Monday July 12th
The sun rises at about 5 am. WE open our eyes, acknowledge its presence, and promptly fall back to sleep until 7.30.
A new week is beginning and we have just 36 hours before the elderly sisters arrive and the family mayhem starts all over again.
We’re finally over being totally brain dead and can examine our surroundings in full, with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons accompanying our treasure hunt.
What a marvellous old place this is. Parts of it date back to the 9th century and even the newest part ( with the exception of the gleaming whitegoods) seems to be dated 1777. It’s a three and a half floor rambling building full of nooks and crannies with beamed and terracotta tiled ceilings. The upstairs lounge has a huge medieval looking fireplace and a feature has been made of an old stone sink around 1,000 years old with deep grooves in the rock worn by the water.
The walls are around 3ft or 90cms thick, and all the windows have thick wooden shutters in various states of decay which lovers of shabby chic would kill for.
The terrace is in shade in the morning….pointing NW to the hills in the distance. In the afternoon it is unbearably hot, but by dinner time (8-9pm) the sun is low enough to have dinner outside and watch the sun set and twilight set in. The swallows make their last pass of the dusky sky to munch on a few midges before returning to their nests, and the cicadas provide a background score which owes more to Stockhausen than Debussy.
Everywhere the colours are those of Provence….shades of yellow and French/lavender blue. Everything is slightly dilapidated…which only adds to the charm….though I am sure Beloved would prefer a simple, modern and minimalist apartment in the city. This old house has all the same elements which I love and Tony hates about our Melbourne house - With the exception of the trees. There are miles and miles of open skies here without many trees - though there is a fabulous tree in the garden with leaves that look like a Poinciana - yet it has blossoms like pink feather pompoms. That, and an orange trumpet vine and a pink Oleander, provide the splashes of colour, and some pink and white wildflowers have grown in the neglected garden. Since the house is only used sporadically during the year (when we leave in August no-one will be here until Christmas) there is no-one to care for the garden, but still you can smell the last remnants of the herb garden….mint and oregano waft on the breeze to fill your nostrils.
What is sad is that the ancient grape vine - which totally covered the lower terrace and the iron balustrade of the upper terrace and captivated me in the early photos I saw - is now no more. It has been eradicated, no trace remains except a new telltale paved area on the lower terrace. I don’t know the reasons for its removal… but I suspect I would have chained myself to it…or quoted the poem from school “Woodman, spare that tree” if I’d been here when it was obliterated. It survived 1,000 years but was no match for a chain saw. How depressing.
The bathroom has stone floors, an open shower like a wet room, and a deep clawfooted bath. Thankfully the hot water service is NOT medieval and I luxuriate in a long shower where no-one is checking on my 155 litre a day ration.
Off to Uzes - and once again the words charming, medieval, myth-like, evocative get to draw overtime for having to work so hard. It truly is a breath-taking little place and parts date back to 419AD. You can taste the history everywhere. A stunning town which hasn’t grown into a monstrous industrial estate with a medieval core, like so many of the French towns. This was the heart of the Duchy that three French lords fought over - each building their own castle or tower. It was the first Duchy in France and the premier town in the region du Gard - (being only a few kms from the Roman aquaduct - the Pont Du Gard). It’s built in a circle, and laneways provide shortcuts through narrow cobbled streets to a town square, ringed with ancient buildings and picturesque cafes. It is so pretty that I desperately wish I could paint - or at least draw well enough to do it justice.
“Deux grands Café Crème”in a little café - and I practise my French which actually goes down well - they understand me and I them as we chat about using the internet and I get the directions to the town’s one and only internet centre discreetly hidden down a side street where its presence will not offend. No McDonald’s (thank God) to provide free WiFi; I’m happy to pay 3 Euros for an hour of catching up. All the cats are well, Kelly has a broken wisdom tooth; there are bills to be paid ( thank God for internet banking) and Melbourne is freezing. I am days behind with the blog, but Provence seems to operate in a different time continuum.
I drag myself away and we return to the supermarket at Montaren…(which really DOES sell everything except for electric fans!) and arm ourselves with new supplies…including 18 litres of Eau Mineral avec Gaz!
Home to our “Mas ancien” and finally we discover the laundry….in a stone cave underneath the house. Fortunately the washer and dryer are anything but medieval so we get some housekeeping done.
Bread and pate and Roquefort and Brie washed down with a local white wine ( expensive at almost 3 euros a bottle….yes…we bought SIX!) and some fresh figs and we crash out for a siesta - luckily it’s a rest day in the Tour de France. The rest of the day is a blur….when you’re “In the moment” you really have no memory of what that moment is. You are just BEING.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
days 26/27 - 41/40 - Vive La France - mais ou est elle?
Sat July 10th.
WE rise at 5.30 and make George Clooney Nespresso coffees. Gotta get one of those machines! St Pancras is such an imposing building and only the new library separates it from our hotel….so we walk, dragging our cases, and join the mayhem that is Eurostar. Bacon Baguette and more bad coffee provide some sustenance as the trains are all in at the same time and boarding is chaotic. But only four coaches go all the way through to Avignon so it’s less stressful for us. We’re in couch 4, in Pullman type seats facing two others with a table between them. The English couple opposite us sit in deafening silence and, through the six hour journey, Tony and I individually create the same scenario from their body language…. She’s anal and anxious; he’s withdrawn and non communicative. Much of his time is spent staring into space and withdrawing if she so much as touches his arm. It’s poignant in a heartbreaking way. She wants France to fix everything between them….to give them a fresh start; he knows it’s hopeless - the love is gone and he doesn’t know how to bring it back, and he’s stuck on this fatal trip, wishing he were somewhere else. It’s so very sad. Meanwhile Beloved and I touch and giggle and listen to Jazz on the walkman disc because we have one headphone each as we did when we were in Paris 7 years ago and he proposed. No MP 3 players then…so he has kept his in his case while we share.
Six hours goes quickly but we’re not prepared for the chaos of Avignon. It’s stinking hot and we have to queue for tickets and then for the transfer bus to TGV where we’ll pick up our car. A young well to do Englishman jumps the queue without a ticket and I name and shame him, furious that he of privilege should behave so dishonourably. At first he tries to defend himself but quickly realises I have his number. We have to stand on the bus and are thrown all over the place - but when we alight at the TGV he comes to me and apologises and is genuinely ashamed. There is perhaps hope for the human race.
The car hire places are in turmoil with roughly 300 customers arriving at the same time. Our car has been pre-booked for months but it’s still a 2 hour wait. The one joyous thing is that they are all out of automatic Vw Golfs and have no more small automatics so we are upgraded to a Mercedes….OH MY GOD…it’s beautiful, it’s big, it’s new, it’s AIRCONDITIONED! I want to live in this car for the rest of the summer!
We follow Mal and Christine’s instructions and find our way to Bourdiguet - but make three false attempts to find the house. The fact that our stay is a gift from someone I’m mentoring makes it doubly special, and I remember that when we finally arrive, open the bottom terrace door and are delighted by the bedroom….. Then climb the stairs to a dark and musty smelling lounge area with no kitchen to speak of, and further up the stairs to a huge bedroom with a tiny bathroom. This can’t be all, surely? No it isn’t! We’ve seen less than half the house. Unlocking a little blue door, the rest is revealed to us in all it’s rustic charm and we love it. We choose the upstairs bedroom because it’s opposite the bathroom with its claw foot bath and it has French doors to the balcony.
We cut back on the road to the supermarket and arm ourselves with Vin, Eau Minerale, Fromages, pain, jambon et terrine du pays, ack home we stuff ourselves with food….find what bedding we can ( the cleaners have apparently not been doing the laundry - or their job) and fall into bed. The sun is just setting…an amazing buttery yellow. The light in Provence is so like our beloved Perth. We are asleep before the sun disappears. We are in France - and we have six weeks to revel in the wonder of it.
Sunday July 11th.
It’s my beautiful eldest daughter’s birthday today and there’s no way I can reach her. Everything is closed and there’s no reception on the mobile. I guess it’s not that important to call - she knows how much I love her.
We sit on the terrace and drink coffee and eat French bread with butter and apricot conserve. We are knackered from lugging our baggage backwards and forwards in the heat. Tony especially is aching all over and looking quite ill. I am in pain with my leg hip and knee from all the stairs. We really are a couple of old crocks this morning. But the spirit is still young.
It’s hot already by 8.30 am. July/ August is not the most sensible time to come to Provence!
From the terrace we can see the distant hills - the pencil pines, the ancient red tiled roofs of the barn next door and beyond it the little chapel….no longer used. We watch a huge flock of swallows ducking, diving, gracefully soaring. We’re happy to do nothing today except just BE!
The house is part of the original farmhouse and it’s previous owners live next door. Robert speaks very good English but I practise my French on him anyway as he fixes the TV so that we can watch the Tour de France. I am determined to speak French like a native - of New Guinea!
We catnap and graze on what is left of the food and finish the two bottles of mineral water which have lasted less than 24 hours. Next time I’ll buy in bulk. Somehow we manage to stay awake for the world Cup Final but it’s a shocking match and we fall into bed once more completely exhausted. WE’ve done so much the past three weeks and it’s finally catching up with us. Sleep…… always the best medicine.
WE rise at 5.30 and make George Clooney Nespresso coffees. Gotta get one of those machines! St Pancras is such an imposing building and only the new library separates it from our hotel….so we walk, dragging our cases, and join the mayhem that is Eurostar. Bacon Baguette and more bad coffee provide some sustenance as the trains are all in at the same time and boarding is chaotic. But only four coaches go all the way through to Avignon so it’s less stressful for us. We’re in couch 4, in Pullman type seats facing two others with a table between them. The English couple opposite us sit in deafening silence and, through the six hour journey, Tony and I individually create the same scenario from their body language…. She’s anal and anxious; he’s withdrawn and non communicative. Much of his time is spent staring into space and withdrawing if she so much as touches his arm. It’s poignant in a heartbreaking way. She wants France to fix everything between them….to give them a fresh start; he knows it’s hopeless - the love is gone and he doesn’t know how to bring it back, and he’s stuck on this fatal trip, wishing he were somewhere else. It’s so very sad. Meanwhile Beloved and I touch and giggle and listen to Jazz on the walkman disc because we have one headphone each as we did when we were in Paris 7 years ago and he proposed. No MP 3 players then…so he has kept his in his case while we share.
Six hours goes quickly but we’re not prepared for the chaos of Avignon. It’s stinking hot and we have to queue for tickets and then for the transfer bus to TGV where we’ll pick up our car. A young well to do Englishman jumps the queue without a ticket and I name and shame him, furious that he of privilege should behave so dishonourably. At first he tries to defend himself but quickly realises I have his number. We have to stand on the bus and are thrown all over the place - but when we alight at the TGV he comes to me and apologises and is genuinely ashamed. There is perhaps hope for the human race.
The car hire places are in turmoil with roughly 300 customers arriving at the same time. Our car has been pre-booked for months but it’s still a 2 hour wait. The one joyous thing is that they are all out of automatic Vw Golfs and have no more small automatics so we are upgraded to a Mercedes….OH MY GOD…it’s beautiful, it’s big, it’s new, it’s AIRCONDITIONED! I want to live in this car for the rest of the summer!
We follow Mal and Christine’s instructions and find our way to Bourdiguet - but make three false attempts to find the house. The fact that our stay is a gift from someone I’m mentoring makes it doubly special, and I remember that when we finally arrive, open the bottom terrace door and are delighted by the bedroom….. Then climb the stairs to a dark and musty smelling lounge area with no kitchen to speak of, and further up the stairs to a huge bedroom with a tiny bathroom. This can’t be all, surely? No it isn’t! We’ve seen less than half the house. Unlocking a little blue door, the rest is revealed to us in all it’s rustic charm and we love it. We choose the upstairs bedroom because it’s opposite the bathroom with its claw foot bath and it has French doors to the balcony.
We cut back on the road to the supermarket and arm ourselves with Vin, Eau Minerale, Fromages, pain, jambon et terrine du pays, ack home we stuff ourselves with food….find what bedding we can ( the cleaners have apparently not been doing the laundry - or their job) and fall into bed. The sun is just setting…an amazing buttery yellow. The light in Provence is so like our beloved Perth. We are asleep before the sun disappears. We are in France - and we have six weeks to revel in the wonder of it.
Sunday July 11th.
It’s my beautiful eldest daughter’s birthday today and there’s no way I can reach her. Everything is closed and there’s no reception on the mobile. I guess it’s not that important to call - she knows how much I love her.
We sit on the terrace and drink coffee and eat French bread with butter and apricot conserve. We are knackered from lugging our baggage backwards and forwards in the heat. Tony especially is aching all over and looking quite ill. I am in pain with my leg hip and knee from all the stairs. We really are a couple of old crocks this morning. But the spirit is still young.
It’s hot already by 8.30 am. July/ August is not the most sensible time to come to Provence!
From the terrace we can see the distant hills - the pencil pines, the ancient red tiled roofs of the barn next door and beyond it the little chapel….no longer used. We watch a huge flock of swallows ducking, diving, gracefully soaring. We’re happy to do nothing today except just BE!
The house is part of the original farmhouse and it’s previous owners live next door. Robert speaks very good English but I practise my French on him anyway as he fixes the TV so that we can watch the Tour de France. I am determined to speak French like a native - of New Guinea!
We catnap and graze on what is left of the food and finish the two bottles of mineral water which have lasted less than 24 hours. Next time I’ll buy in bulk. Somehow we manage to stay awake for the world Cup Final but it’s a shocking match and we fall into bed once more completely exhausted. WE’ve done so much the past three weeks and it’s finally catching up with us. Sleep…… always the best medicine.
Day 25/42 - Trains and other journeys.
Friday 9th July
Off to London this morning - France is just a day and a train ride away. It still blows me away that you can get on the train in London, and get out in Paris, having travelled under the English Channel. But there are more joys before that.
Margaret drives us to Winchfield station. She’s sad to see us go - even though she will join us in France in four days time.
We wait on the platform, surprised at the number of people with cameras poised. What’s going on? We are answered within minutes as a marvellous old steam train pulling 12 carriages pulls in to the platform opposite. Click go the cameras - all the train and photography enthusiasts are out in force. I am so gob smacked I almost forget to take a picture myself. This is how I remember travelling, in the days when we toured with my Mum and Dad. Early morning train calls, checking out of digs…the noise of the steam, the smell of the coal, the grey smut all over us. Oh, it was truly wonderful in a way that those who don’t remember steam trains could never understood. Rod McKuen has a great poem called The Art of Catching trains which starts “I came through the clothesline maze of childhood…….” Love that. My childhood maze was props and skips and band calls at every theatre - but the train was ever constant.
Margaret tells us that last year the Flying Scotsman stopped at Winchfield. This locomotive is called Sir Lamiel in royal fashion. I wouldn’t have missed this for quids.
Once in London we check into the Novotel ( another online special at less than 50%) where we are upgraded to an executive corner room with a lounge area. Maybe it was my smile or our easy going response when told the room was not ready.
We dump the bags and head off to meet my cousin Sue…who swears we have not seen each other since I was twelve. We’re meeting at a swish Nouvelle Cuisine ( didn’t know it still existed) restaurant in Primrose Hill….very swank, but all style and no substance - and horrendously expensive even though we are splitting the bill.
Aaah, but the company is worth any price. Sue and Ivan fit so well into our life it’s as if they have always been there. Ivan works in Feature films…an Academy Award winning sound engineer. He and Sue met on Ring of Bright Water back in the sixties. Love that film and book…. It has fostered in me a deep affection for otters. Sue and I pick up where we left off 50 years or so ago. Ivan and Tony hit it off immediately. He’s a sweetheart and, like beloved, looks younger than his years…..he has a childlike enthusiasm, wears a panama hat and drives a soft top E type jaguar with the top down. Heads turn as they drive down Regent’s Park Parade. More surprises are in store. Ivan is from Newquay…I discovered that about three years ago. And we went to the same ( but separate and non co-educational) school But I now learn that he also lived in Bonython Road, just a few doors from me….AT THE SAME TIME Yet we never met. What’s more, his dad built the house I lived in and where I first started writing.
And they tell me the story of how Ivan knew his way to Sue’s parents’ house the first time he drove there. It turns out he was there, at the bottom of their driveway years before with a boy scout jamboree. Sue even took a photo of him when she was a girl….and discovered it still in the attic of her parents house. Serendipity? Fate? Or some divine plan? If you plotted that in a storyline people would groan and think it corny - truth is more cliched than fiction - and almost always more interesting.
We hate to part….the promise of real friendship is so tantalising - and I say “Come to France ….stay a few days.” Sue hesitates but Ivan says “Why not? We could drive down.” So perhaps we will see them in a week or two. Fingers crossed.
Tonight we took Tony’s sister Bernardine to the theatre. The Arts theatre is in the centre of the west end just off Leicester Square. It has introduced some brilliant shows over the years. This was NOT one of them. Lilies of the Land is about the girls who fought the war by helping the farmers in the Land Army. It got rave revues but is doing lousy business. Sometimes the public IS right. It should have been moving and endearing but was neither. My one piece of theatre in London and it was totally forgettable. Such a shame. Supper in the Spaghetti House across the road and home for a few hours sleep. Tomorrow ……France. J’espere qui ce vacance est le plus meilleur du monde!
Off to London this morning - France is just a day and a train ride away. It still blows me away that you can get on the train in London, and get out in Paris, having travelled under the English Channel. But there are more joys before that.
Margaret drives us to Winchfield station. She’s sad to see us go - even though she will join us in France in four days time.
We wait on the platform, surprised at the number of people with cameras poised. What’s going on? We are answered within minutes as a marvellous old steam train pulling 12 carriages pulls in to the platform opposite. Click go the cameras - all the train and photography enthusiasts are out in force. I am so gob smacked I almost forget to take a picture myself. This is how I remember travelling, in the days when we toured with my Mum and Dad. Early morning train calls, checking out of digs…the noise of the steam, the smell of the coal, the grey smut all over us. Oh, it was truly wonderful in a way that those who don’t remember steam trains could never understood. Rod McKuen has a great poem called The Art of Catching trains which starts “I came through the clothesline maze of childhood…….” Love that. My childhood maze was props and skips and band calls at every theatre - but the train was ever constant.
Margaret tells us that last year the Flying Scotsman stopped at Winchfield. This locomotive is called Sir Lamiel in royal fashion. I wouldn’t have missed this for quids.
Once in London we check into the Novotel ( another online special at less than 50%) where we are upgraded to an executive corner room with a lounge area. Maybe it was my smile or our easy going response when told the room was not ready.
We dump the bags and head off to meet my cousin Sue…who swears we have not seen each other since I was twelve. We’re meeting at a swish Nouvelle Cuisine ( didn’t know it still existed) restaurant in Primrose Hill….very swank, but all style and no substance - and horrendously expensive even though we are splitting the bill.
Aaah, but the company is worth any price. Sue and Ivan fit so well into our life it’s as if they have always been there. Ivan works in Feature films…an Academy Award winning sound engineer. He and Sue met on Ring of Bright Water back in the sixties. Love that film and book…. It has fostered in me a deep affection for otters. Sue and I pick up where we left off 50 years or so ago. Ivan and Tony hit it off immediately. He’s a sweetheart and, like beloved, looks younger than his years…..he has a childlike enthusiasm, wears a panama hat and drives a soft top E type jaguar with the top down. Heads turn as they drive down Regent’s Park Parade. More surprises are in store. Ivan is from Newquay…I discovered that about three years ago. And we went to the same ( but separate and non co-educational) school But I now learn that he also lived in Bonython Road, just a few doors from me….AT THE SAME TIME Yet we never met. What’s more, his dad built the house I lived in and where I first started writing.
And they tell me the story of how Ivan knew his way to Sue’s parents’ house the first time he drove there. It turns out he was there, at the bottom of their driveway years before with a boy scout jamboree. Sue even took a photo of him when she was a girl….and discovered it still in the attic of her parents house. Serendipity? Fate? Or some divine plan? If you plotted that in a storyline people would groan and think it corny - truth is more cliched than fiction - and almost always more interesting.
We hate to part….the promise of real friendship is so tantalising - and I say “Come to France ….stay a few days.” Sue hesitates but Ivan says “Why not? We could drive down.” So perhaps we will see them in a week or two. Fingers crossed.
Tonight we took Tony’s sister Bernardine to the theatre. The Arts theatre is in the centre of the west end just off Leicester Square. It has introduced some brilliant shows over the years. This was NOT one of them. Lilies of the Land is about the girls who fought the war by helping the farmers in the Land Army. It got rave revues but is doing lousy business. Sometimes the public IS right. It should have been moving and endearing but was neither. My one piece of theatre in London and it was totally forgettable. Such a shame. Supper in the Spaghetti House across the road and home for a few hours sleep. Tomorrow ……France. J’espere qui ce vacance est le plus meilleur du monde!
Monday, July 12, 2010
You can't go home again
Wednesday July 7th.
They say you can’t go home again…but that’s precisely what I’m doing today. Tony has made his pilgramage in the past few weeks….this is mine.
So, after another sumptuous breakfast….this time in the long family kitchen or day room (It’s grey day with light drizzle….the first we’ve seen in almost three weeks) we load the car and feel as if we are leaving real friends.
We’re off to Newquay - once a quiet and beautiful Cornish family seaside town - now a holiday mecca and venue for schoolies week ( Think The Gold Coast!) I am told to expect Blackpool, so I am armed and resilient.
From the ages of eight to fourteen Newquay was my home and everything I remember that was good about my childhood is linked to that one place. WE first went there when I was only 5 ½ and my Dad was the young comedian in a show which actually starred two west end performers. They were a dud - my Dad was a huge success; they were fired and he was made the star of the show. It was the first summer I remember spending with my Granpa Charlie and Granma Ella, my Mum’s parents - who were also a well known act in the variety theatres and played the Palladium, London’s premier variety theatre. ( My Mum played it while she was only 11). We lved in a big white house overlooking Porth beach and it was an endless summer.
Two years later we returned - my Dad as the star of the summer show Gaytime at a little theatre called The Cosy Nook, right on the beach in the centre of town. Once every season Kevin and I would perform with my Dad in a midnight matinee for charity. He became the town celebrity and locals bought up the last night tickets of the season months in advance. He always ended the season with a parody of These Foolish Things pertinent to the town. Later I copied it for my own Act.
It was the town where I had my first crush on a teacher - graduated to high school, was sexually abused by the husbands in TWO separate families paid to look after us (thank god it was just hands under the covers) Received my first French kiss from a boy called Michael Cornish, kept a hedgehog as a pet, drank milk straight from the cow with a warm froth of cream on the top; ate the best Cornish pasties on earth ( until my Mum learned to cook them) from a shop called Hooper’s; walked the mile and a half up the tree shaded path to St Columb Minor Primary school with my brother Kevin - the hedgerows were full of blackberries and we would stuff ourselves with Fruit as we walked. It was where Adrian, my first boyfriend, played drums for Dad’s show, and I wanted him to notice me because he was always looking at one of the chorus girls who didn’t like me It was where the theatre company played beach cricket every week with one of the major hotels on Lusty Glaze beach….toughly 200 steps down from the top of the cliff. The hotels would bring staff laden with tea urns and scones and cream and climb all the way down and all the way back up again. We had a beach hut for the summer and virtually lived there till it was time for dad to go to work. I can still taste the cold pork sausage and HP sauce sandwiches! My parents were happy then and all who knew her in the following fifty years were regaled with stories of Newquay, It was a magic time of innocence and love - and I was going back there to say one final goodbye.
We stopped at Taunton for a quick visit with the last of Tony’s nephews and his bohemian wife…. We shortchanged them I’m afraid as I was impatient.
Then we drove, and when the signs started to show Newquay, I felt queasy in my stomach. The signpost said St Columb Minor and I thought I saw my old school. I remembered Jimmy Rushton was the teacher I idolised and Mister Golly was the headmaster ( I had to convince Beloved I wasn’t joking). Then down a road I didn’t remember and there’s the gorgeous manor hotel…. We check in, drop the luggage in the attic bedroom, and drive to Newquay. So much is new…but the Barrowfields are still there, and so is the Kilbirnie Hotel and I remember Ken and Eva Barlowe and the fancy dress nights and Beetle Drives they threw for guests ( Does anyone except me remember what the game of Beetle is?) This was the fifties….life was simpler - yes, in many ways it was better. Into Newquay itself, driving round the streets - so many of the beautiful grey stone buildings with their distinctive French look are there - but now the facades are garish and lit with neon signs. The average age seems to be about 17 and all are in wet suits with surfboards….not like the days when we had curved woorden body boards and wet suits were a thing for cissies.
My old high school has gone, and so has the Cosy Nook Theatre and the Rep Theatre and there is no summer season any more - but there’s the entrance to the Newquay Football club where I would go with my whole family to support the team and mostly because I lusted after the Pollard twins David and ???? (Adam? Alan?) Identical blonde blue-eyed twins - Cornish Gods, too beautiful to be real. God, how I wanted to speak to them, but I was too shy. I remember my address - 51 Bonython Road. I was in High School by then….an all girls’ school. The headmistress was an old hawk called Miss Wood. In the lunch break we girls would dance to Gramaphone records in the assembly Hall. Mrs Davies cultivated my lifelong love of history by getting the form to act out Hannibal crossing the alps. The teachers wore black academic gowns and I won the form prize for both Form 1A and 2A - Leather bound books with the school crest on them. I still have them. It caused a furore when I - at age 12 - chose Edgar Alan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination!
The memories come flooding back, and I have no need to see anymore . We head for the hotel and a wonderful dinner and then watch the World Cup in the bar. It’s friendly and jovial but something is niggling in my head. Where is Porth House? Where is Miss Spence’s sweet shop and post office? Why don’t I remember this very grand house? And then I remember….. I’m in the wrong road - and this is the house that used to be largely hidden from sight where the film star Anne Todd and her husband Nigel Tangye summered with daughters Francesca and Lucinda…. Lucinda was the first girl I ever knew to own a horse and I so wanted to be invited into that house but I never was. Now I’m sleeping here - courtesy of a special rate through Late Rooms.com. Tomorrow I’ll find Porth Bean Road. The past is waiting just around the corner.
Thursday 8th.
And there it is - it hasn’t moved…it hasn’t even really changed, not like Newquay or so many other places in my life. Only I am different.
We fortify ourselves with a great breakfast looking out on the croquet lawn and the bay below….golden sand and the little bridge leading to the island where so many lovers trysts took place. I say a silent prayer for my friend Martin, who brought his wife back to this special place where they fell in love, just months before her death. We get in the car - drive to the beach - and running parallel to Porth way we find Porth Bean Road.
There’s Porth House, looking nowhere near as grand as I remember - and a sign indicating the site of the old post office… All Cornish white wash and slate. I recognise the leadlight bay window and realise the connection to the leadlight bays in my house now in the hills. It was the post office and a sweet shop and Kevin and I spent sixpence each a week on lollies there. What was her name - The lady who ran the shop who seemed old to us but was probably in her thirties. Was it Miss Spence? I remember I loved Bullseyes that were kept in a big glass jar on the counter. Porth would be a worthy location for Doc Martin, except it’s smaller and a more eclectic mix. I take photos…. Though I know I will never look at them. Then up the road that Kevin and I travelled each day. We stop at what I thought was my old school…..but it isn’t…though there’s a new primary school next to it. “New” meaning 40 years or so old. Bitterly disappointed I tell Tony to drive on. Then…only a hundred yards or so on - there is is - in all it’s Victorian Austerity- St Columb Minor Primary School - and there’s the window to my classroom - and a parking area ( it’s now business units) that used to be the sports field where Kevin excelled at everything while I had my head stuck in books and tried to ignore the boys teasing me because I already wore a 36C bra at age 11.
I take more photographs…and then I start to cry - I cry because I can’t bring back my dead brother or parents - and I barely know that girl any more. And because, finally, this really is goodbye. I cry all the way to Truro and beyond as we travel back to Hartney Witney - and Beloved silently sends waves of love to me. Mission accomplished. Don’t look back.
They say you can’t go home again…but that’s precisely what I’m doing today. Tony has made his pilgramage in the past few weeks….this is mine.
So, after another sumptuous breakfast….this time in the long family kitchen or day room (It’s grey day with light drizzle….the first we’ve seen in almost three weeks) we load the car and feel as if we are leaving real friends.
We’re off to Newquay - once a quiet and beautiful Cornish family seaside town - now a holiday mecca and venue for schoolies week ( Think The Gold Coast!) I am told to expect Blackpool, so I am armed and resilient.
From the ages of eight to fourteen Newquay was my home and everything I remember that was good about my childhood is linked to that one place. WE first went there when I was only 5 ½ and my Dad was the young comedian in a show which actually starred two west end performers. They were a dud - my Dad was a huge success; they were fired and he was made the star of the show. It was the first summer I remember spending with my Granpa Charlie and Granma Ella, my Mum’s parents - who were also a well known act in the variety theatres and played the Palladium, London’s premier variety theatre. ( My Mum played it while she was only 11). We lved in a big white house overlooking Porth beach and it was an endless summer.
Two years later we returned - my Dad as the star of the summer show Gaytime at a little theatre called The Cosy Nook, right on the beach in the centre of town. Once every season Kevin and I would perform with my Dad in a midnight matinee for charity. He became the town celebrity and locals bought up the last night tickets of the season months in advance. He always ended the season with a parody of These Foolish Things pertinent to the town. Later I copied it for my own Act.
It was the town where I had my first crush on a teacher - graduated to high school, was sexually abused by the husbands in TWO separate families paid to look after us (thank god it was just hands under the covers) Received my first French kiss from a boy called Michael Cornish, kept a hedgehog as a pet, drank milk straight from the cow with a warm froth of cream on the top; ate the best Cornish pasties on earth ( until my Mum learned to cook them) from a shop called Hooper’s; walked the mile and a half up the tree shaded path to St Columb Minor Primary school with my brother Kevin - the hedgerows were full of blackberries and we would stuff ourselves with Fruit as we walked. It was where Adrian, my first boyfriend, played drums for Dad’s show, and I wanted him to notice me because he was always looking at one of the chorus girls who didn’t like me It was where the theatre company played beach cricket every week with one of the major hotels on Lusty Glaze beach….toughly 200 steps down from the top of the cliff. The hotels would bring staff laden with tea urns and scones and cream and climb all the way down and all the way back up again. We had a beach hut for the summer and virtually lived there till it was time for dad to go to work. I can still taste the cold pork sausage and HP sauce sandwiches! My parents were happy then and all who knew her in the following fifty years were regaled with stories of Newquay, It was a magic time of innocence and love - and I was going back there to say one final goodbye.
We stopped at Taunton for a quick visit with the last of Tony’s nephews and his bohemian wife…. We shortchanged them I’m afraid as I was impatient.
Then we drove, and when the signs started to show Newquay, I felt queasy in my stomach. The signpost said St Columb Minor and I thought I saw my old school. I remembered Jimmy Rushton was the teacher I idolised and Mister Golly was the headmaster ( I had to convince Beloved I wasn’t joking). Then down a road I didn’t remember and there’s the gorgeous manor hotel…. We check in, drop the luggage in the attic bedroom, and drive to Newquay. So much is new…but the Barrowfields are still there, and so is the Kilbirnie Hotel and I remember Ken and Eva Barlowe and the fancy dress nights and Beetle Drives they threw for guests ( Does anyone except me remember what the game of Beetle is?) This was the fifties….life was simpler - yes, in many ways it was better. Into Newquay itself, driving round the streets - so many of the beautiful grey stone buildings with their distinctive French look are there - but now the facades are garish and lit with neon signs. The average age seems to be about 17 and all are in wet suits with surfboards….not like the days when we had curved woorden body boards and wet suits were a thing for cissies.
My old high school has gone, and so has the Cosy Nook Theatre and the Rep Theatre and there is no summer season any more - but there’s the entrance to the Newquay Football club where I would go with my whole family to support the team and mostly because I lusted after the Pollard twins David and ???? (Adam? Alan?) Identical blonde blue-eyed twins - Cornish Gods, too beautiful to be real. God, how I wanted to speak to them, but I was too shy. I remember my address - 51 Bonython Road. I was in High School by then….an all girls’ school. The headmistress was an old hawk called Miss Wood. In the lunch break we girls would dance to Gramaphone records in the assembly Hall. Mrs Davies cultivated my lifelong love of history by getting the form to act out Hannibal crossing the alps. The teachers wore black academic gowns and I won the form prize for both Form 1A and 2A - Leather bound books with the school crest on them. I still have them. It caused a furore when I - at age 12 - chose Edgar Alan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination!
The memories come flooding back, and I have no need to see anymore . We head for the hotel and a wonderful dinner and then watch the World Cup in the bar. It’s friendly and jovial but something is niggling in my head. Where is Porth House? Where is Miss Spence’s sweet shop and post office? Why don’t I remember this very grand house? And then I remember….. I’m in the wrong road - and this is the house that used to be largely hidden from sight where the film star Anne Todd and her husband Nigel Tangye summered with daughters Francesca and Lucinda…. Lucinda was the first girl I ever knew to own a horse and I so wanted to be invited into that house but I never was. Now I’m sleeping here - courtesy of a special rate through Late Rooms.com. Tomorrow I’ll find Porth Bean Road. The past is waiting just around the corner.
Thursday 8th.
And there it is - it hasn’t moved…it hasn’t even really changed, not like Newquay or so many other places in my life. Only I am different.
We fortify ourselves with a great breakfast looking out on the croquet lawn and the bay below….golden sand and the little bridge leading to the island where so many lovers trysts took place. I say a silent prayer for my friend Martin, who brought his wife back to this special place where they fell in love, just months before her death. We get in the car - drive to the beach - and running parallel to Porth way we find Porth Bean Road.
There’s Porth House, looking nowhere near as grand as I remember - and a sign indicating the site of the old post office… All Cornish white wash and slate. I recognise the leadlight bay window and realise the connection to the leadlight bays in my house now in the hills. It was the post office and a sweet shop and Kevin and I spent sixpence each a week on lollies there. What was her name - The lady who ran the shop who seemed old to us but was probably in her thirties. Was it Miss Spence? I remember I loved Bullseyes that were kept in a big glass jar on the counter. Porth would be a worthy location for Doc Martin, except it’s smaller and a more eclectic mix. I take photos…. Though I know I will never look at them. Then up the road that Kevin and I travelled each day. We stop at what I thought was my old school…..but it isn’t…though there’s a new primary school next to it. “New” meaning 40 years or so old. Bitterly disappointed I tell Tony to drive on. Then…only a hundred yards or so on - there is is - in all it’s Victorian Austerity- St Columb Minor Primary School - and there’s the window to my classroom - and a parking area ( it’s now business units) that used to be the sports field where Kevin excelled at everything while I had my head stuck in books and tried to ignore the boys teasing me because I already wore a 36C bra at age 11.
I take more photographs…and then I start to cry - I cry because I can’t bring back my dead brother or parents - and I barely know that girl any more. And because, finally, this really is goodbye. I cry all the way to Truro and beyond as we travel back to Hartney Witney - and Beloved silently sends waves of love to me. Mission accomplished. Don’t look back.
Day 22/45- Farliegh Awesome
Tuesday July 7th.
It’s 5.10am, but already it’s daylight and a clear blue sky beckons through the open velux skylight in the sloping roof/wall of our timeless room. One of the loveliest things about waking up in England is the welcoming chorus of the songbirds. Australian birds are fabulously colourful, but for the most part their songs are raucous and squawky, discordant and confronting - much like Australia itself. That’s part of the attraction.
But in England songbirds are just that. They serenade you….thrushes, nightingales, blackbirds create oratorios for your delight. Two blackbirds are sitting on the roof and singing to me like a Lennon/McCartney composition…..and it’s time to get up.
The ONLY thing to complain about in this magical barn in Farleigh Wick is the water pressure in the tiny shower. It trickles out as if afraid of bruising your skin. But I manage to wash my hair ( which has looked like a fuzz ball the whole time in England) and hurry downstairs because I can see a charming table set for breakfast in the garden with its deck, and water feature ponds and big summerhouse filled with slightly Moroccan couches and an old gramophone - the whole scene is like something from a Merchant/Ivory production.
Carol…..our wonderful hostess…has offered a feast of fresh fruit, juices, cereals and a full English breakfast so we stuff ourselves with bacon, sausage, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast from a little silver toast rack. It’s sublime. We’re so relaxed we want to sleep again. Is it time for bed yet?
There are two exuberant liver and white springer spaniels who are not allowed in the house. They’re hunting dogs for when Peter goes to shoot pheasant or even rabbits I guess. They’re desperate for a game and so I get conned into throwing their tennis ball for them. Dutifully they bring it back, tails wagging furiously. When it is temporarily lost in long grass they bring me a crab apple from the old gnarled tree instead and it bounces just as well as the tennis ball - perhaps a hint for Wimbledon next year!
We head off into the little town of Bradford on Avon. Tony says the patron saint of travellers always watches us. If we’d stayed in Bath itself we would never have known about this stunning little town on the river. But because Bath was full we had to go further afield.
Through winding streets, some of them cobbled, we ooh and aah at everything from Tudor to Georgian buildings, wondrous old pubs, and laneways with names like The Shambles ( Previously saved as a name for my side of the bedroom!) filled with leadlight windowed cottages and shops and geranium filled window boxes. We have morning tea - stilled stuffed from breakfast - in Britain’s oldest tearooms, and also its best - awarded for the last seven years. There are 32 different kinds of tea on the menu - not counting the blends you can request. Bliss.
The afternoon is spent lazing on big leather couches watching the tour de France in REAL time instead of 2 am. Then we head for Bath again - knowing that there is still at least six hours of daylight ahead of us.
Bath tugs at our heart strings even more strongly this time…and I KNOW I could live here happily if it weren’t for the bloody English weather ( the fantastic summer is trying to fool us). We walk through the parks and admire the Georgian and Victorian bandstands and fountains…. Oak and Rowan trees line our paths…and the chestnut are starting to appear on the chestnut trees; and of course there is always a silver birch somewhere in the background. It’s warm…and the breeze is lyrical. We meet up with Rachel and Mike and the kids….such a joy to see them again…. Ben has grown so tall. It’s Graduation day and so most of the restaurants are full but we manage some pizzas and a bottle of BAD Argentinian wine before parting, promising to see each other again…but who knows when.
Then we are off to The Roman baths - splendidly Georgian on the surface, ancient and Roman below….full of secrets and ambiance and ghosts of antiquity. We are seeing it at twilight - 9pm - and the baths are lit by huge open flamed torches. It’s a heart stopping experience. One can almost feel the presence of the Ancient Romans gathering to socialise. The main bath is strangely green and eerie - the hot spring bubbles at it’s source and the water runs through a stone channel cut by its path for over 2,000 years. It’s quite late now and the bath is deserted, so I dip my toe in it and am surprised by just how hot it is. For a moment I half expect a Roman official to order me from the place - but the silence is more eloquent than any roman could be.
I feel quite over-awed as we drive back to the long barn. Tony lived his first forty five years in Britain yet had never been to Bath….though it’s only 60 miles, or 100 kms approx from London. How tragic that we take so much around us for granted. He is as overwhelmed as I am. Back at our wondrous B&B Carol and Peter and their son Zac with his girlfriend Claire are in the summerhouse lit by candles as the last trace of light is finally dying. They’re listening to music and drinking wine and ask us to join them….not something they generally do with guests. We spend a delightful hour sprawled on the big Moroocan couches, laughing, talking, drinking. Forget the poo bah military types….these are the English that made Britain great: adventurous, generous, witty and welcoming. We all speak the same language of the mind and heart. If we lived here, they and Rachel and Mike would be people we would want as friends. Although we both love Australia, there is no-one there except family whom we have connected to in such a way . When we climb the stairs we are truly happy….but also sad that such a special day has come to an end.
It’s 5.10am, but already it’s daylight and a clear blue sky beckons through the open velux skylight in the sloping roof/wall of our timeless room. One of the loveliest things about waking up in England is the welcoming chorus of the songbirds. Australian birds are fabulously colourful, but for the most part their songs are raucous and squawky, discordant and confronting - much like Australia itself. That’s part of the attraction.
But in England songbirds are just that. They serenade you….thrushes, nightingales, blackbirds create oratorios for your delight. Two blackbirds are sitting on the roof and singing to me like a Lennon/McCartney composition…..and it’s time to get up.
The ONLY thing to complain about in this magical barn in Farleigh Wick is the water pressure in the tiny shower. It trickles out as if afraid of bruising your skin. But I manage to wash my hair ( which has looked like a fuzz ball the whole time in England) and hurry downstairs because I can see a charming table set for breakfast in the garden with its deck, and water feature ponds and big summerhouse filled with slightly Moroccan couches and an old gramophone - the whole scene is like something from a Merchant/Ivory production.
Carol…..our wonderful hostess…has offered a feast of fresh fruit, juices, cereals and a full English breakfast so we stuff ourselves with bacon, sausage, eggs, tomatoes, mushrooms and toast from a little silver toast rack. It’s sublime. We’re so relaxed we want to sleep again. Is it time for bed yet?
There are two exuberant liver and white springer spaniels who are not allowed in the house. They’re hunting dogs for when Peter goes to shoot pheasant or even rabbits I guess. They’re desperate for a game and so I get conned into throwing their tennis ball for them. Dutifully they bring it back, tails wagging furiously. When it is temporarily lost in long grass they bring me a crab apple from the old gnarled tree instead and it bounces just as well as the tennis ball - perhaps a hint for Wimbledon next year!
We head off into the little town of Bradford on Avon. Tony says the patron saint of travellers always watches us. If we’d stayed in Bath itself we would never have known about this stunning little town on the river. But because Bath was full we had to go further afield.
Through winding streets, some of them cobbled, we ooh and aah at everything from Tudor to Georgian buildings, wondrous old pubs, and laneways with names like The Shambles ( Previously saved as a name for my side of the bedroom!) filled with leadlight windowed cottages and shops and geranium filled window boxes. We have morning tea - stilled stuffed from breakfast - in Britain’s oldest tearooms, and also its best - awarded for the last seven years. There are 32 different kinds of tea on the menu - not counting the blends you can request. Bliss.
The afternoon is spent lazing on big leather couches watching the tour de France in REAL time instead of 2 am. Then we head for Bath again - knowing that there is still at least six hours of daylight ahead of us.
Bath tugs at our heart strings even more strongly this time…and I KNOW I could live here happily if it weren’t for the bloody English weather ( the fantastic summer is trying to fool us). We walk through the parks and admire the Georgian and Victorian bandstands and fountains…. Oak and Rowan trees line our paths…and the chestnut are starting to appear on the chestnut trees; and of course there is always a silver birch somewhere in the background. It’s warm…and the breeze is lyrical. We meet up with Rachel and Mike and the kids….such a joy to see them again…. Ben has grown so tall. It’s Graduation day and so most of the restaurants are full but we manage some pizzas and a bottle of BAD Argentinian wine before parting, promising to see each other again…but who knows when.
Then we are off to The Roman baths - splendidly Georgian on the surface, ancient and Roman below….full of secrets and ambiance and ghosts of antiquity. We are seeing it at twilight - 9pm - and the baths are lit by huge open flamed torches. It’s a heart stopping experience. One can almost feel the presence of the Ancient Romans gathering to socialise. The main bath is strangely green and eerie - the hot spring bubbles at it’s source and the water runs through a stone channel cut by its path for over 2,000 years. It’s quite late now and the bath is deserted, so I dip my toe in it and am surprised by just how hot it is. For a moment I half expect a Roman official to order me from the place - but the silence is more eloquent than any roman could be.
I feel quite over-awed as we drive back to the long barn. Tony lived his first forty five years in Britain yet had never been to Bath….though it’s only 60 miles, or 100 kms approx from London. How tragic that we take so much around us for granted. He is as overwhelmed as I am. Back at our wondrous B&B Carol and Peter and their son Zac with his girlfriend Claire are in the summerhouse lit by candles as the last trace of light is finally dying. They’re listening to music and drinking wine and ask us to join them….not something they generally do with guests. We spend a delightful hour sprawled on the big Moroocan couches, laughing, talking, drinking. Forget the poo bah military types….these are the English that made Britain great: adventurous, generous, witty and welcoming. We all speak the same language of the mind and heart. If we lived here, they and Rachel and Mike would be people we would want as friends. Although we both love Australia, there is no-one there except family whom we have connected to in such a way . When we climb the stairs we are truly happy….but also sad that such a special day has come to an end.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Day 21/46 - Bath is a four letter word - so is Love.
If it's Monday ( and it is) it must be Bath.
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to go to Bath. It's an old Romqan town originally called Aquaeus Solis ( Bath is so much more catchy!) I am impatient in the car - like a little kid really. Fortunately Tony has never been either and is equally on edge. Sometimes things, people,places, just don't live up to expectations. But this isn't one of those times.
We drive through through the wiltshire villages, then past stone henge, looming against the clear blue sky. Somehow we miss the white horse carved into Salisbury plain but we manage to find the Park and Ride.
Park and ride is a fantastic idea which would work in Sydney and Melbourne. You just park your car in a large free car park on the outskirts of the city and you catch a non-stop bus to the city centre at a nominal fee. Brilliant - innovation you don't expect from 21st century Britain.
And suddenly, after a painless 10 minute ride, we are there......and all the waiting has been worth while.
The city has an aura which is not like any I have experienced before. It's a little like Brigadoon in that it's perfect and you expect it to disappear back into the midst without warning. A little like a film set, or a landscape painting, and a whole lot like a history lesson..... Bath exists, as my friend Rachel says, in a bubble. It's untouched by what happens in the rest of Britain....no homeless on the streets, no gangs, no street kids, no traffic, no litter - it's white bread middle class through and through. That ought to annoy me with shades of The Stepford Wives But it doesn't. It's beautiful and something to aspire to. It's also full of divine Georgian architecture and Roman ruins, though parts of it look very french with grey slate roofs and attic windows.
I am charmed......worse:- I'm in love! The likelihood of moving back to Britain is about the same as winning Miss World 2012 - but if the former were to happen I would live in Bath. If the latter happens I will die of the shock and have no need to live anywhere.
For hours we just wander the streets, filled with their hanging flower baskets, and ogle the buildings and take countless pictures.
We meet Tony's youngest nephew at a lovely pub and say yet another hello/goodbye. There is nothing morbid about this. We expect to live another hundred years...give or take a few.... ut it's wonderful to let people know what they mean to you....just in case.
The famous Roman Baths....fed by the same spring for more than 2,000 years, are beckoning us...but we want to see them at twilight by torchlight so content ourselves with the Abbey and The Circus and The Royal Crescent....then catch the Park and Ride back to our car and head for our B&B.
We are staying at the Bath Long Barn in the tiny village of Farleigh Wick, which lies between Bath and the little town of Bradford Upon Avon. The satnav takes along a range of single file farm roads so we see far more than we expected - but finally we find the long barn. It'sdelightful,...words like quaint, eccentric, slightly wacky and character filled come to mind. We fall in love with it instantly from the moment we see all the glass cased military uniforms in the entry hall and climb the stairs into the roof space where our four poster bed awaits in a little room with a huge skylight window overlooking the summerhouse and the fields beyond. It's magic!
Carol and Peter look younger than their years - though they are still far younger than either of us. This is their home, but they welcome us like long lost rellies from the Antipodes. We just have time for a quick cuppa and then it's off to meet Mike L....a relative by marriage and an all round great bloke - for a beer, all very civilised.
Later we go to a recommendation of Carol's for dinner. The Kings Arms is a 16th century stone Inn which serves exquisite food in gorgeous surroundings. It's a Monday night and we don't arrive until 9.30pm...but there's no suggestion that we are too late. We stuff ourselves on trout (me) and sausages and Mash...Wiltshire pork sausages made just down the road. Tony is determined to sample pork sausages in every county in Britain. They really are delicious. One thing we DON"T do well in OZ is a good pork sausage.
When we leave it is quarter to 11 and the sun has set but the long twilight still casts its eerie light across the skies.
Home via the country road and the smell of wildflowers and honeysuckle. We fall asleep in each other's arms...the way it's meant to be; the way we promised it would ALWAYS be when we first met.
Was ever a day so perfect? France will have a lot to live up to. And we have another whole day and night here. Bliss!
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to go to Bath. It's an old Romqan town originally called Aquaeus Solis ( Bath is so much more catchy!) I am impatient in the car - like a little kid really. Fortunately Tony has never been either and is equally on edge. Sometimes things, people,places, just don't live up to expectations. But this isn't one of those times.
We drive through through the wiltshire villages, then past stone henge, looming against the clear blue sky. Somehow we miss the white horse carved into Salisbury plain but we manage to find the Park and Ride.
Park and ride is a fantastic idea which would work in Sydney and Melbourne. You just park your car in a large free car park on the outskirts of the city and you catch a non-stop bus to the city centre at a nominal fee. Brilliant - innovation you don't expect from 21st century Britain.
And suddenly, after a painless 10 minute ride, we are there......and all the waiting has been worth while.
The city has an aura which is not like any I have experienced before. It's a little like Brigadoon in that it's perfect and you expect it to disappear back into the midst without warning. A little like a film set, or a landscape painting, and a whole lot like a history lesson..... Bath exists, as my friend Rachel says, in a bubble. It's untouched by what happens in the rest of Britain....no homeless on the streets, no gangs, no street kids, no traffic, no litter - it's white bread middle class through and through. That ought to annoy me with shades of The Stepford Wives But it doesn't. It's beautiful and something to aspire to. It's also full of divine Georgian architecture and Roman ruins, though parts of it look very french with grey slate roofs and attic windows.
I am charmed......worse:- I'm in love! The likelihood of moving back to Britain is about the same as winning Miss World 2012 - but if the former were to happen I would live in Bath. If the latter happens I will die of the shock and have no need to live anywhere.
For hours we just wander the streets, filled with their hanging flower baskets, and ogle the buildings and take countless pictures.
We meet Tony's youngest nephew at a lovely pub and say yet another hello/goodbye. There is nothing morbid about this. We expect to live another hundred years...give or take a few.... ut it's wonderful to let people know what they mean to you....just in case.
The famous Roman Baths....fed by the same spring for more than 2,000 years, are beckoning us...but we want to see them at twilight by torchlight so content ourselves with the Abbey and The Circus and The Royal Crescent....then catch the Park and Ride back to our car and head for our B&B.
We are staying at the Bath Long Barn in the tiny village of Farleigh Wick, which lies between Bath and the little town of Bradford Upon Avon. The satnav takes along a range of single file farm roads so we see far more than we expected - but finally we find the long barn. It'sdelightful,...words like quaint, eccentric, slightly wacky and character filled come to mind. We fall in love with it instantly from the moment we see all the glass cased military uniforms in the entry hall and climb the stairs into the roof space where our four poster bed awaits in a little room with a huge skylight window overlooking the summerhouse and the fields beyond. It's magic!
Carol and Peter look younger than their years - though they are still far younger than either of us. This is their home, but they welcome us like long lost rellies from the Antipodes. We just have time for a quick cuppa and then it's off to meet Mike L....a relative by marriage and an all round great bloke - for a beer, all very civilised.
Later we go to a recommendation of Carol's for dinner. The Kings Arms is a 16th century stone Inn which serves exquisite food in gorgeous surroundings. It's a Monday night and we don't arrive until 9.30pm...but there's no suggestion that we are too late. We stuff ourselves on trout (me) and sausages and Mash...Wiltshire pork sausages made just down the road. Tony is determined to sample pork sausages in every county in Britain. They really are delicious. One thing we DON"T do well in OZ is a good pork sausage.
When we leave it is quarter to 11 and the sun has set but the long twilight still casts its eerie light across the skies.
Home via the country road and the smell of wildflowers and honeysuckle. We fall asleep in each other's arms...the way it's meant to be; the way we promised it would ALWAYS be when we first met.
Was ever a day so perfect? France will have a lot to live up to. And we have another whole day and night here. Bliss!
Day 20/47 - And uncle Tom Cobley and all.
Sunday - July 4th.
I am an orphan. Well, practically. I have a half brother whom I never see and one cousin whom I last saw 48 years ago. I am used to it now, though it hit me hard when my younger brother died four years ago. Tony, on the other hand, has relatives appearing out of the closet at the rate of a bad case of chickenpox. It's alarming how many of them there are - large catholic families are not more randy than their counterparts, just less careful. Worst of all, chickenpox goes away....families don't.
Today is a family reunion, and I am thrilled! (not)
So after 4 days of one on one family with M - today we head for Dunstable - which is famous for being close to many far more interesting places.
It's a reasonable 1 1/2 trip up one of the motorways beginning with an M or an A.......they all look the same to me. The countryside is pretty though, and Margaret has brought packets of polo mints and Glacier ice mints. Not sure if they are to refresh me or finish me off, since she knows I am a diabetic. But we reach a neat little house with a sweet English garden and we hurried un-necessarily since we're the first to arrive.
I'm a very in your face person. (NO? Really? I find that hard to believe!) But I dread joining a group of people where I don't know anyone. Tony, on the other hand, is quite happy to hold court to 25 strangers....most of whom he knows from Facebook, and all of whom are charmed by him. (Well if I am, why wouldn't they be?)
It seems they are all cousins but I can't fully work out who belongs to whom. And I'm still full of flu/hayfever. It's a triple celebration.....family welcome to us, Val and Mario (who is Argentinian...not Italian) 40th wedding anniversary - and Erin ( who stayed with us in Australia) is having her 28th birthday!
I meet all these charming people but when Tony mentions Home and Away and Neighbours I am suddenly inundated with questions and followed around by fans wanting to know what has happened to their favourite characters - even though it's some years since I wrote for either show. I find a place to hide and sit in the sum but it does occur to me that what I do is actually of great importance to people whose lives I would not normally cross.
The entertainment is to watch six adults attempt to put up one of those Bunning type Gazebos with a polythene roof. Ideally it needs an architect or a project manager. They manage to make it stable just as the sun decides it's had enough fun at their expense and goes in for the day.
There is so much food we could feed the starving masses of Africa....Lasagna, sausages, salads, a brilliant dish of artichoke hearts, cheese and Creme fraiche which is to die for.....huge pavlovas ( which the Brits still quaintly refer to as "Pudding") and fruit salad and birthday cake and....and....and......
It's a joyful celebration which ends with promises for us all to stay in touch. It's the right thing to say even we know we probably will never meet again. There are people in the group that I would really like to get to know...... Sass, a wildly eccentric lady of 73 going on 30...cut from the same cloth as beloved, promises she will come to Australia and stay with us.....but we both know she won't.
Val, the hostess, feeds me an antihistamine designed for children from a platic spoon. Most of it spills down my boobs - but that's nothing new. When i get a chest cold it never wants to leave. The women in my family are all very booby, whilst the men are - for the most part - booby prizes! Remarkably it does make me feel better for a little while at least.
The fond goodbyes and hugs are quite moving. These are just family by proxy for me - but they are blood for Tony and I know he doesn't expect to see any again. It's poignant and my eyes fill with tears.....or maybe it's the hayfever returning.
On the way back to Hamstershire Margaret fills us in on some of the background....things I wish I had known BEFORE meeting them.
It's now only six days till France and tomorrow we head off to Bath which we are both longing to see.
Now the holiday really begins!
I am an orphan. Well, practically. I have a half brother whom I never see and one cousin whom I last saw 48 years ago. I am used to it now, though it hit me hard when my younger brother died four years ago. Tony, on the other hand, has relatives appearing out of the closet at the rate of a bad case of chickenpox. It's alarming how many of them there are - large catholic families are not more randy than their counterparts, just less careful. Worst of all, chickenpox goes away....families don't.
Today is a family reunion, and I am thrilled! (not)
So after 4 days of one on one family with M - today we head for Dunstable - which is famous for being close to many far more interesting places.
It's a reasonable 1 1/2 trip up one of the motorways beginning with an M or an A.......they all look the same to me. The countryside is pretty though, and Margaret has brought packets of polo mints and Glacier ice mints. Not sure if they are to refresh me or finish me off, since she knows I am a diabetic. But we reach a neat little house with a sweet English garden and we hurried un-necessarily since we're the first to arrive.
I'm a very in your face person. (NO? Really? I find that hard to believe!) But I dread joining a group of people where I don't know anyone. Tony, on the other hand, is quite happy to hold court to 25 strangers....most of whom he knows from Facebook, and all of whom are charmed by him. (Well if I am, why wouldn't they be?)
It seems they are all cousins but I can't fully work out who belongs to whom. And I'm still full of flu/hayfever. It's a triple celebration.....family welcome to us, Val and Mario (who is Argentinian...not Italian) 40th wedding anniversary - and Erin ( who stayed with us in Australia) is having her 28th birthday!
I meet all these charming people but when Tony mentions Home and Away and Neighbours I am suddenly inundated with questions and followed around by fans wanting to know what has happened to their favourite characters - even though it's some years since I wrote for either show. I find a place to hide and sit in the sum but it does occur to me that what I do is actually of great importance to people whose lives I would not normally cross.
The entertainment is to watch six adults attempt to put up one of those Bunning type Gazebos with a polythene roof. Ideally it needs an architect or a project manager. They manage to make it stable just as the sun decides it's had enough fun at their expense and goes in for the day.
There is so much food we could feed the starving masses of Africa....Lasagna, sausages, salads, a brilliant dish of artichoke hearts, cheese and Creme fraiche which is to die for.....huge pavlovas ( which the Brits still quaintly refer to as "Pudding") and fruit salad and birthday cake and....and....and......
It's a joyful celebration which ends with promises for us all to stay in touch. It's the right thing to say even we know we probably will never meet again. There are people in the group that I would really like to get to know...... Sass, a wildly eccentric lady of 73 going on 30...cut from the same cloth as beloved, promises she will come to Australia and stay with us.....but we both know she won't.
Val, the hostess, feeds me an antihistamine designed for children from a platic spoon. Most of it spills down my boobs - but that's nothing new. When i get a chest cold it never wants to leave. The women in my family are all very booby, whilst the men are - for the most part - booby prizes! Remarkably it does make me feel better for a little while at least.
The fond goodbyes and hugs are quite moving. These are just family by proxy for me - but they are blood for Tony and I know he doesn't expect to see any again. It's poignant and my eyes fill with tears.....or maybe it's the hayfever returning.
On the way back to Hamstershire Margaret fills us in on some of the background....things I wish I had known BEFORE meeting them.
It's now only six days till France and tomorrow we head off to Bath which we are both longing to see.
Now the holiday really begins!
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