Our goal on re-entering
England was to explore the Cotswolds, a very picturesque olde worlde
part of England. The word 'Wold' means a hilly area (small hills,
remember this is England). Accordingly we headed around Glousester
with a toodle pip and headed south-east in the pouring rain. Our
Guardian Angel arranged for fine weather while we stopped to view a
Long Barrow at Nympsfield just south of Stroud. Set on a hill it also
afforded great views over the Severn and back toward the Forest of
Dean where we had slept the previous night. We were only allowed long
enough for the viewing tho and Kent having dallied too long nearly
got drenched racing back to our home-on-wheels. From this point the
weather began to clear and we had a lovely two days driving to and
fro northward looking at every little town we could find and stopping
here and there to visit a Museum or walk along a particularly cute
area. Some of the towns we went to: Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold, Chipping Norton, Morton-in-Marsh etc etc, you get the idea.
We had made a date to
visit Mary & Colin friends of Carols who lives just outside the
Cotswolds near Banbury and had been invited for dinner on Friday
night. Wonderfully Mary chucked 2 loads of washing through her
machine and let us shower as well as she and Carol having a great
catch-up.
From Helmsdon we headed
due north to Kelmarsh Hall near Market Harborough, Northamptonshire
where English Heritage were holding a 2000 years of History Festival.
Arriving at 11pm on the Friday night we stopped in the performers
entrance of the festival to try and work out where on the map there
might be a nearby parking area. A man came out and said just to come
on in and park with everyone else so we did and stayed there all
weekend, walking the short distance to and fro to the event whenever
we needed and surrounded by tents and caravans and motohomes. It was
a fantastic two mostly fine days, a huge open area in front of
Kelmarsh Hall was filled with villages of all periods holding people
living totally as they did then. Costumes are totally authentic from
the skin out and are made authentically too, no modern stuff here.
There were reinactments of certain historical wars ( the Jacobite
rebellion and Agincourt to name a couple), medieval tournaments of
hand-to-hand combat and jousting. Any enactor you spoke to stayed
fully 'in period' and could answer most questions you might ask about
the period they were portraying. Kent spoke to the knight we had cheered for in the hand-to-hand combat (they use real, although blunt,swords) he had had 4 broken fingers, a broken nose (from the nose guard of a Norman helmet) and a cut lip. They consider the sport to be serious like a martial art and put their all into it. Of course after the crowds left the
evenings were winddown time for the enactors and the bar in a huge
marque became the congregation point with music and food. On the
Saturday night there was a live band and we mingled with everyone,
most of them still in their period dress, and enjoyed the evening.
Next stop Skegness and
the most beautifully fine day we have had in so long we almost
started worshipping the sun! We headed for the beach and lazed there
a while but were invaded by the tiniest bugs so had to leave, up the
road a bit Carol had to get out and brush out her hair as they had
managed to get all over it. Across the scenic Lincolnshire Wolds to
stay the night in a park near Market Rasen where we met an older
Dutch couple who were travelling for 7 weeks in their 'small' mobile
home, we think they felt better about their abode after meeting us.
They had been to Scotland and gave us a map book for it which will
come in very handy. West to Rotherham where we spent half the day in
the Magna Science Adventure Centre, an old steel mill which in the
past was the biggest producer of steel in the world. Now it is a
hands on learning centre and of course we had to try everything... We
still managed in the afternoon to visit Conisbrough Castle small
ruins above the town and Brodsworth Hall about 20 minutes north which
was a huge 19th century house lived in by the builders
family for 120 years. The last inhabitant lived in it with water
running through the ceiling and down the walls. English Heritage took
it over and spent £3
million on the roof and left the inside as is, and it is one of the
most interesting sites we have visited. Every room was different and
quite relatable, they were good employers with an excellent servants
quarters and loyal retainers, for example they had only 2
housekeepers in over 80 years. We spent an hour in the house and the
second hour, before it closed, in the gardens. They like the house
had areas which were each different from the other and offered great
exploration.
We
stayed the night (actually 2 nights) just outside York in a little
countryside carpark quiet and private until the mornings when every
man and his dog arrived for their constitutionals. We spent 2 days in
York, the first walking around the town and visiting the Jorvik
Centre about the Vikings who inhabited the area in the past and all
the other landmarks. The next whole day was spent in the Railway
Museum which was magnificent.
If
you are wondering how come we have suddenly become able to burst into
print, we stumbled upon a country boot sale and managed to buy an
inverter so now can charge up our netbook while travelling. As a
consequence we can sort our pics as we go and get the best ready to
upload and also write the blog, so as long as we can find a
connection (hello McDonalds, who have a great unsecured WiFi but no
power points) here and there we should be able to be a little more
active in our keeping you all up to date from now on. For all its
progress it was easier to find WiFi in the less developed countires
we have travelled in than it is here.
