Apologies for the delay

This is a post i meant to publish yesterday.

Sorry for the delay in posting - as i had feared, internet access has not been as reliable out of London as it was in it. As a result this might be a fairly long post reporting on the last couple of days.



I'll just start with a slight detour about the road signs in England. They're horrendous. Up until two days ago i thought they were poorly laid out - you would only get a single warning as to where a particular turn-off went, and there would probably be a tree branch hanging over it just to confuse matters further - but still essentially accurate. However, over the last two days we have run into a number of signs that are just completely wrong - pointing towards a village where there's a motorway, or vice versa. The only explanation that i can come up with is that the Signwriters' Guild has given up on making an honest living and decided to turn to slightly older, more traditional ways of making money.



We've just made it to Wales, and we will be staying overnight in Tintern. I don't really have much impression of Wales so far except that the bit we've seen is tremendously beautiful. Tomorrow we'll be viewing the famous abbey ruins here.



However, let me go over the last couple of days.



When i last posted we were at the Sebastian Coe Health Centre or some such rot. We took off from there for Cantebury and saw the cathedral there. It was impressive, but as a place of great religious significance i couldn't help but feel it was a bit wasted on me. We then went on to Dover and saw the White Cliffs, which are stunning, and Dover itself, which is as spectacular a hole of a city as i've ever seen. We drove around forever looking for a coin-op laundrette, and finally found one after passing through about 4 towns. I can't remember the last time i saw Mum so relieved.

That night we stayed in a Bed & Breakfast called Bull Farm Oast. Apparently an oast is a strange type of roof structure native to the Kent district - regardless, the owner of Bull Farm Oast was a very eccentric and unprofessional (although fundamentally nice) woman by the name of Prue. That experience almost put us off B&Bs, but we survived.


The following morning we visited Bodian Castle which is the ruins of a moated medieval castle which was destroyed by Cromwell's men (they believe). Apparently it was a favourite tourist attraction of my grandfather's, and i carried on the proud family tradition of taking a number of photos of the place - unfortunately my camera is stashed somewhere at the moment, so no photos in this post. They also bizaarely had constructed a pillbox there in preparation for the Germans invading in WW2 - presumably ruined medieval castles being thought to be critical to the German war effort.


After Bodian it was on to Sissinghurst Castle (more of a large manor), which has a very well constructed garden. This was one of the visits that Mum was really looking forward to, but she actually found it quite disappointing as most of the flowers have not yet come into bloom. Personally i found it fascinating, as there was a fairly careful presentation on the different philosophies of garden design, and it explained very well how Sissinghurst was a careful melding of the formal and natural philosophies. There was also a large Norman-era tower which gave a wonderful view of the garden, the house, and the surrounding fields.


We intended to go straight from there across to Winchester, but we didn't get there by the time evening approached, so we stayed the night at a old-style village pub in a tiny village by the name of East Meon. Meon has a church so large that i assume it does services for a large amount of the surrounding regions, and they were doing bell-ringing practise there long into the evening, which gave the village a very lovely 19th century rural feel.


In the morning we headed out to Winchester, where we inspected the cathedral. I must admit that i am getting a bit sick of cathedrals, and Winchester was probably the one which seemed the most 'ordinary'. Then it was on to Salisbury and the cathedral there as well. It is perhaps worth mentioning a term my uncle has coined from his travels - the ABC's, or Another Bloody Castle. Well, i'm starting to suffer from it, except mine is Another Bloody Cathedral. Salisbury cathedral was nice enough, but fairly unexceptional as these things go (and i cannot believe i just wrote that about a cathedral).

We stayed overnight at a hotel with a spectacular rural outlook over a stream and with the steeple of the cathedral in the background - at one point there were black sheep, horses and swans all milling about. All it needed was fish to be jumping out of the water and it would have been a scene from a Disney version of England. Unfortunately though the weather in the south of England is definitely heading towards summer - it is baking during the day, and very stuffy at night. Thankfully that problem has been abating as we've headed north.

On the 11th we took off from Salisbury and headed north-westish. This took us past Stonehenge, so we stopped off there and did the 'tour' (essentially just a walk around a fenced off perimeter). It was extremely impressive, especially as you don't get a proper feel for the surrounding areas from pictures of it, and they are very important to the whole structure.

I thought that was going to be the top point of the day, but i was very wrong. The next stop-off was Stourhead, which is a spectacular garden. When i get the opportunity to post photos i will put up a couple of this garden, but they will not do it justice. It is not a garden in the conventional sense of the word, but more a spectacularly designed and cultivated grounds. It is built around a small lake, and even before the flowers have begun to come out it is awe-inspiring in its scope and sheer grandeur. Everyone knows i am not a garden person in any serious way, but this was something tremendous and special, and i would love to go back and spend more time there.

We finished up the day at Glastonbury, which i found very curious. Apparently it is associated with the King Arthur myth (it is claimed that Arthur was buried there, which is a bit hard to imagine given him being mythical and all). During the 70s a large number of hippies descended on the town and don't seem to have ever left - so the main street is overwhelmed with new age shops which, shall we say, are not exactly my cup of tea. I may have irritated the parents a little muttering about hippies, but i blame this on being very hungry - we had to wander for a very long time to find a place to eat, but ended up having a very nice Indian meal. We also had a brief tour of the ruins of the Abbey there, and they were very impressive - it sort of gave you an idea of what happened to most of the cathedrals and other monuments which weren't lucky enough to be preserved. We spent the night in a Bed & Breakfast which was much more profesionally run than the first one we had back in Kent.

Today was fairly unspectacular - firstly stopped off in Wells for another cathedral. I actually liked this one a bit more, as it seemed to still be in use. After Wells we headed over to Bath, but it was extremely disappointing - we visited the 'Jane Austen House' which was absolutely a waste of time - i like Austen a lot, but this was an absolutely lazy and useless attempt to cash-in on her name, and i would advise anyone interested in Jane Austen to skip this and investigate the Jane Austen museum instead (not sure where it is located).

After that we came over into Wales - the river Severn which forms the border is spectacular, and the two bridges over the river are absolutely massive, and i wish i had taken a picture which could have taken them in, but 'twas not to be. Soon after entering Wales we came into Tintern where we will be staying the night.