July 23 Old fogeys of the New Forest

Thorney Island, Lyndhurst, Beaulieu

Those of advanced years might note in the title a backhanded reference to the book "Children of the New Forest" which was very popular in my childhood despite being published in 1847.  I had thought this was due to Churchill and McMillan's interest in restoring a quasi-feudal society in the UK.  Rather than denying this theory, noting that the BBC last televised it in 1998 makes me reassess Tony Blair's intentions.

It appears that Ms Cambridge provided a third generation of succession about 4:30pm yesterday.  Sky News was full of it (idiomatically, Sky News is usually "full of it" but this was specific not a scatological geeralisation).  It would have been fun to see how conflicted they'd have become if the event had coincided with the finish of Le Tour!  The masses – OK a bit of a crowd – were gathered out the front of Buck House, presumably to read the notice because there was nothing else to see.  I have just watched a guy from a ceramics company talking about all the sales they are expecting.  Apparently it will take them 4 days to get all the stuff made and distributed with the name etc.  So we may be able to find the Engraved Gazunder before we leave

This morning I went for a run around the whole of Selsey.  (In a cryptic crossword, the word 'whole' would be preceded by “sounds like”.)  After getting up to the main street I took off to look at the holiday park area.  There are at least 4 Parks and the one I ran through (West Beach) seemed from a map to have some 1,000 chalets.  This makes sense of the information sign suggesting that the population of Selsey at 12,000 in Winter doubles in Summer.  While it is very much the sort of place we avoid like botulism (although I didn't find the mini-golf I am sure it was in there somewhere) there was at least a reasonable amount of turf between them, unlike the Butlins Camps of the 1950s and 60s which were modeled on 1940s camps (in Eastern Europe).

When having a whinge one should never reject targets because they are too easy.  Yes, I am going to give British Telecom a serve.  I looked up the phone book to find the overseas access code when calling from the UK.  I am told to check on line – great if I had internet access in this country (at less than the £4 a day which BT charge).  Then I could buy – like spoilt kids in Africa, telcos are always crying “Give us money” - a book!  Or I could ring them – at premium call rates to find out.  I took a guess at 0011.

The weather looked reasonable so we decided to:

1. go to the New Forest for a look round; and
2. do a load of washing.  

In fact we did 2 before 1 and while waiting for the machine to finish its stuff went and sat above the shingle.  We observed the meeting of the mass of dog owners 

which was most amusing: the owner of the fox terrier was heard to say that the way his dog pounces on its ball indoors has worn out the carpet.  Just imagine such behaviour from a small terrier.

Moving East to see if there were any interesting birds around we spotted this small trawler coming in.  

It would appear the fisherperson had been chucking guts etc overboard.  When he landed he had two largish boxes of skate bits, which I reckoned to be worth about £100.  Not a great return if he been far out or for very long.

Heading off we zipped along the A/M 27 and M271 and first stopped in Lyndhurst.  This is described as a pretty village in the Forest.  Which it is.  The only problem with this is that two A class roads meet there and as a result it is clogged with traffic.  

What it will be like in a couple of weeks when the holidaying hordes really kick in is beyond belief – and possibly beyond imagination.  From our view the best thing was grabbing some brochures about the area (noting how astonishing it was to have to pay for parking at the Information Centre) which suggested – as well as a lot of retail opportunities - a visit to the Church of St Michael and All Saints.

This pub sign on the way to the Church was the most amusing I noticed while in the UK:

There were two excellent + things about this church:

• Much of the design and glass were by prominent pre-Raphaelites (and I m sure you remember them from Brum);

• An Alice Hargreaves (nee Liddell) is buried there.  She was the catalyst for Alice in “Through the Looking Glass” and “Alice in Wonderland”.

As well as her grave – a simple monument made very picturesque by the rose bushes –

 I had already taken a photograph of this memorial plaque

not realising the guys commemorated were her sons.  She seems to have been a very active and respected member of the local community.

We then headed off towards Beaulieu to a birding spot recommended in my birding guide.  We were barely out of town before finding our first New Forest ponies.  

On my childhood visits, accompanied by an equiholic cousin, I seem to remember having great trouble finding any ponies.  Today they were everywhere, including the place we stopped to go for a walk: as they seemed to be looking longingly at our baguette we didn't get out until we had finished eating.  It was a lovely walk adding a few species of bird (including Stonechat) to the trip list and getting good snaps of a few of the flowers in the heath.

The forest was also very appealing.

 Here we have a carollic image including both holly and ivy!  Possibly they can be regarded as both well grown.

We then rumbled off to Beaulieu where handing over gelt seemed to be required to do anything. We didn't wish to go to the Motor Museum (a working racetrack, or display by a bunch of enthusiasts is one thing but handing out our hard-earned to look at a static collection is very different).  So we moved on, stopping briefly at a small church in Exbury which had a couple of interesting memorials.  We had never heard of this GG of Australia!

The kneelers were also interesting as the first example of this form of community art seen on this trip.

These ponies seemed undisturbed by the distant industry (nor by the dog being exercised in the background).   
I commented on our last trip that the definition of a National Park in the UK is very different to Australia: whole towns are within the Park as are farms and  recreational activities.  (I'd love to see the Head Canophobe from the NSW National Sparks and Wildfires Service react to a dog running around near iconic wildlife!  A defibrillator would be needed.)  Our final pause was a beach at Lepe where we took a hazy image – the camera doesn't lie – of the Isle of Wight.

We then headed off through some very, very confusing signs which I got wrong a couple of times, to the M27.  Our final destination for the day was a site marked as RSPB on our road atlas but try as we might we couldn't find the place.

So we went home for a cleansing Ale or, in Frances case, cider.  My ale was the third sample from Arundel the dark and stronger (5.5%) Old Knuckler: this was a very chewy and complex dark ale indeed.  Well done that brewer!  After this we toddled off to the Seal Pub (in the Good Beer Guide) for tea.

I was initially put off by being asked if we had a reservation, but then things settled down and we had an excellent locally caught crab salad, washed down with a pint of Hophead beer (from Brighton, so nearly local).  It was quite obvious why it is called HOPhead!

Bird of the Day:  Stonechat

Building of the day: Church of St Michael and All Saints

Garden of the Day:  Alice in Wonderland's grave

Bad taste of the Day: The traffic in Lyndhurst

View of the Day: Most parts of the New Forest

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july 25 Up the Downs

Hazelmere (Black Down), Selborne

I decided to go for an early walk to see what was around on the sand.  Although only just past 6 some folk were out walking dogs.  One of them was a very affectionate whippet which certainly stirred up the gulls a tad.

On the way back I photographed a very pleasant little garden in Albion Street, created on someone's nature strip. (The RH sign on the fence features later in this post.)

Next step was to show Frances the old part of Selsey and the holiday park.  This was achieved with no drama.  

Note the (relatively good) amount of space between the vans.

We then went to have a look at the village church – St Peters.  As there was a service going on we didn't go in.  I did notice that the War Memorial listed 57 dead in WW1, at which time the population would seem to have been about 1500: an extraordinary proportion.

On to Pagham Harbour at St Wilfrids.  As we walked round to the spit it emerged that the sea front side was all streng verboten because of nesting terns.  The RSPB fails on issuing good warnings since if there hadn’t been a worker there doing some surveys I would have wandered right in to the restricted area.  However we found a good crop of Ringed Plovers (a bit camouflaged in the image) and Dunlins on the beach

and more of them plus masses of Oystercatchers (20+) and Little Egrets (6+) on the mud in the lagoon.

On to Midhurst which I thought would be an attractive little village.  In fact it was rather boring so we carried on towards Hazelmere and Black Down.  The latter was easy to find, and rather attractive.  However there were no signs at all for Black Down so we instituted spiral theory, which requires getting into the approximately correct area and then continually turning right (or left, as seems appropriate).  I eventually spotted a local sweeping his drive.  (Since a Ferrari was visible in the garage I guessed he wasnt a member of the starving poor.) 

He was a member of The Helpful however and confirmed both that we were on the right road and that the signage was crap.  On, on.  As promised, so it was delivered.  I couldn't remember why we were attracted to this site – other than it being marked in our Road Atlas – but it was an excellent walk though mixed forest 

and heath to the Temple of the Winds where Wordsworth used to hang out looking over The Weald when not fantasizing about daffodils.  Apparently - according to Country Life, which is hardly an organ of the Left, -  if the Government gets its way this view is going to acquire  a bunch of fracking facilities.   Shime, shime David Cameron: and what is Nick Clegg doing about this.

We spoke to a few locals to confirm directions as we had no map and my internal compass (I think driven by the position of the sun) is buggered in the Northern Hemisphere.  I was impressed by the periodoc sighting of fire beating flails hanging up for general use

Getting back to the car it looked to be too much time and messing about to go to Selborne: I shall continue to read the book by Gilbert White which had got the place on the list.  So we rumbled off back  to Selsey where I went to the library to see if they had wifi.  Yes they did – installed the previous day- and I used it.  The first to do so!  It then emerged that some toe-rag - see, I can still speak English despite having moved about 43 years ago -  had hijacked my gmail account – I suspect from Kuala Lumpur airport  - but Google had recognised this and suspended my account greatly to the concern of some readers of my blog!  Hopefully it has been fixed.

I dropped back into the Church – which part at least had been moved from Church Norton and no service was evident.  The most interesting things were the collection of labelled rock on the altar

 and the table of chief religious persons running it from St Wilfrid in 681 CE to date (with a gap from 1070 to 1324 presumably while the Normans got their act into gear).

We have wondered what the Selsey Anglers Club does for its members.  It seems to be two things:

•                     provides winches to drag their boats up the single to the promenade; and

•                     offers a spot to store the boat over Winter.

For this they charge demographically interesting fees:

•                     Regular (ie blokes):'£15 joining fee and £15 a year

•                     Ladies (ie sheilas) £10 joining fee but no annual subs

•                     Juniors (ie rugrats) No joining fee and $5 a year

As this marks the end of our stay in Selsey I'll put in a couple of general images also.  First, a couple more dog poop signs: given the number of pooches around I can see why reminders are a good idea.

Another amusing approach to this problem is being used in Spain.

Trevor was not available this evening and I cannot remember what beer I tasted (but am sure there was not an excessive amount of it!

Bird of the Day: Dunlin in breeding plumage

Building of the day: Bakery in Selsey

Garden of the Day: Little one by the transformer in Albion St

Bad taste of the Day: lack of signs to Black Down

View of the Day: The Weald from the Temple of the Winds

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July 28 Three March towns

Ludlow, Leominster and Hereford.  I had hoped to go to Brecon as well but due to the Black Mountains getting in the way that looked like too long a drive.  Looking  back, as will be evident from today's report that view was spot on the money.

The rain stopped sometime during the night and I had a good nights kip.  When I woke I decided to watch the BBC News and was just in time to cop the Sports news.  This started off with a track meet where Jessica Ennis (if you can remember who she is I suspect you're English) finished the race.  She got interviewed extensively, while Sally Pearson (if you can remember who she is I suspect you're Australian) who won, didn't even get shown crossing the line.  Usain Bolt (you don't have to be Jamaican to know who he is) running in a relay race got less coverage that Sir Bradley Wiggins did for finishing in the peleton in the first stage of the tour of Poland (run in Italy for goodness sake).

They then moved on to the weather.  Some places on the East Coast had scored 3” overnight, .  The forecast for the rest of the week sounded typical of an English Summer: sunny spells with scattered thundery showers.  (I've just realised this is my first reference to the weather, a remarkable outcome from spending a week in the UK.  This probably reflects it being beautiful weather all the time we were in Selsey.)

The basic plan today was to go down to Hereford about 25 miles (ie 40 km) South, check that out and comeback North calling in at Leominster, Berrington Hall and Ludlow en route.  That is pretty much what happened.  Again putting in a parenthesis, I will offer a few comments about the official view of driving in the UK:

• there are many, many signs about speed cameras.  Possibly 25% of these seem to be associated with actual cameras, the rest are just propaganda.  However I take note of them and drop to the speed limit unlike other folk who scream past.  Today we went past a camera and the guy who had just overtaken me must have been doing at least 10mph over the limit, but he didn't even brake. 
• That caused me to think of stats from our last visit that >50% of speeding fines, license withdrawals are ignored.
• There are a lot of other signs exhorting one to slow down (for an intersection, a crest, a case of indigestion).  Obviously they have never read the story of the boy who called wolf!
• At one point today I was doing 50, overtaking someone doing 35 in an unlimited area, when a sign flashed “Slow Down”at me as they had an advisory (I think) 40 limit for an upcoming bend.  Distracting garbage!

 We started by looking at the old church in Tugford.

A simple building but with some charms.  I noted that they had deliberately only mowed half the graveyard allowing the remainder to be 'natural'.  A few cemetery trusts in Australia could learn from this. The main war memorials are in that thematic page, but this manuscript appealed . 

So did these old fertility symbols: only 2 others known in Shropshire!

We basically hammered down the road to Hereford, and into the free TESCO parking lot, to get to the cathedral before the 11am Matins.   This was obviously a well known ploy as they had started business with a Eucharist at 10am.  The singing was quite good so at 10:15 we sat in the pew until we realised at about 10:30, on page 3 of 9 in the Order of Service, that this was going to be a long service so wandered off.  Like many towns in the area Hereford was well served with planter boxes.

We started with the museum where a roman pavement was mounted on the wall

and spoke to some folk who gave us a small, but very useful, map and told us how to get to the River Wye and pointed out that en route we'd pass the site of Nell Gwynn's house.  The plaque their made no reference to her involvement in the citrus trade, nor who sired the first Duke of St Albans. 

We crossed the River Wye and reconnected with Edward Elgar due to an episode - in some way incorporated in the Enigma Variations - with a friend's bulldog jumping in the River. 

Some Mute swans were sunning themselves on the banks of the Wye,

Back to the Cathedral and quickly in between the Eucharist finishing at about 11:15 and Matins kicking off at 11:30.  An excellent cathedral – not quite up to Worcester standards but with much good glass

The second image is of the "Thomas Denny Windows".  The artist responsible for this appears to have started his career in glass more or less by accident in 1983 and now has windows in 30+ churches across the UK.   There were also many interesting memorials sampled in the appropriate post.

After this we wandered around Hereford finding several interesting items.  I have restricted my burden on your download limit to this, reflecting the origin of my favourite breed of beef in this County.

Back to Leominster where there seemed to be two specially interesting buildings according to the guidebook.  In fact it was a bit better than that with a good mural 

titled "The Friendship Tree" painted by Sally Johnson and Mike Johnson..   The Priory Church was interesting for having a Norman/Romanesque old bit and a later addition heading towards a Perpendicular/Gothic feel.  A service was just finishing but a nice lady still welcomed us (while her male colleague turned off all the lights)!  Here is an image.

The other officially interesting building was the Guildhall.  The image would reflect the level of  interest better if the gardener's truck wasn't in the way (but they were working on a Sunday so lets not be too hard on them).

Then to the NT's Berrington Hall. 

A very interesting building with park grounds in which Capability Brown had been involved: towards the end of our visit I inspected the haha  (which by definition is invisible from the house but is indicated by the faint line on this side of the foreground tuft of grass).

Looking at the depth of this effort I decided that the Pratchett character “Bloody Stupid Johnstone” (whose hahas killed many people by excessive depth) was not a great deal away from the reality of the better known Mr Brown. 

On the next stretch of the drive I noticed my first dead badger of the trip.  I presume it was a road fatality not part of the cull being taken to reduce a claimed TB situation.  On the last trip the roads around Bristol had basically been surfaced with dead badgers but they have been less evident this trip (so far).  

Ludlow then got looked at and rated as a very nice town.  

The Church of St Lawrence was mind-boggling, especially when 'only' a Parish Church.  I have no objection to the view of the church architecture person who described it as the Cathedral of the Marches.

There were many very interesting war memorials in this church and they are all ....  I will also show this sample of the workings of a carillion (of interest to me because I had never realised how they worked in the past).

Then, tired but happy, we wandered home, attempting to buy some stuff from the Ludlow Brewery but no-one was interested in serving me.

Tonight's beer was BV Stout from Mayfields Brewery in Herefordshire.  A good stout even if named after Black Vaughn who seems to have been a very naughty boy in 1469 (and later, when his ghost wreaked havoc).  It did a good job of settling my digestion down before asking it to deal with an excellent pork pie, courtesy of – wait for it – Tescoes.

Bird of the Day: Nuthatch seen at Tugford

Building of the day: St Lawrence Church in Ludlow but Hereford Cathedral had put in a big effort in the final quarter and only missed out narrowly.

Garden of the Day:  Walled garden at Berrington Hall

Bad taste of the Day:  poor service at the Ludlow Brewery

View of the Day:  The parkland at Berrigton.

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