Some scenes from England

Thought I'd just fill y'all in on my trip around England so far with some stuff that doesn't fit neatly into the ordinary posts. I've stayed in some crummy places and some very nice ones; I've had some crummy meals and some very nice ones and I've seen some crummy sights and some nice ones. At the last place I stayed (very nice!) they had chickens and rabbits and children and dogs and cats and it was all a very relaxed and informal atmosphere.

Monday I sat in the lounge sofa trying to make sense of my map and some tourist brochures, when one of their golden retrievers came in and promptly demanded attention. I petted the animal, but soon returned to my maps. Uhm, no. Not having it. Using her head as a ram, the dog shoved my arm away and then put her adorable face on my leg and looked up at me. So how could I resist? For the next ten minutes I kept petting and scratching and cuddling the dog. Every time my attention drifted too much to the maps, she would give a little sigh and nudge me with her snout until I returned to my main task in life, which was apparently to give love & comfort & cuddles.

Tuesday I got a pic of her as I was parking my car for the afternoon, and she came running right up to greet me. I think you'll all agree it was ten minutes well spent.


The cat was extremely friendly and came right up to me and started purring and rubbing. Later I saw him outside, having fun with some canvas that was flapping in the wind. It was hilarious to watch him run back and forth, trying to catch and kill a piece of rope attached to the canvas, and to see the terrified look on is little face when the wind became too strong and the canvas started really flopping around and making noise.

Pwetty little cat.


Playing with the edge of the canvas.


Ah killed me shome rope!



The drive there is a bit of a drag, as it's outside a small village, essentially in the middle of nowhere - but what a place. Every night as I drove out and back again, there were rabbits and pheasants in the road, so I had to drive very slow.



I've also had some nice chats in various pubs around eastern Britain. One example of the quick, British wit... Sunday I was stuffing face in the only pub in a small village in Suffolk (which, incidentally, is pronounced "sahfuck"). Next to me was a table, where four people were chatting away and also stuffing faces. When time came for dessert, one of them spilled some sauce on the edge of the table, and not having any more napkins, he tried to scoop it up with a coaster. Seeing his predicament I offered him my lightly used napkin, which he gratefully accepted. When he was done, he returned the napkin and said in as forlorn and sad a voice as he could muster "they don't let me out very often". The pub also had this little sign by the bar:



Another time, I was having breakfast and got to chatting to this retired couple from Grimsby. The guy was reminiscing about his work days and how everybody who worked on the docks had a nickname. One of the names given to a guy was "Ed Bungalow". Why bungalow, I inquired. "Well", came the answer, "he didn't have anything upstairs, did he?"

Quote of the Day

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
- George Bernard Shaw

Desert Rats monument

On my drive back to Bury, I passed by Thetford Forest, which had once been the training grounds for the Desert Rats, who became famous for beating Rommel at El Alamein in WW2. The division only spent a few months on British soil, in preparation for the D-Day. Most of it in training at this place.

All pics.

Nice tank.


Makes kaboom.


The Desert Rats were there in most of the famous battles.


You can't spare a new flag, Britain? Really?

Castle Acre

So. After the disappointment, the theft and the good tip down in Weeting, I set off for what was the highlight of the trip so far; Castle Acre. This was once a heavily fortified structure, with not just a fortress but also a whole village inside proper walls. I spent a lot of time just wandering and gazing around there. The sun was setting on a field of the greenest grass and the wind was blowing so hard I had to grab a hold of my hat. It was pure magic, folks.

All pics.

There were several small mounds in the field; these are the remains of foundations of various buildings that once stood in the courtyard.


This was the gate to the civilian part of the settlement. It still stands, and the main road goes through it.


Oh, to be Lord of the Manor... king of all one surveys.


The main castle bits of the settlement.


Several walls and moats and stuff. Wheeeeeee.


Sho, sho green.

Weeting Castle

I finally made it up to Weeting, where my rod map showed a castle. I drove through the tiny village, but saw no signs. On the way out I suddenly saw a sign pointing back to the village that clearly said "Weeting Castle". Mystified, I drove back. I went through at a snail's pace, desperately scanning for a castle, as if it might have hidden behind a lamppost or something. Still nuffin.

I finally broke down and asked a guy whose job it was to stop the virtually non-existing traffic every time a child wanted to cross the road. He told me that the sign had been stolen, and gave me directions to the castle. He also pointed me to a much better one about half an hour up north, which I would never have heard about unless I'd stopped to ask for directions, which again means that I should actually be thankful that someone stole the sign. Uhm. Yeah.

All Weeting Castle pics here.

It turned out that the castle wasn't even a castle. It was a manor which had never been fortified and never saw any military action. Sigh.


It did have a moat once upon a time. That's always something.


The opening at top left is clearly for a chimney, not a window.


There was a church right next to the ruins. The rounded castle-like towers are quite common in these parts.

Grimes Graves

After the rather unfullfilling visit to Stow, I set off for the nearest castle on my road map. However, on the way up there I was diverted into a wonderful stone age quarry of flint known today as Grimes Graves. It must have been quite an undertaking in its time. They've found over 400 shafts so far, where people worked deep into the ground to get at the valuable flintstones. You can even go down a 30 foot ladder into one of these shafts, the only one open of its type in England.

All pics here.

It looks so innocent on the surface.


Then you have to climb 30 feet (9 meters) down there. In a hard hat.


You'll find a small, circular room with lots of smaller shafts spreading out into the darkness.


Flint, wonderful flint.


Then you climb back up again.


An arial photo gives you a good impression of what went on here thousands of years ago.


I took this photo of a... uhm... caterpillary sumfin', on my way back to the car. It looked so cute and fluffy as it crawled across the grass, minding its own business.

West Stow Anglo Saxon Village

West Stow Anglo Saxon Village is an attempt at reconstructing such a village in modern times. They've been digging there for years, and have built some stuff they consider "experimental archaeology", meaning they don't really know what they're doing. That's my interpretation at least.

Anyway, they have made several buildings for various purposes and now charge you £7.30 for a year of free entry, probably knowing full well that you won't come back in twenty years unless bored out of your skull. Then again, that may very well be a common occurrence in Suffolk.

In addition, they show you a five minute film at the beginning of your visit and the narrator has a horrible speech impediment. When she says the word "source" it comes out as "pthourpthe". The result is that you find yourself concentrating not on WHAT she says but HOW she says it, which renders the whole thing kind of moot. As you may have gathered I was not impressed with the place at all.

All pics here.

The outside of the tiny village.


Inside one of the reconstructed houses.


Inside another.


The thing had an Arthurian feel about it at times, and not the Arthur of proper legend.


They had pigs. I like pigs.


This cock looked like he packed a punch.


This one flew up on a fence when I got too close to his womenses and chickenses. He gave me a look not usually associated with domesticated birds; it was kind of a "wanna piece of me" look.


England has lots and lots of small roads where the vegetation forms a ceiling above. At their best these places look magical.

Quote of the Day

Love is a gross exaggeration of the difference between one person and everybody else.
- George Bernard Shaw

St Olaves and Elveden

Just a quick note from two places where I stopped to take pics yesterday; St. Olaves and Elveden. St. Olaves has the ruins of an old priory, built in 1239, called St. Olaves Priory. Since St. Olav was a Norwegian king I thought I'd stop to take some pics, but there was nothing much to see and the rain was pouring down.





The war memorial at Elveden was just sheer luck; I stopped at the bus stop right across to look at the map and there it was.

Caistor

One of the tiny places where I made a five minute stop, was the Roman village of Caistor, where, as far as I could ascertain, there was fuck all except for what the information boards told you. I bet you could make good money on this in England; take an ordinary field, put up some boards and make up a grand tale of days of yore.

According to the info, this place had once been the capital of Roman Norfolk, and had had tons of streets, houses, an amphitheatre etc, etc. You'll just have to take their word for it.

All pics here.

The mound running to your left is what remains of the city wall.


View from the top of the city wall down to the ground. I'm sure they must have looked impressive once.

Burgh Castle

Sunday I didn't do much of anything, except driving. Monday was quite busy considering the fact that it was pissing down for much of the day. I started out with a drive up to Lowestoft, the eastermost place in England. I didn't make a stop, just notched up the mental victory of having been to all four geographic extremes of Britain (not all that difficult, really).

I then set course for one of the few castlelike entities on my road map for this area; Burgh Castle. The site grew as a Roman fortification in the 3rd century AD, as part of the Saxon Shore defenses of which Reculver and Rutupia were also part. Later, Anglo-Saxons built a church here, and the Normans built a castle in one corner.

It turned out to be much more of a Roman ruin than a castle, as the Norman building that had once stood there was completely obliterated; all you could see was some different coloration of the grass where they'd built. Three of the four Roman walls were still standing and I'm thinking they're likely to stand for another 2,000 years if nobody comes around to give'em a push.

There is also a church and a graveyard right next to the Roman castle, and I walked about there for a little while. Highly recommended place all in all, especially if you like a bit of a walk or have dogs with you.

All pics here.

The Roman castle, viewed from the outside.


Part of the Roman wall.


In some places, the wall looks like it is about to fall down.


This was once part of a much, much deeper estuary. In Roman times they would have had a proper harbor here, but silt has turned it into a much smaller waterway.


Windmills in the mist. This too would have been ocean when the Romans were here.


The church.


The graveyard.

Quote of the Day

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.
- George Bernard Shaw

They do?

I really had no idea.

Quote of the Day

Lisa, if the Bible has taught us nothing else - and it hasn't - it's that girls should stick to girls' sports, such as hot-oil wrestling, foxy boxing, and such-and-such.
- Homer Simpson

Walton on the Naze

My last touristy visit Saturday was to the little town of Walton-on-the-Naze. Yes, a slightly ridiculous name, but it has a tower built in the 1720s which to this day gives one a very good view over the coast and north eastern Essex. There is a tiny cafe at the bottom of the tower, and the small platforms which make out the internal floors are used for seating or for exhibits of local artists. It's all quite well done, and though I'm not interested in art I thought it was a nice touch. Iffin yer fixin' to see the tower, you might want to go soon as erosion is a very real threat in these parts.

All pictures here.

The tower was intended to help navigate ships when it was built in 1720. During WW2 they installed a small radar at the top.


View to the west.


View to the south.


Combined cafe seating and art exhibit.


I quite fancied the wascally wabbits.