July 17 Getting going

Trip to Birmingham

This was the first part of the actual trip.  Commentary on the flight booking process and the accomodation selection process has previously been published.

Before getting to business here is the forecast for the first few days we are away.

Let no-one doubt why we are going.

Before getting down to the trip, here are a few words about travelling to Sydney to catch an international flight.  The airlines charge about $200 a return ticket, so for two people that is $400 (plus you make the Snow family feel good).  The car hire companies have realised that they have a low bar to straddle so they now charge $330 for the two ways (plus you pay petrol  and have to drive in and out of Canberra twice).  So for us the best bet was to use Discount Airport parking who are charging us $220.   (The bus doesn't work because of the taxi fares to get into Canberra to catch the bus.)

Jumping forward Discount Parking worked out brilliantly.  The took us from their yard to the airport within 10 minutes of us getting there and on return had us picked up and heading back to the yard no slower than it would take to pick up the keys for a rental car.

We set off about 7:30 to drop the small dog off at Reedy Creek Kennels.  This was done and she seemed to settle down satisfactorily.  We rumbled down the road to Sydney with no dramas.  The range read out on the Jetta suggested we could cover 1400 km before refuelling! The parking lot was found, the car deposited and ourselves shuttled to the airport.  After about an hour we were through the formalities and a further hour later were in the Malaysian Airlines A330.  They seemed  to have a relaxed view about the stowage of hand luggage, but did get it all stowed eventually before take off.  Bird of the day was Little Black Cormorant, seen as we took off.

There were many kids on the flight and several of them didn't seem to settle at all.  At one point it looked though the worst offenders were also coming on the flight to Amsterdam but fortunately they didn't turn up.  This one – in front of us - was very well behaved.

We saw – but couldn't photograph due to the position of the sun and humidity- brilliant scenery in the Kimberleys (view of the day) and around the Ord, and again some of the islands to the East of Lombok.  In passing, a contender for bad taste of the day was the Oxford Landing Shiraz served with the evening meal.  It was rather close to undrinkable  and won the “sensual" division..

The most interesting part of the 3 hours in KL was going into the Jungle Boardwalk.  There were a lot of bird calls in there but they all seemed to be recordings. 

The palms etc were very pleasant however and it scores Garden of the Day.  The bad taste – artistic division - award went to an ice cream stall, rather than the bromeliad shaped supports for the boardwalk.  

A near disaster occurred when I saw a KLM flight moved to a new gate.  This also implied the flight had been shifted back 30 minutes.  Fortunately some other passengers said that KLM sometimes have two flights departing close together, so we didn't report to the wrong gate after our flight had left!

Bird of the Day: Little Black Cormorant (last bird in Australia)

Building of the day:  No nominations

Garden of the Day: Jungle boardwalk in Kuala Lumpur

Bad taste of the Day:Ice cream stand in Kuala Lumpur

View of the Day: Kimberleys from 10kms above.

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July 19 Delights of the A34

Pick up car at airport.  Head for Coventry and cathedral.  Head off towards Selsey.  South of Newbury call in at Sandham Memorial Chapel.  Organise ourselves at Selsey.

After reading a book on Frances iPad for an hour I went back to sleep about 4am.  I woke again about 4:45 and decided that as it was daylight and I had had about 12 hours sleep I might as well go for a run.  What happened was more like a stagger than a run but I picked up and put them down broadly in a circuit of the National Exhibition Centre.  A few additional birds, and an amazing number of rabbits, were seen here.

By the time I had  a shower we were ready for the buffet breakfast which took in enough calories to last us for most of our trip.  A wonderful meal.  Then off to Europcar to get some wheels.  As we walked in we were amused at the sight of this hire car driver - possibly he'd call himself a chauffeur - changing a wheel, wearing rubber gloves to keep his hands clean.

While typing this I have have recalled the line in Lonnie Donegan's song "Putting on the Style" referring to  ".. driving like 'e's mad, wiv a pair of Yaller gloves, e's borrered from 'is dad."

The car turned out to be a petrol Polo manual without cruise control rather than the automatic diesel something with cruise control which I would have preferred).  Check out was easy and off we went towards Coventry.   Cutting to the chase for the car, it did the job.  It:

• could go at the speed limit (and more when needed on motorways)
• gave us about 45mpg; 
• carried all our kit; and 
• fitted into English country roads.

However it was incredibly noisy when pushed and certainly didn't have the grunt of Frances Jetta.  Also, in about 4 months of having automatic vehicles I have got out of the habit of shifting into top as soon as possible.

I'm not sure if we got into Coventry the easiest way and it was by now 8:15 so peak hour.  Also, as usual the Cathedral was on all the signposts until close to it.  After a few laps of the bus station we found somewhere to park and just as we were printing the ticket a local told us that the ticket machine in a nearby park was broken so parking was free.   Buggah.  Perhaps that is the tale behind this graffiti?

We then asked a passing lass how to get to the Cathedral and she didn't really know but then recalled the steps beside a pub which worked for us.  We went by the Priory Gardens which were pleasant

and then found our way to the Cathedral.  It was an omen that the Visitors Centre didn't open until 9:30 (and it was by now 8:45).  Going slightly forward, we found that the 'new' Cathedral didn't open until 10, which was a nuisance, at least until a skivvy for the Cathedral told us that the Bluecoats School had taken the place out for the morning for their end of year service.

BUGGAH!!! I then persuaded someone setting up the sound for the school to let take a photo but that didn't come out properly.  So we took some other snaps around the place noticing that quite a bit of old Coventry seemed to have survived the firestorm. 

This memorial is to fire fighters who didn't survive.

By dint of sticking our noses and my camera into various places I did get quite a few shots which hopefully give an idea of the Cathedral and its setting.

This is part of the remains of the old cathedral.

This sculpture was presented by a group from Dresden which was flattened by the Allies in retaliation for Coventry.

 Another Epstein, titled "Ecce Homo" .

 The huge etched glass window which allows folk inside the new cathedral to see the ruins of the old.

 An astonishing stained glass window with the sun coming though it.

 The altar hanging and the organ.

 Yet another Epstein, hanging on the outside of the Cathedral.  This one dpicts St Michael dealing with Satan.

We then hit the M40 and then A34 South, getting used (again) to the fact that many Poms – particularly those driving German performance cars - regard the 70 limit on motorways etc as a guideline.  As I sat on about 70mph (and I have no idea why the Poms have metricated liquid measures and weights but not linear measures)  my estimate was that a lot of cars that overtook me were doing close to, or above, 100mph.

Whatever, we poddled down to Newbury and 4 miles later took the turnoff to the Sandham Memorial Chapel.

This is now owned by the National Trust (NT) and is well described by them (photos are not allowed.).  A magnificent work by  Stanley Spencer commemorating the death of his sponsor's brother (and Spencer's friend) as a result of WW1.  The entire work took him 5 years and as some of the themes (eg horses being reincarnated) were offensive unto vicars (at that time, perhaps less so now) and had to be done after the chapel was consecrated. 

In true NT fashion the grass was not mown to encourage the butterflies.  There were certainly a lot of Six-spotted burnets around.

After viewing the Chapel we headed for the nearby Beacon Hill which we scaled to see the views across the Downs.

As we started we noticed a sign forbidding hang-gliders and on the top with a steady breeze could understand the appeal of the place for people who like that sort of thing.  We added a few bird species to the trip list and saw a model glider – apparently not banned. 

On, on down the road marvelling at how a caravan can screw up the traffic.  We found our way to Selsey, a little earlier than expected so went to look at La Manche (aka the English Channel) and then to buy some groceries (especially in bottles).  The first place we went to was appalling: all the wine was Australian and all brands we wouldn't cook with in Australia!  I then found an Off-license which provided (what has turned out to be) a very potable bottle of Argentinian Malbec.  Surprisingly the label didn't refer to the sinking of the General Belgrano, nor make any other reference to Las Malvinas.

We then found Gull cottage

and dumped off our kit.  To keep ourselves awake we went for a walk along the shingle.

adding several species of Gull to the bird list.  We could see how a 16 year old Pommie blonde might find the town “a hole” but we reckoned it was OK as a base for a holiday – just the visitors a tad declassé.  This group were in traditional style hiding from the wind behind a groyn while scoring some rays from the sun.

We had tea - I can't remember what -  watch Le Tour highlights, drink some Theakston's Old Peculier, and head for bed about 8:30 Selsey time.

Bird of the Day:  Black-headed Gull

Building of the day: Coventry Cathedral is the only real contender.  Saltham Memorial Chapel gets a "mouse that roared" award but it really was punching above its weight.

Garden of the Day: The front yard at Saltham.

Bad taste of the Day: The pink pom parade at Selsey

View of the Day: The Downs from Beacon Hill

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July 21 The 2 Arthurs- King and Uncle

Uppark House, Petersfield, East Tisted, Hinton Ampher, Winchester

There are rumours, apparently commenced by Malory (the author of  Le Morte d'Arthur not Mallory the former mountaineer - although the latter did go to Winchester School) that Winchester, our main objective on this day was the site of Camelot.  Consensus seems to be it was a totally fictional joint invented by folk telling a good yarn!  That is the King Arthur.

My Uncle Arthur was - in the 1950s and 60s - a blacksmith in East Tisted, which village I hope to visit today.

I woke early and by 5:30 was out on the seawall running East into a nippy wind.  The dog walking classes were not yet evident but a couple on interesting signs were read:

• Mulberry Harbour – a key part of D Day was built off Selsey and then floated across to Normandy;
• At the end of the track a sign announced that the view from that point across to Bognor inspired Eric Coates to pen a tune by the name of Sleepy Lagoon, used as the theme song for Desert Island Discs on the BBC.  (I am advised that cultural references are needed to appreciate the significance of this.)

Round about the time I got to the second of these signs I became very interested in finding a third sign announcing the presence of a khazi.  Unfortunately, when I did track one down, it also announced that it was locked overnight.  But wait! there's more: the ones about 1km down the track are opened 24/7.  Sorry, wrong: that facility was also locked.  Fortunately for the environment of West Sussex -possibly also East Sussex, most of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight -  this was only 200m from home and I made it.

Frances and I then went for a walk along the main road to the shingle to go further West.  This soon ran into private property so we wandered back through a residential area.  The houses were large 

and the cars all new (and needless to say mainly imported).  Selsey is not an impoverished area, but it did cause us to wonder what the folk did for a living: it is about 8 miles from the nearest large town and railway station and there doesn't seem to be any manufacturing here.

After breakfast (accompanied by a perusal of a copy of the Sunday Independent, acquired for £2.20 and worth about 15p) we headed off in the general direction of Winchester.  We had to pass through the edge of Chichester to do this and found a triathlon going on.  In fact the triathlon bike leg pretty much followed our route.  This made the driving rather dangerous as many of the competitors appeared to have little idea of road safety, and the roads were – this being England – narrow and twisty.  We didn't hit anyone but we wondered what the death toll was overall.  There was massive support effort with marshals at every intersection.  On the one long downhill there were lots of signs about danger and a marshal on every bend!

 We eventually ended up at Uppark House and Garden.  We got there before they opened at 11 and it was explained to us that the house didn't open until 12:30 but we could take a mini-tour starting at 11:10 where we could see a few rooms.  This seemed like the best of an average situation so we did as suggested.    While waiting for 11:10 to arrive we took the opportunity to look closely at one of the flint-studded walls common in the area.

This made it obvious that this was a traditional equivalent to brick veneer with the flints simply filling in the gaps between the timber frame members, and having no load bearing function.

The mini-tour was brilliant.  The guide was very knowledgeable and had a very good grasp of the story.  A main part of the recent history of the House was a huge fire in 1989 which effectively gutted the place.  (It seems this was started by contractors, but I'm not sure how.)  Anyway the firies were there within 15 minutes of the alarm being raised and decided quickly that the upper floor was a goner so ignored that and worked towards getting all the art and antiques out of the ground floor.  They did this very well indeed, apart from not knowing how to remove a few things:

•  the grand piano was covered by a carpet and lost (the carpet had a corner burnt off, which was repaired in Hungary, as no-one in England can hand knot carpet any more!); and
•  a large 4-poster bed was only removed – by NT - staff the next day and 15 minutes later the ceiling in that room came down.

The insurance on the property came up with £20m and the contractors were sued for another £1m so the NT didn't have to cough up anything.

The other story was the ownership of the house.  At a relatively recent point the then owner, aged in his 70s married his dairymaid and they lived there happily with the dairymaid getting very involved in running the place.  Eventually the old chap died and the estate passed to the dairymaid.  She invited her sister to join her and when the dairymaid died the house passed to the sister (the dairymaid not having fallen pregnant).  I think that they decided that when the sister died the house would pass to the son of a friend.  His descendants still live in houses on the estate and the restored upper floor of the House.

We then wandered around the gardens after watching a Red Kite patrolling the valley below.  I reported this to someone and they said that the birds are now regular.  There will be more about Red Kites in another post, but when I left the UK in 1970 they were still on the verge of extinction in the UK with a few pairs in Wales.  Now it seems they are are regularly observed over a fair part of England and wales.

We headed off towards Winchester.  A diversion occurred to visit the village of East Tisted where my uncle used to own (and operate) a smithy.  (As a total sidetrack, as I type this I was thinking about my visits there as a child and can suddenly smell the red hot shoes going on to the horses hooves.  Anyone who has attended such an event will know to what I refer, and that this is nothing to do with breakfast toast being created.)  The house it still called The Forge but the smithy – and the income supplementing petrol pumps – are no more (but the stable where my cousin kept her horse is still at the back).

We have just (2/2/2014) come across this old postcard of East Tisted which my Aunt sent me in July 1953.

The relatives house is the one at the RH end.

We went for a squiz at the excellently preserved church with good memorial plaques and admired some of the other houses in the village.

On, on towards Winchester with a swerve into Hinton Amper (and a few curses at the yokels with two tractors dragging hay along the road from East Tisted) .  The big deal here was the excellent garden.  

The ownership of the house was again interesting ending with a gent described as “a committed bachelor” - can the truth be a euphemism?- leaving the property to the NT.  

An interesting sidelight was a displayed letter, signed Elizabeth R, thanking the owner for his hospitality and an accompanying note from a member of the Royal Household saying that the handwriting of the letter was that of the Queen Mum but they had no record of the visit.  A guide explained that the interpretation of this was a comfort stop: public conveniences are not on the cards nor are convenient bushes (the problems being more than stinging nettles).

The NT shop here was selling local bottled produce which will be commented on later.  They also got some action from Frances who acquired a book about NT houses and another blanket.  A final comment is to note that a Classic Citroen Club was visiting the place with a lot of Maigret specials parked out the front of the house and attracting a lot of looks from the other visitors.

Leaving there we headed to Winchester and despite the efforts of the people who leave crucial information off signs made it into the city centre.  However there was no indication of where the Cathedral was so we didn't want to park and find we had to walk 2 miles.  I asked someone who looked like (and probably was) a local but they were in training for that oversubscribed occupation of village idiot and didn't know.  Interestingly that is the second time we have asked people for directions to physically massive and economically key sites and the locals haven't known.  After a very confusing lap of the city centre we arrived back where we started but having spotted the cathedral so knew to park there.  The car park was a tribute to incompetence (I'm not sure if it was the Council or the private sector):

•  despite all the signs about pay and display it turned out to be free on Sundays!
• the lifts didn't work (and hadn't done since about June 2012);
• we had gone up 2 levels but were on level 4 and then went down 1 level to the street.

 We got to the Cathedral and found Evensong about to kick off so wandered in to join the throng (thus not having to pay, and getting some music thrown in).  Frances really enjoyed the music but it wasn't to my taste: apparently it was quite modern and thus showed off the cleverness of the composer and singers.    I was intrigued by one of the Lessons which went on about defending the city from “ruthless aliens” - Anglicanism defined by the BNP? - and the modern language used which lost all the feel of the old prayers which I remembered (but were probably not understood by the MP3 generation).

Once the Service was over I was free to take photographs 

including some of the memorials around the building.  This extensive list is of members of the Royal Hampshire Regiment who have died on service.

This is a memorial to Sir John Campbell who died at Sebastopol in fighting during the Crimean War - not a conflict memorialised in Australia.

There were a lot of other military ones (including the men of the Pay Corps – I have never found one to the dunny builders of the Pioneer Corps) and a very large brass on the wall and flagstone in the floor for Jane Austen.  (She was about to get a lot of air-time as a result of being put on the 10 pound note!

 On home.   This was basically a blat for about an hour, interrupted by refueling on the outskirts of Chichester and finding we had averaged about 38mpg which is not too bad.  (From a comparison with later results this suggests the car wasn't exactly brim full when we picked it up, but also indicates the way travellng at motorway speed increases the fuel consumption.)

Evening libations for me were Arundel Sussex Gold Ale (very hoppy and refreshing) and, while waiting for our take-away fish and chips to be cooked at the Lifeboat pub, a slightly softer styled pint of St Austel Pride bitter.  The latter comes from Cornwall so wasn't really local but close enough when thirsty.  Frances partook of Tillingdon Hills cider purchased at the Co-op: she rated it as good  with a distinctive slightly herbal taste.

Bird of the Day: Red Kite

Building of the day: Winchester Cathedral

Garden of the Day: Hinton Ampher

Bad taste of the Day: the car park in Winchester

View of the Day: from the bedroom in Uppark House.

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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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