Monday 22nd – Tuesday 30th August
- Farewell to the Netherlands and time
for another week in the UK
Amazing!!! We can leave Hoorn at 9.30am and can drive
through The Netherlands and Belgium and be in Dunkirk in only 4 hours! We then had time to stop for those last
minute French goodies – wine, chocolate and cheese. The ferry took us over to Dover (pardon the
poetry), then on to Hampshire to visit Penny, another fellow traveller whom
we’d met in Stone Town, Zanzibar.
Being
fairly keen to see a few more historic homes whilst in the UK Penny took us
through “The Vyne”, a stately Tudor home in Basingstoke. The high point was the oak paneled gallery –
each carved panel representing a noble courtier in1526 – everyone from
Wolseley, Catherine of Aragon, Thomas More and Henry VIII. Then it was off to the pub for a pint at The Fox
at North Waltham.
The
pub was your classic ye olde English pub where confusion reigns as to which
beer to have (as long as it’s a cold one)….problem solved……the bartender came
back with a wooden spatula with 4 taste glasses of beer…Sharp’s Doombar
won! And the food was excellent,
particularly the cheese soufflé! The
next morning we bade farewell to Penny with a plan to meet again somewhere in
the world…..
The
next few days were spent at Rushden. Emma & Sam were getting ready for
their new dog and we were preparing for the final part of our time in the UK –
a trip through the Cotswolds to Herefordshire again for three nights. More tiny villages, winding hedgerows, towns
called Chipping Norton and Stow upon the Wold. The weekend with our friends in
Herefordshire was, as usual, full of fun and games.
On
Monday we crossed through the Cotswolds again to head for Saffron Walden with a
stopover at The Red Lion near Cambridge.
We left our car to be stored in Clavering, near Cambridge. You can travel in Africa and have good phone
reception, but when in England, like Australia, it fails. Clavering is not good for making a mobile
phone call and so the solution is to head into the local “The Cricketers”, a
C16th pub with very low ceilings (5’) and use their phone. Jim stooped as he asked the chef (who was
also stooping as he made the pats of butter) if he could use the phone. This pub is home to Jamie Oliver’s parents
and is where he learnt his skills, so from now on Jim’s going to stoop when
cooking….it might make a chef of him yet!
BTW blog readers…how tall IS Jamie??
After
leaving the car, it was then onwards to London by train. Knightsbridge is an interesting area to
stay…along Sloane St the shops are all designer…it’s best to go there after
closing - then there’s no temptation to have the security guard open the big
brass door handle and usher you and your thousands of pounds into the likes of
Jimmy Choo heaven. Hyde Park on the
other hand is huge and fantastic. Most
importantly we’d managed to secure 2 nights at the famous Cadogan Hotel…where
Jim’s hero Oscar Wilde was arrested (Room 118), sadly he was found watching 2
young men *!?!!*…. They weren’t
arrested, just Oscar. That moment marked
the end of his career and life of artistic abandon. From then on it was all downhill until his
death in Paris in December 1899. So sad
when you look at it from the perspective of 2011 values…
The
underground was so accessible from our hotel, as was the Apple shop over at
Covent Garden where we once again marveled at the wizardry of their employees
in helping us in all things photographic, file sorting and transferring, and
iTune synchronisation.
