York

Always wanted to go to York.  While living in England in 2004 it was always just a little hard to get to, the solar-power car running out on the motorways to the north and all.  But this time, we made it.  What a wonderful town.  So many old buildings and the centre of town being essentially traffic-free, it was a lovely stay of three nights.  Amusing clever mistake of mine, I booked a guesthouse a little walk out of town for the night after the day we arrived.  Not only was this very clever forethought and arriving so punctually that we had 24 hours to slowly check-in but if we wanted the night prior to the one I book then we’d have to share a room with someone else, and that someone else didn’t like the idea so much.  Hence, the helpful man at the guesthouse used a magical screen he had where he could type in words and then the screen would show something different, and some pictures.  After a minute the man found a name and address of another guesthouse closer to town, which was free for both the current night and the next.  My clever error then switched us to a fantastic B&B for about the same cost, but within very short walking distance to the city walls, old abbey ruins, park, wild squirrels, York Minster (as opposed to the Yirk Monster what eats wild squirrels and leaves the place a Shambles), restaurants etc.  23 St Marys is the name of the venue if you ever get to York and book the wrong place for the wrong night.

 

Went to Evensong at the Minster, beautiful building, beautiful sung service with choir and organ.  Lots of places to eat.  Met up with Rachael Curry (daughter of Taunton friends) for dinner, went to the York Castle Museum which had a replica Victorian street as a highlight.

 

Back to Norwich in due course, this time via several of the many scary English motorways and A-roads.  Glad Martha drives, I contribute by sitting in the passenger’s seat worrying for the two of us and carefully getting us lost.  Works well, I take all the worry about the hundreds of lorries bearing down on us, roundabouts within roundabouts and fear of making wrong turns and sailing across the Atlantic, fear of failing bails off stumps any minute, fear of the solar panel running out, and so Martha doesn’t need to worry as I’ve done it all and she can just drive.

 

Last days in East Anglia saw a long day of roundabout and motorway negotiation to see cousin Joanne for a couple of hours at hospital, Auntie Pam and Uncle Vic provided a lovely lunch at their home in Harlow.  Pity to see them for such a short amount of time but very glad we caught up.

 

Dinner and happy shenanigans for St Patrick’s Day at the Acle Bridge Inn pub with Sheila and Jacqueline, and stay overnight at Auntie Jacqueline’s charming cottage.

 

Enjoyed making friends with cousin David and spouse Nuria, went for nice dinner at a local Indian restaurant eating traditional English food of Butter Chicken, pappadums etc.  Tasty!

 

First week and a bit: Family, friends, Norwich, Lincolnshire, York, eating and drinking too much.

Belated blog writing … sorry for the slackness and/or lack of motivation … but will make up for it here … will get some words in and add some pictures later.

 

Aunties Sheila and Jacqueline spoiled us very much and helped launch our little adventure. Based at Sheila’s we had a family lunch to catch up with many of the family, including Vicki and her man Rob who had travelled down from Leamington for the day.  Took several trips into Norwich City for pleasure and getting a few practical things sorted.

 

Got to a Canaries (Norwich City Football Club for those who don’t know) game where we drew 2:2 with Blackburn Rovers.  We let them get a couple of goals to encourage their fans who travelled so far.  Cameron Jerome was good – very fast and a dominating presence in the forward line.  An interesting game in that it immediately followed the sacking of their coach, due I guess to us being too friendly to the visitors over the last few months.  The mood of the crowd was subdued somewhat as we appear to be trying to be promoted back to the Premier League next year not this year.  Good game though even though we dropped our team down to 10 men after we scored the first goal so as to make it more fair.

 

Aunties spoiled us by shouting us a night away to Potter’s Resort at Hopton-on-Sea.  The town name is a little misleading and I’m going to write to them to say it should be Hopton-Right-Next-To-The-Sea.  Guess the old town sank and so they built a new one that stayed up.  There was a dinner and a show, then drinking cordial out of small glasses till it was time for morning tea in Perth.  Went to an antique shop in Harleston run by friends of Auntie Jacqueline’s and picked up a few treasures.  On way home popped in on the old church in Kirby Bedon village which was the place of Sheila and Colin’s wedding.

 

So much more ….

 

Met up with Steve and Claire (from Trull days 13 years ago) at the Norwich Parkun.  Now we have “Norwich ParkRun” on our proud list.

 

Morning church service in Norwich Cathedral on the Sunday; many wanders around town; Norwich Castle (museum); get parking fine L ; write appeal and get parking fine waived J - was it the 60 pound bribe I put in the envelope to get the 60 pound fine waived?; then we move adventures further afoot:

 

Drive to York via one-night stay in Boston (Lincolnshire not Massachusetts) and the Lincolnshire Wolds. 

 

When I say ‘drive’ I mean Martha drives.  You see, I was very generous in letting her drive all the time and we hired this nice 6 speed manual Vauxhall Astra (she loves gears so I got an extra one).  Leaving Monday afternoon we were only about halfway to York before dark and I was concerned that the solar battery on the car would run out and cut off the 6^th gear so we stopped at Boston.  Boston was an interesting town because of the interesting things its interesting inhabitants were interested in, but also because a bunch of them set sail in the early 1600’s on a three-hour tour and made it to the other more famous Boston by making a wrong turn at the roundabout.  Luckily their boat was not solar-powered and they made it all the way across the waters just in time for the marathon.  The Arbella I recall was or wasn’t the name of the vessel and their story of fleeing religious persecution and intolerance, setting up life on the other side of the Atlantic is one worth a read. 

 

The big church in Boston is called the Boston Stump, so called because it was the site of the first game of cricket, using a very, very large ball.  Unfortunately the bails fell off and crushed three or four hundred wicketkeepers and so the game was subsequently banned for a few hundred years until they got the proportions correct and safer for the participants.

 

Next to the hotel wherein we stayed was a European deli, and had a chat with the proprietor who was from Latvia.  An interesting conversation where one thinks one thing and then you realise your assumptions are 180 degrees askew.  She told of the times when Latvia was part of the Soviet Union and there being big factories, and then after the collapse of the USSR and joining of Latvia to Europe, the factories closed down.  Her family moved to England to work and make a living.  What my completely wrong assumption was that I thought she was telling me that the big factories under the Soviets was a terrible thing, and so they wanted to get away from there, but actually the closure of the factories simply meant there was no work, so people moved to find work just to eke out an existence.  Gave a sobering perspective on the annoyance of me moaning that I have to go on the train to work each day, for my attitude toward people who are prepared to move countries and continents to improve their family’s lot.

 

After Boston, where we found the Stump closed as play didn’t start till 10, we drove through the Lincolnshire Wolds seeing some beautiful postcard villages, stopped at some postcard shops and bought some postcard lunch (tasted like cardboard), then drove over the Humber Bridge.  That’s one homboggin’ good big bridge.  Bought it too, for only less than two pounds, and the man said we could take it home later because there was no room in the back of the car.

 

First days in Norwich

No sign of our ancient pet goat unfortunately.


As our first base for the search we are enjoying the hospitality of my Aunt Sheila in Norwich.  As you will know, Norwich is famous for its football team The Canaries, after which they named the bird and the Canary Islands, dogs, all sorts of things due to their excellence and renown.  Currently the Norwich City Football Club is developing the skill levels of the other clubs in the second tier of the English league, known as the Championship.  They enhance the sport by letting other teams win sometimes but then showing how to really score goals (see 5-1 win against Nottingham Forrest a month back).  Looks like the plan is to stay in the Championship division for one more year so as to give it the greatest benefit before doing the same for the Premier League.


I have a ticket to the upcoming match vs Blackburn Rovers on Saturday, about which I am very excited.  Here's the proof:

Outside ticket office of Carrow Road stadium, Norwich

A first day here was spent mostly at Auntie Sheila's, then a second with a trip to the city on the bus, wander through some old streets, lovely lunch at the Wetherspoon's pub "The Queen of Iceni", where a very nice curry and excellent local beer was less than half the price of a lesser meal at a Perth pub.

Sheila and Martha in an old Norwich

street, see the ancient Dragon Hall
building behind.

Starting the search ... Perth to Norwich

Travelling adventure starts late afternoon Tuesday 7th March by flight to Norwich, England with short airport stops at Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam.

Martha and Kerensa at Perth Airport

Flights were comfortable as they can be with seating allowing an extra seat between us on the long trip from Perth to Abu Dhabi.  No real sleep on the long trip but felt fine, had airport stops of a couple of hours in both Abu Dhabi and Amsterdam.  Noted with only a little surprise how much English is now (ironically) the lingua franca of the world.  Abu Dhabi airport had all signs in English plus Arabic, Schiphol (Amsterdam) had only English and even the shop names were in English, not Dutch.








Here's a picture, not of a goat, but of a friendly camel who wandered into the Abu Dhabi airport:

Friend of Stumpy???





The story so far...

"Why 'stumpythegoat'?" you may reasonably ask.



Well, glad you did, let me tell you a story... grab a pillow and a cup of tea...



Several years ago, back in the days when paragraphs did not end unexpectedly there lived a


... and so now you understand.  Good.  More later on this serious matter.