Stardate: 21 April - An Afternoon on the Green...

.... but first, The Washing of the Smalls!

After a leisurely breakfast on this fine Easter Sunday, we repaired to the Tavistock Square Suds-O-Rama for a spot of laundering. 

Here are our BVDs and other delicates getting a hammering in the industrial-strength Hoovermatics.   

We chose to forego the dryers as our apartment is so over-heated we knew our items would dry in no time draped around the furniture.  As indeed they did.




Washing done, Geoff suggested an afternoon constitutional at Hampstead Heath for the day's outing and I pictured a bucolic ramble among bluebells and cowslips along clearly defined and sign-posted pathways with handy 'toilets this way' notices at regular intervals.  There was none of that but it was lovely in its own way. 

Hampstead Heath is certainly very leafy and quite pretty in some parts.  It seems to be deliberately cultivated as a wilderness (if that's not a contradiction in terms) so is a bit scraggly and unkempt.  I'm not complaining but I do think Australia does scraggly and unkempt better.  And also 'toilets this way' signage.

We did eventually find toilets, about 300 kilometres into our trek.  There was a big travelling carny at one end of the Heath and we wandered past the Ghost Train and Vommo-tron pretending we were keen patrons, eventually finding their not-too-bad dunny facilities in the back of the carny carpark.  Geoffy was keen for a Pluto Pup and some fairy floss but resisted the urge.

Birdlife in the heath was not abundant today, unless it favours the inner reaches that we did not traverse, but we did see a couple of English magpies and some robins.

An English robin.  (pic pinched from internet)

And here we have an Australian Pink Robin (also from internet).  Of course, Australia also has Flame Robins, Red-capped Robins, Rose Robins, Scarlet Robins, Eastern Yellow Robins. 

We have the best robins.  Just sayin'!

About to hand over to Mr (Clean) Pants but before doing so will skite that we're watching a 2019 episode of Pointless.  Nah nah nah nah nah!   :-)

***

Bit harsh about the poor old English robins I think, Hortense.  They try their best, but there's just not enough sunlight to enable them to compete with their Australian cousins when it comes to brilliant plumage.

Yes, Hampstead Heath is deliberately unkempt.  I reckon that's why it's called a Heath and not a Park, unlike say Hyde Park or Regents Park, that are cultivated to within an inch of their lives.

It's pretty impressive to find such an oasis in the middle of a hugely urbanised city like London.

And lest it be thought we had it to ourselves...

Yet again, the weather was extraordinary, and the locals didn't miss the opportunity to soak up the balmy 23 degrees.

Fortunately for us, they also brought their dogs out with them - always a joy to behold.  I lost count after 27 spaniels, 14 Labradors and about 96 miscellaneous small white or caramel fluffy varieties.  All having a ball.

A nice outing, but the non-stop tramping over hill and dale did tend to sap one's energy after a while.  We did take the opportunity to rest the weary bones wherever a suitable seat presented itself, but on the way home we came upon another likely venue.

Upon return to Euston station, we found the Euston Tap Room, serving an agreeable variety of craft beers.  This one was a Pig & Porter session IPA, and very pleasantly it went down too.

All in all, a nice outing, and we can now hold up our end of the conversation next time it turns to Hampstead Heath, which it's bound to soon enough.

Colchester: like the Curate's egg....

...parts of it are very good. Other parts are stinkers.

We had a pleasant one-hour train journey to Colchester in Essex this morning, keen to see what is left of a once-thriving Roman town that was razed to the ground by the mighty warrior queen, Boudicca in 60 AD.  After Boudicca and her army (possibly including my Iceni tribe antecedents!) destroyed the joint, the Romans built a huge wall around the town, some of which still stands. 

But before the wall, the Romans had built a monumental arch in 49 AD to mark the town's foundation.  After Boudicca blazed through 11 years later, the arch was incorporated into the new defensive wall.  This is the remains of the arch.

It is still mightily impressive, almost 2000 years later.

And right next to the arch is this building, now a pub known as the Hole in the Wall.  It was originally a house and was built over remnants of the wall in the 1600s. Once it was completed, the tradies clearly downed tools and said "we're done", leaving a big slab of the Roman wall in situ.  I'm rather glad they did because it looks great! 





A momentary digression now.  We had been forewarned that Colchester is not the most sophisticated of regional towns and we can report that this is a very fair assessment.  A huge magistrate's court dominates the main drag and I'm pretty sure it has a regular clientele of locals who are mostly white,  tattooed, very loud and ready for a bit of biff.  In the high street there's an over-abundance of beauty parlours and nail salons as well as barber shops.  We did wonder if the barber shops do an under-the-counter line in other services, given their numbers.  We also saw three pawn shops with people entering carrying heavy bags of stuff to offload. It was all a bit sad really.  But we did get a laugh when we saw a pub called "The Slug and Lettuce". 

Alas, this is all that remains of what was once the most famous building in Roman Britain:  The Temple of Claudius.  We can thank Boudicca for its destruction in AD 60, but it was later rebuilt, although not to the same dimensions.  One thousand years later, enter William the Conquerer! He pulled the temple down and built an immense castle over the ruins. 

Mr Geoffy will now share castle and priory pics, as well as details of our most satisfactory elevenses in a right proper tea shop.   

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We think the Roman walls are the most complete and substantial of anywhere we've seen in Britain.  Others have their own charms, but these are particularly impressive. 

Last wall photo.  We promise.

The stones originally used in the Roman wall never went to waste.  It's immediately obvious that they've been used elsewhere, in the following thousands of years.

Here's part of the castle Anne mentioned earlier.  Constructed a mere thousand years later, as she says.  Rolls off the tongue pretty easily, but ... a thousand years ???  As you can see, the Colchester locals were enjoying it too.  Speaking of the Colchesterians (just made that up), they were having a ball today, courtesy of the weather.  In addition to the wonderfully named Slug and Lettuce, I reckon we went past another 10 pubs in the High Street, at all of which patrons were lolling about outside in the sun, beer and wine at the ready.  It's hard to find fault, considering that there are only 4 days a year when it's suitable to do this in Colchester.








I just remembered I was deputed to report on elevenses.  You sure as hell wouldn't go to Colchester based on its culinary reputation, but in our case we lucked out.  A most agreeable morning tea was to be had at the Small Talk Tea Rooms.  The Victoria sponge cake is highly recommended.  Suitably fortified, we lasted another hour or so until lunch in the High Street, where we had a truly excellent soup, salad and sandwich.  Don't judge Colchester by the seeming abundance of pawn shops,  nail salons and barbers.

Our final attraction was the ruined St Botolph's Priory.

Constructed in the 12th century by the Augustinians (as distinct from the Cistercians, who seemed to be more prominent oop north).  Now, what did they use for building materials?  Hands up all those who said the remnants of the Roman walls ... correct answer!







It's just beautiful, if you like that sort of thing.

But why would you not?

You can wander through at your leisure, and laze around on the grass and admire the splendour.  Today there were indeed a number of Colchesterians lazing around on the grass, although most of them seemed to either recovering from last night or preparing for tonight, or maybe both.  Have they no sense of the unbelievable history that is everywhere in their town?



I think Anne's title for the title for the day is most apposite.  Colchester is actually wonderful, and if you visit, focus on the undoubted highlights and ignore any downsides.  I couldn't help but think that every middle-aged woman looked and sounded like Gavin's mum Pamlaa in Gavin and Stacey.  I know they lived in Billericay, not Colchester, bu' i's still Essex innit?

Stardate: 19 April 2019 - Good Friday Frolics

It was a damn fine Friday!  Unlike home, where even the local tip shuts up shop, Londoners spill out onto the streets with gay abandon on this second day of the Easter Triduum. All the shops are open and climate change activists made their mark pretty significantly in the main shopping strip along Oxford Street with over 700 arrested. More power to them!  Easter Sunday is the 'quiet' day here.

Our first stop was was the Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. 

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It was veritable feast of childhood, featuring children's toys, games and clothing over a period of 500 years.  We rather liked this 16th century highchair which I suspect breaches every current day health and safety regulation imaginable and would possibly feel a tad lumpy to the young lord or lady whose bum was parked in it.  We also saw a wooden rocking horse, purportedly crafted for Charles the First as a wee sprog, but alas, the pic was rubbish (like most of those we took at Portsmouth yesterday, sorry!) so does not appear.  It didn't bear much resemblance to a horse I must say, possibly because someone appeared to have belted its snout off. Maybe Charles did it when throwing a tantrum.  Anyway, it was the prototype for all the (snouted) rocking horses that followed.

"Take an S, take an I, take an N-D-Y and what have you got? You've got Sindy! The doll you love to dress."   Much to my embarrassment, Geoff sang this old TV commercial loudly when he spotted this display.   I think it was his favourite as he wished to linger when I wanted to move on to model racing cars.  .

I loved the one in the middle - The Golden Arrow. The actual Golden Arrow (as opposed to this pretend one) was built in 1928 and broke the land speed record the following year, travelling at 372 kilometres per hour.  Girls, it was ice-cooled with no radiator and had a 925 hp engine with 3-speed, final drive through twin driveshafts.  Imagine!





Changing the subject entirely, I'm almost expiring from the heat of this flat - still centrally heated to 50 degrees even though it's about 25 outside. The weather has been glorious since our arrival and we are stuck with our winter woolies.  I'd love to pop out and buy a muu-muu but fear I would resemble Colleen McCullough. Handing over to Mr Snorky now. 

                                                                                    ***

My own favourite was this elaborate pedal car.  I don't need to tell you it's an Austin A40, as you already worked this out after one glance.  We had plenty of Austin A40s in Australia, but they were mostly sedans, with some utes and panel vans, usually grey as I recall, although black was an interesting option. But they were certainly never red, like this sporty model. [We had a navy blue one. A ute. - Ed.]

I too enjoyed the museum, and it gave us the opportunity to visit yet another London neighborhood, in Bethnal Green.  We had time to sit in a beautiful park while there and enjoy the bucolic atmosphere. Of course, this was the best London weather since records began, so that helped.

We then reversed course and headed for Borough Market in Southwark on the south bank of the Thames.  It's a huge produce market and surrounded by countless restaurants cafes and pubs.  It's always busy.

Not sure that this does it justice, but believe me, it's shoulder to shoulder wherever you go.  Our purpose was to meet old friends from Australia - Larry and Helen, who happen to be visiting just at this moment.  'Old friends' can be a bit of a cliche, but Larry and I have known each other for 57 years now, so I think I can be forgiven for using it.

Larry and Helen have just become grand parents to beautiful 15 week old Lily.  Their daughter Emily has lived in London for several years and is now married to Karl (next to Helen).  Karl is an Irish citizen, so I think we worked out that Lily is entitled to British, Irish and Australian citizenship.  Most significantly, her Irish parentage entitles her to EU citizenship too (a not well-concealed Brexit reference there).

The venue was the George Inn, a 17th century galleried coaching inn, the last of its type remaining in London.  Space precludes me from explaining in detail what that means, but you'll just have to take my word for it that it's pretty special.  Oh, and it features in Dickens' Little Dorrit, giving it that bit extra cachet, even allowing for the fact that Dickens was not known to be choosy about where he drank.

Mr Pants has suddenly signed off for the night -  I think the heat has got to him. We're so wretchedly hot, we're both staggering about in our cottontails!  I am wearing a t-shirt though.

To Colchester tomorrow - considered a spectacular dump from all accounts but it has splendid Roman ruins which we are eager to see.  Hooroo!   

Stardate: 18 April 2019 - By Jove it's Maundy Thursday!

And on this day, the reigning English monarch washes the feet of beggars as an act of humility before Good Friday.  At least this was the case in centuries past - these days a group of impoverished people are set before the Queen and she chucks sixpences at them.  Or so I am told.

I chose this snippet of information to introduce today's post because we spent the day at the splendid Portsmouth Historic Dockyard in Hampshire and in seeking a post title could think of nothing that rhymes with Portsmouth nor even a worthy alliteration. So Maundy Thursday it is, by Jove!

Our journey started at Waterloo Station, where, as is our custom with any public transport involving some distance, we arrived with a mere hour and a half to spare. So we parked ourselves at an upstairs cafe with fairly ordinary beverages and a stale muffin, and watched the hordes of commuters from London's outer reaches spill out from their trains.

 
I found it fascinating for about five minutes but Geoffy loved it.  He's a bit of a train nerd and used to pride himself on being able to recite every train station on every train line in the Sydney metropolitan area.  I have suggested he could win himself a brass mug on Tom Gleeson's Hard Quiz with this knowledge but he has so far resisted. 






We had a very pleasant journey on our South Western Railways train through Surrey and Hampshire, arriving in Portsmouth around 11 am.  It was quite warm and we have nothing summery in our travel wardrobes, so we were rather steamy. 

We spotted this beauty as soon as we disembarked from the train and agreed that yes, Admiral Nelson' ship HMS Victory was truly a thing to behold.  Except that it wasn't HMS Victory, a fact we did not establish till several hours later.  This vessel is HMS Warrior, a mid-19th century warship. 







I was very keen to see the wreck of the Mary Rose, the pride of Henry the Eighth's Tudor fleet. It was sunk during a battle with the French in Portsmouth Harbour in 1545, with the loss of over 400 men.  Only 35 survived.  This was mostly because the top deck was covered with heavy-duty rope webbing to stop enemy sailors boarding.  But the webbing also stopped the Mary Rose crew from leaping off the ship as it sank.

And this is what was disinterred from the seabed in 1983.  This part of the ship was embedded in mud and silt and was preserved underwater for over 400 years due to the lack of oxygen..  The other side rotted away.

But heaps of artifacts have been retrieved and make a fabulous display in the Mary Rose museum.  An item common to all crew members, whether officer or sailor, was a lice comb. There were hundreds of them.  And they look just like present day ones!  Except these ones were also for fleas.


Handing over to Geoff now.  He is still pointing and sniggering about my total lack of knowledge of the phonetic alphabet - he tested me during our train journey.  Well I can't help it if I wasn't an Air Commodore! 
                                                                      ***
The thing that surprised me about the Mary Rose's sinking is that it seems so mundane.  The prevailing theory is that it heeled over unexpectedly while turning, due to a sudden wind gust, sending the gun ports under water.  This in itself wouldn't have been fatal, except the ports were open, resulting in the water pouring in.  It sank almost immediately.  Wouldn't this possibility be foreseeable, and so preventable?  Easy to say with almost 500 years hindsight I guess.

My highlight of the exhibition was the daily rations.  The only items provided to the crew every single day were biscuits and beer, to be specific a gallon per man.  Meat most days and vegetables hardly ever.  If you're going to suffer the hard life that they did, you may as well be constantly as full as a doctor's wallet.  Anyway, a great experience and well worth the trip.

Other things at Portsmouth - everything naval you could imagine, the big ticket item being Nelson's HMS Victory.  You know, the one where he won the battle of Trafalgar.  Oh and died too.

Beautifully restored, and apparently still on the official inventory of the Royal Navy.  I reckon a posting to the Victory would be a pretty cushy gig, as you wouldn't actually need to know how to sail.  You would have to be able to tolerate tourists though.  

 Finally, we came across this recreation of a ship's ornament from the Elizabethan period.

Not quite sure about the item on the right; can't remember what it was.

An excellent day out.  The train trip was great too.  Comfortable and reliable and highly recommended.  Who says the only thing the Poms can do is good beer and fish and chips and mushy peas?

Stardate: 17 April 2019 - Fred and Ethel hit the town

Just a few words about our experience with Singapore Airlines - the cabin crew were very good but I was disappointed in their food offerings - I know I say this from a position of privilege but I thought it was akin to starvation rations.  Our flight from Singapore to London was a tad over 14 hours and in that time we were served two small meals, one of which I found inedible and I assume others did as well as I saw a stack of barely touched plates being returned to the trolley. (Geoffy is unable to comment as he ate nothing on either flight.)

On boarding in Canberra, I was delighted to be offered both a sparkling wine and an orange juice, which I accepted.

I had just taken a sip of juice and decided to record the event for posterity (note carefully placed Saturday Paper) when both drinks were whipped away by a steward as take-off was imminent. I thought it unseemly to down the sparkling in one gulp but he did allow me to take a quick slug of the OJ before confiscation. So the sparkling was essentially for show purposes only and that was the only time on either flight it was offered.  But enough whinging! 


This morning we both felt a tad healthier than yesterday (if still critically ill :-)) so we walked at snails' pace to various shopfronts on housekeeping duties: Euston station for Railway cards (huge discounts on rail travel for geriatrics for a 30 pound outlay) and then another slow trek to a phone shop for UK simcards.

En route we took a detour to Leigh Street, Bloomsbury and the facade of the bookshop run by Dylan Moran (Bernard Black) in Black Books, aided and assisted by Bill Bailey (Manny). It IS actually a bookshop.  Geoff said the shop next door must have been their friend, Fran Katzenjammer's and I said no, Black Books was only pretend. But he was unphased, also insisting that the pub on the corner must have been where they went for a pint or seven. I think Geoffy's current bout of Ebola has affected his cognitive abilities and we need to crank up the anti-viral medication. 

Continuing our safari (heading for the Charles Dickens museum) we saw this plaque to J.M. Barrie who wrote Peter Pan.  It reminded me that I always thought Nanny in Peter Pan was the children's grandmother, not their nursemaid.

Next stop, the Charles Dickens museum, a most entertaining place and where he lived for either 50 years or just two, depending on whether you believe the signage out the front or the probably more reliable staff inside.  Of course, it was not a museum while he was resident there (she said, perhaps unnecessarily).  Readers of our previous blogs would know that Chuck always gets a run in our musings, mostly because every pub in London (and also further afield) claims he was a regular there.  Given that, and  the size of his wine cellar in this place, I think the evidence is clear the man was a pisspot.

After an informative hour in the museum, we limped slowly back to our digs for a lie-down to recuperate and brace ourselves for our last outing for the day.  Mr Geoffypants will momentarily report on that, as well as impart important information about crankshafts and brake fluid. 

Thank you oh generous blog maestro.  I can but do my best.  This whole district is known as Bloomsbury, in honour of the literary figures who lived here.  You know - Virginia Woolf et al.  So, many of  the blue plaques on buildings in the neighborhood are for creative types who once lived there.  Today we also saw Jerome K Jerome and would have seen Yeats in a charming lane just over the road from our digs, except we didn't.  But I've seen in a tourist book that he did live there so it must be true.

But I have to think Dickens is the star.  It's hard to find a pub that doesn't lay claim to being one of his regulars.  The museum confirmed his like for the demon drink but did suggest that his real love was sharing with friends, not curling up in the corner on his own and drowning his sorrows.

From there (after our brief lie-down) we returned to the British Library, just a little ways along Euston Road (100 pounds on the Monopoly Board).  We'd been there before but it's always worth it.  The Treasures Room features a veritable, well, treasure trove of book, map, musical score and document antiquities.  My highlight today was from the Sacred Texts section, a c1400 Missal that weighs in at 19 kilos.  I'm sure it's a great read, but probably not when propped up in bed.  There's also a 4th century hand written Old Testament, but I'm just bragging now, so I'll stop.

My other highlight was a monumental episode of road rage at a busy intersection of Euston Road.  The aggressor was doing his best to exhaust his vocabulary in the time before the lights changed, which would have been quite a task, since that was looking like taking about 10 minutes.  We could still hear him a couple of blocks away (seriously), and I silently thanked him for his selfless contribution to our day's entertainment.

And that's it from Mr Pants.  I think he's on the mend.  Praise be! It's now 7.30pm and way past our bedtime.  Goodnight.

Stardate: 16 April 2019 - The Wretched and the Damned....

Room 306, Endsleigh Court London

Well thank God we're here at last.  We're both ill and grumpy but so relieved to be both off the plane and then the train from Heathrow, where peak hour London commuters whose space we invaded with our boofy luggage and our unwashed bodies were unimpressed.

I have selected the Endsleigh Court giant saucepan (no lid) and  am cooking some spuds.  That's all either of us can bear eating and Geoff has eaten virtually nothing since last Friday.  I can decant the spuds to a plate with one of the seven handy slotted spoons about which I waxed lyrical on a previous occasion. A new addition to the Endsleigh Court kitchen utensils drawer is a giant whisk. I'm not sure what one would be whisking, or even whisking in, given the bare minimum of kitchenware.  But we keep coming back!

As always, our apartment is centrally heated to a balmy 50 degrees celsius or thereabouts, so we have flung open all the windows.

Desperate to brush my teeth and scrub off the grime of the last 36 hours.  Geoff just ready for bed, poor sausage.

During our thumb-twiddling in Singers we spotted this beautiful Jag.  Electric.  Take that, Scomofo!  Electric cars are the future.









That's all for now.  We'll be in proper blog mode tomorrow, including Geoff whose many fans are undoubtedly anxious for bloke news.   But for now we're off to bed!

Stardate: 15 April 2019 - Canberra Airport

Our kind friend Andrew (custodian with partner Marika of Banjo the rescue Lab, all of whom we met at Cook oval in the salad days of our girls Rebel and Frances) transported us to Canberra airport this evening.  Must say this late evening travel is a top idea.  Look at this departure board:

We're the last cab out for the night. With seat allocations done online, it was straight to check-in and a most charming young woman who was happy to heave Geoff's skis, hatbox, and piano accordion onto the conveyor belt.  Even the security people were a delight.  Mind you, Geoff was singled out for an explosives check.  As I look like everybody's nan, I wasn't.



I guess airport staff were so nice because Canberra airport looks like this late on a Monday evening:

A bit like something out of the Twilight Zone but the absence of the teeming multitudes was just my cup of tea.







We're now ensconced in the business lounge:

On our arrival there were two men and a dog enjoying the facilities.  Since then a maiden aunt and a mad uncle have joined our small but motley crew.  All are well-behaved so we're resisting the urge to behave like yobbos.






Not long now till boarding.  Geoff would like to make a contribution but is currently sick as a dog with typhoid or possibly swine fever. Could just be a heavy cold.  Either way, he's cursing the fact that he's crook as Rookwood on the eve of our expedition.  But never fear - on recovery he will regale his fans with tales of the unexpected.  Also beer, footy, angle grinders and spirit levels!

Till Singapore, chaps!  xx