Blistering in Bicester

We have made our way to Bicester, which is south of Banbury and 1 hour north of London. It is a lovely little town, with its main attraction being a shopping village of up market goods that attracts travellers from all over world. It is not a mall, but a well laid out village.

Accommodation was in short supply so we decided to stay at the Kings Arms Pub, which was close to the office Michael was working at. As with most places it had no air conditioning so with all windows open it was still warm. This was fine until Thursday night when it was karaoke night till 12 pm and we learned that most people can’t sing.

 

It was a friendly little pub, although they seemed to be out of most things including cask ale and crisps, which reminded me of The Vicar of Dibley episode where one of the characters went on about the time that the pub ran out of cheese and onion crisps.

Enjoyed a good chippy meal watching the patrons debating over which was the best battered jumbo sausage. The discussion continued on for quite a while. I suppose you don’t wish to get a low fat one.

We dined at a nice Thai restaurant called Cabbage and Condoms. Upon speaking to the owner, we discovered that it is a not for profit venture that provides sexual consulting services for the poor in Thailand and has a number of restaurants throughout the world.

After the heat and excitement of Bicester, we decided to go to another country so headed off to Wales. Three trains from Bicester to Cardiff which was very pleasant and the high speed trains can move.

Booked to stay at the Royal Cardiff Hotel, which is in the centre of town and on St Mary’s St. The room had fans and air-conditioning going full bore with little result, but a nice hotel.

 

The city is lovely with all the old buildings and arcades that have been kept to a high standard. Most of the inner city has been closed off to traffic so walking around is very easy.

Decided to go for a walk around and Cardiff Castle is at the end of the street. Noticed a few zombies lurching around the main centre complete with make up.  They actually gave me the creeps. The local beer is brewed by Brains, and all the hotels are tied to the brand, so I guess you could expect no less.

 

Michael was reading all about Welsh cheese and wine and was really looking forward to sampling some however the hotel ran out of cheese for the weekend and did not sell Welsh wine. Even the bottle shop only had a sparkling wine and the shop assistant said you would get better value drinking French wine than Welsh. We will still keep our eye out for some. Michael is enjoying the cask ales, even the celebratory one to the new Prince George.

Dragons for everyone in Cardiff

One thing we have noticed is the well-organized hen and bucks parties, to the extent that they have matching shirts made up and/or themes. We have seen bumble bees and ladybirds, Where’s Wally, sashes with the bride’s name on it and obligatory blow up doll, t-shirts with the buck’s picture on it. Some of the bucks have been wearing pink tutus and/or large inflatable rubber ducks around them. We even saw one wearing a wedding dress however, we were not sure if he was a buck or celebrating a divorce.  Size does not matter with the outfit as we saw one large girl dressed as snow white with the shortest skirt. The English do like to get dressed up for these events and the doormen must shake their heads.

how do you get to this Tardis?

As a treat I took Michael to the Dr Who Experience, which we enjoyed and I thought there was a lot of nerds in attendance, just like at the Lord of the Rings. There were people of all ages with Dr Who paraphernalia, and the show and displays were pretty good. The weather had turned with lots of rain so we did not get to check out the docklands area much, which would have been the reclaimed industrial area and the BBC has moved into part of it. Michael behaved so he was allowed to have a T-Shirt with K9 on it.

 

The night of his last episode

Robin Hood Riding Through the Glen

Robin Hood, Robin Hood riding through the glen,

Robin Hood, Robin Hood with his band of men

Feared by the bad, loved by the good

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood

Well, if you found yourself humming along to the above, then you are showing your age just as much as I am.  The Adventures of Robin Hood was my all time, number one, favourite television show as a child.  There has never been a better Robin Hood than Richard Greene.

We have arrived at Nottingham and one does feel that the place loves Robin Hood or maybe just the tourist dollar it brings. A train and bus combination got us here safely and staying at the Ramada Inn, as we were keen to find some air-conditioned accommodation to survive the stifling 30c temp that was expected. Instead it was a pleasant 25c most of the time with some tropical rain. Wonderful weather we have been having. Interesting that few places have air-conditioning as it is not normal for summer to be hot for a long period of time. The location is very good in the centre of the city.

Nottingham is a lovely place with the CBD converted into pedestrian areas with wonderful old buildings. At the time of the industrial revolution it would have been very bleak and crowded, particularly down in the lace market area. Caught their only tram service to look around the suburbs, which was double the size of a Melbourne bendy tram. The line has only recently been constructed and is being extended.

The city even has its own beach for the summer with sand and deckchairs as well as carnival rides. “Oh I do love to be beside the seaside”.

The centre piece of the city is the Castle of Nottingham with lots of information on Robin Hood and statues. Beneath the castle is Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem pub which was founded in 1049 and was the starting point for the crusades after seeing Richard I. So Michael had some ye olde ale and crisps (I wish he would stop asking for chips as they get confused).

 

 

Walked out to Trent Bridge Cricket ground to see where we fell apart a week earlier and saw a nice memorial garden, with a good show of flowers.  I really hope we do better in the next test match as the cricket jokes from the English are starting to wear thin.

Michael caught up with old Baycorp people who live in Nottingham and they are enjoying life here.

We hired a car for the weekend and went first to Swaffham aka Market Shipley from the comedy/drama Kingdom. It was a lovely old town, with a nice market square. We had a drink at the Greyhound Inn, with a burger from a food van with a very talkative owner. He told us that he went to Melbourne on a blind date with a girl he had met on Facebook. The match was not a success so he did a runner and left 9 days early from Australia. The people you meet!

We then headed off to Cromer and Wells at Sea to see some of the other locations for Kingdom. It was a glorious day until we were 10 miles from the coast and could see the fog roll in. At Cromer we could not see the beach or water due to the fog, so we continued along the coast road stopping along the way until we found a beach. Not like the Kingdom one, but a pebble beach with only the dogs in the water. It was all very different to back home.

Stopped at Blakeney, which is a fishing town and had Michael had some dressed crab and watched the people swimming in the river and hunting crabs.

The next day we headed out to Sherwood Forrest to see where the legend is from. Fairly touristy and walked around the forest for a while and admired the old oak reportedly over 1500 years old.

 

We then decided to find a tart in Bakewell, which is in the peak district and part of a National Park. Lovely countryside, like an All Creatures Great and Small episode with small lanes and hedges everywhere. Bakewell was a beautiful village with lots of visitors. Had a wonderful roast for lunch with Yorkshire pudding cooked the way my mum did so I was very happy. There were three original and traditional Bakewell bakeries and we discovered the iced version is not the classic Bakewell tart, they also have a Bakewell Pudding which Michael tried.

It was an enjoyable drive going through the small villages and stopping off at some to walk around. Then headed back via the Motorway where the cars get up to 130Km and our little Peugeot was struggling to get to 100km.

We extended our stay for a few extra days and we are now on our way to Bicester for a few days of work. Not sure what happens after that, but that is part of the ongoing adventure.

Ride a Cock Horse

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross

to see a fine lady upon a white horse

with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes

she will have music where she goes.

Well we have made it to Banbury, which is famous for the nursery rhyme and Banbury cakes (not the urban dictionary version). The town is also known for having the highest percentage of single mothers and you can easily see where Little Britain got their Vicki Pollard.

The weather has been absolutely glorious with temps of around 30 for the past 3 weeks and continuing. The Brits are not happy as nowhere has air conditioning so the warnings and press coverage has been hysterical saying that schools and work should stop at 82F (27c).  They are reporting that the heat wave has contributed to over 600 deaths so far.

Michael had been working in Bicester, which is a short train trip from Banbury.

Headed down to Oxford last Sunday and had a great time looking around the wonderful buildings and college grounds. Amazed at how many young tour groups were going through the city. We had lunch at the Lamb and Flag pub where JRR Toking read the first part of the Hobbit to

Thomas Hardy, Graham Greene and CS Lewis used to meet known as the "Inklings".  Michael thought that maybe the beer was better in this pub.

The college library had an exhibition called Magical Middle Ages to Middle Earth, which featured Tolkien, Lewis Carol, JK Rowling and other authors, which was very good.

Whose this wag that has his picture on the sign and why is it in Oxford?

We are able to explore the area until late, as it is still remaining dark until 10.00pm.

The town also has a lot of canals so it is interesting walking along the banks seeing the boats and how they have kitted them out. All are holiday makers, as the trade boats stopped when the trains came in. The waterways were fixed up in the 60’s and apparently in 10 years time they will not be maintained by the waterway authority, which is sad to think of a bit of history going. In saying that the whole country is covered in canals.

 

On our last night we toasted the memory of Heather Trott (Hev) with a Woo Woo.  The drink tasted just like the Nyall Decongestant my mother used to give me as a child.

Oh, and please don’t mention the cricket! 

Maybe It’s Because I’m a Londoner

Well, we have made it to the old country, land of hope and glory etc.

 

After leaving Toronto on a night flight we reached London and waited in an express queue for an hour at Heathrow Airport listening to a short, bald South African man berating his wife for leaving their Wimbledon tickets in the safe back home.  Nasty little man probably thought that he was showing everyone how useless his wife was when all he was doing was proving what a tosser he was! We took the express train to Paddington, which was very good and looked new even though it was celebrating 20 years.  The journey only took 15 minutes.

Once we got the accommodation sorted which was 3 floors up with no lift (sound familiar?), headed off to explore Primrose Hill, which is a lovely area with little high street shops tucked away and of course Ye Olde English Pubs (more gastro now than traditional) know as the Washington. The apartment was only 15min by tube from Baker St.

Lovely fox seen from the 3rd floor in the backyard

We then caught the train to Baker St and Michael route marched us through the sites.  It was nice to see the Sherlock Holmes tiles at the station that I remember from my visit 30 years ago. We were happy to marvel at the old buildings and started the quest for the gourmet English fare of steak and kidney pudding, egg and bacon butties, bangers and mash, Aragon chicken pie and fish and chips. The quest started well with one pub having the steak and kidney.

That evening we walked up to Primrose Hill, which has a marvelous view to the city. We discovered it does not get dark until 10:00 pm but worse is that it gets light at 4:30 am.  The apartment could really use some black out curtains from the Blitz.

 

 

The next day we walked from Primrose Hill through Regents Park. Michael was on squirrel watch, but found penguins instead.  The London Zoo is on the edge of Regent Park and we looked over a low fence and penguins were looking up at us. On a positive note squirrels were found. 

 

We walked through Queen Mary’s Rose Garden where all the roses are out on display, some the size of bread & butter plates. 

 Just beautiful. From there we walked down Baker Street and meandered through the streets of London or as Michael likes to say “flaneuring.” In Hyde Park we saw the memorial to the London bus and underground bombings which is a very somber memorial consisting of steel poles with the victims names, date and location of death. 

 

We also saw the Australian war memorial, which although modern was well done. 

 

Then we continued onto Buckingham Palace and happened to arrive bang on the Changing of the Guard.  Unfortunately neither the Queen nor corgis were in residence much to Michael’s annoyance.

 

We then wandered up to Trafalgar Square where Canada Day was being celebrated and off to the pub for some lunch. We also checked out Fortnum and Mason’s and found a barber for Michael in Jermyn St which has only been trading since 1730 and booked an appointment for the next day as Michael has not shaved since September last year and is starting to look a little scruffy.

The following day we took Michael in for his haircut and shave. The rugged lumberjack look is if fine for Canada, but we felt a more refined look for business was appropriate in London. Plus it would stop him frightening people when he boomed out “G’Day”.   He now resembles a startled turtle that has emerged from hibernation.  On the positive side, he also looks 10 years younger.

 

Michael found a cheese monger that has only been in business since 1670 to pick up a bit of cheese. No Monty Python skits allowed.

Whilst Michael worked I wandered around soaking up the glorious sunshine they are having. We have also been keeping an eye on rugby progress and the tennis.

The following weekend headed down to the Shard which is a complete eyesore.  One wonders how such a monstrosity was approved and it really is a blot on the landscape as it can be seen from miles away.  The Gherkin is bad enough but at least it is surrounded by other tall buildings, so that at best it is partially hidden. We then walked to St Guys hospital to see the old operating theater that was in the attic of a church in the hospital grounds. The theater was used on public patients and could accommodate 150 people packed in like sardines to watch the operations. This was in the days before anesthetic and pain relief so it would have been a horrifying spectacle.

 

 

We also walked around Borough Market, which was excellent and full of fresh produce. Then we walked part of the Dickens walk to end up at the Dickens pub to see the last half of the rugby. There were many happy Englishmen that day and two sad Aussies.

We explored a bit further and ended up at the Camden Markets, which used to be the old horse stables for the canal boats being towed. The markets are massive selling everything from clothes, jewelry, household items etc of very good quality.  The place is a hipster’s paradise and I know that Tim would love it there.  We finished the evening with a visit to Amy Winehouse’s local.  How cool are we!

Decided the place was a bit small with Michael working and no room to sit so found another place in Albion Street near Edgware Road, which had Hyde Park at the end of the street and was much bigger and nicer (and not up 3 flights of stairs). There is a large Iranian and Iraqi community with plenty of Middle Eastern restaurants and very flash and expensive cars as well. Michael chatted to a heavily armed Old Bill who was standing on a street corner. He was very friendly and assured us that there was no criminal activity and that he was only guarding a VIP. As there were three of them it must be one important VIP and a hefty expense on the taxpayer.

We caught up with Ann and Vimal who were visiting to see family. It is funny seeing friends on the other side of the world, and it was lovely to catch up on what is happening back home. As usual Michael corrupted Vimal into having a pint of Fullers like Vimal did when he lived here 40 years ago.

at Harrod's shrine to Di and Dodi

 

We also caught up with Michael’s godmother Margaret who as not aged a day since I meet her 25 years ago. I had warned Michael not to race off and leave Margaret behind and be mindful of her age.  Needless to say, both of them walked off leaving me behind as Margaret goes on regular walking holidays and is as fit as a fiddle. We started the day with coffee on the banks of the Serpentine River in Hyde Park followed by a wonderful lunch and long chat.  The only disappointment was that we couldn’t find the Mr Darcy statue, which had been erected in the river. It must have been removed.

A Very Special Visit

James, our eldest son, came for a quick visit last week.  Naturally it was wonderful to see him and it was lovely to spend time together whilst showing him the sights of Toronto.

The highlight of James’ trip was our day at Niagara Falls.  We hired a car and Michael drove through the brutal Toronto traffic to Niagara, which is a couple of hours out of Toronto.  It was my second visit to the falls and Michael’s third.  I don’t think that I could ever get tired of looking at these magnificent cascades.  They are visually stunning but it is the roar of the water splashing down that is most memorable.  We took a ride on the Maid of the Mist, which is always a highlight.  The Maid is a small ferry, which takes passengers to the base of the falls, well, as near as you can safely get.  Everyone dons plastic raincoats as the nearer to the falls you travel, the wetter you get.  It is great fun and the view and roar of the falls is spectacular.

Whilst at the falls, we took a walk alongside the river.  We didn’t see any beavers however we could see where they had been busy.  A number of trees were partly chewed through and wire mesh had been put over the base of the trees to stop the beavers from felling them.  The falls create the fastest rapids in the world and the sound of the rushing water is irresistible to beavers who then feel it is their duty to dam them, however the current is just too strong so they build their nests along the side of the river instead.  James loved the cartoon beaver that explained all about how the falls were created.

After lunch we then took a short drive to Niagara on the Lake to have a wander around the town.  It is a very pretty spot with lots of interesting shops.  Next, it was off to some wineries to taste some Ontario wines.  James particularly liked the sparkling ice wine and so did I. 

We walked James around the city of Toronto showing him  the sites and where to find and feed squirrels.  They don’t mention squirrel feeding in the tourist information so he was particularly blessed. Then took him a few times to Fahrenheit a nice coffee place and he was impressed that the hipsters knew me and then dads coffee card was exposed for his use.

We finished off James’ time with a special dinner at Michael’s (that is the name of the restaurant).  Both James and Michael dined on enormous steaks and enjoyed them immensely.  We then walked to our favourite bar in Toronto – Pravda.  Pravda is a vodka bar that has been decorated with authentic Soviet memorabilia including a giant bust of Lenin.  James couldn’t believe that his parents knew of such a cool place.  It is cool, literally, as all the vodka is kept in a giant freezer room.  We ordered a vodka tasting, which was fun, complete with rye bread and pickles.  It brought back memories of our trip to the Vodka Museum in St Petersburg.

We finished the night off with a beer tasting at C’est What, which was being held as part of the Toronto Beer Festival.  James and Michael had a lovely time tasting a range of beers.  I stuck to my gin and tonic.  Unfortunately it was then time to say goodbye to James, which was very sad.  Hopefully he enjoyed his time enough to want to visit his mum and dad again, wherever we are.

Well, when Toronto heats up the people of Toronto come out to play. 1^st July is Canada Day and a big long weekend. There seems to be two groups in Canada as what to do on this weekend. One group head off to the cottages with their families and celebrate all things Canadian, especially with red and white (they are really secret swan supports, reigning premiers as Michael likes to remind me). The other group is the gay, lesbian, transgender and those not sure what they are.  They have 3 pride marches and close off the rainbow area around Church St. Wandered up on our last night to see the beautiful people and not sure if they succeeded but their dogs looked nice.

As we are leaving Toronto we did the final feed of our squirrel friends and hope  they don’t miss us.  Michael says they must sit around and discuss the philosophical aspects of the all-providing squirrel god who showers them with nuts on a regular basis.

This will be our last post from Toronto as we leave on Saturday for the UK so the next blog entry will detail our adventures in the Old Dart.

A little more Toronto, eh!

Squirrels of Toronto they know we are coming and they love nuts

There are those of you who might be wondering why I keep putting “eh” at the end of the heading.  Well, that would be because Canadians have this curious habit of putting it at the end of their sentences.  At first we found it amusing but have lately caught ourselves starting to say it.  We say things like “Lovely day today, eh”.  I think we have been here too long.

We did manage to get in a local Australian football game.  What a hoot!  We arrived at a magnificent oval tucked away in one of the University’s grounds just as the “ladies” had finished playing.  The men came out to play and ranged in ages from early twenties to rather mature men.  It was good to hear a smattering of Australian accents barracking for “Macca” and “Danger”.  There was no score- board, no boundary umpires and the goal umpires were a couple of local kids.  The skill level was not AFL standard but everyone had a good time.

 

One thing that has been hard to get used to is that tax is added on to items that you purchase.  In Australia, the price advertised includes GST, here they add the HST on after you have purchased so you never know exactly how much something is going to cost you.  The tax rate is 13%, so it is not an easy one to work out in your head and some items are tax exempt.  The result is you always hand over more money than needed and inevitably end up with a handful of change, which I guess is handy for all the homeless people.  They only got rid of the penny last month, which seems bizarre considering Australia withdrew one and two cent pieces 19 years ago (yes, it was really that long ago – 1994).

Good Old Collingwood Forever

We were invited last weekend to spend some time with friends in Collingwood, which is nestled in the Canadian countryside.

 

First we went to Kitchener where we hired a car.  This was my third trip to Kitchener.  On the first trip I looked out of our hotel wind to see that the wind was blowing so hard that the snow was blowing horizontally.  In fact, one huge gust actually blew open both sets of automatic doors.  A few months later Michael convinced me to travel to Kitchener again as he was sure that there would be no more snow.  It pelted rain the entire time and when it stopped raining it snowed.  This time it was just raining.

We drove out of Kitchener and travelled through Mennonite country.  The Mennonites are an Anabaptist group who broke away from the Amish.  They are easily identified by the simple clothes that they wear.  Men wear plain trousers and shirts and usually a broad-brimmed hat.  The women wear long dresses and bonnets.  They shun modern life as much as possible and drive horse and carriages.  We passed many of the horse and carriages as we drove along and I found myself thinking about the appeal of dropping out of the rat race and enjoying a more simple life.  That was until I looked out of the window and saw a Mennonite woman in the pouring rain hoeing the field.  I think I prefer the rat race.

 

The countryside became progressively more beautiful until we reached Collingwood.  There we met our friends and headed out for a magnificent Italian meal at one of their favourite restaurants. A good night was had by all, and we formalised our plans for the following day.

Durham Bridge

Friday morning I took a walk with Angie along one of the many walking tracks.  The countryside was quite beautiful with many wildflowers in bloom.  We saw Canadian Geese with their goslings, which were cute.  Big, but cute.  We also saw loons.

We met up with the men and after a lovely lunch they took us for a walk through the town of Collingwood.  The township was full of lovely old buildings that had been well cared for and the shops sold many interesting and varied goods. 

Tim then drove us through the forest until we came to the Scandinave Spa.  What a beautiful place.  It is a series of outdoor spas with thermal springs & waterfalls in the middle of a birch tree forest.  There are also cold plunge pools, a Finnish sauna and a Eucalyptus steam room.  We quickly changed into our swimming costumes and then spent the afternoon relaxing going from spa to plunge pool to sauna and back again.  Tim was so relaxed we found him asleep in the relaxation room!  We are told that it is absolutely wonderful to go there in the winter when you are surrounded by snow.  If we are lucky enough to be here next winter, then this will definitely be on our wish list.

We then went back to our hotel where Michael promptly fell asleep, so relaxed was he.  Then it was time to go to dinner at Angie & Tim’s home and to see their wonderful dog Tango.  Tango is a Labrador/Rottweiler cross and is a very smart boy indeed.  We spent the evening enjoying good food, good company and far too much good wine.  We then caught a taxi back to our hotel and by the time the journey ended, Michael had convinced the taxi driver to come to Australia!

On Saturday we met up for lunch at the Beaver & Bulldog (traditional English Pub Canadian style) where Angie & Tim both had a Caesar to drink.  A Caesar consists of vodka, clamato (tomato juice mixed with clam broth), hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce.  This is served with ice in a large celery-salt rimmed glass and garnished with a stalk of celery.  Michael and I had water!  After lunch Tim drove us up to the Blue Mountains.  This is a fabulous ski resort with many shops and restaurants at the base of the mountains.  We took the gondola to the top and then took a walk along one of the walking tracks.  The view was magnificent as you overlooked Collingwood and beyond and Georgian Bay.  We saw Canadian Geese flying in formation.  It was like something you would see on the National Geographic channel.

We finished the day off with another superb dinner and then went back to Tim and Angie’s to take Tango for a walk around their condo.  They live in a type of gated community with lovely gardens and a marina right on the bay.  We saw hares hopping about and they tell us that in winter a family of deer is often spotted there.  There are also large snapping turtles and coyotes.  It must be like living in a wildlife sanctuary.

Beautiful Joe

The next morning we said farewell after a lovely brunch and we took the scenic way back to Kitchener.  The countryside was beautiful and we stopped at various small towns along the way.  We stopped at Beautiful Joe park in Meaford which is a lovely park dedicated to the memory of a dog, Joe, whose ears and tail were cruelly cut off by a local baker.  A family rescued him and nursed him back to health. The park has a statue of Beautiful Joe as well as memorial plaques for the K9 Corp, Assistance Dogs and a Rescue dog, who died on 9/11.  Members of the public have also put up memorial plaques for their departed pets. It was such a peaceful park and a lovely idea to pay tribute to these very special animals.