RICHARD’S CASTLE, THE RED DRAGON, AND THE THREE-LEGGED SHEEP

THEY SAY: Okay folks, the title was just to see whether you were still awake. The Red Dragon refers to the pre-Christian symbol of Wales, whereas the White Dragon refers to the wicked English dragon of the east. Richard had a shank of great lamb with mint sauce for lunch, so the reference to a three-legged lamb is to the poor creature with 3 remaining shanks which is hobbling around somewhere in the English countryside. It should be noted in passing that as we left Ireland and went on to Wales and returned to England prices fell by about half; Ireland is bloody expensive.

Well, we have left Ireland, and have woven our way through Wales and back into England. I was perhaps errant in failing to mention that Dublin has a wee Jewish community of about 1, 000 people, split between the Reform and Orthodox clans of the tribe. Those of you who survived your Intro to British Lit will remember that Molly Bloom, Joyce’s buxom, red-headed heroine in “Ulysses”, had a husband who was Jewish. But if you didn’t remember that you at least remember the opening sensuous and titillating Molly Bloom first paragraph in the novel that would make DH Lawrence blush.

We travelled through northern Wales and through Avon, which is associated with King Arthur, although this is something of a feat since there really is no hard proof that he actually existed. From what I can tell, both King Arthur and Robin Hood are both composite figures created over the centuries from stories, legends and folk songs. Interestingly, only in later centuries were their respective heroines and love interests added, no doubt to spice things up.

Further into Wales we journeyed into what used to be coal mining country. The classic novel and b&w film about the harsh and dangerous lives of Welsh miners was told in Llewellyn‘s classic, “How Green was My Valley”. Subsequently, an academic discovered that Llewellyn changed his name to make it sound more Welsh; in reality, he was from east-end London. Perhaps the most powerful, brutal and heart rending of all novels about unemployed coal miners during the depression is Orwell’s “The Road to Wigham Pier.” But times have changed. At the turn of the century there were about 100, 000 miners employed in the Cardiff area, today 2, 000. But heating our homes and powering our factories with coal came with a sharp price tag: we stopped at a memorial to the 266 miners who died in a 1934 pit explosion; earlier in 1913, 800 men were killed in another mining accident.

I think we mentioned earlier that our guide, Dylan, is Welsh, and pulled a few strings to prolong our trip through Wales, so instead of an hour or two rushing along the motorway en route to England after our ferry ride from Dublin, we spent a full day driving through the Snowdonia Mountains, visiting a walled town and its castle in Conway, and then driving south to Dylan’s home, a beautiful town named Llangollen, where we were invited to his local pub for drinks. He ordered a Welsh whisky for Richard called Pandenic (no, not a pandemic) which was as good as any Scottish single malt. Eleanor had a great local beer, but unfortunately the memory of its name was gone before the glass was drained.

We really believed that our disappointment in the scenery of Ireland was due to having seen the spectacular highlands of Scotland beforehand, but our love of the highlands didn’t get in the way of our appreciation of Wales. It really is stunning. Sitting in that lovely old pub right beside a fast-moving stream in such a beautiful mountain valley, was one of the highlights of the trip for many of us. Several people mentioned how happy they would have been if the Chester leg of our trip had been cancelled, and we had stayed in the pub for dinner. I’m not sure where a busload of tourists would have been able to sleep in Llangollen, but we’d have taken our chances. Except for the fact that the majority of the locals speak Gaelic, we’re thinking it would be a lovely place to retire…and the weather’s much nicer than it is on the Orkney Islands. It would certainly be nice to come back and spend a longer time seeing the rest of the country.

The following morning we went to see the lovely town of Chester (pop 80, 000) with its Roman walls and half-timbered shops and houses. Just being able to stand on the rampart walls where the Romans stood to view this outlying and backward province of Pax Romana was a real thrill. Contrary to what we had learned in high school Latin, despite the fact that Britain was viewed as a backwater whose savage inhabitants were to be kept at bay by Hadrian’s wall, you realize after you the see the Roman amphitheatre (3 AD) here in Chester and the elaborate baths in the City of Bath that the Romans intended to stay and were more than passing through. They were here for 400 years! And compared to the locals of the time, the Romans probably represented progress in a variety of ways given their level of civilization and culture. As well, after one appreciates that Brown’s dress shop in Chester was founded during the reign of George II (early 1700s), one has an entirely different sense of historical time than do we upstart North Americans. The fact that the Blue Coated Hospital (later a home for boys) was founded in 1700 again re-enforces the point.

Earlier in our trip, after Oxford going north, we passed by Sheffield, which used to be part of the Britain’s industrial base in the mid-lands. In the 1980s it became part of the rust belt with massive layoffs. That demoralizing story was told in the almost humorous film, “The Full Monty”; whereas the desperate situation of unemployed municipal labourers in the 1980s was told in a pathos-filled BBC mini-series titled, ”The Black Top Workers.”

As we were driving through the countryside, it was pointed out to us that in certain parts of Wales the pub was located right next to the Church. What cause and effect was, in this instance, remains to be determined; perhaps it was just a matter of convenience. A cynic, however, would suggest that it was necessity.

In Ludlow we had lunch at a pub called The Blue Boar and then went to walk around a lovely outside market with local produce, sweet stalls and book vendors. This is much like our Byward Market in Ottawa. This little market, we were told, has been around for a mere 900 years. Lordy, the notion of time is so different. It makes one feel small- like the proverbial grain of sand. But despite its great age, the food is fresh, and their chili-chocolate fudge was great!

One of the recurring things that Richard keeps saying is how the English countryside and the paintings of Gainsborough and Constable mirror one another. The rolling pastures and meandering streams, the cows, sheep, trees, and the infinite shades of greens and yellows are all captured and reflected in the social realism of Gainsborough and Constable, although they wouldn’t have called it that. They were gendre painters who captured a particular milieu , and social set such as Gainsborough’s painting titled Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, who were landed gentry, and caught their personal relationship which was based more on finance than on romance. What these painters do is to turn the prosaic into art. Richard says he will never look at the English countryside in the same way again. Eleanor, on the other hand, doesn’t care who painted what; the countryside looks like a huge patchwork quilt in shades of green, with trees or stone walls dividing the square fields and cows and sheep and wildflowers adding tiny touches of colour for effect.

Today’s trip took us to the beautiful old Roman baths built on a hot spring in Bath, with a detour to pass the grand old houses that the Londoners spent their summers in while “taking the waters” in Jane Austin’s time. At least 2 of her novels were set there, and there’s a Jane Austin museum there as well. This afternoon we arrived in Plymouth, and after a cruise on the harbour, when the sun came out to greet us for the first time in a few days, we settled into our last hotel, where we spend our final two nights of the tour, before heading back to London. Tomorrow, we visit Cornwall: Princetown and across Dartmoor to visit Tintagel, the supposed site of King Arthur’s castle. We return to Plymouth via Bodwin Moor.

Tomorrow night we have our farewell dinner, because when we arrive in London on Wednesday, the group will be scattering. Some head home that night, some leave on Thursday, and many of the Aussies in the group are getting their clothes cleaned and heading off on other 2 or 3 week tours in different parts of Europe. That sounds strange to Canadians who can get to Europe in 5 or 6 hours, but it takes them 26 hours to reach London and once they’re here they make the most of it! We’ve enjoyed our time, but are happy to be heading home and unpacking at last!

It sounds almost anti-climactic, but on the way back to London we’ll make our final stop to see Stonehenge. That means that we have at least one more instalment of this blog, so don’t give up now! We probably won’t tackle that until we get home, but when we’ve caught up on our sleep, we’ll also post photos, so stay tuned.

Irish whisky and Blarney

SHE SAYS: Looks as if the tantrum is over- for now, and the Blarney Stone worked. (see below) Although he wants it on record that objects to my wording of the previous sentence. Still, he's baaaack!


HE SAYS: We are entering the last phase of our trip and some people are saddle weary and becoming grumpy after three weeks on the road. (Not us, of course!) So some quick comments and observations.

Here in the British Isles there is an entirely different sense of historical time. Here castles and pubs date back to 1098 -- literally. The other day we had lunch at a pub that was 800 years old; that's before Shakespeare, and the other afternoon we were in another pub that had a Viking wall in it. And the number of castles that date from the 13th century is endless. Ho-hum, another ruin. In Canada history as a practical matter history doesn’t start until around 1750 with Kingston and the like. This doesn't even qualify as history on this side of the pond. Newer -- or younger -- does not necessarily mean better. In Europe and Britain one acquires a new sense of history and historical perspective.

One of the original reasons that I wanted to do this trip to the British Isles was to compare and contrast Scotland and Ireland, and their respective cultures side- by- side. Initially, I was going to make a smart comment that this was like comparing the dour with the maudlin. But that's too easy. The Scottish clan structure and home rule helped preserve their unique culture, while a tight peasant culture and the external British threat- and, of course, Guinness- accomplished the same for the Irish. After appreciating Scottish and Irish culture I've come to the conclusion that they are the lost tribes of Israel.

About two days ago we all kissed the Blarney stone, which was a lot of fun, but blarney. Dylan, our tour guide, tells us that while kissing the stone is fun, it’s even more fun to kiss someone who’s kissed the Blarney Stone. We did both, so we’re even more full of blarney than most. But you already knew that, didn’t you?

I had never thought of it before, but the different designs on Irish fisherman's sweaters were intended to help identify the bodies of drowned fisherman. And as bright as some of them are, tartans were designed to camouflage their wearers as they walked across the hills.

Today here in Dublin I went on a private tour titled, “The 1916 Rebellion Tour” to visit places associated with the abortive 1916 uprising against the British. Lorcan, the tour guide, was quite good, informative and humorous; while the rapidity of his delivery was like that of a British machine gun at the GPO. Certainly the best films about the Irish resistance to the Brits are “Michael Collins” and “The Hand that Shakes the Barley”. Both are fairly brutal.

Dublin is a city with history; it is a bustling, if not thriving city with many bistros, cafes and pubs. The Grafton Street area in city center is particularly interesting and lively, with buskers and outdoor cafes and wall-to-wall tourists. Dublin’s historical reputation and impact on twentieth century literature is probably unparalleled to any other city in the world. I was struck by the flourishing cultural life including the numerous small string quartets, live drama and film clubs. Killarney stands in contrast as a delightful, but small town with cobbled streets; I wished we had spent more time there. Notwithstanding the recent economic collapse and bailout of the Irish economy, life here seems fairly prosperous. Using the famous Deaton Car Index as a proxy of social affluence this is certainly suggested by the large number of big cars here when compared to the smaller ones in Italy, Portugal, France, Greece and other European cities.

We also went to visit Trinity College and the well-known Book of Kells, with its beautiful illuminated manuscript. That said, the Long Room Library was absolutely stunning and stole the show with its 20 foot floor- to -ceiling book shelves. The place just oozed culture and learning. All that was missing was the port from an Oxbridge High Table. To enhance this effect was an exhibition celebrating the history of the Trinity College Medical School; this was replete with 18th and 19th century medical textbooks, which were in their own right pieces of art and are medical treasures.

Tomorrow we leave Ireland at 5:30 AM (!!!) and head off through Wales, which was supposed to be nothing more than a direct route back to England. But Dylan is Welsh, and has decided that we need to spend a little more time in the most beautiful part of Britain, so most of tomorrow will be spent on a detour through Wales, including a stop in his home town and a visit to his “local”. Then it’s on to Bath, Plymouth, and Stonehenge; we come full circle and end the trip in London, as does our blog.

This Insight tour, our skilled driver, Neville, and especially our tour manager, Dylan, have been first rate. We have nothing but good things to say about him. It has been a real pleasure travelling with him. We have learned a lot, and have thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. While Guinness is referred to as black gold and definitely tastes much better in Ireland the way everybody says, personally I prefer Beamish. And without a doubt the best Irish whisky in the world is Redbreast, whilst the best Scottish single malt, at least to my taste, is Dalwinnie. Thank you, Dylan and Neville, for introducing me to the drink of the gods.

Land of the leprechauns

Greetings on one of our rare rain-free days.

In Ireland, if you're asked if you're happy, you say, "Aye". If you're very happy, you say, "Aye, surely".

Evidently, the stories about Leprechauns are partially true. There was a tribe in SW Ireland who were quite vertically challenged, but were known for being good warriors. I guess you compensate where you can.

And in Scotland the Picts were the original warrior race - they went into battle naked except for their purple body paint. That would be enough to scare anybody, including Mel Gibson. The Picts destroyed the Roman 9th Legion in battle but their bodies were never found. Anthropologists have determined that the purple Picts had cannabalistic tendencies. I'm not too sure exactly which shade of purple they were, but on those cold winter days, I'm assuming there was more than a tiny touch of blue.

And talking of tribes, the Scots, Irish and Jews all have this kinship pattern in common. For example, Richards come from the ferocious O' Deaton clan from Budapest, and I, of course, am one of the Newfoundland O'Hora's.

Today we visited the gorgeous Ring of Kerry, which is the furthest southern (actually sw) point of Ireland. Beautiful. And while Ireland is loverly, like a patchwork quilt with 40 shades of green, our hearts still belong in Scotland.

On past visits to Britain, we've been shaken up while trying to cross the streets. We look left, see no traffic, and walk...only to be startled by the screeching brakes of the line of cars speeding towards us from the right. Something we've appreciated in the larger towns all over Britain and Ireland: at intersections, they often have "look left" or "look right" written on the sidewalk...probably to save their bumpers from stupid tourists.

Before we came to Ireland, we'd pictured the towns as collections of quaint thatch cottages peopled by simple farm folk. Hah! They now live in lovely newish houses, and every town has a few 600 year old buildings housing trendy cafes with a choice 10 types of coffee to sip with your croissant or fancy brioche.

Some little-known animal facts that Dylan has taught us along the way: 1. If you see sheep walking on the road impeding traffic, if everyone on the bus shouts, "Mint Sauce", they'll get off immediately. 2. If you count 7 horses in one day, you'll meet the person of your dreams and get married. If you count 14 white horses, you'll be pregnant by Christmas. If you count 24 of them, you'll get divorced. There are lots of white horses around here, so it seems as if you can live an entire life in one day.

Since we're further south now, a few more wildflowers have appeared to make me jealous. There are now fields of wild yellow irises in addition to the deep pink rhododendrons and the bluebells that line the roads, but the most incredible sight are the hedges of fuschia that grow 4-5 feet tall. When I think of how much it costs at home for one hanging basket of them, and how they die with the first frost, I start thinking about how nice it would be to live in a climate where these things grow as weeds, and where some gardens even have a palm tree or two. And we Canadians make jokes about British weather!

Back to reality, though. Houses in this area cost around E 1m (Cdn $ 1.5m), and even those caught in the market decline still cost E 300K.

And it cost a cool E 24 , or $36 to have our laundry done today.

Tomorrow we go and kiss the Blarney Stone. The Paddy' s whisky made us do it.

Are we having a good time? Aye. Are we glad we've done this trip? Aye, surely.

Living history: a blast in Londonderry

Yesterday, after a 3 hour ferry ride, we arrived in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and headed north along a coastal route that took us to an incredible natural rock formation called the Giant’s Causeway, and then on to the city that some call Derry, and others call Londonderry,depending on their religion. This morning, a local guide took us on a fabulous tour that showed us the sites of the Troubles back in the 60’s, and ended by saying that although the religious differences still exist it was comforting to him that his children are growing up without the fear of religious intolerance and violence the way their parents did. We left Londonderry just before noon and headed across the border into the Republic of Ireland. Tonight at dinner in the coastal town of Sligo, we learned that only acouple of hours after we left, a bomb went off in the very area we had been walking. Although the bombers haven’t been identified yet, the effort sounded very amateurish and nobody was injured, it certainly shook us up a little and gave us some interesting dinner table conversation.

So far, coming directly from the highlands of Scotland, we haven’t found the scenery here exactly “Ah”-inspiring (houses and fields and sheep and a few low hills, for the most part), and the green of the Emerald Isle seems exactly the same as the green everywhere else we’ve been in Britain, but I have a feeling that our opinion could change before we finish our drive along the coast and arrive in Dublin in a few days.

Ireland, like Scotland, cried tears of joy on our arrival, and the tears continued through the day and only stopped in time for us to take a walk after dinner tonight to burn at least 1 or 2 of the hundreds of calories we consumed. Who but the Irish would serve whipped cream with chocolate covered cream puffs? I know what you’re thinking: who but Eleanor would actually feel the need to eat the cream that was served with chocolate covered cream puffs? But all of us at our table agreed that refusing to do so would be a terrible insult to our Irish hosts, and I wouldn’t want to be insulting. Besides, it tasted great.

We’re travelling through towns and counties and have visited places that we’ve heard about all our lives: Donegal and the Beleek china factory, to name a couple. Tomorrow we’ll have lunch in Galway, and spend the night at Limerick. Guinness and Paddy Irish whiskey are the drinks of choice here, so Richard is trying them out (for research purposes only, of course) while I test the whipped cream and the soda bread, which I’ve read about but never tasted before. We’ll definitely be hitting the salads and the cottage cheese this summer!

High in the Highlands

He Says (Expletives deleted): Three *** hours of work on the perfect blog entry and the whole *** thing is wiped out! I refuse to rewrite the *** thing! I hate this ***stupid computer and refuse to ***touch it ever again. The ***blog is now your responsibility.

She says (expletives deleted): *** ***** ***** **** ******* ***** * ****. ****** ****** ****!

Much later, She Says: Due to-um- unforeseen circumstances, it looks as if our blog will be written from one perspective only for the rest of the trip. As I type, a grumpy little voice in the background says, “Don’t forget to say that Richard thinks that…”, and “mention how the scenery is just like a Gainsborough painting”, and it may even be telling me how to spell Gainsborough correctly, but I’ve made a point throughout my life to ignore all those little voices, especially the grumpy ones, so why start listening to them now? If anyone wants to add his or her tuppence to my comments, he or she can stop sulking and blaming defenceless computers, and take back his half of the job.

We have now explored the north of Scotland. The entire trip to date has been wonderful, and Edinburg was a fascinating historic city, but the past five days have been absolutely outstanding. On Sunday, we headed north from Edinburgh, and after a short stop in St. Andrews for the golfers to get photos of themselves beside the clubhouse and buy golf clothes with the logo of the world’s most famous golf course, we headed into the beautiful Grampian Mountains, heading towards Inverness. We covered mile after mile of rolling green hills and picturesque little towns, beautiful wildflowers that we never see in Canada, blooming rhododendron bushes taller than I am just growing wild beside the road, and beautiful cottage gardens that are so far ahead of our gardens this time of year and so filled with perennials that can only be grown as annuals in Ottawa, that I’m green with envy. It’s just after lambing season here, so the fields are filled with tiny bouncing baby lambs that we’ve all agreed we’d love to smuggle home as pets. We’re much further north than Ottawa is, but the ocean currents keep the winters milder and shorter than ours. It doesn’t get dark this time of year until after 10 PM, and the sun is up before we are. By the end of June, they’ll have just 3 hours of darkness, but of course, they pay for that in mid-December, when they only have 3 or 4 hours of daylight.

Temperatures since we crossed into Scotland have dropped a little; it’s now 10-12 C most mornings, and in the afternoons, it may get up to 14. Richard checked the newspaper today and found that it’s 8C in Toronto with showers, so we’re not upset with the weather, but the poor Australians, who have just come from their hot summer, and aren't really used to cool weather! Most of them are wearing winter jackets, hats, scarves, and gloves, and every time we get out of the bus, they turn blue. A few others dress in layers the way we Canadians do, and one hardy soul has worn shorts the whole trip, except for the last 2 days on Orkney and Skye, where the wind and the cool temperatures has made us all button up our jackets. Many of them can’t believe we manage to survive in weather much colder than this, and when we tell them how low our winter temperatures can fall, they stare in amazement and ask if we ever go out when it’s -30. What choice do we have?

We’ve been extremely lucky with the weather. Most days have been mainly sunny with good visibility, so we’ve been able to appreciate the fabulous scenery, but in this part of the world, sudden rain squalls pop up suddenly, last a short time, and then disappear just as quickly. We find it amusing that Dylan, the tour guide, never says the word, “rain”. Instead, he’ll say, “You notice that as we crossed the border, Scotland was crying tears of joy at our arrival”, or “We seem to be having a slight Scottish mist at the moment”, or “You’ll notice that the loch (lake) is being replenished at the moment”.

The highlands are Bonnie Prince Charlie territory, so we’ve been learning his story as we go. We made a stop at the battlefield of Culloden, where Prince Charles and his followers met the British in the third and final battle of the Jacobite (Scottish) Rebellion. It was a total slaughter: in as long as it takes to reach half-time in a modern football game, the British killed 1500 Scots and wounded another 400. Some managed to escape, but they were hunted down over the next few days and killed, as well. Prince Charles was spirited away into the highlands, where he was passed from place to place by supporters and hunted by the British until he was able to escape to France. Support for his cause continued in secret, and when Scots loyal to Charles were ordered to drink to the British King to prove their loyalty, they did it in a special way: they kept a bowl of water on a table nearby, and when they were obliged to raise their glasses “to the king”, they would raise the glass out and over the bowl before they drank, indicating to those in the know that they were really drinking to Charles, the king “over the water”.

Dylan told us about one man who helped Charles escape from the British. Charles had no possessions left to give the man in appreciation so he offered him the only thing he had left: the recipe for a brandy drink he had been served and enjoyed in France. The man replaced the brandy with Scottish whiskey and it was so delicious that he and his family began to bottle and sell the drink, which is still popular today: Drambuie.

Shortly after Dylan finished the story, we arrived at the ruins of an old military barracks from the Jacobite period and were invited to climb the hill to the ruins where we would make a toast to Bonnie Prince Charlie. We entered the ruins and all gathered in one room where an unseen helper (a ghost, maybe?) had set up a table with a large bowl of water in the centre. Dylan distributed “Scottish crystal” (plastic) glasses to us all, produced several bottles of Drambuie, and poured us each a “wee dram”. He offered a toast to the king, and we all raised our glasses over the bowl in our secret salute to Bonnie Prince Charlie, and passed around tins of Scottish shortbread. The setting set the perfect mood, and we all stood in silence after the toast. Suddenly, the silence was broken by the wail of bagpipes, and even those of us who really don’t believe in ghosts were startled a little until we realized that the kilted piper marching past our doorway was very much alive. We all filed out into the courtyard while the piper played songs written about Bonnie Prince Charlie. Until then, I had never realized that “My Bonnie lies over the ocean“ was a political song about a banished king.

Shortly after our toast, we stopped for the night at a highland hotel, where we were treated to a highland dinner, complete with haggis piped in by a piper and, of course, whiskey for us to toast it. Surprise! The piper was our ghostly friend from the ruins.

The next morning, we headed for Inverness, where we all had our cameras ready to shoot photos of Nessie, the monster of Loch Ness. The deal, Dylan told us, was that if any of us managed to get a photo, we’d share the money we’d make from the sale of the photo with the others, and each share would be more than enough to pay for our trips. Seemed fair. Unfortunately, Nessie was otherwise engaged that day, so we’re all still on the hook for our bills. We did see one interesting character, though. A man lives in a trailer right beside the loch. He has become so obsessed with seeing Nessie that he’s lost his wife and his job, and now supports himself selling little models of Nessie that he makes from coloured clay. I commented on the many colours available and asked what colour Nessie really was. He claimed that different viewers claimed to have seen monsters of different colours. Purple? Orange? Turquoise? OK. Maybe there are several of these creatures! This guy has never really seen her himself, so I asked how he knew that Nessie really looked like his models. Straight-faced, he said, “I guarantee it. And if you can show me a photo that proves me wrong, I’ll give you your money back.” Sadly, I didn’t get a photo. But then, I didn’t buy one of his models, either. As we left, I asked when the last sighting had been. Last November, apparently, but it had been on the other side of the loch so he’d missed it. Tough luck. But maybe he’ll be luckier next time.

Beautiful Scotland

HE SAYS: Absolutely nothing, apparently. He appears to be speechless at the moment.
Or perhaps he's worn out from the walking and too tired to type.

SHE SAYS: Our first six days on the bus: so far, so good. Our tour director, Dylan, is a lot of fun, with a great sense of humour, a real knowledge of the route and the sights, and all kinds of tidbits of history and myth about each place we visit. He and the driver are a great team who make sure everything works smoothly for us all.

Slowly, we’re getting used to the routine: Wake-up call at 6, bags packed and standing by the hotel room door by 7, then breakfast. Those who’ve never been to Britain before got caught the first couple of mornings. They’d head to the cold buffet table and stock up on fresh fruit, juice, cereal with a variety of dried fruit and nut toppings, toast and rolls with butter and jam. When they’d almost finished eating, the waitress would come along to see what they wanted for their hot breakfast. What the heck; they could handle a little more food, so they told her how they wanted their eggs and finished off their cereal while they were waiting. Then the hot food arrived: 2 eggs, back bacon, sausages, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, and sometimes baked beans or fried potatoes. We’d have to roll them out to the bus at 8. Now everyone’s getting smarter and choosing breakfast a little more wisely. Saint Richard usually sticks to cereal and fruit, while I’ve been skipping the stuff that’s good for me and ordering eggs most mornings. Now that we’re in Scotland, though, I’ll start ordering the oatmeal instead.

Luckily, most of the other passengers are old retired people like us, so Dylan knows that a “comfort stop” is always necessary 90 minutes or so after the last coffee. We stop for a break at 9:30 or 10, and everyone rushes to the toilets and then stands in line for another coffee to take on the bus. I do sometimes think it might be wiser to eliminate the middleman or woman and just pour the coffee directly into the toilet, but British coffee has improved a lot since the days when all they served was instant, so I join the others in the coffee line and hope the next break won’t be too far off.

Around noon, there’s another stop in an interesting town along the route, like the university town of Oxford, for example. First, we get another toilet break, and then we’re taken on a 45-60 minute walking tour of the town. We’re given directions and sometimes a map so we’ll know how to get back to the bus, and then we’re left on our own for 2-3 hours to walk around, re-visit the sights we’re most interested in, eat lunch where and when we like, and meet back at the bus at the appointed time to continue the trip. So far, we’ve all made it to the bus on time and Dylan hasn’t lost anyone, something that definitely impresses those of us who were once teachers and remember school field trips that didn’t always run quite so smoothly.

When we get to the town where we’ll be spending the night, we get a coach tour of the place, sometimes a walking tour as well, and then if we like, we’re dropped off to explore on our own with directions to get back to the hotel before the set dinner time. Meanwhile, Neville, the driver, takes our luggage to the hotel and has it delivered to our rooms before we return. At Stratford, we had a chance to visit the house where Shakespeare was born, as well as Anne Hathaway’s cottage. (Funny…all the histories tell us that Shakespeare was forced to marry Anne because she was pregnant. Then he left her behind in Stratford while he went off to London for several years to make a name for himself as an actor and writer. The implication is that he never returned to his wife, but then, the history books tell us, he and Ann had 3 children. Nobody seems to feel the need to explain how that was possible. Yes, he did have a set of twins, but that still leaves one pregnancy unexplained.)

We eat together most evenings, and so far the food has been fabulous. There are always 3 starters, 3 mains, and 3 desserts to choose from, with vegetarian and “meatatarian” options. At the start of the tour, we were given a list of optional excursions we could choose from time to time. We’ve chosen some of them, like boat cruises or special meals, but there were a few touristy evenings with banquets and cabarets and castle dinners, what we’ve decided not to bother with. On those nights, we think it’ll be a lot more fun to explore the town we’re in, visit the local pubs or restaurants and see how the real people live.

After our night in Stratford visiting Shakespeare, we headed for the ancient walled city of York. Of the 40 people on our tour, 5 of us are Canadians, 4 are Americans, and the rest are Aussies. We’re all used to seeing century-old buildings turned into “heritage sites”, so it’s a little overwhelming to visit places like York Minster cathedral, which has been a place of worship for two thousand years! While they were excavating for a shopping mall in York in the 1970’s, workers found evidence of a Viking settlement that existed on the site 2,000 years ago. Excavations revealed that a community of more than 10,000 people had existed there, and thousands of well-preserved artefacts have been uncovered several feet under the modern city. We spent a fascinating hour in the Jorvik museum under the streets of York, touring a beautifully curated reconstruction of the village, showing how the Vikings lived. One fascinating exhibit showed how they have used modern medical techniques on the skeletons they found, including CAT scans, X-rays, and DNA analysis, to identify 6 diseases that we consider to be modern. Later, above ground, we walked along the 500 year old cobbled street called the Shambles, with ancient leaning buildings that used to be butcher shops but which are now trendy boutiques.

The following day, we headed for the beautiful Lake District where we headed for the lovely town of Grasmere to visit Wordsworth’s grave. Since it’s located in Cumberland, Richard and I took the opportunity to eat real Cumberland sausage for lunch. I have to report that it tastes exactly the same as it does at home, but the atmosphere made it seem much more exotic. Then it was off to the borderlands. We crossed into Scotland and made our first stop at Gretna Green, where so many English couples ran off to get married back in the days when girls under 21 had to have parental permission to get married in England. In Scotland, the legal age was 16, and Daddy didn’t have to agree, so couples would cross the border to Gretna, tie the knot and consummate the marriage before Daddy caught up with them. Apparently, any Scottish tradesman could perform a marriage at the time. The closest one to the border happened to be the local blacksmith, so his shop and the "honeymoon suite" above it became the most popular place in town, and still has a place of honour (for tourists, anyhow) in Gretna Green. It’s become such a commercialized spot, with whiskey shops and tartan shops and souvenir shops, that I’m sure no self-respecting local ever bothers to visit the site.

For me, the most striking thing about this day was the constantly changing scenery as we moved further and further north, from the lush, flat green farmland in the York area, to the sheep-dotted fields of the Lake District where the scenery resembles Eastern Ontario, to the beautiful heather-covered rolling hills of Southern Scotland, where it wouldn’t have been much of a shock to see Mel Gibson in a kilt striding towards the bus, waving his sword. As we head towards the highlands, the cities are now getting fewer and farther apart, the land is getting wilder and hillier, the temperature is getting cooler, and the language is getting harder and harder to understand!

We’ve spent the past day and a half exploring Edinburgh. This city is really steeped in history! We’ve had a bus tour around the city, visited the castle, and wandered along the Royal Mile, elbow-to-elbow with thousands of other tourists. Richard wandered around the university while I felt the need for some retail therapy and went to check out the shopping on Princes Street. There seemed to be all kinds of great sales this weekend, but I resisted the urge to buy everything I saw because my suitcase is already too full.

Tomorrow morning bright and early we head across the Firth of Forth to spend a few hours in St. Andrews. The golfers in the group will drool over the golf course, Richard will check out the university, and the rest of us will just enjoy the town (and probably find a place to stand in line for coffee). Then it’s off through the Grampian mountains to the Spey valley, where we’ll spend the night in a highland town called Newtonmore.

After London, York, and Edinburgh, I’m looking forward to getting out of the cities and into more remote areas for a change. For the next few days we’ll be on Scotland’s north coast, visiting the Orkney Islands and Skye.

HE SAYS: Sir Roy Strong wrote in his history of Britain that the UK had become one large consumer theme park. He was right. The country’s most venerable institutions – historical, political and cultural -- have been reduced to a form of mindless infotainment requiring no effort or exertion by the public. History is no longer a process to be studied, it is a series of canned or staged events to be sampled with a hot dog or beer. Like watching Lady Jane going to the block….Get your hot dogs and cold beer, here. But people no longer understand the origins of an historical the event, or why it occurred. Consumerism is the new democracy.

Our Air Canada flight was the normal transatlantic run, except that there was a marked decline in the quality of AC service, as evidenced by the cold pound cake and watery coffee for breakfast. AC used to rank in the top three for the quality of its international service. The plague is more fun. Unless you are a shareholder in AC, fly anybody else. Blessedly, we finally arrived at Heathrow to begin our five week tourist marathon.

Our first week in London was fantastic - utterly charming; it was pleasantly exhausting, but genuinely marvellous. Both Eleanor and I had been to Britain before, Eleanor in the mid-1970s, while I had done my doctoral studies at the University of Warwick in Coventry in the early 1980s. But boy, have times changed. In 1980 a pint cost L 1.85, today in 2011 a pint costs L 3.80.
I’ll briefly summarize and recount some of the high points of our recent adventures in a thematic fashion, rather than chronologically. As well, I’ll try to put some of tourist activities into historical perspective, although we jokingly had certain theme days.

In the first instance, we often forget how recent modern Britain is in terms of its geo-political formation. Wales was incorporated in 1536, the Act of Union with Scotland in 1707, and Northern Ireland, after an ugly civil war in 1922.

Impressionistically, London is a highly integrated, multi-cultural city. Britain, unlike Canada, is a country, not a collection of ethnic communities. Here in central London, there is a high proportion of Arabs, Pakistanis and Orientals. Their status covers the entire socio-economic spectrum, but without a doubt there is a good deal of serious ethnic money, esp Arabic and they don’t hesitate to flaunt it in stores like Harrods, while the locals go the M&S (Marks and Spencer).

In reality, the prices faced by tourists are much better than we expected. But then we don’t live here. We were told that most “real Londoners” live in the east end, not trendy central London. But on the crazy side, dresses at Harrods for my new princess granddaughter ranged from L 150-300 (or C$225-450); but the niftiest thing at Harrods was a real leather motor cycle jacket for a 5 yr old which cost a cool L 1, 100 (or C $1, 500). And a man’s tie at Harrods cost L 135 , while at M&S it as more like L 16. Gas prices are staggering – about C$9 per gallon !, compared to about C$ 5.20 in Canada. And according to this morning’s Guardian, med school tuition has now just gone up to $40K per yr. But I digress….

We began our trip with the obligatory red London hop on/ off bus tour. Ordinarily, this is great fun (in any other city we’ve been in), but, of course it rained. This after all is Britain. In the afternoon it cleared and we took the bus to the iconic landmarks of Big Ben, the Parliament Buildings, London Bridge and the infamous Tower of London. If one really must be incarcerated, the Tower of London is the way to go – it was a hotel-prison, or a prison-hotel.

Actually, the Tower gets a bad rap. In reality, only 41 people were executed there. This compares with the 60,000 !!! people who were publicly executed across town at the Marble Arch. In the late 18th century the British criminal law had 1,200 !!! capital offenses. The British have a sense of superiority because they think that have a veneer of civility and civilization, but it is just that – a veneer. Just ask the Indians, Irish, or Kenyans…or even our own native people in Canada.

But this veneer of British civilization goes just so far. In terms of tolerance, the entire history of Britain down through the Georgian period in the mid- and- late 1700s, is marked by the most blood curdling religious violence, esp between Catholics and Protestants in terms of who was to reign. Indeed, it can be argued that the entire history of Britain and the evolution of its institutions is the result, to a greater or lesser extent, of religious discord. (As a historical footnote, the first polgrom against Jews occurred in Britain around 130.)

At the Tower of London we also saw the Crown jewels. They are as obscenely ornate as they are beautiful. In total, if sold, the jewels could easily pay off or retire all of Britain’s national debt. The only thing more obscene are the artifacts and art collection in the Vatican.

In the afternoon we took a relaxing cruise along the Thames from the Tower to the London Eye. Eleanor badly wanted to go on the London Eye (as opposed to the H or J) and it was something of a joke since I suffer from a very real sense of vertigo. She had been needling me and turned it into a dare, but it really was Eleanor’s way of guilting me for all the art museums and symphonies that we were going to attend.

Friday was one of our designated culture days. In the morning we tackled the Tate Britain art museum, considered by many to be one of the best in the world. We deliberately focused on the great British artists Constable and Turner, with their highly romantic and nationalistic view of land-and seascapes. Later that afternoon we went to see Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well at the reconstructed period Globe Theatre. This was truly a complete entertainment experience in every way. Later that evening we went to a spectacular West End play, A Woman in Black, which was a psycho-drama thriller which literally had the audience shrieking.

The next day was another designated culture day. We went to the British National Gallery and the Queen’s Gallery. The National Gallery indisputably is one of the top 4 art galleries or museums in the world today. In order to maximize our time in the most efficient manner, I had identified the top 10 paintings that we should see. The Rokeby Venus by the great Spanish painter Velasquez certainly was my favourite, both for its painterly technic and intriguing technical questions.

That evening we feasted at the Simpson-Strand, the well- known London roast beef house. The food was marvellous, tender and juicy. For dessert Eleanor had a tart with clotted cream that had the consistency of ice cream, while I had a cheese board with unpasteurized delights. A marvellous port made the cheese taste like velvet. These desserts were like directly injecting cholesterol into the body.

The following day we spent the morning touring selected exhibits at the refurbished or new British Museum, one of Britain’s great centers of learning. I had spent a few days there in the early 1980s doing research in the reading room and remembered it fondly, if for no other reason that Marx (Harpo, of course) had spent years there doing research for Das Capital. Librarians at the time told me that there was some dispute as to where he actually sat. Unfortunately, the new British Museums has fallen victim to the new fashion of infotainment curatorship. Basically, the British Museum, like the Museum of Civilization in Ottawa/Gatineau is nothing more than a Walt Disney theme park.

Fortunately, that afternoon, we were able to recuperate from the shock by indulging our baser instincts at Harrods for High Tea. It was a once in a life time experience which was thoroughly enjoyed. After High Tea we walked off our indulgence with a 40 minutes trek to the 8,000 seat, round auditorium at the Royal Albert Hall. That evening there was a performance of Haydn’s The Creation, strongly influenced by Handel’s Messiah, which was done with a series of choirs totalling about 800 people who had never previously met or practiced together. It was genuinely a musical experience of a life- time. Stupendous! As an aside, I should mention that one irritant here is that at all musical and theatrically performances one has to pay about C$ 7-8 for a playbill, whilst they are free in Canada.

All-in-all London was an exhausting, but exhilarating beginning to our British vacation tour. Tomorrow we are up very early and join our tour for real as we head towards my old stomping grounds in Coventry in the lower midlands near Stratford. Stay tuned….

SHE SAYS: What a fabulous week! Before we left Canada, Richard and I drew up a list of all the things we wanted to do in London. We booked theatre tickets online, and also used the internet to make reservations for dinner and afternoon tea. The good news is that we’ve accomplished almost everything on the list and had a wonderful time doing it. The bad news is that if we eat as much on the rest of the trip as we have in London, we’ll each need to pay for two plane seats each to get home!

When Richard and I travel, we always try to spend our first day in a new city trying to do as much sight-seeing as we can. If there’s a company that does hop on-hop off tours, we use them. They give a great overview of the city and give you the chance to get off, see a place in more detail, and then get back on the next bus to finish the tour. Also, they give you a clear idea of where everything is located so you can find your way around for the rest of your stay. Here, the Hop on-Hop off companies throw in free boat tours along the Thames as part of the package.

So on our first day, we took the double decker bus tour right across the city to the Tower of London and spent a couple of hours there, touring the place and checking out the Crown Jewels. Then we took the tour boat back to Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Our plan was to walk through the abbey, but the line-up of people waiting to get in snaked out the gates and half-way up the street. A cabbie we mentioned this to later told us it’s been like this since the royal wedding last week; tourists who would never have dreamed of visiting Westminster in the past now had to see for themselves where the wedding had taken place. With all the other fabulous sights to see in London, we just weren’t prepared to stand in line for 3 or 4 hours. Luckily, Richard and I have both visited it before, so it wasn’t such a huge disappointment- especially since it was free when we visited years ago, and it now costs 16 pounds!

We switched to Plan B: a walk across the bridge to see the city from yet another perspective at the top of the London Eye. It’s like a giant ferris wheel with glass-enclosed capsules instead of seats. Each capsule holds up to 25 people, who can either sit on benches in the centre or stand up and walk around to look at the city as the wheel rotates. A complete rotation takes half an hour, so there’s plenty of time to appreciate the fabulous view of the entire city. It really hurts that Richard would think I bullied him on to the Eye to pay him back for all the miles we walked in art galleries on this trip! The truth is, it was to pay him back for other things, as well, including the two white-water rafting trips on the Ottawa River and the catamaran ride in Cuba. After the Eye, we walked along the waterfront until we couldn’t walk any more, hopped on the tour bus and continued the tour.

The next afternoon we headed for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. What an experience! The theatre may be relatively new, but it’s as close as they could get to replicating Elizabethan theatres, complete with an open-air stage, a standing room only pit around the stage and hard, (very hard!) backless wooden benches for those who were willing to pay extra not to have to stand for 3 hours. The cast was great, and the whole experience was fantastic. Then it was off to Covent Gardens for dinner and another show, “Woman in Black”, which has been playing in London for over 20 years but which we had never heard of. It’s an eerie ghost story with only 2 actors (3 if you count the ghost). The ads claim that it’s your own imagination that terrifies you, and they’re right. I’ve never heard so many screams!

When I was a teenager, my father visited London on business and was taken to Simpson’s on the Strand for dinner. He talked about it for years as the place where he’d had the best roast beef he’d ever eaten…unless my mother was listening, and then he’d add, “Except for my wife’s, of course.” The restaurant has been around for almost 200 years, and Picasso, Churchill, Agatha Christie, and many other people seemed to think as highly of it as my Dad did, so we thought it might be worth a try and we were right. Huge roasts are wheeled to tables on what they claim are antique trolleys, and the meat is carved at the table. Richard described my dessert, but the clotted cream that came with it was indescribable! It’s fattening, I know, but it was so good that I ate as much as I possibly could. There was still about 2/3 left of the mound they’d served me. I hated to waste it, so I applied the rest directly to my hips, where it would have ended up anyway.

Our next indulgence: afternoon tea at Harrods’, with the 3-tiered plate of fancy sandwiches, scones, and a variety of cakes…and of course, more of that wonderful clotted cream. True confession time: Last Christmas, 3 of my favourite females took me to tea at the Chateau Laurier in Ottawa for my birthday, and as delicious as everything was at Harrods’, they don’t do teas any better than the Chateau does, except for that fabulous clotted cream.

We packed an incredible amount into the last 5 days and walked for miles doing it. Now we’re packing up to join our tour around Britain; we leave right after breakfast tomorrow morning, and to tell the truth, I’m looking forward to being able to sit for a month!

Merrie Olde England 2- Arrived!

Richard says he’ll catch up later. Meanwhile, I get to do this blog entry all by myself.

SHE SAYS:

We arrived in London at 7 AM on Wednesday, 2 AM Ottawa time. The original plan was for us to check in to our hotel and sleep for a few hours before we explored London, but it was a warm, sunny morning, and London was calling, so we decided to start exploring right away and worry about sleep later.

If you’ve ever seen ”Oliver”, you’ll remember Oliver Twist’s first morning at his uncle’s home. After the terrible orphanage and the appalling slum house where he lived with Fagan and the other pick-pockets, this house seems to be the symbol of a wonderful new life for Oliver. As soon as he gets up, he steps out on to a balcony overlooking a beautiful London square. White houses, all with black trim, line both sides, and running down the centre is a beautiful park with trees and flowers and the occasional park bench. Down below in the street, tradespeople are calling out their wares: ripe strawberries, baskets of flowers, and trays of freshly baked bread. Housekeepers come to the doorways to buy, the gentlemen of the house are heading off to the office, everyone is perfectly choreographed, and Oliver, of course, bursts into song. Wouldn’t everyone? Maybe not, but it seems that I would.

Our hotel is on a square that could easily have been used for the set of that film, and every time we head off on another adventure, whatever the time of day or night, I find myself humming Oliver’s song “Who will buy this wonderful morning….” Hokey and annoying, even to me, so imagine how tough it is on poor Richard, who didn’t even enjoy the movie the first time around and knows from bitter experience that my singing voice doesn't improve with use.

We are just around the corner from Paddington Station, about a five minute walk from Hyde Park. That first morning we walked through the park to Marble Arch and Speakers’ Corner, joining the joggers and horseback riders and tourists, and marvelling at the contrast between the bumper-to-bumper traffic on one side and the serene park on the other. We walked for a couple of hours before dragging ourselves back to the hotel to sleep until late afternoon.

Dinner was fish and chips-perfect for our first night in England! The shop was crowded with people standing in line for their “take-away” dinners. The gigantic fish pieces were crisp, the chips were perfect, the mushy peas were appropriately mushy, the beer was good, and Richard looked around and said, “It can’t get any more British than this!”

And if you ignored the fact that Elvis music was blaring over the sound system and the cooks behind the counter were speaking in Arabic, he was right.

Merrie Olde England -1

HE SAYS: Greetings family, friends, mates, and maties:

We are back on the air as we are now about to roll to the lauch pad for our forthcoming trip to Merrie Olde England. After the excitement of our long trip to Africa in 2008, and touring sophisticated and modern Spain last fall, we thought we 'd be a bit more staid this time out and try England, Scotland and Ireland (going counter clockwise).


In the first instance , this will be an occasional blog. In the past , we found we were being a bit obsessive about our efforts, so this time it really will be occasional so as not to interfere with our sampling of single malts and over priced pints (L6, or CAD $9). As well, this time we have decided to have a "He Says", She Says" format. This will allow for a muliplicity of views and insights.


Alas, somethings in life don't change. I have read my required histories of England, with IRA songs in the background, and view it as nothing more than another form of tribalism. As well, I have caught up on my back issues of The Economist. Both Eleanor and I have spent many hours watching so-called British literary classics by the Bronte sisters and Jane Austen. Chick lit by any other name, but no doubt haut literature to academics who don't know the difference. Actually, I maintain that the The Full Monty and On A Clear Day are pretty good depictions of contemporary British working class life. But the Brits have really turned mysteries and spy novels into an art form.


We plan to go to London to do some serious (cultural) sightseeing for five days before we hit the hustings on our 26 day tour. True to form I have produced a calendar, no, really, a schedule of events while in London including, 5 museums, 2 West End plays, 1 symphony and an orchestra recital; as an equalization payment Eleanor has insisted on a High Tea at Harrod's and roast beef at the Simpson's on the Strand. We both, however, have agreed on the expected tourist sightseeing rituals. Topping Eleanor's list are the crown jewels and the occasional rolling head in the Tower, while I hope to return to my old reading room haunt at the British Museum, and if no one is looking sit in Karl Marx's chair (that was Harpo Marx, of course).

Hopefully, the weather will be decent. If we bag a Wild Royal will put them on our list with the Big 5.


Cheers,

King Richard I


SHE SAYS: I do need to point out that Richard's entry makes it sound as if he did all the work. Not true! While he was reading about dead kings and queens, I was doing serious practical reasearch about the shopping, restaurants, and interesting sights in each of the places we'll be stopping. Breakfasts and most dinners are included in the tour cost, but some nights we're on our own for dinner and we are responsible for our own lunches, so these things are important. Also, I needed to find out which hotels have gyms and/or swimming pools. Even I, as unlikely as it may seem, might feel the need for exercise after sitting for a few hundred miles every day!


He also makes it sound as if he did all the reading, too. Not true! I decided to research modern Britain through women's popular fiction and detective novels. I'd choose Maeve Binchey or Minette Walters over a history textbook to give the reader a true taste of a country any day!

And I'm the one who finally got bored with Jane Austin and the Brontes and insisted switching to The Full Monte and some modern detective films set in Britain.


I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted just reading about all the plans that Richard has made for us in the 5 days we're in London! He's been there more often than I have, so he does know how huge the city is, but if we manage to squeeze in everything on his list, we'll be running from dawn to midnight and have to forget little things like jetlag, tea times, and loo breaks. (Might as well start talking Brit right from the start, I say.) He seems to think I'll be content to run up to the 4th floor of Harrod's for 15 minutes or so for afternoon tea without checking out everything on the first 3 floors on the way. Silly man!

And unless it's so foggy we can't see a thing, he'll need to take into account the day we'll have to spend standing in line for the London Eye. And how can you visit London without spending a day at Covent Gardens, just wandering? I'm going to push for museums and galleries on rainy days and walking and exploring on dry days. And then I'll pray for sun!

Queen Eleanor