry VIII!

The Cathedral was excellent with much stained glass and lots of carved wood. The ceilings were very colourful and the organ was heading that way, although still being painted. The place was a tad in turmoil as they had had an ordination of deacons yesterday: the fittings include a lot of TV screens to allow those in the back pews to see the ordination of THEIR person.

We then did a church nearby, with many carvings and the tomb of Mary Tudor. They went to pains to point out who she was (especially that she was neither Bloody Mary nor Mary Queen of Scots, and in addition that they were two different people!). Between the Cathedral and the smaller church was an interesting statue. It turned out to be by Elizabeth Frink, who had created the much patted etc less well clothed persons at YSP.

Next we moved on to another semi-sacred site in the shape of the Visitor Centre for the Greene King Brewery. I got some retail therapy here with a nice polo shirt and a jute bag containing 6 sample beers. I have just had an Old Bob Ale and it was excellent. (From a couple of days later: I have now finished the samples and am ready to recommend elevation of this place to a status of full sacred site. Great stuff: I will wear the polo shirt with pride.)

Next stop was Lavenham. This is a really old town linked to the de Vere family (the Dukes of Oxford etc). Apparently 300 of the houses in the town are heritage listed as well as the Guildhall. The Guildhall was quite interesting with inter alia a display about the family of Jane Turner, who wrote the words for 'Twinkle twinkle little star'. They also had an interesting array of barrels showing that what looked just a bit bigger could be twice the size:

pin of 4.5 gallons
firkin of 9 gallons
kinderkin of 18 gallons and
barrel of 36 gallons

They didn't look to be doubling in size! Who says this blog is not educational!

We prowled the town a bit and ended in the Church which was rather interesting. Altogether a nice place to visit.

We then headed off to do a walk in Constable country. En route we got to Stoke by Nayland where there was a church with many good brasses. One of these was Catherine Howard (grannie of Anne Boleyn and another Catherine Howard, both wives of Henry VIII) and the other a gent who went to the crusades. Not bad for a small village church!

The Constable Country bit was not too bad. A pleasant walk through some Essex countryside and looking at the frolics of the youth in the hire boats (there is a relevant limeric about tricks, Buckingham and stunts in punts but I cannot remember it all). I have a memory of visiting Flatford Mill in the distant past and being annoyed that some mob of educationalist wankers had hired the Mill so that visiting humans couldn't see it properly. That still applies.

As we walked out on the narrow country lane some goose came by driving an Aston Martin and did a small wheelie. Unfortunately he didn't join the scenery. This did cause me to reflect that he was the third Aston seen on the trip. Also lots of Porsches, one Roller and Mercedes/BMW everywhere. How do the impoverished afford these wheels and why bother, in a country with a 70mph speed limit, to buy a set that will do 200mph? (We confirmed that speeding fines are similar to Australia and 12 points and your license is gone: I can only assume that either

radar detectors are readily available; or
a high proportion of punters on the roads are unlicenced.)

The drive home was fine once we had got out of Essex where all street signs were hidden. I have included the image of the welcome to Essex sign to show that even that message is partly overgrown by the surrounding vegetation. (When one is keeping up with traffic at 60mph it is positively dangerous to attempt to read a sign of which 90% is behind a vigorous Elm pollard.)

Do not diss Diss: they had great road signs (and cheap petrol) as did Addlethorpe on the A11. The only annoyance of the way home was deciding to go to the Cross Keys pub in Wymondham and finding it still closed. I am reminded of some friends experience in Nyon, Switzerland where on place was referred to as the boulangerie that never opened. So we went back to the Coach House and I drank some Greene King instead – and very nice it was too

29 June: Birding the Brecks

2010-03-25T11:00:00.000-07:00

Birding in the Suffolk/Norfolk Brecks with Paul Holness.

29th June started off with the unusual sound of falling rain. This was a bit of a bugger as we were off to the Brecks to go birding. In fact the rain had stopped by the time we got to Thetford and the day eventually lifted its game to be very pleasant.

We were to be guided round by Paul, a friend of Ron (our host on Sunday). He specialises in birding the Brecks and does a lot of voluntary work with RSPB and the Suffolk Wildlife Trust.

The first stop was an RSPB Reserve at Lakenham Fen where there was a chance of Cranes and Golden Oriole. In the end we scored neither of those but added Sparrowhawk, Hobby and Cuckoo to the trip list. The last named species were in large numbers: we saw a flock of 5 birds while 2 more were calling in nearby woods. So the minimum was 7 birds and we heard another 2 further on (so probably 9). It must be a tough life being a reed warbler in this area. I attempted to get good views of a whitethroat, but failed despite being certain I was within 2 metres of the bird. We had excellent views of a pair of Marsh Harriers hunting over the reedbeds: a male did a very impressive display for a female (OK, it impressed me, but we did not see evidence that the female was equally rapt).

There seemed to be some efforts to clear weeds from the watercourses. This boat was used for the purpose and dumped the weed on the banks where it was ignored by the cattle keeping the grass short.

Our next stop was a real Breck with short pasture lots of exposed flint and few bushes. More to the point it had several examples of the key bird of the day: Stone Curlew. Paul spotted the first poking its head over a low ridge. The bird was beaving a little strangely so we wondered if it had chicks or was just sending a message to some nearby corvids. As it wouldn't oblige by staying still to be scoped we moved on a few 100m to munch lunch and check another paddock. Paul soon found two more birds – an astonishing feat, which he modestly explained as being the result of spending several years tracking the birds for an RSPB project. Excellent views were obtained and everyone was very pleased.

Then to another reserve at which Paul volunteers. This boosted our day list of ducks considerably and added Turtle Dove, Nightingale, Egyptian Goose, Green Sandpiper and Kingfisher to the trip list (which now stands at 103 species). The Kingfisher views were amazing: the colour and movement were like a monster hummingbird in their visual appeal (although the style of movement was completely different of course.

This place was heavily focussed on education. Paul's description of what was done here was a brilliant exposition of how to integrate hobby birding; environmental education (the concept of mini-beasts I find amazing) and conservation policy. This is mainly funded by members with grants for specific things from 'Government'. The next two images are a real minibeast (a caterpillar of the cinnabar moth) and a midibeast (a toad).

All up an excellent day recording 52 species and adding 8 species to the trip list. I will need to check but I suspect there were three lifers in there!! (Yep 3 newies.)

Through much of the day the skies were full of miitary aircraft. At the start these wee British fighters and towards the end were American bombers. Taken with the spot near Kings Lynn where one could watch British surveillance planes taking off gives an impression that most of East Anglia is one big military base. I'm most surprised that the USAF is still present in the area.

After this trek through darkest Suffolk we decided that refreshment was in order so headed for the Cock Inn in Barford. This got very high ratings in the GBG. Unfortunately it was closed, having gone bankrupt 3 months ago. There seems to be a link emerging between Norfolk pubs appearing in the GBG and an inability to open their doors!

However Suffolk came to the rescue with some Greene King from our purchases yesterday. I am here to report that Old Speckled Hen and Strong Suffolk Ale are about as good as beer gets. Which is good indeed!

Finally let me keep a bit of balance by including an orchid image. This is a bee orchid seen at our last stop.

30 June: Royal Norfolk Show

2010-03-25T10:00:00.000-07:00

One of the delights on offer in Norfolk is the possibility of complimentary tickets to the Royal Norfolk Show. It is on this date so there should be reference to it somewhere round about here. Also a few other things close to Norwich.

30 June was designated as Royal Norfolk Show Day. I don't think Ms Windsor (neither Babs nor Betty) was in attendance because they were both in London. However most everyone else was. Jeez there were a lot of punters there, and this was just day 1 of 2. The photo below was taken at about 9:45 when we first got to the site!

We took the back road to the show to avoid queues on the A14 which could be some kilometres long. This plan basically happened and we slotted into the Members car park with our Vice-Presidents pass. We also had international visitors badges (both of these courtesy of our hosts at Coach House – thanks Mike and Mary) which generated a few conversations with folks over the day.

There were some instructions accompanying our tickets which mentioned a dress code. Basically not torn jeans, but we did dress a bit more than we did for going birding. Some other people did meet the dress code, but did terrible damage to the concept of good taste!

The Show was great. There were a number of elements to the event:

Events in the ring, of which we saw a bit of some trick motorcyclists (far quieter than the half wits that drive around Carwoola), some draught horses pulling brewery drays; and a bit of show jumping.
Farm machinery displays, which astonished me with the size of the kit (most tractors were 140HP while those I remember were less than 70HP);
Sideshow alley – we passed on this, but it looked terrifying:
Retail stalls. These showed a lot of products, of which we got quite a lot. Wellies for Frances; a vest and a couple of shirts for me. The surprising thing was that there was very little tat around. Most of the material was pretty good.
Various countryside groups: these ranged from overtly conservationist (eg Norfok Wildlife Trust) through the Raptor Trust with a display of tethered raptors, several of which don't occur in the UK and the gundog club to a mob seeking to repeal the ban on fox hunting. The gundog club put on interesting demos of working dogs and the same area was used for the terrier racing (see above). I reckon a certain small fox terrier could do well at that. I also reckon PETA would have a fit with it, despite the small dogs enjoying it greatly!
Various rural themed areas, such as cows (very entertaining but one couldn't get close for OHAS bullshyte reasons); flowers (pretty good, especially where the judges had left their views on entries); and dogs (weird – the dogs all seemed to be out in the show generally except for the brief time they were on deck to be inspected); and
FOOD AND DRINK: never, in the course of human history has so much good stuff been got together in one place. Many good sausages and pies (the latter being acquired in some number). Lots of brewers Adnams, St Peters, Wolf (the best names of beers ever found, including “Granny wouldn't like it” which at a sip was very tasty) Woodforde, and Calvors (very light and bitter, but tasty). St Peters got the nod for purchases and are earning their stripes as I type. Wolf and Calvors didn't make it to the Beer page as I didn't have enough of it.

There were some interesting OHAS elements to the livestock exhibits. Everywhere that one could get close to livestock had a wash station outside it, which seemed a bit extreme to me. The bigger animals (cattle and horses) were not accessible at all.

In summary the Show was marvellous. Congratulations to all involved.

We stayed at the show for 6 hours and then went home. After a short while we went for a walk around the village. I did take a photo of a linguistic road sign: the use of the word 'bor' took me back 45 years in very short order. One of the roads was called Milestone Lane which I though a bit odd, until we cam across a milestone showing “London 100 miles” which had the vegetation cleared around it (unlike the linguistic sign which I had to clear up to take the photo).

An annoyance was going to the library to check my email to find that it was shut from 1pm. Perhaps a remnant of early closing day, although the Co-op had been open to sell us some fruit and wine.

1 July: Ely, Cambridge and Anglesey

2010-03-25T09:00:00.000-07:00

Various places in South Suffolk and Deepest North (shouldn't that be Norf?) Essex. May involve mangel-wurzels!!

Before getting to the events of the day I will reflect on a few matters about driving in this fine country.

Many of the lay-bys and parking areas on major roads have a van parked in them selling burgers and the such like. Paul commented that he finds these really useful for grabbing a bite when on a twitch. Lorry drivers really love them, especially when the alternative is the Golden Arches!
In the forest of Thetford Chase there were rumble strips (judder bars for the NZ readers) in places where I could see no reason for them. Apparently the rationale for this was that the noise is not to wake up sleepy drivers but to warn nearby deer of the presence of a car.
In each case where we have gone to meet someone they have given detailed directions for how to get there. Today I realised that this was reminding me of how one used to go in Tanzania. Of course in the UK it would be impossible to produce a village level street directory (while in Australia this is quite feasible at least within a State).
Most of the major roads in the areas we have visited have been quite reasonable roads. An exception is a few miles of the A11 south of Thetford where a major intersection is controlled by traffic lights. This caused a mile (or more)tailback in each direction today.
Every day in every way, we find a new contender for the crappiest road signs in the UK. I hope no-one beats Cambridge's example. (Note from the future: Cambridge is wonderful compared to Bath.) There was no indication how to get from the centre of town to the A14: if you didn't want to go to the M11 then Cambridge's traffic engineers were not interested in you!
There were still a few optimistic souls with St. George's cross flags on their cars: presumably they are thinking of 2014. All the bedsheet sized flags had gone from upper windows.

I will also comment on the number of instances of communities rejecting developments in their 'hood. One place we drove had signs up saying “No more houses in ...” (I can't remember where this was) and one we drove through on the way to the Show had many signs opposing a gravel pit/landfill site in their village. Today I noticed a village near Ely opposing a marina on a nearby lake. Good on them!!

Our month began with yet another blat down the A11 in this case going on through the 2-lane referred to above to Wicken Fen, a Reserve run by the National Trust preserving an area of fen. It was pretty windy when we were there so the birds were not great. Indeed, judging by what was written in their sightings book they rarely are (or the gun birders don't go there). It is apparently top in Winter!

We then moved on to Ely where we went to the cathedral. Apart from getting kicked out before we got in due to a fire alarm it was as magnificent as I recall from our visit in 1979. A huge nave with magnificent stained glass and painted ceilings. Many levels of round Norman arches and on and on and on! Truly marvellous. (One advantage of the fire alarm was that we didn't have to share the Cathedral with about 60 ragazzi (ie teenage Italian students))

Then into Cambridge where Frances went to the Kings College Chapel and I to the library to use the internet.

The library was in the Grand Arcade (despite the twee name it was just a modern shopping centre with a modern library in it). I was vaguely annoyed that it took the dude on the desk 15 minutes to register me as a user of their system: I'd rather have paid a quid in a commercial cafe, but have not so far found one, possibly because the Council system is so convenient if you are a resident.

Frances reported three highlights from Kings College:

the organist playing for the last 20 minutes she was in there;
the architecture; and
hearing that the reason the stained glass survived the WWII was because the College removed all the glass before the hostilities. This was significant because the previous time we visited the Chapel (1979) some guy who claimed to be a mathematician claimed it survived because it imploded when a bomb landed. We thought at the time he was simply pyssed, but now we know he was full of something other than alcohol!

She was also impressed to note that one of the Fellows of Kings who died in WWI was Rupert Brooke.

As it was a Cambridge 'Open Day' to recruit freshers, we found we could get into Trinity College for a snuffle round. It reminded me of Wye College (but the buildings at Wye were a bit older).

With some luck and great annoyance we found our way out of Cambridge and about 10 miles east to Anglesey Abbey. This is an Abbey that seems to have been restored twice, most recently by Lord Fairhaven, and subsequently given by the third Lord Fairhaven to the National Trust. This family seem to have been the recipients of most of the wealth associated with Esso (on the mothers side) and venture capitalism in the US by an expatriate Pom on the fathers side. There has then been a period of intense Anglophilia leading to a peerage.

The place was really excellent, with huge old rooms in the old part of the house and really good furnishings throughout. There were some Country Life magazines scattered about, one of which had the headline 'Fighting the wood pigeon menace'. This was in 1961 and the battle goes on! My noting the headline caused one of the volunteers to strike up a conversation with me, further sparked by her noting my Greene King IPA t-shirt as her husband had been a master brewer with that firm.

One of the upper rooms had a range of paintings by Charles Collins. These were of birds and most unusually for the time had the birds in live positions rather than dead in (very) still lifes. Some of his names seem strange now: the weirdest was beam-bird for spotted flycatcher!

The gardens (managed by 7 gardeners, so I hope the gift included some maintenance fees) were both excellently laid out and very well presented. This was the first 'house' on this trip that I have thought really excellent. At 10 quid a head for entry it should have been!

We tried again to get a meal at a pub in Wymondham but this one, while open didn't do evening meals on Thursday. So we got some fish and chips (rather good too) across the road and went home!

2 July: To Somerset

2010-03-25T08:00:00.000-07:00

Transfer from Norwich to Zummerzet. May be some entertainments en route.

Well that one happened as scheduled (more or less). It was on the right day but the driving was basically much better than expected (until we got to Bath) so we were heading for a very early arrival at Beanacre Barn.

After a farewell to the Coach House (the last set of windows on the right) and our lovely hosts Mary and Mike we hit the road towards London and the SW. We had allowed 3 hours to get from Wicklewood to the M25. Including a stop for diesel at Thetford we did this in a bit under 2 hours. We started on the M25 - which makes expert drivers cry - at 9:43 and left 39 miles later at 10:23 an astonishing average of nearly 60mph on the most notorious motorway in the UK! (The sort of thing we had expected on this was day was not denied us. We got a serve on the last day driving up the M5/6 conglomerate.)

We turned off onto the M40 because either Ron or Paul had said that Red Kites could be seen at the Beaconsfield turnoff. As we turned off Frances spotted a 'big raptor' soaring through the murky weather. We parked and after I had run back to the intersection with no luck I walked back to the car muttering, when Frances pointed back towards the intersection. There was a beautiful Red Kite flying towards us twisting it's beautiful red tail.

As we were in front of our schedule Frances looked up the Road Atlas and found a National Trust place to visit. The selected pile was Laycock Abbey which had two main things going for it:

a restored convent; and, being owned by the Talbot family
the residence of Fox Talbot who basically invented modern photography.

The restored building was excellently done, with the ground floor left as mediaeval while the 1st floor (or second floor in the US) being updated to a habitable standard. In the mediaeval area a notice explained that this place had been used as the internal location for Hogwarts in the first two Harry Potter movies. One of the upper rooms had been set up as Fox Talbots studio so that one could put on costumes and take a photo against his backdrop.

There was also a Fox-Talbot museum with some history of the development of the negative (as distinct from the glass plates of Daguerreotypes). They had a special display of the negatives of famous photographs including Henri Cartier Bresson shot of a guy jumping a puddle; the Icarus photograph from the Empire State Building; and another of Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce.

We then wandered round the village. all of which is very historic, including a visit to the George Hotel for a Wadsworth IPA. This has been a pub since 1361 and is he oldest in Wiltshire (and one of the oldest in the UK). The beer was very refreshing, although I think Greene King is still holding the prize.

We then motored on around the back roads heading towards Binegar through Bath. This turned into a major challenge since bath was subject to a large traffic jam and an absence of road signs. However we soon got on to minor roads and found our way to Binacre Barn.

This is a very luxurious place which actually is a converted barn. Our hosts have a book of photographs of the conversion to prove it. There are bird feeders outside one window, and a herd of cattle which look across a fence into the kitchen window. All up has potential to be a great spot.

3 July: Mendips

2010-03-25T07:00:00.000-07:00

Various things around the Mendips.

That was pretty much what happened. I have a feeling that had I given more detail above it would have included the word 'Bath' - a city (aka bog-hole) which we feel about the way some UK birders feel about Canada Geese (or mink).

Our starting point was going to Wells where I spat a large dummy about the absolutely naff parking arrangements. We ended up being directed to a place about 500m from the cathedral from which the Carthedral could not be seen. As usual there were no obvious signs from the Cathedral parking station to the Cathedral. Then they wanted an extra Stg3 for a 'photography license' after Frances had given them a 'donation' of Stg 3 to get into the place.

I was tempted to snap away and dare some jobsworth - or even better the vicar - to challenge me. The ensuing debate about whether the Church of England was a better landlord than Peter Rachman would have been good fun for me but probably not approved of. So I didn't take any pix inside the Cathedral, which was a pity because they had some good stuff. The most unusual bit was a scissor buttress found necessary when the tower seemed to be sinking. Here are a couple of snaps from outside (one way outside, from the top of Glastonbury Tor.

After a visit to Tescos - which I still hate, but Wells isn't big enough to attract attention from Sainsbury's - we headed off to Glastonbury. The aim was to visit the Tor (free) rather than the Abbey. Fortunately whoever runs Glastonbury had disobeyed the main rule of British Councils and put in good signage. (Just as well as their tourist map bore no resemblance to what we found!) Thus we got to the vicinity of the Tor and were able to ascend it quite reasonably. It was about 250m high and the views were rather good.

We then headed for Montacute a National Trust pile for which we had a couple of recommendations. I rated it as OK, but nowhere near as good as Laycock or Anglesey Abbey. They had a very good Gobelin tapestry apparently of the birds of Brasil but featuring such things as Cassowary!

On through the Mendips to Cheddar Gorge. This was quite a pleasant view but compared to Gorges we have seen elsewhere would have to be rated as "of local interest'. On the way down there was a lass standing at a stall marked RSPB Peregrine Watch, but the falcons were not there to to be watched.

There were birds to be watched at our final stop - Chew Lake. They were waterfowl and largely ones we had seen before. However we did nail a Ruddy Duck there. The other good sighting of the day was Frances spotting a Buzzard soaring over Cheddar Gorge.

In the matter of beer Tescos delivered. I have just supped a Cotleighs "Barn Owl" - very hoppy and Malty, and a Badger "Golden Champion". When I looked the latter up in the GBG they referred me to an entry for Hall and Woodhouse, so I doubted the authenticity of the brew. It emerged that Hall started brewing in 1777 and they adopted the Badger logo in 1875 so they have credibility in vast order. The specific beer apparently has elderflower added which explained the unusual, but extremely pleasant. taste of the brew. I would have to rate this as close to the best thus far!

In the matter of roads the SW has not delivered! The low number A roads were about the same level as country lanes in Yorkshire or East Anglia. As far as I can see the only difference between many A roads and the white (ie un-numbered) jobs is the number of signs on the A roads. All are crap by the standards of anywhere more economically developed than Tanzania.

While having a rant about roads, the other astonishing thing about roads are the ways people use them. The most egregious sight was some guy leading his small (say 7 year old) child on a pony down the A368 at a point where it was not as wide as Whiskers Creek Rd. This would have to enroll him in the 'nice try' category of the Darwin awards. People also seem to ride push bikes down these roads which is IMHO equally insane. As very few riders seem to wear helmets the death toll must be incredible. Perhaps that is why there are so many apparently fat folk around: it is an airbag not adipose tissue.

4 July: Salisbury and Stonehenge

2010-03-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

See 19 June. Yes, it is Sunday again so fit in another two cathedrals: Salisbury and Winchester. (OK so last Sunday we didn't go to an orthodox church but I reckon the birding will have been close to worship.)

In fact we only did one cathedral as Winchester was regarded as surplus to requirements. However deoending on your views of religion you could say we visited an earlier cathedral as well. Read on, but first ...

Amongst the things we have noticed on the road sinc getting to the SW have been a number of ex-mammals which look rather like badgers. I suppose this is the young ones getting out and (briefly) about. Not good. {An aside from back in Australia: apparently some bunch of idiotic Welsh cattle farmers - an expression in contention for tautology of the century - have asked for many badgers to be euthanased because they are spreading TB. There are apparently 50,000 sets in the UK. Given the effort by Somerset drivers a zero will soon be off that number and TB will soon be correctly attributed to the unspeakable practices of Welsh cattle!} Here is an image of 3 livelier Badgers courtesy of Messrs Sainsbury.

I have tried the Fursty Ferret (named after the ferrets which used to steal beer from Ms Rosie Gribble. I rate it as potable plus, but not as good as the same brewery's Golden Champion. Perhaps my taste buds were stymied by the pint of John Smith's Extra Smooth (potable at least) taken with tea at the George pub in Gurney Slade?

The main business of the day was to visit Salisbury Cathedral. En route we went past the entrance to Longleat where the Marquis of Bath seemed to be raking in the Stg in short order (judging by the number of cars heading inwards). On the opposite side of the road was Cley Hill, a neolithic fort. We looked at it but didn't climb. We crossed Salisbury Plain (being intrigued by the 'Tank Crossings' in several places) and looked at the next attraction:

There were a lot of punters there as well. Many of them coughing up the readies to get closer to the stones. It was quite impressive, but in terms of scale and skill pales greatly in comparison to the efforts of the Incas.

After a snap we headed into Salisbury and did the Cathedral. My initial reaction was that it was a tad plain compared to places like Lincoln and Durham, but as we moved around the place I found it had a lot of very good things in it. Interestingly this place as with several others seemed to be getting into supporting artists and sculptors by displaying their work including the photographer Ash Mills (his stuff is amazing I really suggest to follow the link). This is in addition to the various memorials etc around the buildings. Here are a couple of images of the cathedral.

One of the astonishing items was a modern font. This had been set up in the same style as 'endless swimming pools'. As a result of the controlled water flow it gave the same effect as the mirrors in other cathedrals in showing the ceiling etc:

One other thing which surprised me was seeing this in the cathedral:

We did see some other canines going in on leads!

Before getting to the cathedral I invested 20p in the hygiene service of Wiltshire County Council. As well as that which I needed, I gained - from a poster - some education into the meaning of the word GUM. As well as the Russian store chain, in the UK it is the acronym for Genito Urinary Medicine. I will be very careful about what I chew in future.

We then went to Garston Wood, an RSPB Reserve. I didn't have great hopes for this place anyway, but it was almost bird free: we heard some Wood Pigeons and saw some wrens but that was about it. The drive home was rather excellent, and after zipping home to rescue some washing (already rescued by our hostess Susan) we dropped down to the 'George' pub for a meal and beer. Both of us had really nice food: we'll be revisiting them. Apparently in historic times there were two pubs on opposite sides of the road serving the passing hordes but only the George has survived. There is another hostelry (the Horse and Jockey) but as they appeared not to serve food we didn't go there: its main function in times gone by was refreshments for punters coming to meets of the Mendip Hunt, who unloaded their horses at (what was then) the nearby Railway station.

I recall a friend who had lived in Cambridge commenting on the anglers turning up to fish in a ditch opposite their apartment. There is a pond at the end of our lane which was very well angled on Saturday afternoon but much less so this morning. However the main thing this caused me to recall was the small size of the rivers we have crossed: the Molonglo at Captains Flat looks huge by comparison!

Here is a photo of our current accomodation (and our current wheels). The barn backs on to a field - about 10 acres - owned by our hosts in which the previous owner puts some cattle. They come a look in to the kitchen, although a small fence has been erected to stop them licking the window.

On the subject of cows our previous host commented that all cattle are now ear-tagged and every time they shift ownership or location this is officially recorded. It seems this came out of the BSE fiasco but has had the result that most butchers list whose farm the steak etc came from. In addition to this a 'farm shop' movement has arisen where the vendors show how far the produce has travelled: conceptually a very good idea, although a bit of an issue for Australian and NZ exports!

5 July: Somerset Levels and Dunster Castle

2010-03-25T04:00:00.000-07:00

Portland Bill: much birding.

No thanks. That is scheduled for tomorrow as we have arranged to meet someone in Weymouth tomorrow morning. Today is rumbling around Somerset and North Devon.

I finished off yesterday rabbitting about cows looking in the window. Here is an image.

Sometimes they get closer than that, but I suspect readers have a fairly low requirement for pictures of cows. Even pretty ones.

Cows also entered our consciousnesses later in the day. Taking the A39 along the South Bank of the Severn there were a number of places where cow crossings had been installed. You had to stop if the lights flashed as some rustic returned his herd to the rest of his farm. (There was no such refinement for the tanks on Salisbury Plain: I guess if you hit 50 tons of Leopard you tended to stop anyway! Also if the converse applied.)

It was a quiet day today but very pleasant. Our first stop was a National Nature Reserve, Shapwick Heath on the Somerset Levels. This was essentially a peat bog, with a great heap of dug out peat on the opposite side of the road! In the Reserve the density of vegetation - and apparent age of some of the trees - was a very good argument for maintaining the peat bog habitat. The big ticket item here was otters, which we didn't see at either of the hides we visited.

Before gettng to the birds we did see, there was a faintly annoying bit of business with a sign about "this track to the Decoy Hide is closed because of a fallen tree'. Had they not had the sign we would not have tried to get to the decoy hide that way, but gone the much drier way. This reminded me considerably of an article in Punch many years ago about a sign in a pond saying nothing more than "DO NOT THROW STONES AT THIS SIGN".

The highlight of birds seen at Shapwick was a Bittern flying over the reeds as we got near to the Decoy hide. A Hobby was also good, as was a Marsh Harrier. An 'area highlight' was the sight of St Michael's Chapel on Glastonbury Tor clearly visible over the reeds.

Having sorted a small locational issue vis-a-vis the stupid map at the road, we then moved to the Canada Hide. This was a small trek from where we had parked but scored 3 Little Egrets, another Hobby, and on getting back to the road a Buzzard.

We then moved on to Bridgewater Bay, down some of the most entertaining (for me) and terror inducing (even at 20mph, for Frances) roads - to use a term loosely - thus far. The big ticket stuff here was the late Summer moult by Shelduck: at that time some 6,000 of these huge ducks were expected. My estimate is that only 2-3,000 were present today. Still bloody impressive. Every white dot on the mudbank is a 1 metre wingspan goose!

Other good things here were an Oystercatcher with chick and about 40 Curlews. A bad thing was the wind which was beginning to howl across the river.

After a very slow drive West along the 'A'39 towards Minehead we got to Dunster Castle. This had been in the same family for centuries but had been greatly updated in the middle 19th Century. The best set of info about the building was in the Tenants House (where the tenants paid their rent, and which we found at the end). The original building seems to have been significantly trashed by Stephen in the 1200s. They were on the right side in the Civil War and came close to being on the losing side in the Monmouth rebellion (but their troops were too fond of drinking to arrive on time for the Battle of Sedgemoor, so avoided the recriminations).

The reason we actually went there was for the views across the Severn and back to the Quantock Hills. Here arre a couple of images:

On getting home I decided to deal with the remaining Badgers.

The Blandford Fly was sauced up with ginger since that was supposed to be the antidote to a biting fly around the Blandford area. I don't care: the beer was extremely good. Badger is now the best brewery although Greene King IPA is still my preferred single brew.
Tanglefoot was named after the Master Brewer's condition after demonstrating his wares to his staff!

The only comment needed about the A39 was a sign just after Bridgewater that there had been 927 casualties' in 5 years. My own thought is that if they had better road signs (and didn't locate them where they were 90% obscured by vegetation) people would have a better chance of driving properly, rather than milling around wondering where the pharque they were!

We have found the language much easier down here. We can largely understand what people say, but they do all sound rather like Phil from Time team. I spoke to a guy in Glastonbury (about his Morris 1000 van, my first vehicle, about 42 years ago) and his reply was along the lines of "Noo rust, jest neyou tieyeres". A request in the George Hotel to "Show me that" was rendered as "Shoe myeh thart" while a child was advised her mum was outside having a gasper with the immortal phrase " Moom suit thar."

6 JUly: Portland

2010-03-25T03:00:00.001-07:00

Bath and Bristol. (With respect to the later I am -so far - resisting any references to rhyming slang or page 3 of The Sun.)

In case you are wondering about the shortage of images, that is because LINUX seems to want to open my entire image gallery to select a single image and thus runs like a dog with no legs. I will keep trying to add some stuff but am not optimistic that a solution will appear until I am safely back in the arms of Microsoft next week. After two days of spitting the dummy the image insert function seems to have returned so I have added some below. No idea why they wouldn't appear earlier and no chance of getting an intelligible message to prevent it from recurring. On further reflection I have developed a suspicion that this is in some way related to the bandwidth available on the ADSL connection to main house: they are pretty much at the end of the range as far as BT are concerned.

Bath is an excrescence and has been deleted from our life. Bristol will probably get some action on Thursday. Today was Weymouth, Portland and (a bit of a surprise) Stourhead.

We became locked into today as Weymouth Day as we had undertaken to deliver a brooch to a relative of a friend in Canberra. This duly happened at 10:30am on the steps of Weymouth Station. As the recipient greeted me by name I am pretty sure he was the right recipient!

We had got to Weymouth much more quickly than I had expected. This was due to the roads being a lot clearer and it being (somehow) less distance than Google Maps had suggested. (Had we been going in the opposite direction the comment would not have applies. We were held up for a few minutes at road works: the tailback in the opposite direction was 1.5 miles.) So we had filled in a couple of hours, mainly scoping out Radipole Lake, a large reedbed in the middle of Weymouth, run by the RSPB. It was another good reserve with about 25 species being logged. Common Sandpipers were an addition to the trip list - seeing 12 of them sitting on a rail was very unusual.

To my surprise Weymouth was very much a seaside resort in the classic UK sense. I presume that one of these hoteliers wanted to ensure his guests were aware they were still in the UK, while the other was hoping to give a Gallic flair to his charms. My camera (or possibly my brain) refused to take any photos of the fun-fair establishments elsewhere along the Esplanade

We then moved out to Portland. The opening sight of the Island was not promising as it seemed to be a wall of identical timeshares. Once through that we got to the Bill and soon saw a Rock Pipit and a Black Redstart. We wandered around a Defence facility (getting good views of a female Kestrel) and found some Guillemots and what I persuaded myself was at least one Shag. Needless to say it was on a rock.

A very fast moving Guillemot then appeared. The reason for speed was quite apparent: a Peregrine Falcon was right up its tail feathers. After all this excitement the trip list is up to 112 species!

We then checked out Chesil Beach (an amazing wall of pebbles) before wandering off to Stourhead House and Garden. This was a house and garden developed by the Hoare family in about the 17th Century. The family started to prosper as jewellers and gold merchants and then moved in to banking, in which they are still active. Some of the family are still in the area: as a guide said (and probably wished he hadn't "There are still a lot of Hoares around here."

When they passed it over to the NT it was accompanied by a large endowment so is well maintained. The house was quite good, with particular points being awarded for the mentions of the conservation work they are able to do as a result of the endowment. The gardens were excellent both in scale and layout. The images in this neighbourhood show a view across the gardens too a folly and another inside a grotto with a statue of Poseidon (or some such ancient Greek deity).

We called in (again) for tea at The George in Gurney Slade and it was good pub food washed down with some good beers: Austell Tribute and Butcombe Bitter.

7 July: Exeter, the Estuary and Tintinhull

2010-03-25T03:00:00.000-07:00

With luck this is Wednesday and we aim for Exeter: Cathedral and Estuary with a National Trust Garden en route.

This day was almost as delivered except we went to a different NT Garden on the way back.

Our route was also a bit different to that envisaged since I asked the publican of the George which way he would recommend to get to the M5. His answer was that he wouldn't, as he thought the A 37 and A303 was a better option. We took his advice and it was an easy drive: at least until we hit peak hour in Exeter. Given my memories of BBC news covering the 10 mile traffic jams on the Exeter by-pass every Summer weekend this wasn't too bad. And the road signs were pretty good, apart from one case where 2 roads appeared to be signed with the same number!

As we drove along I noticed that the death toll for badgers was still high. Given that I have never seen a wild badger I find this astonishing.

Today we were listening to the radio and there was a 'discussion' about whether artists in 2010 still go on the Grand Tour as did Turner. One of the participants was a guy by the name of Brian Sewell: the link is worth following and he certainly gave conceptual artists both barrels (after explaining to the cretin interviewer that Turner never did a Grand Tour!). As a parenthesis - outside brackets - most BBC interviewers seem to be breathless caricatures of themselves. They should have a cliche and buzzword budget imposed, and if it was overextended an electric shock applied to the wobbly bits!

The first objective was the Cathedral. Before getting there we came across the shop for the SW edition of The Big Issue. I suspect one of their sellers was having a kip on the grass outside the car park we used: it was good to see that they had a water bowl for the reseller's dogs inside the shop.

We got to the Cathedral 4 minutes after official opening time and were surprised to see a tour group (apparently from the Anglican Church of Italy) already leaving. Whatever, the less folk in a place the more we enjoy it.

After the vastness of Salisbury, Durham and York this place seemed relatively small. It was very well done up especially with the roof bosses and capitals which were in very good nick. (Unlike some other places there was no rubbish about no photography to boost book sales.)

The most impressive boss was one showing the murder of Beckett (tom not Sam). I was intrigued to find another memorial to troops who fell in the Indian Campaign: I think I have seen such memorials in 3 or 4 of the Cathedrals and churches we have visited.

As with several other Cathedrals this one had several exhibits by artists. All were good and I was particularly taken with one of Angels and another - best described as an Altar piece - by a local (Tiverton) High School.

Following on from one other cathedral there was an old clock. this one seemed to be a bit like the good old axe (2 new handles and a new head, but still a good axe). What made this one good was the hole in the door next to it. This was to allow the Bishops cat to chase the mice which fed on the fat used to lubricate the strings in the clock. Hence the nursery rhyme about 'Hickory, dickory dock, the mouse ran up the clock ..'.

After the Cathedral we headed to the Exminster Marshes for some birding. I had already added a species to the trip list with a Bullfinch (excellent male)at the Barn. We had a bit of trouble finding out exactly where to go but eventually got to the Ford Lock to see a lot of low tide mud in the Exe estuary. There were not many birds around, but there was a Spoonbill (not one of the Australian species) feeding which was as least an addition to my UK list (and possibly a lifer).

Then down the estuary a tad more to Dawlish Warren. This is a National Nature Reserve but set around a really revolting 'seaside resort' and a golf club, which appeared really pushy with the rules applied to birders. This was frustrating in the extreme since (after adding Dunlin to the trip list) a huge array of waders could be seen on the far side of the bay, well beyond bin-vision. We wrote down some others (and marvelled at two other women in the hide who really had trouble with everything) and left for the next spot.

This was Tintinhull Garden, a National Trust place well back along the A303 towards Binacre. It was a quite small place but beautifully organised around 6 or so 'rooms'. This was all interesting and we enjoyed our half hour here. For a change I couldn't find anyone to ask a question: in the houses there are volunteers in every room but few in the gardens. My question here would have been how do they keep the weeds down? At Carwoola we would have to weed every week for several hours to keep the place weed-free.

On the way home we dropped into the local Tescos to get some beers. After some confusion caused by the store running two promotions and me picking beers from each of them headed for home. The beers tonight were both from Wells

Waggle Dance - a restrained Honey beer, rated as interesting but not amazing; and
Bombardier, a good quality bitter.

It is interesting that a read of the GBG shows Wells (the name of the original brewer) to be a large national brewer. They operate from Bedford, not the sign-post challenged town of that name a few miles from Binacre. Greene King are in the same situation (of course, brewing from Bury St Edmunds not Bedford). The article made several other interesting comments:

Greene King IPA is the largest selling cask Beer in the country (with some justification IMHO);
they refer to the "old national brewers who disappeared in the 1990s". This is presumably the Watney, Truman and Ind Coope mob, whose products led to the formation of CAMRA;
expading the previous point, Watneys was taken over by Anheuseur-Busch, who are responsible for producing American Budweiser. Just think, a mixture of 'Bud' and Red Barrel: give that to someone you don't like!

8 July Bristol

2010-03-25T02:00:00.000-07:00

This appears to be a free day. Probably this will be catch up on things we haven't done or I am sure there will be breweries or cider manufacturers demanding our presence.

We used this primarily to go to Bristol to check the cathedral and to indulge in some retail therapy. It was a very relaxed start to the day as we left the barn at about 9am rather than 7am as has been the case in the last few days. There were no great dramas getting into Bristol and once I had assessed exactly where we wanted to go little trouble in finding a parking station giving easy access to the Cathedral. We walked cross this interesting bridge (over a sideshoot of the Harbour that seemed to be used mainly as a home for boats taking tourists and wedding parties around) on the way.

On the way to the cathedral we walked past the Information Centre with a large planetarium and a few statues of famous residents of Bristol (including William Penn and Cary Grant - the latter being very popular for very old persons to have their photos taken with). In the image the wrinklies are easier to see than Mr Grant!

The cathedral seems to be rated as small in guide books - one cheekily says that people sometimes go to an ornate church nearby by mistake. Personally I think that is downplaying the place quite a lot. While it wasn't huge (certainly not a Durham, Lincoln or Salisbury) it had a lot of good stuff in it. I noted:

good ceilings and vaulting;
The rose window (apparently very unusual in English churches);
Another set of windows commemorating (or celebrating) service personnel around the Bristol area;

a very detailed altar screen (stone as usual);
yet another reference to the indian Rebellion and the soldiers who died therein;
the organist practicing (playing very well); and
some interesting art work with my favourite being some carved soapstone statues - which only took 4 weeks to carve!

Frances acquired some nice earrings in the Cathedral shop and we then wandered to Hobgoblin Music to get some sheet music, CDs and (another) tin whistle. No accordions were acquired although a good range was available in their Alladin's Cave of instrumentation. We noted the grand appearance of the Council Chambers (no need to go to Bath for fancy architecture). I also bought a copy of The Big Issue from a vendor. (Later another vendor tried to sell us a copy with a call of "Sponsor a tramp." When I said that I already had he enquired "Wuzzie gud trump?" which is my linguistic highlight for the day.

Our first negative for bristol was finding out that because we got back in a tad over 2 hours we could part with Stg 9 to the private enterprise bums running the place. Oh well, on to find the Bristol Glass factory. At this point I decided there were two Bristols:

the good stuff we had found on the way in; and
anything associated with the 4-letter word 'Bath'.

The first application of the B**h problem was when a sign directed us round a corner to suddenly find that we had to be over on the RHS of the road to get the turn to the A4. A quick lap of some architecture got us back and in position to head off to the glass (which we managed as we were following road numbers, not references to certain towns).

The glass works were quite interesting especially since it was possible to watch the goodies being made. A small purchase was made, and then it was back on the road. Unfortunately we found the dreaded word appearing on the road signs again. However so did Shepton Mallet so we were going well until an intersection with no reference to Shepton (nor one to B**h which would have allowed avoidance behaviour to inform our decision-making). Fortunately we only got a few hundred metres out of whack before turning and recovering.

We the went back to Chew Lake and found very few birds. I am so over people telling me this is the quiet season, come in Winter!

For our evening meal we went to the Queen Victoria pub in Priddy. It was OK but not as quiet as the George. Since the beer (Butscombe) was similar this means we rate the George better. On getting home I had a half of Hobgoblin Ruby Ale which was very pleasant indeed: much fuller bodied than the Butscombe.

9 July: to Manchestervia Slimbridge and Gloucester

2010-03-25T01:00:00.000-07:00

Head for Manchester. A plan is to call in at Slimbridge and Gloucester cathedral en route.

Before getting on the road I will use this spot to mention a few odds and sods which I think I have forgotten from elsewhere (I'll check this when doing thee post-trip review):

I have always thought that roundabouts were much more efficient than traffic lights at getting a steady flow of traffic. Apparently the volume of traffic in the UK is now such that roundabouts can't handle it, so there are traffic lights leading into roundabouts and consequently (and alarmingly to begin with) in the roads within roundabouts;
Birding - at least at the twitchy end of it - is driven by pagers. We were present when a major rarity was announced and a pager went off like a fire siren.
It being Summer there is plenty of exposed flesh, some of it pleasant but much of it occupying too few people for the area of skin involved. With the blokes (mainly, some women were also offenders in this regard as well) tattooing was very evident. I have thus concluded that the UK is heading for a tattoo parlour led economic recovery!
That being the case there might be even more boats littering the shores of the country. Frances commented at one point how affluent the country must be for there to be so many cruisers lurking around. My response was that 1% of 60 million is 600k people so the tip of the economic iceberg is quite big. Since then I have reassessed the number of floating gin palaces and concluded that a high proportion of the affluent must decide to buy a boat. So we have the means and motive for the crime and I am sure that there are many boat floggers around anxious to provide the opportunity.

Too many cow photographs is never enough! Last evening I went to look over the wall at the end of the Barn to see where the beasts were. They all came running along to look at me. I was able to more or less reproduce the image in the Barn, and Frances got an action shot!

We finished packing and said farewell to Susan and Tony, our hosts at the Barn, and headed off at 9as intended. The drive through Bristol and on to the M5 was fine, as would be expected since none of the signs mentioned B**h. Our first point of call was Slimbridge, the reserves created by Sir Peter Scott. We both had some doubts about the place since their website made it seem like a bit of a zoo. However my book on where to find birds in the UK rated it very highly. In fact we thought it was really excellent since the zoo bits were well done, and separated from the 'real' hides.

We were seeing quite a few of the shorebirds we'd seen in Norfolk and no lifers or such like. Then at the last hide we went to (the Zeis hide) the folk next to us seemed to be going on about a bird they were looking at. Somehow this was not the usual rabbit by non-birders. After a little while the female of the couple said to me that they had a White-tailed Plover in their scope: she went on to say it was the 10th UK record of the species. So we looked and a very handsome bird it was too: a major lifer. (The linked image is from Dungeness - see below.)

It was way too far off for a photo, although had been located by someone in the visitor centre using a video camera – presumably with a monster zoom, since it is not a huge bird and it was (according to Google Earth) 530m away. We did notice some folk had got much closer and as we walked back to the visitor centre we counted 10 people walking in with large and expensive optical gear. One guy, burdened in this way but heading out, overtook us going very quickly: as Frances commented he should probably have been at work. An indication of the excitement caused by this bird is the way the opening hours of the reserve were extended! Checking the Slimbridge site on 14 July showed that the bird vanished by 7am on the 11th of July and was then relocated at Dungeness (about 270kms East in a straight line) later that day.

The next stop was Gloucester, for the final Cathedral of the trip. Again the traffic was well dealt with (apart from one set of road works where I ended up going down a 1-way street against the traffic) and we wandered off to the Cathedral, pausing very briefly to note the alleged setting of Beatrix Potter's story 0f the Tailor of Gloucester.

This Cathedral was rather old, at least by the entrance where it was clearly of Norman design. Heading East it became much higher and pointier. Apparently the official monument to the Glorious Glosters is at the wharfs, but the Church did have the cross carved by their CO when a prisoner of the Koreans after the battle of the Imjin River. the organ looked old and was very nicely painted while some of the stained glass was very modern, citing Tom Denny as the artist. The requests for prayer were on public display and were quite touching. I felt that the request “Lord look after Ali and Babe, our pusscats” was pushing the limit a tad.

We were both taken with their cloister and the quadrangle within it. I heard a familiarish birdcall but couldn't spot the squawker. However when I asked a pair of Stewards they did confess that there were Peregrines on the tower. My guess is that they have just reared a whinger!

Off to the M5 which happened very nicely for a few kilometres. Then we got to some congestion which gradually got worse as we went around Brum. This probably reached its nadir at a junction (possibly of the M5 and M6, at this point we had given up trying to work out just which motorway we on, let alone which part of one) full of road works, but we kept soldiering on. The queues and congestion kept appearing and vanishing for no apparent reason. It was strange as everything would slow to walking pace (or stop) for about a mile then open right up again. Eventually, we passed a large mobile crane going very slowly up a hill and I could make "sense" of things:

The road was subject to quite heavy, so any impediment to smooth flow caused a blockage;
As the crane went slowly uphill it effectively caused a 3 lane road to become a 2 lane road;
Once the crane go to the top of the hill it sped up removing the blockage;
and so on.

We had been worried as police cars went past us, thinking that there might be an accident blocking the road in front of us. Although we had plenty of time to get to Manchester, a 10 mile jam could fix us completely. However we got to the airport at about 6:10, handed the car back and checked in.

Trip Home

2010-03-24T23:44:00.000-07:00

The check in and passage through security was quite about as painless as it was possible to be. I am really quite impressed with that side of Manchester airport. In fact I thought the place was pretty good all round. One strange thing was the number of one-armed bandits (aka fruit machines in the US or poker machines in Australia) around the place. Presumably concern about addiction to gambling hasn't spread to the UK yet.

The flight to Dubai took off on time and I spent a fair bit of it chatting to a 20 year old Mancunian sat next to me. He had had an insurance policy mature and had deciding to spend it on a trip to Thailand, Vietnam and New Zealand. He'd decide what to do for the rest of his life while on the way! Very good luck to him!

Dubai airport was extremely crowded and the term 'cattle class' was very apparent as we were herded through various control points. I suspect that the work of Temple Grandin on abattoir design could be applied with benefit to this. (As a parenthesis she consults for McDonalds, but about the abattoir end of their enterprise, not the Golden Arches part.) It was interesting that the business and first class folk were kept in the same conditions, but roped off from the rest of us. In fact they got the worst deal as they had to descend through the security bushwa like the rest and then, at the end of the process, get in a lift to go up to get in the top of the A380.

The aircraft itself was rather good. We had a little more room than in the Boeing 777s used for our other flights and it was very quiet in the air. In fact it was so quiet that Frances asked me if there had been an explanation why we were just sitting. I explained that we had taken off half an hour earlier and were currently at 25,000 feet doing 580 miles per hour.

Despite that I couldn't seem to get solidly to sleep and felt quite ordinary as we got to Sydney. However Immigration and Customs were dealt with as humanely as possible. I then found it would cost an extra $5 to upgrade my hire car from a Corolla to a cruise control equipped Holden Kruse so we were on the road in luxury (especially since the car had only got 4100kms on it.

Back to page to a very friendly greeting from the small dog who had had a lovely time staying with our friend Barbara and her corgi. Thank you Barbara!!! Out to the airport to transfer to Ingrid's car and to be chauffeured home. Thank you Ingrid!!! I lasted until 1pm and then fell into bed and slept until 5. It is now the next day, after another 10 hours sleep and I merely feel poorly. But that will pass and I will then get down to editing this blog - removing the more egregious typos, putting in the outstanding images and adding the summary pages, Then wait for the book offers to flood in (remembering not to hold my breath during that process).

The petrol experience

2010-03-24T03:02:00.000-07:00

On our last visit to England which involved driving (1979) I was astonished:

at the price of petrol; and
that it seemed to be in short supply (despite the UK exporting squillions of barrels from the North Sea),

Counterbalancing this was the massively better fuel consumption of the car we hired. Thus this page will look at both the cost of fuel and its utilisation.

There seemed to be no shortage of fuel in the UK at the time we were there, although I did notice one service station - from a small/independent chain - had a 'no fuel' sign out. We basically bought fuel where we saw it cheaply: sometimes this was Jet (the original independent, when I lived in the UK), at other times Esso. (If BP had been giving fuel away I don't think I could have forced myself to take it. That is, I think, an ongoing policy.)

We actually used one more tankful (and did about 560 extra miles) but had struck a deal so that we returned the car empty. Given the appalling driving conditions on the M5/6 on the last day it would have been interesting to see the economy on that leg.

Date	Start miles	end miles	elapsed miles	litres of fuel	MPG
22 June	9453.2	9879.9	426.7	38.7	49.6
25 june	9879.9	10290.0	410.1	35.0	52.7
28 June	10290.0	10730.9	440.9	36.3	54.7
2 July	10730.9	11090.9	360.0	32.0	50.7
4 July	11090.9	11436.8	345.9	28.8	54.0
6 july	11436.8	11742.7	305.9	25.4	54.2

	Cost per litre (p)	pence per mile	Cents (Aus) per km
22 June	120.9	11.0	12.24
25 june	122.9	10.5	11.71
28 June	120.3	9.9	11.05
2 July	120.9	10.7	11.98
4 July	119.9	10.0	11.16
6 july	119.9	10.0	11.12

	Total distance	Total fuel	Av MPG	Total Cost £	Cents (Aus) per km
	2289.5	196.2	52.5	237.1	11.6

The Beer (and cider) experience

2010-03-24T02:53:00.000-07:00

This records the beers and ciders drunk, their quality and their price.

I gave up recording price since in many cases I didn't know what it was (when buying a beer and a cider it seemed rude to ask what each cost). I have also not included the ciders since the consumer thereof reckoned they were all much of a muchness. Some Scrumpy was seen in Somerset, but not consumed.

My favourites are highlighted in orange.

Brewer	Brew	Notes
Adnams	Spindrift	Better than VB but not as good as GK or St P!
badger	Blandford Fly	Excellent with ginger flavour
Badger	Fursty Ferret	Ok after the above,
Badger	Golden Champion	A very sweet and fruity ale. Elderflower
Badger	Tanglefoot	Very tasty hoppy bitter
Black Sheep	Black Sheep Ale	Good hoppy beer
Black Sheep	Cask bitter	An excellent real bitter with a creamy texture.
Black Sheep	Golden Sheep	Blonde, but tasty (better than a footballers wife?)
Brancaster	Oystercatcher	bitter but tasty
Buffys	Norwegian Blue	Not too bitter and rather full textured.
Butcombe	Bitter	A good honest bitter
Butcombe	Golden Champion	Much fuller bodied than their bitter
Calders	70	Average mild
Captain Cook	Black Porter	A basic porter
Captain Cook	Slipway	Nice flowery Ale
Cotleigh	Barn Owl Ale	Very hoppy and malty. Damn good.
Greene king	Abbot	Excellent after a while in the fridge
Greene king	IPA	5.1%. Very hoppy and refreshing
Greene king	Old Bob	Excellent after a while in the fridge
Greene king	Old Speckled Hen	Excellent taste
Greene king	St Edmunds	Not quite as good as the two before, but ...
Greene king	Strong Suffolk Ale	6%. Full bodied and very flavoursome.
Jennings	Cumberland Ale	4% Rather like Black Sheep cask.
John Smiths	Extra smooth	Not bad for a national brewer
Ringwood	Old Thumper	5.7%. Very sharp and very thirst quenching
Shepherd Neame	Early Bird Ale	Ok but not great
St Austell	Tribute	A rather fruity and pleasant bitter
St Peters	IPA	A very honest IPA. Becoming my favourite style.
St Peters	Old Style Porter	5.1% Really nice smoky porter
St Peters	Suffolk Gold	4.9 rather bitter but very full bodied. Very good.
Tetleys	Midsummer madness	All that is wrong with English beer! Flat, warm and tasteless. Attribute this to the pub not the brewer!
Wadsworth	IPA	Another honest IPA
Wells	Bombardier	A good honest bitter
Wells	Waggle Dance	Interesting, but not amazing honey beer
Wychwood	Hobgoblin	A really good ruby ale.

The birding page

2010-03-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

It is my intention that this page will contain some bird lists for various spots.

That may still happen, but in the interim here is an overall list of the 117 species I recorded! The names shown here are those used by me in the UK and don't necessarily match those used by anyone else.

In terms of the key statistics - if anyone other me is interested - this trip raised my life list by 13 species and my UK list by an astonishing 44 species. I think the latter statistic in particular reflects:

non existing recording practices when I lived in the UK; and
poor memory when compiling my initial list.

Mute Swan

Whooper Swan

Greylag Goose

Canada Goose

Egyptian Goose

Shelduck

Gadwall

Teal

Mallard

Pochard

Tufted Duck

Ruddy Duck

Pheasant

Little Grebe

Great Crested Grebe

Fulmar

Gannet

Cormorant

Shag

Bittern

Little Egret

Grey Heron

Spoonbill

Red Kite

Marsh Harrier

Montagu's Harrier

Sparrowhawk

Buzzard

Kestrel

Hobby

Peregrine

Moorhen

Coot

Oystercatcher

Avocet

Stone-curlew

White-tailed Plover

Lapwing

Knot

Dunlin

Ruff

Black-tailed Godwit

Curlew

Common Sandpiper

Green Sandpiper

Spotted Redshank

Greenshank

Redshank

Kittiwake

Black-headed Gull

Common Gull

Lesser Black-backed Gull

Herring Gull

Great Black-backed Gull

Sandwich Tern

Common Tern

Guillemot

Razorbill

Puffin

Rock Dove / Feral Pigeon

Stock Dove

Woodpigeon

Collared Dove

Cuckoo

Barn Owl

Little Owl

Swift

Kingfisher

Green Woodpecker

Great Spotted Woodpecker

Skylark

Sand Martin

Swallow

House Martin

Meadow Pipit

Rock Pipit

Yellow Wagtail

Grey Wagtail

Pied Wagtail

Wren

Dunnock

Robin

Nightingale

Black Redstart

Stonechat

Blackbird

Song Thrush

Sedge Warbler

Reed Warbler

Blackcap

Whitethroat

Dartford Warbler

Chiffchaff

Willow Warbler

Spotted Flycatcher

Bearded Tit

Long-tailed Tit

Blue Tit

Great Tit

Coal Tit

Nuthatch

Jay

Magpie

Jackdaw

Rook

Carrion Crow

Starling

House Sparrow

Tree Sparrow

Chaffinch

Greenfinch

Goldfinch

Linnet

Bullfinch

Yellowhammer

Reed Bunting

Corn Bunting

The Weather Page

2010-03-10T16:20:00.000-08:00

Despite my fears about the crummy weather associated with an English we got a very nice set of days (certainly far better than suggested by the weather forecasts before we left). As will be seen from the following only one day was rated 'awful' and as we only suffered about half of that (we didn't arrive until noon).

date	Max	look and feel	wind	Comments
19 June	13	cloudy	strong	awful
20 June	17	fine	light	reasonable
21 June	23	fine	light	pleasant
22 June	25	sunny	moderate	very nice
23 June	25	sunny	light	excellent
24 June	20	overcast	Moderate +	reasonable
25 June	20	fine	light	reasonable
26 June	25	sunny	light	Is this England?
27 June	29	sunny	light	Is this England?
28 June	30	sunny	light	Is this England?
29 June	28	a tad cloudy	Moderate +	rain early then great
30 June	27	fine	light	excellent
1 July	28	fine	Moderate +	reasonable
2 July	27	Cloudy	light	rain as we drove along M4
3 July	23	fine	light	reasonable
4 July	22	overcast	moderate	rain evening but not bad
5 July	20	fine	strong	reasonable
6 July	20	fine	light	pleasant
7 July	20	Cloudy	Moderate +	This is England!
8 July	25	fine	light	pleasant
9 July	23	fine	light	pleasant