Up the Ben and Down the Boozer

Airplane Etiquette

 

After a regrettably unfortunate trip trapped in the belly of a giant- winged cylindrical pod carrying 321 human beings 35,000 feet above the ground at blazing speeds that shorten a week's trip by sea to seven hours by air, I thought Up the Ben should offer as does every other travel column, some Helpful Hints on Airplane Etiquette. The woman in the photo above has perhaps the best advice--begin your trip with a neck brace.

At the Airport:

1.  If the security  line snakes back through double rows and everybody is already late, think twice (or just think) about choosing Door A at TSA screening (the one with full body radiation which carries the large sign warning  electronically implanted passengers  not to use it if you have a heart pacemaker) and then scream halfway through, "Oh my god I have a heart pacemaker!"

2.  Buy something before you board--anything. A newspaper, m and m's , book, martini, seaweed salad.  Duty free has good deals on Johnny Walker which no one where you are going will want as a gift.  Walk around a lot and look out windows. Watch other passengers crowd around the boarding call looking hopeful, wanting to be first to rush in to sit down and wait. See if you can figure out who got an op-up.

 

On the Plane

3.  Try very hard not to spill an entire glass of water on your wife within a brief 30 minutes of takeoff. If you spill it anyway try not to insist that you didn't. If she has used her inflight fleece blanket to mop herself up, give her yours.

4.  It is all right to kick the seat in front of you when its owner slams it backwards while you are eating dinner on your seatback tray. If the passenger in front of you retaliates and your dinner ends up on your husband give him back his fleece blanket.

5.  If you are two parents traveling with one small child  and one of you is seated in  seats A and C  so the child can have a window and the other is seated in D in the middle row across the corridor,  thoughtfully avoid loud arguments about who does what when the child needs changing, feeding or entertaining nor, even more loudly, who is doing it wrong.

 6.  Keep in mind that if you choose to stick your metal -studded tongue out towards your co-parent across the aisle and then turn to your child to say nastily, "Daddy is in a mean mood" loudly enough for Daddy to hear, the rest of us will too.

7.  If your child is fussy avoid filling him or her full of treats, even if you are desperate to be the parent doing it right.

8.  When your child  who has been filled with treats projectile vomits over the passenger in front of you who happens to be me, it is nice to apologize even if it means you will miss a moment of commandeering the entire crew of flight attendants attending to your personal needs. 

9.  If the child behind vomits on you and the entire crew is attending to its mother's personal needs, take the fleece blanket back from your husband.

10.  If you are a person who likes to watch in -flight movies on your teeny tiny seat back monitor and you are seated behind someone who happens to be me and prefers to look out the amazing window while they are flying 35,000 feet above planet earth, it is not okay to lean forward to slam my window shade down so that you can see your monitor better.

11.  When the rest of the cabin is trying to sleep and you sleep best with your seat back reclined into my stomach with your ipod turned to full volume, and your earbuds sort of get loose as you sleep-- don't expect them to still be there when you wake up.

Landing:

11. When the plane has finally landed and the Flight Services Supervisor foolishly allows the use of portable electric devices, try not to use this as a public opportunity to call down your entire list of friends and relations to say,

"I'm here. Well, not really here yet. Still in the plane. No, we've just landed. Landed where? Oh didn't I tell you I was going? I know we haven't spoken in a while but...by the way what ever happened to that guy you were seeing?"  and then  keep them all updated on each stage as the seatbelt sign goes off, your bag is down from the overhead bin, you are  in line to get off, you exit the plane and  you are waiting for your luggage in the terminal.

"Yes, ten minutes now."

"Wait I think I see it."

"No it's black like mine but doesn't have that dent, you know the one on the side from that time when...oh hang on there it is, look I'm going to have to call you back because I just dropped it."

"No, turned out it wasn't mine.  How was I to know?  Yeah, well I didn't know if the dent was from before I dropped it  which would make it mine or after and the person's whose it actually was got really in my face about it. Why does everyone have to have black bags?

 Hey, are you still there?"

 12.  Difficult as it is to ignore this behavior when it is happening all around you and you are jetlagged and tired, the screaming kid's tongue-pierced parents are yelling at each other about whose fault it is that his pacifier got left on the plane and  you are holding on to the ragged ends of your good humor, remember that it is Highly Unlikely that these people will be on your return flight.

Isn't it?

 

 Have you had a similar flight? Care to add your own advice?

 

Point to Point?

March, Devon

Today is bucolic British countryside, horses, dogs and money. Lots of money.  Add amateur racing over formidable hurdles, regulation tweeds and the presence of both the local hunt and local folk and you've got a Point to Point. For those in the know, Point to Point racing is  fast horses hurtling over stiff fences, first one home wins a prize and we who have bested the  bookies come home happy. Unless of course we lose it all on the next race.

Point to Points are for non -professional race riders and hunt members who may or may not be the sons or daughters of the wealthy owners who provide the racehorses.  Equine competitors must themselves be certified as having hunted with hounds at least seven times, a task better suited to those built for fast and slow, not just fast.  Each race  is at least three miles of 18 brush and log fences  at a height of about 4 foot 3 inches. Some have ditches on one side or the other. Most horses can jump a little (2 feet), some can jump a little more (3 feet) but the true racing athletes are those who can run and jump and still have enough oomph at the end of a taxing  two- round circuit to stay the course.

I introduced Tom to professional steeplechase racing a few years ago at Ludlow Races in Shropshire. A lovely course, a sunny day, enough wins and I'd created a monster.  My enthusiasm was likely the fuel to Tom's fire as many years ago I was an exercise girl and rode a season as an amateur jockey at point to points.  At my present age I think of that long ago self as having been remarkably stupid. I was not very high in the pecking order for rides and generally got what no one else wanted; the barely broken, the clumsy, and the truly maniacal. That I did not fall off (much) was luck, but that passion for speed, the beauty of an equine athlete soaring over a demanding fence and the thrill of a bet is a seduction shared by  many less foolish than I. 

There are well over a hundred Point to Points across the UK during the season, November to June, and while sometimes held at traditional race courses, they are usually a chance to enjoy a colorful event on beautiful land we might not otherwise be invited to. We are taking advantage of a farmer's generosity to spend the day on his lower 40 at the East Devon Hunt Club races at Bishop's Court near Ottery St. Mary on a bright spring day. We pay to park (cheaper by the carload) in a green meadow surrounded by other race-goers who have brought their dogs, wellies and  small children. The races are run just below us on a simple oval circuit that crosses two fields, runs up a hill and ends right under the judges' noses, where they make the close calls.  We stop at the race card trailer to pick up that talisman of information that allows us to be in the know. Some of the horses entered have been scratched and we watch the board by the trailer that sells the race cards to know who is wheat and who is chaff.

Members of the hunt are present in full regalia as course chaperones, their solid mounts mooching around like relaxed plodders until they s print forward to catch a loose horse or chase a dog off the course. Just above the course are the bookies and the beer tent. Local ladies provide bacon butties, sausage rolls, cakes and tea to those who are not (or not yet) on their first pint. Market stalls offer us wrapped cuts of local lamb, free range eggs by the half dozen, home-made marmalades, tweed hats and flat caps. I can see Tom eyeing the stall selling heavy waxed jackets at an excellent price.

 Bookies lined in a row, each has a tote board with their odds on the current race. Usually a two- member team, one writes, erases and re-writes as the odds constantly shift to reflect bets placed while the other deftly takes money and hands out betting slips to the patient queues of those with their eyes on the prize.  

I have a mystical need to watch each string of wannabes waltz around the saddling paddock prior to their race and make my picks based on what the horses are telling me. I always bet on anything named Archie. Tom tends to choose horses who ring an Irish bell, are owned by a syndicate of local farmers or are named after one of the Beatles. Here's the wonder of our method--although we bet small sums and sensibly withold the bet from the winnings, we are remarkably lucky.  When the number three horse I thought looked really good in the program throws me a "forget about it" look as he stamps around his warm up-- I forget about it. When a potential hero gives the crowd a saucy wink, my five quid go his way. 

We place our bets, often h edging them by betting 'both ways' which reduces risk as it covers a win or a second or third. Taking our binoculars and bacon butties, we wander down the field to stand on a rocky hummock just over the stone fence from the long line of jumps that make the back end of the course. From here we can see most of the course in a 360 view as well as the pre-race parade past us of Land Rovers filled with volunteers, the hunt members' haughty steeds and the omnipresent horse ambulance which also serves as the knacker's van. Horses injured and "put down" in the field are used as kennel ration for the hunt's hounds. Their jockeys are not.

The horn blows, and they are off. At this distance we can only sporadically hear the
announcer calling the race so we concentrate on the spectacle by picking out our horse both by jockey's silks and horse's color. There are races for all categories of proficiencies but this one is hunt members and is considered a "fun" race. None of the prize money is big in point to points as their origin comes from the concept of one hunt member betting another hunt member  gentleman to gentleman, that, "my horse is faster than your horse" and this race lets them duke it out. My money is on a neat looking gray gelding who had a pleasant 'can-do' attitude in the paddock and Tom's is a scarily big bright chestnut who looks like he could complete all 18 fences in one huge leap.

The sun shines, the grass is green, dogs and children chase each other around their families' picnic hampers and the galloping horses seem more a background for a nice day out than a tense win/lose high stakes race. As this race is for really amateur- amateur jockeys, some fall off.  Some get tired and stop and some horses get tired and stop. Tom's horse is in the lead until the home stretch and he is beside himself with excitement as he bet him as a long shot but the jockey gets tired and falls off.

My horse gamely stays in the mix and brings me home a tidy little sum in third place. 

We walk back up the meadow as overful Land Rovers spilling out raucous volunteers
 trundle back to spend their winnings at the beer hall. The horse ambulance follows and we bring up the rear along  with two young pram-pushing mums and their out of bounds older children who are climbing trees and hitting each other.

I collect my winnings and spend a portion on two jars of  rough cut orange marmalade and  two cups of milky tea but do not buy Tom a waxed jacket. Young women nattily dressed  in mini-skirted green tweeds and look-alike Kate hair-do's saunter around with yappy Jack Russell terriers straining at the end of matching leads. The farmer selling his lamb seems oblivious to the effect the warming sun might be having on his open-air display. 

 We stay for four more races, cash in our final winnings and leave before the day is officially ended as we have a sudden need to see the sea. I can't help stopping at the saddling paddock one last time as the next race's hopefuls file in. A lively bay mare catches my eye, and for one breathtaking moment-- I catch hers. I see her galloping down to the winner's finish  three lengths to spare at great odds and very nearly go back to wager my newly won fistful of pounds.

But I don't. Bon chance.

 Royalty at the Races. Reuters 14.03.12

 

 

My Big Hairy Souvenir

 

Most of us collect remembrances from our travels.  A sniff of sachet brings back summer, soft skies and heathery lavender fields.  A pearly conch is the week it rained on the Cape. The pile of Ordnance Survey maps are to gaze at on winter nights recalling walks taken and those awaiting possibility.

We stash ticket stubs and brochures and postcards we will never mail in little paper bags that rustle up entire trips long gone. I have a small mesh bag full of what even I can now see are slightly revolting bird feathers  that appeared one by one on every  path I took in an Irish autumn.  Baskets and bottles hold pebbles and sea shells from distant coasts.

Mostly what we cram into our overful bags is stuff for friends back home like beer mats and pencils,  book marks and tea in a hopeless effort to share a trip uniquely ours. 

The corners of the suitcase are for us. I have taken to collecting tops of egg cartons.

Here’s what I brought home as souvenirs from our recent two weeks in the UK:

 

• 1 black fleece jacket purchased due to cold (too big—gave to son)
• 1 Oyster Card with £3.35 left on it
• Charity shop must-haves: 1 flouncy black skirt, 2 blouses, 3 books
• 5 David Hockney Royal Academy Exhibit postcards and 1 poster (rolled and squashed).
• My own box of tea (Yorkshire Gold Rwandan)
• 3 boxes Boots dental sticks
• 1 bag Cadbury Milk Minis (3 eaten on plane)
• 2 Hello magazines (1 read on plane)
• 1  Small Horse (large pony)

 Like the space-challenged tourists we saw haggling for suitcases at I Love London, we had to buy a small zippered duffel in Edinburgh to accommodate our woeful ways. The pony of course didn't fit so he’ll have to take a later flight. 

Acquiring a hairy pony is not quite the same as collecting shells but like all good souvenirs its the serendipity that makes it a story. This pony with his strong sure legs, dapper feet and glossy coat is a Dales whose origins are so ancient they go back to the Galloways of Roman invaders who worked the Yorkshire mines. Endangered now, Dales make coveted riding and driving ponies with great stamina and sensible minds. Their long manes and tails curl elegantly towards feathery fetlocks.  

Plus this one has a moustache.

 

Tea shared, hands shaken, the pony has headed south to Devon for a few weeks course in How To Carry A Human. Once he has his diploma I will return for my own training in How To Ride This Horse. We will then set sail to Amsterdam where we will insert our hairy, short selves  into a crate between svelte Olympic equine jet-setters and cross his Atlantic for mine. 

Here's what my husband Tom brought home from our trip: 

A Tottenham Hot Spurs Wind-Up Alarm Clock.

 

 

Arrive London—Rent a Car Survival

 

 

 

Heathrow Airport 2011

Many of us are well familiar with wandering blearily into Heathrow after having been awake for the past million hours.  While Big Ben is donging half past 7 am London time, our eastern US alarms aren't due to go off for another five hours. We are awake during our prime REM time and, stupid as it is and sounds-- we're about to (legally and on the 'wrong side ' of the road) drive a car. 

I like to think I am getting better at it as I get older. No longer do I drive into oncoming traffic  endangering everyone in visible sight as I head out of Glasgow Airport, nor does Tom book the Irish rental car for 10 am when it is 5:30 we arrive in Dublin. We both know that while we can manage a couple of hours drive-time, we'll need a serious break before our brains fade. 

That we are bound to come to words before we are actually on an M Road, is a dead cert. But--we have a plan. I am now the doyen of car hire and I book with the same companies each time because A: I have priorities and B: I am cheap. Free extra driver*, free mileage, fast pass and a quick shuttle --all aces. Currently a fan of National (EuropeCar) because they have all of the above plus a free-for-all choose your own car plan, it usually goes like this:

1. Deplane and spend either a short or long time being admitted to the UK. Pass go and trundle downstairs to find  bag* and shuffle it through Customs on the hairpin bend that leads to Arrivals. 

2. Enter Arrivals and do some necessary and immediate humdrum tasks which include pushing the luggage trolley through legions of travelers with thousands of bags and millions of small screaming children who have been met by all of their friends and relations and are headed for the car park whose elevators are annoyingly causing a heavy back up right in front of door. Exit the terminal to shuttle bus*.

3. As Bus has just left, wait. Discover that luggage trolley has no brake and spend the wait time keeping it captive as it tries to escape down the peculiar incline just next to the bus stop. Watch everyone else hauling bags, kids and jittery trolleys.

4. Load bags into bus and hold breath as bus negotiates Terminal gauntlet allowing riders to be spit out onto the Perimeter Road  with  huge jets hovering just overhead. Get out. Fast. Be First One in to Car Hire Agency as partner deals with luggage. Produce drivers' licenses, reservation and Big Smile. 

5. Wave loaded -policy -car- rental Amex card* at agent and Decline Additional Insurance, crossing fingers that it actually works should you actually hit something. Get the nice guy with the laid- back attitude even though you are American, who won't remind you more than thrice that you really should take the super deluxe no worries insurance• coverage for an additional million pounds a day.

6. Grab the paperwork and dash into parking lot to Choose Car.

  Although I love this part because it's FUN to choose your own car, this is where we sadly lose key time and mutual empathy. Tom always lets me decide as I also insist on driving. It's not that Tom is not a fabulous and trustworthy individual, it's just this little here-and-gone thing he has for taking his eyes off the road.  So we wander what's on offer (usually strange cars no one anywhere else will ever drive) and choose one. We load our gear in and I sit in the driver's seat adjusting  mirrors and wrestling with the handbrake• and stuff until I see a Better Car and we unload the gear and reload it and drive around the parking lot for a while until we remember to go that way to get to the exit booth with the green light and we Get the green light and Pass Go to the Real World, or at least back to the Perimeter Road*.

Leaving the Car Hire is so much easier than it used to be-- if you do it right. Years ago, a real test of jet lag was enduring passenger map- reading aloud at high volume,("Left! Right! Stay Straight!") through five or six  poorly-signed, seriously many-laned roundabouts that trickily dumped you right back where you started. Now you can drive fairly effortlessly (except for that faux turn into airport employee parking) on to the M4, M25 or headed towards your ultimate M, A or B. 

Bingo, you're there, and it's just steering, getting your M-legs and beginning to play the lanes (left slow, middle travel, right pass).  Relaxing to BBC morning news enjoy the scenery which actually has fields and cows, vistas and Sights to See placed strategically by the motorway for your driving pleasure. 

Car Hire Sanity Savers

Heathrow Car Hire: Heathrow terminals have been playing hop scotch as each is upgraded but car hire still requires a bus ride. Enjoy it! Look for the Concorde!

 Gatwick Car Hire :"As part of Gatwick’s £1 billion investment programme we’re transforming North Terminal. Our new multi storey car park 6 opened on Wednesday 20 April 2011, ahead of schedule. Car rental desks will be open on level 1 of the terminal (The Avenue). Take the lifts adjacent to International Arrivals and you will clearly see all car rental desks located on level 1. Car rental staff will then direct you to the cars. The new location has direct access to the terminal, contemporary surroundings and all cars are parked undercover."

 Heathrow Arriving Flights are posted on baggage hall monitors but grab a trolley first. Many travelers do not know that many airlines allow an extra bag "free" for sports equipment. Your sport might require a diving suit or motorbike gear, check to see if  it gets a free ride. 

Free Extra Driver: NEVER pay for this, I mean that's just really dumb if you think about it -only one person can drive a car at a time, so why pay for two? Many "business" elite programs which offer perks like free driver are available free through AARP or AAA. Additionally free drivers are often available as a freemium if you Google car rental promos but make sure yours applies to UK rentals as well.

•Some credit card companies offer a for-a-fee per use additional coverage for complete coverage when hiring abroad--except in Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and a few other countries where they'd lose their shirts. Check to see if your card offers primary car rental coverage as secondary means colliso

n charges go to your own insurance company.

Getting to Know Your Car: As everything is on the opposite side of the car, don't get crazy over not being able to find the handbrake. Stick your head out the window and ask for help.

 Leaving the Car Hire Lot: It is OKAY to drive around the car hire lot while you learn how the car works and practice right side steering on the left side of the road. This may well avoid wrong way and  the all-t00-frequent post-car-hire exit booth sound of passenger screaming at driver, "You Idiot!"   Ouch.

 

 

 

In the Shadow of Castle Drogo: Sitting With Mabel

   Drewsteignton, Devon    July

Signing away your week's holiday on an unknown, unseen, not-sure village/cottage and in this case--pub, is both intriguing and unnerving. We knew we wanted to be in Dartmoor but we weren't sure where.   

Rule of  Thumb: when in doubt book through the National Trust Holiday Cottages. While not cheap (a caravan is cheap and while a week with the National Trust is increasingly Not Cheap they are dropping their rates--next year), reliability, location/location, ambiance, hot water and bath tub, fireplace/stove, and double bed with duvet. Some people (according to the guest book I always read in the first ten minutes of our tenancy while drinking my "welcome" cup of tea, eating my "welcome" biscuit and watching Tom bring our stuff in) get excited about the welcome tea tray, while others declare a life-long love with the cottage, the area, and the woman who prepared the tea tray. You can count on the Trust. 

  So here we were, week- long tenants of Trinity Cottage smack dab in the middle of the village square, thirty footsteps to the Drewe Arms pub and high above the glory of Dartmoor. We parked the car in the square right outside our cottage which was one of a long row of medieval cottages called Glebe on this side of the square. We unpacked suitcases from home filled with items necessary to a week away and some hot sauce,  items from the Sainsbury's back in Dartmouth: wine, beer, real butter, real bread, eggs, bacon, garlic cloves, yogurts, cheese, toilet paper, paper towels, cling wrap, some nice Spanish salami, five candles and Hello magazine, and went to the pub.

The thatched pub was originally the Druid Arms until 1915-ish when Julius Drewe (Home and Colonial Stores tycoon and creator of the peculiar Castle Drogo which stands crumbling high over the  nearby River Teign) paid the brewery to change its name to Drewe Arms to match his. Let us all be Drewe. Outdoor seating on tables tucked away from the wind in front and in the garden behind, the pub has recently been renovated but the original part has been left largely undisturbed. This means that you walk in a narrow aisle, order a drink at the  tiny bar drawn from carefully coddled shelf- casks in the original tap room and carry it either outside or into the snug unless you want the more upscale experience in one of the dining rooms.

Our first drink at the Drewe Arms was in the back garden under a summer sky, all by ourselves.  Trees in heavy green leaf, a nice breeze and a blue sky, we congratulated ourselves on a choice well made. Later, after a home-cooked dinner of real bread and real cheese  and Dartish chicken we went for a long walk where we got only modestly off-piste through some meadows, over stiles and past cows, circling back through the village churchyard which landed us right in front of the pub again. Leaving the evening's  gloaming for the cozily lit interior, we were warmly welcomed as neighbors for the week and forgiven for cooking our own meal rather than eating out.  The pub lends itself to a few people just standing in the hallway with drinks,  minding the doorway and chatting to the bar staff. Tom stayed to talk and I took my chardonnay into the snug. 

A British pub snug is just what it sounds like--a cozy place to sit with a drink. Think settle or stool, often an open fire and room for a few couples or a group of after-work celebrants. On this evening it was just me-- and Mabel. Taking in the satisfactory fire, the dart board and the small hatch into the bar, I turned my head  and met the  rather critical glance of a small round woman with arms made powerful from years of pulling pints.  Gazing towards the dartboard from her portrait gracing the far wall, she struck a familiar chord. It wasn't  just because she was portrayed sitting just where I was (where she would have been looking out the small window opposite me), nor was it that this (according to the plaque beneath the photograph) had  been her pub for 75 years.

No, Mabel and I had met before and it wasn't until that night that I woke remembering when.

We all make memories of where we've been or where we would like to be. I tend to buy books and it was in one of those purchased years ago that Mabel had made her appearance. A small collection of photos of British pubs, hers was a riveting face  and I remembered every detail of that well worn snug and her tired slump. You could tell her feet hurt. A small book of ancient buildings and their as-they-were interiors, I'd enjoyed flipping through it for as long as it sat accessibly on a living room table. I'd marked pages of pubs I thought we should someday visit. Even when it was eventually disappeared to a bookshelf I had occasionally pulled it down to "be there" and had spent many a moment with Mabel. Hers was an uncanny portrait, one of those that make you imagine an entire history. I sometimes thought I could hear Mabel sigh and wondered what she was looking at. Now I knew.

According to a 1995  article in the British Independent which chronicles the village's brief fling with running the pub themselves; Mabel Mudge, known to one and all as "Auntie", officially retired as Britain's longest-serving pub landlady on October 4, 1994. It was her 99th birthday. In 75 years at the Drewe Arms in Drewsteignton, Devon, she presided over one big change: the installation of running water and electricity.

Suffice it to say that we had a delightful week exploring Dartmoor, getting lost as night closed in on the Two Moors Way from Fingle Bridge past Castle Drogo, avoiding oncoming cars on high-hedged single-track lanes and finishing each day at Auntie Mabel's, as the Drewe Arms is still called in the village. We joined most of the surrounding population in the pub's Long Room for the final (and disappointing) game of the World Cup. Mabel's great-great nieces and nephew chased after their dogs in the square in the long summer evenings and their mother brought us a dinner tray of home-made roasted baby courgettes.   

When we returned home, I dug out the photo book and looked for Mabel. There she was (page 22) and will be. Turning back to the front (they are all lovely pubs) I laughed at what I had written to Tom on the flyleaf:

     "Oh down to the boozer we'll go, down to the boozer we'll go.

      We'll hold hands over Black and Tans 'til the candles burn down low."

Looking back at the Drewe Arms, I thought Auntie Mabel would have had a thing or two to say about that. 

 

 

 

 

Abel Tasman: Head Meets Rock

 

        Abel Tasman National Park, South Island New Zealand

January

It's not always Tom's fault. What I have discovered in the enlightenment that often comes with additional years as a planetary citizen is that the flaw may lie in my following Tom. There we are, moseying up and down volcanic hills and native bush on a single file trail and I knock myself out with an overhanging rock.  Life lessons learned from travel don't always come easily.

 My lovely and long suffering spouse loves maps. All maps. He pores over them on   winter nights, studies them closely before venturing out and keeps them to himself as we trek whichever trail he guides us to wherever in the world we happen to be. This is a win-win for me as I am of the persuasion that says start here, walk for a while and when in doubt bear left. We do not now nor will we ever own a Global Positioning Satellite Receiver for much the same reasons that some people prefer raw food.

 So back to this 'following' business. Imagine the day. We have spent the morning kayaking and then shuttled by aquataxi from Kaiteriteri to Tonga Quarry over the azure sea that laps the shores of New Zealand's South Island Abel Tasman National Park.  The sun shines, the sky is blue, the water warm. We hop over the side of the catamaran as we reach Kaiteriteri and wade ashore. Tom takes out his map. "This way" he says, although the large brown sign saying 'this way' is visible to both of us.

We walk. 

The Abel Tasman Coastal Path is perfect. No -really. Ferns, palms, waterfalls, native    bush, fine sand and sweeping views from the top of each winding rise, it's easy to daydream. This is the thing about following Tom. When there are two people walking and Walker One is in front and that person has the map, all Walker Two has to do is to keep Walker One in sight. Pleasant daydreams. No worries.

The last little rise of the first leg of this lovely tramp leads to a blue lagoon at Bark Bay. When the tide is out you can walk across the lagoon. When it is in, you stick to the shore. I do not have an enormous backlog of experience with blue lagoons and find them riveting. Gentle swells of peaceful water laze under offerings of flower petals and leaves.  Foot follows foot, eyes  follow water. Bang, the overhanging rock lying in wait just around the next bend runs me over. Tom, who has of course noted both the height, distance and perimeter of the rock and carefully bent under it clearly expects I will do the same.  Hearing my thud, Tom turns back as I rise to stand and-- hit my head again. Bam, down I go. Tom makes the huge and advisably avoidable mistake of laughing. I crawl under the rock, check my head for gaping holes, grab my hiking stick and we trudge along the idyllic seaside, me pouting and Tom keeping a healthy distance still ahead, still sputtering. 

When we finally stop to throw ourselves down on the soft sand beach fronting this aqua heaven I announce that I plan to return to this spot and this place tomorrow. By Myself. And I do.  The next day I ride the water taxi-drawn-by-tractor from Marahua's main street to its harbor l aunch to Bark Bay.  I spend an hour diving into the lagoon's far  side as the tide sweeps out and carries me and the other ten year olds back to shore. I alternate reading my book on the comforting sand with floating lazily in the Tasman Sea. I idly watch hikers  attempt to swim across the lagoon with backpacks on their heads either in an effort to avoid the longer walk or as protection against overhanging rocks.

Recovering, restored and rock-head free, the water-taxi carries me back to Marahua  where I say yes to a mea culpa dinner at Hooked on Marahua and we spend it talking about the Next Walk. We get to the point we always reach after these little setbacks and remark for the millionth time that our 'what not to do ' list is getting to be a lot longer than the 'to-do's'. This is what we came up with for a top five tips to walking in Abel Tasman:

1.  Do watch where you're going stupid, as there may be overhanging rocks. 
2. Don't laugh so hard your tonsils hurt when your walking companion knocks herself out on an overhanging rock.
3. Don't continue to indulge in what  you annoyingly call 'chuckling' for the next fifteen minutes even if it did look pretty funny.
4. Don't escalate the situation by 'accidentally' poking your walking companion's sandal with your walking stick no matter how much your head and feelings hurt.
5. Do seek solace in a blue lagoon. If one is not immediately available try a blue margarita.
6.  And a bonus: Do have the seafood chowder at the Hooked on Marahua Cafe.               

Once we have wandered back to our hillside chalet I sit on the deck in the gathering dusk with the roaring cicadas, watching the kind of  sunset that makes you think in color. Tom lights careful candles, spreads maps over the floor and makes plans. 

 

 

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The Art of Invisible Travel

 

  It is Saturday morning, and it is my birthday and the two, as we are all well aware, are a rare collision. Cold outside but warm under the covers, the phone rings at 8. I pick it up, expecting to hear some early- bird birthday cheer.

Good morning?" I sleepily say into the receiver.  A quick talkin' no nonsense automaton with no time for niceties announces itself as  the Fraud Department from American Express.  Fraud? I sit up. The automated voice  reads a list of  recent transactions made on my card.  I am to press the number 2 if I have not authorized them. I rub my eyes and pay more attention.

The first charge is $1.67 to UPS UK, made three days ago. I  yawn and don't think I have mailed anything in Great Britain on Wednesday as I believe I was here in the U.S.  on Wednesday and even though I have turned a new decade, I believe I am  unlikely to have forgotten my location, but there is no conversation with my personal robot so that we can discuss this,  so I press 2.  The second charge is to the Stop and Shop. I  press 1, thinking about the lasagne I still have to make out of the cheese, pasta, sauce and spinach collected on that charge as my family birthday dinner looms ahead.

Next comes an unkown pending charge to Apple Computer. I don't believe that I have purchased anything from Apple Computer, especially as we are a PC/Apple home and I am the PC, but I can't commit without more information and there is  no number for Can't Commit so it is as I am puzzling over that charge that I hear that my card has  bought me, or someone posing as me, a $1500  air ticket to Mexico. I press 2 and a human voice shoves the robot aside and offers me a "Good morning."  I cannot help but feel a  tiny frisson of expectation at the two word combination of "airplane" and "Mexico" on a cold October morning.  My family are masters of the practical joke, there is every possibility that this is their roundabout way of offering me a lovely birthday present indeed.

The very nice  Amex Fraud Alert Support Person tells me that my card has purchased the poser -me, a nice ticket on AeroMexico and all I need to do is disavow it and they will cancel my card and re-issue another.  Now that I have someone besides Robovoice to talk to, I find myself more interested in where the ticket is taking the poser- me, what date and  at that price, is it economy or business class, which seat have I chosen and is it one bag or two fare inclusive, but the Fraud  Support Person can not tell me any details. He asks me to confirm my card  number and I announce that as it is my birthday, and as  I am in my warm  bed and have no intention of getting out of bed in this very cold house which is not in Mexico in order to retrieve my credit card, he just asks me a few personal details known only to me, but how do we KNOW I am me and not someone who is not only posing as me but has accessed my personal details as well? And how did poser -me Get my card number anyway? Who's the leak? The kid at the gas station on King street?   Sly Amazonians at Amazon? I go off on a totally nonsensical thought trail which has that tired lady at Stop and Shop packing for Cancun, and I almost regret calling the card in as she always looks like she needs a vacation.

The Fraud Alert Support Person at Amex while polite and moderately helpful clearly has no interest in the hypothetical. He wishes me Happy Birthday (not in his script so he says it quickly, with an audible smile) and says I will receive my new card within 4-6 business days.  Even after hanging up, having agreed to a new card and no heebie jeebies, I have them anyway.

 When we were in the UK in September I went to our local bank and informed them that I would be using my ATM card in the UK. The teller did some hocus pocus with a little machine and announced it free to use. I do this ceremony regularly now, having been locked out of my card twice, once in Istanbul and once in Scotland. What my local bank does not tell me is that I can only use my card when it is "in my presence" which means I cannot use it to book a hotel on line or order a great deal saddlepad to have sent to our last stop.  i do not know how anyone will be able to tell if my card is actually in My presence, or poser- me's presence but a human body is definitely required. This means that in order to do online,  I have to use my fallback Master Card as the UK is very anti-Amex (which is rather hilarious actually as my Amex card is with  Virgin Atlantic) and when we return from our trip I have three anxious phone calls from Master Card about suspicious activity on my card.

Although it is nice to know that  while all these credit card companies who may be single handedly keeping the US Postal Service afloat,  send reams of  "you have been pre-approved" ways to spend money I don't have, which I believe may have paid no small part of what seems still to be chronic World Wide Recession;  are looking out for both me and  poser-me with nearly the same tenacity that the CIA hunts terrorists, it is inconvenient and very nearly defies the why of credit cards rather than cash anyway. It is almost ironic later in the week when I receive a thick letter on creamy paper from my local bank informing me that they, or a third party branch of they, have inadvertently sent all of my details to another third party, including any online payments to credit card companies from my checking account but not to worry, the  last third party down the line burned it all. The letter says I am now enrolled by my local bank as a way of softening their glitch in a free year of Identi-Safe which sounds like a witness protection program, and encourages me to call if I have any questions.  I do, so I call and recount the curious coincidence of this inadvertent leak on my bank's part and my Amex card having purchased a ticket to Mexico. My local bank assures me that there is no possibility of this and yes, isn't that a coincidence ha, ha.

So all this leaves me with a few observations. 

1. Who's in charge here? There seem to be a lot of people and robots and poser -me's who know a great deal more about my financial transactions than I do.

2.  When we  go to Ireland in a few weeks, will card after card lock down? Will it be like  Istanbul when we looked at the lifeless little pieces of plastic standing between us and  our next meal ?

3. If poser-me uses our card to buy a ticket to Mexico, which one of us gets the airmiles?

Bath on Bike

We're headed back to Bath for a few days in a few weeks and I for one, will  insist on exploring on two feet rather than two wheels. The only way I'd say that biking in Bath is at the top of my list of must-dos would be if you took that lengthy list, turned it upside down,shook it hard and jumped on it a few times. Anyone foolish enough to insist on biking the Bath Skyline Trail should note that the updated (shorter single loop) version has little levels in the map key indicating steepness of terrain. They're not kidding. 

Looking Backwards 2002: Somerset, July

   Fortunate are those who find the rental company early (the one hidden behind the railway station) hire a shiny new two wheeler and pedal down the very flat and pleasant Kennet and  Avon  tow path. Less fortunate are we who take our time and saunter in to find the choice of hire is down to two bicycles which look suspiciously like the  ancient three speeds  tossed  in the basement back home twenty years ago. Solidly made of heavy steel , squeaky brakes, squeaky gears, we "adjust" our hard little euro- seats and pedal in the opposite direction.

Tom, as always, has a map. The National Trust suggests we take the Six Mile  Bath Skyline Circular Walk. I point out that map says walk, see it's in the title.  Tom says bike. First stop, straight uphill. The map itself (50 p back then) is quite pretty. Folded into an easy eight quadrants, the front shows a bucolic view over the city, three quadrants describe Features of Interest and ask us to keep in mind that the paths may be muddy so stout shoes are advisable.

The map itself is shades of green with the darker bits the lilting woods (Rainbow, Bathwick, Smallcombe, Bushey Norwood and the Fairy Wood). Prior Landscape Gardens is on our  route.  The map, decorated with  butterflies and birds, is flat and there is no indication that the walk-- is not.

The next five hours are spent pedaling bike, braking bike, viewing Features of Interest, pushing bike, throwing bike (hard) and self  (gently)on ground at regular intervals, and wobbling through the middle of cow pastures, contemplating the challenge of stile-biking. My stout shoes are more than muddy.

 Prior Park, delightful as it is, with its gorgeous Palladian Bridge view of Bath,  is on a serious gradient not mentioned on the map. Walking down to the Bridge is a good idea. Biking is not.

Rainbow Wood Fields is described on the map as offering  budding Dog's Mercury, Wild Garlic and Hart's Tongue Fern for the walker's enjoyment. Enticing Features of Interest include birds. There are those of us who will recall Donovan singing sweetly about Chiff Chaffs, and there are few who would not be willing to pedal down a summery meadow path in hope of sighting a Willow Warbler or a Green Woodpecker. While we do find the Wild Garlic (not difficult even with eyes closed), the map is mum  to what makes a Chiff Chaff.

There comes the moment (as it always does) when, glaring down at the map, I point out, with some expository description, that what might be a lovely walk, does not make a lovely bike  ride. My bike refuses to a: lose weight or b: do any of the work itself.  Only one of the forward gears works and the brakes are the kind that require the rider to drag her stout shoes on the ground to avoid hitting things.  I suspect that once again, just as in that first ride many years ago over the dunes from Herring Cove to Race Point Beach,  Tom, on his "men's bike" has the sleeker ride. Mine is clearly designed for being gently ridden side saddle down level village lanes. No one in America would attempt this vertiginous ride unless suitably mounted on a high- tech 22 speed mountain bike with five brakes and wide gel seat which cost more than a Volkswagen. 

Having now cycled through most of the nonsensical loops of the map's dotted red line  along Skyline Walk, we race down  the  long hill to the Fairy Wood, up the steep climb to the University and pant for breath. Pushing the  bike through hummocks  and  bovine deposits on  bovine pastures affords a view over the city of Bath--not bad. View of extremely annoyed charging mother of darling baby calf--not good. 

Circuiting Bushey Norwood (early Iron Age hill-fort guarded by cows left undisturbed and unseen by us)  around  the golf course (more cow pastures), and Bathwick Wood,  past the Golf Club (toilets closed to non-members)we stop for a breather under the arch of Sham Castle.  Finally coasting down, down, down, feet gently slowing the descent as we head for the lowlands, we glide along flat lanes to the Bathampton Cricket Grounds  ("friendly"game in progress) and head for The George.

No place finer than The George on a Sunday afternoon. Sited right on the canal, its lazy  courtyard is full of Sunday diners, so we take our drinks up to the canal bank and watch the cricket on the other side. The great thing about cricket is that you can look at other things for a while (narrow boats, walkers, cyclers, Willow Warblers)  or leave altogether to go get another drink or a sandwich or walk to London and back, and you've missed little.

By the time we lazily pedal back along the canal  towards Bath, the sun has shifted towards evening and I wish the day would never end. Tom laughs so hard at this that he falls off his bike, pretending that he meant to.  The bike ride, I agree, now we're on flat land, was exhilarating. We idly watch a few couples  headed towards  incipient divorce trying to navigate their holiday hire narrow boats through the canal locks.

"Maybe", I say, later on, after we have wheeled our way through Stanley Gardens, returned the bikes, eaten enchiladas at Las Iguana's and are sitting  outside the Hobgoblin in the suprisingly dark  city night, "we should try that next time." "Try what?" asks Tom, happily halfway through his  pint of Wizard's Staff.

"You know, narrow boating." 

Cotswolds-Which Way 2

 

  Cotswolds, November

Last we saw the intrepid walkers, they were high on a Cotswoldian ridge overlooking--Wales. Now three in the afternoon of a winter's day, the sun dropping down in the sky, they consider their options.

 They examine the map.  As usual, they are doing a walk backwards. Left-handed and left brained, this is not a problem for him. She has to hold the map upside down, roll it and shake it, squint a little and crumple it back to him. Here, you look. Calmly, he irons out the map with his hand.  If they take this first bridleway after those woods, and along that fence which keeps the shee p there and the walkers here, it should lead them to the fields which eventually end in lane, and the Ford Road. 

 He pauses for effect. They can of course not take the bridleway, opt for the longer route and follow this ridge to its eventual dip--and the Ford Road. She says bridleway (she has this thing for hoof  prints) and he obliges. They wallow through two miles of mucky path which makes them rethink the wisdom of sharing the road with  thousand pound creatures who have twice as many legs. Trudging on,  they are mindful (ouch) of the prickly hedges and brambles, only partially pruned by the wan efforts of a volunteer citizenry who have made some (but not much) inroad on keeping the path open. She stops to pull an impossibly heavy tree branch from the path as a gesture of country code good will and he lets her struggle until she finally asks for help. It's a really big branch.

   Arriving at a small lane, he thinks this must be where they go left to the road. She has her eye on the horse racing stable the lane runs by, allows as how this actually doesn't look like the path on the map, but eagerly agrees to explore it in hopes of equine sitings. The aggressive stable lad whose aggressive dog growlingly keeps the walkers at bay, advises them that the trail they are looking for is not here; it is over there, although he does not actually ask them which trail they are looking for. They retreat. She pats some ponies,  they rejoin the bridleway  until they reach the right farm, the right lane, and, eventually the next choice. This trail  follows soft winter pastures lined by gentle woods,  few farms, many sheep and no humans. The medieval  Campden Lane brings them back to the Ford road.

  Faced with four simultaneous signs:  This Way(local footpath), That Way (Cotswold Way), Over There (Gloucestershire Way)or Follow the Road, they choose This W ay (local footpath) as one of them is always in favor of offroad shortcuts. He reminds her that this nearly always gets them lost, but she's already out of earshot.  They climb a stile into a  field of nervous, skittery sheep who scatter as they approach, like lambs before wolves. Their long shadows must look like stalking giants. The path, obliterated by sheep tracks (only sheep and wolves follow sheep tracks) is not even remotely  evident.  These walkers have learned (due to much experience and numerous  arguments involving stupidly circumnavigating fenced fields) to look ahead for the next stile, which usually appears in some sort of break in the trees or fence. Aha, there it is at the top of the field, a long climb up. Sheep baa, they hike, here's the stile and whoops, just past this copse, there's another one just down there, a much easier route. Ha.

Another climb across golden stone harrowed fields, they reach the perfect little farm high on a hill overlooking everything.  It's late on a winter's day and the house's  chimney trickles smoke as its inhabitants settle down to an early tea. The walkers know this because they  are horribly nosy Americans and have walked quietly along the hill, and watched. Passing the house, its view and its sheep, they open the gate and  gain the tiny lane to the ridge which harbors bucolic North Farmcote.   

 Rejoining the Cotswold Way  which  now travels an ancient cobblestoned drovers' path, they are on the home stretch; a good thing, as the light is leaving the sky-fast. Just before the Way dips into the darker woods, they stop to see shepherds and collies sort out the sheep high on the hills above them. Whoops, nips, hallos, and a  few  invectives guide one group of hotfooting sheep into a new field and replace them with what looks like an identical set. The shepherds on their quad bikes and their sheep- sneering collies glare at the walkers long
 enough to hustle our duo on their long darkening descent through the forest.

 The drovers' path sits below the woods, worn down by a thousand years of wagons and two and four legged feet. Trees have reclaimed any effort to farm these hectares. Private Keep Out signs along the wood warn walkers to--keep out. The Cotswold Way is clearly suffered by locals and not necessarily embraced as a bucolic right to roam. Past the fruit farm, along the slippery  cobbles, they emerge victoriously back at Haile's Abbey very grateful to find their car where they left it, and that they have not (this time) lost the car keys. 

The sun sets over the little twelfth century church, its light softening the air, sending rosy rays to warm the moment to idyllic. Smiling, walking back to look over the gate where   this day began, one of them wonders if the other has eaten all of his "hikers" chocolate bar.  Breaking the last bit into two pieces, he hands her one. Life is good.

Cotswolds-- Which Way...1

Cotswolds, November

 Cotswold Which Way 1

Tom, like many big picture/detail people, loves maps. His heart sings when he sees  an Ordnance Survey, and I had to finally haul him away from the lure of  their neatly color -coded stacks at the Waterstones near the British Museum, as we were late for a date with a pint, at the Museum Tavern.  I don't know why I bothered,  as I spent the next hour talking to a voice muffled behind a map marked  #45, The Cotswolds.  

OS maps are great. They come with little symbols showing castles, barns--and pubs, as well as individual trees and the smallest, teeny tiniest, path.  Local Tourist Information Centers (TIC) usually offer even more detailed maps showing local walks. Circular walks, pub walks, water walks, hill walks--these little maps are swell.   

So it wasn't much of a surprise for me, when Tom slipped into the   TIC in Broadway (the one in the Cotswolds, not cross 42nd street), and re-emerged  with, "A Complete Footpath Guide to  Winchcombe and surrounding areas"  which identified five long distance paths, footpaths, bridleways, byways, forest rides, and other "permissive" paths at a scale of one mile to the forefinger (or three inches), reproduced in this tidy one pager by Finial Press in Stroud, by permission from our friends at Ordnance Survey. 

A few hours later, sitting on a tree stump along a farm lane, looking down across the pastures of Sudeley Castle, trying to eating a cold yogurt with a small spoon, on a cold day, without taking my gloves off; I too, took a a look at the map.   "This guide takes you off the beaten  track..." said the first fold, which is of course, what had instantly induced Tom to plunk his 50p down for it, "...into the hills and valleys surrounding ancient and attractive Cotswold towns...whether you want an hour's walk or an all day's ramble."   

I located the former tree, now tree stump, holding our picnic (the cheese and crackers held down by Tom's backpack against the wind, the apple slices stolen by gulls who were themselves off their beaten path) just along the Warden's Way near Park's Farm. Although we had moseyed rather than marched (or rambled rather than hiked?) since leaving the parking lot at Haile's Abbey (with a quick run -in to see the medieval wall paintings at  Haile's Church) on the Cotswold Way, we had covered nearly three and a half forefingers of this designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.   

Tom joined me, pointing out the many, many pathway choices in front of us, in our quest for a circular walk which would begin and end--at our car. Cotswold Way, Windrush Way, Warden's Way, Gloucestershire Way, and the  mysterious Wychavon Way. We could make ours a greatest, greater, or great loop, depending on whim, and our remaining hours of daylight. Failing to take note of the map's casual contours, I traced my fancy, we threw our cracker crumbs to the gulls, and headed up a ridge so steep, we could see Wales, which was not exactly what I had in mind. 

Still, it's a heady feeling when you've put one foot in front of the other, past churned  fields of unharvested golden Cotswold stones, and woods hiding the dark, dangerous, snufflingly secretive world of farm bred boars.  The  distant view opens and opens and opens, until you can see the whole range of those mighty  Welsh mountains, and wonder why the sun seems to be stuck there, and not here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

North York Moors--Reservations needed on the Inn Way

North Yorkshire, July
It's getting dark and I'm hungry. Really hungry--and cranky and muddy and I'm pretty sure that my  absolutely favorite-of-all time irreplaceable shiny Italian red leather sandals are history. This forest is  impenetrable  and Tom has admitted that we are, as he puts it, "path free" which is his unique way of avoiding having to say those inflammatory three little words: We Are Lost. I know we're lost, he knows we're lost, but Tom is more likely to focus on the what next and I am thoroughly engrossed in the what now.

When someone asks me if I'd like a stroll to the pub for dinner, and when that pub is the  Plough Inn  in Fadmoor, North Yorkshire  which combines ambiance,tiny rural village pub location, and lovely food which might include a  creamy Wensleydale pasta and will definitely offer something fragrantly lamb and rosemary; my shoes  (as  in this case the now sadly wilted red leather Italian sandals) are on and I am out the door.

Tom has thoughtfully extended that invitation this evening as we have been pleasurably walking part of  the Cleveland Way for a large part of the day, arriving back at our self catered  cottage  to discover that the cupboards are bare and our supper choices are limited to oatmeal and a bottle of Old Peculiar.  

The pub is a good distance by road and I don't pay much attention to Tom's suggestion to take a short cut--always a cautionary sign.That was hours ago, well at least one hour-- and the sun was still high on this North Yorkshire summer evening  when we followed the little red line on Tom's TIC  map  to the local leg of  The Inn Way, off the hard packed earth road, into the deep deep woods.

What could be more delightful than following a walk called The Inn Way? The map shows it as a six day 89 mile circular walk Helmsely to Helmsley connected by--inns. Our little jog of it would take us to our little inn, The Plough and Tom does not notice--or somehow chooses not to let me know he's noticed-- that this section includes the highest point of the entire walk, which I sincerely hope is behind us-- Sleightholmdale (cottage)  to Fadmoor (pub).

The path we've been following seems to have been either an old path used possibly once or twice a century, a newer one that was a poor idea, or Not The Inn Way At All and   has pretty much petered out by the time we've slid nearly vertically up a muddy embankment, crossed over another forest road to nowhere, and we've had to make the kind of decision that involves direction and setting sun and whether Fadmoor is to the west, the north west or just plan north.

I like to wet the tip of my finger and hold it in the air to test direction which Tom says is ridiculous because (he was a multi-badged boy scout) that is how you test for wind direction not for direction direction, but it works mysteriously well for my personal radar and as Tom has had a serious credibility dip what with the getting lost and all--we go my way which does self righteously lead us out of  the forest  over and through a many -hectared  barbed wire sheep field--and then another one and three more just like it, so that by the time we stumble around a huge farm and through the sort of  muddy and animal- rich ground detritus huge farms tend to collect and onto the Fadmoor road and into the Plough Inn, we are instantly stopped at the door and asked if we have reservations.

Reservations? At the pub? Ummm...no, could we just eat at the bar? What no bar dining without--a reservation? Could we just get a drink and (I beg) possibly some crisps? We are shuffled to a corner of the bar where none of the spiffy diners (where do these people come from?) have to see our poor, bedraggled selves.

Slinking out when we are done, we walk very, very slowly all the way back down the village road out to the main road, and the long hard packed earth road, down the steep hill, to the stable that is our food- free self catering cottage. I drink the  beer. Tom quietly makes mush.

Jet Lag 3-- Napping with the National Trust

 

Fast forward Jet Lag Plan A: go to airport, park car, check in, transit security, buy book, look at Charlestown out Terminal E windows, and wait for Aer Lingus flight to leave so can get snack and drink at Sam Adams pub, get in plane, have drink, eat food, read book, fly over ocean, land, get off plane,  transit immigration, find hired car booth, negotiate insurance coverage, negotiate Heathrow roundabouts and straight on to A road, M road, A road, possibly a B road or two, stopping to refresh/refuel at motorway stops which look like and are about as thrilling as--motorway stops-- to eventual destination.  Plan A is useful when it is freezing, raining or so windy you have to tie your scarf around your head  to keep it from flying off.

Jet Lag Plan B: We have such a great track record for visiting the UK when the sun shines, that we're thinking of hiring ourselves out as a national PR scheme. So, Plan B means starting the holiday as we mean to go on--outdoors. Here we are, same shape re it's morning here and night at home,and we're in a small car hurtling along the M4 headed towards high noon. And yawning big time.  Tom has a plan (Tom always has a plan). We have two key needs: nap and food, but we still need to get where we're going at a reasonable (pre-dark) hour.

The National Trust, the privately-run historic preservation organization which also owns huge chunks of British Open Space,  nearly always has something on the way to  where we're going  that has nice little walks, a nice cafe, and a nice tree to nap under. We have long been card carrying members of the Trust via the American branch, the Royal Oak, whose generous invitations to join them on the occasional garden tour or great house circuit we have sadly to decline due to the enormous disparity between what a trip we plan costs and what a trip they plan costs. They send out a newsletter and an annual membership which gets us into every single one of their extensive holdings, as well as offering a satisfactory feeling of contributing to open space when we walk around a breath- taking peninsula which they have single handedly wrested from development.

Here's how Plan B works. Using the National Trust map and/or guide or website pre-trip to "gather information" about what's on our way, Tom elects two or three top choices  which he thinks we  might encounter sometime around the Big Yawn.  So--say we're headed for Cornwall (which is a long drive any way you look at it) and we're passing  Bath around 11 am.  A quick left off the M-4 and we're following the A46  to Dyrham Park where there is a car park with a brisk walk (the Cotswold Way runs through it) to the Big House and gardens full of little nooks and crannies with viewing spots, green lawn and shady trees.

We unfold ourselves from the car, locate the lightweight travel rug-blanket we try not to forget (when we do, we have to buy another at the Trust Shop--which keeps our friends in rug re-gifts at a fairly steady rate) and meander for a stretch. A stop at the cafe for sandwiches, maybe some soup (soup--a good antidote to almost everything) and a bottle of  sparkling ginger lemongrass soda sees us back to the meandering until we find the Perfect Spot.  Skipping the Big House completely (it  would be thoughtful if the Trust would extend membership benefits to include naps on some of those comfy daybeds or down piled mattresses the formerly wealthy slept on) we settle on the travel rug beneath the spreading chestnut tree or beside the ornamental foliage--  and pass out.

Waking half an hour or so later really quite refreshed  and pleased with ourselves, we visit the always excellent Trust  toilets (usually 'green' as in electric hand dryers but no heat) and head for the car, the motorway and the rest of what we assure each other, will be  the best holiday ever.

Jet Lag 2--Right Hand Drive Full English

Heathrow Airport Perimeter Road   

I'm sitting in the rental car adjusting mirrors and making the windows go up and  down while Tom walks around kicking its tires. The car is French, or masquerading as French-- as the steering wheel is British right and the French drive on the right. Here it is left, left, left. The thing I can count on is that no matter its nationality, I'll be signaling with my windshield wipers all the way to  Bodmin Moor.

 It's 3am Our Time when we head out to the M4--me steering and Tom shouting out" Lanes!", " Look left!" and directions-- like we haven't done this a million times.  Navigating the roundabouts between the airport and the motorways  pump up enough adrenalin to see us well past Reading.  I'm relaxed, enjoying the ease of just shifting into fifth gear-- and pointing straight.  BBC 4 is on- air and we're whizzing past  green fields, large lorries and  hysterically small, slab sided Daihatsus.  

Despite the lure of signs we don't heed, like Windsor Castle (once is enough) we motor on until we, figuratively speaking thank god-- hit the wall. There are a number of ways to deal with a sudden attack of slo mo. The nicest one is to stop and eat.  Too soon and not far enough along for a pub lunch, we pull off at the motorway Road Chef  in  Membury, south/east of Swindon  which has recently gone  upscale. No MacDonald's this--- it serves a most welcome (and possibly the most expensive) Full English Breakfast from here to Aberystwyth . One bright yellow  fresh sunny side up egg, two rashers perfectly done bacon, one sausage, and a delicately sauteed tomato coupled with a slice of granary bread and a pot of tea.  A look around the shop area (nice deals on fleece) a purchase of a chocolate bar and the new Hello if they were all out at Heathrow, and we're back on the road.

  By 11 am we desperately need to stop for obvious post- tea reasons, and we're yawning .  One option, if the weather is not excellent-- is to pull off again and nap in the car.  Motorway stops in the UK are apparently a popular place for a quick snooze as our nodding  neighbors  are either all asleep--- or dead.

It has become extremely windy, a fact we find quite comforting as it pleasantly buffets our little hatchback which, despite being bottom of the heap economy, has Upper Class seats that lie nearly flat. We quickly doze off, rocked by the wind, oblivious to everything around us.  Bing--half an hour later we wake to some eastern standard time clock, taking a minute to connect with reality:  ummmm....we're in a parking lot , in someone else's car,  in someone else's country-- but the familiar sight of   ginger Harry on the cover of the Hello on the dashboard brings it all back. Tom peers out and oddly informs me that, "The dog is gone."  I pat him, hand him a chunk of  Cadbury's Bourneville  dark and head back to the motorway-- good for another very few hours.

Okay-- how'd this ticket to New Zealand get in here?

 When the kids announced they were moving to New Zealand for a year everyone said "Ooh we'll come visit!" I figured that would be about as likely as the million people telling us  the same thing when we lived last year in the UK.  The only transatlantic visitors hearty enough to join us were Tom's sister and his 88 year old mother. I told the kids not to bother renting a place with an extra bedroom. So they didn't.

Which is why I am scratching my head looking at this e-ticket that clearly indicates that a: it is my passport to Auckland next month and b: I have done it again.

 I am  bizarrely  looking forward to 24 hours in the air (think  how many books you can read in a day when it's impossible to sleep, there's nowhere to walk, the phone and internet are off  and someone brings you food on a regular basis) and a week on the ground so that I can do it all over again, but am startled at its actuality.  The kids and I  had talked about our visiting them but not in precise terms and delightful as they are we rather thought we'd wait until at least one more of them was out of diapers. 

Tom and I talked--could we bear to exchange our summer's plans for backpacking in the Highlands for winter in New Zealand? Could we bear not to?  We agreed to forego a week at the Cape, the Scottish sojourn and all that summer New England offers  for three weeks in July to see the littles who Tom seriously worries will not be allowed to return home once the New Zealand rugby team the All Blacks get a look at baby  Lewis' solid thighs and prodigal walking.  Replete with well earned air miles we figured a trip down under would be "free".

So where did this February ticket come from?

I put it down to the three I's:  Impulse, Internet, Ice. The first two are not surprisingly, interconnected.  Air New Zealand runs one of those websites with fare names like "Sweet Dreams" which dangle enticing prices for long journies with "free" stops in places like Papeete and Nadi only to snatch them back if you dawdle.  I spent most of one cold Sunday trolling the competition, going back and forth to my calendar and my checkboook, adding in the number of lovely airmiles accumulated by traveling to the other side of the planet and back and daydreaming about a world which the kids reported was "too hot".    The too hot may have been the clincher as it always is for those of us who have just shoveled another fifteen inches of snow and refilled the wood stove for the third time in four hours.

I  call Air New Zealand whose 800 number rings you right through to Auckland where you get to talk to an enthusaistic agent who talks funny and complains about the heat-- and put a ticket on hold.  That service costs more than the web but gives you time to come back to your senses.  I have a cup of tea, take a walk in the snow, do some "real" work, come back, open the  Air New Zealand page--and punch in the million numbers  it takes to spend close to  four figures.   My gamble costs me missed opportunities for cheaper connections to Los Angeles but I am non refundably going to New Zealand in four weeks and already imagining hugging those babies, turning pages, and  looking out the plane window at the Big Dipper hanging upside down.

Cotswold Mud

January

It's nearly night but the wind has lulled to a dusky stillness and I say to Tom, let's take a walk.  Just a little one as we spent the day in the wind walking  the Cotswold Way up to Broadway Tower and down through woods  and meadows but our rain gear has satisfactorily dried by the cottage fire and the air smells lovely.

We agree we'll just mosey down the lane a bit past the pub which is not yet open but Tom brings map and torch anyway because we have now agreed that map and torch go together like boots and coat-we shouldn't leave home without them.

My boots  (high top cozy green hunter wellies same as the queen--so they say-- wears to walk the corgis) are good. My  rain coat is a  foil to the fleece that is my must layer in an English January and I throw on a waterproof cap with visor--just in case.

The lane leads to a gate. The gate leads to a trail. We look at each other,shrug and go through over the bridge down the path. Tom stops to look at his map. There is a circular  walk we might just squeeze in before real night, the air is still soft and the  brook lined path ahead inviting. Why not?

Soon we meet mud. The cow trodden farm hillside we are climbing is so slick that I  telemark vertically up the slippery  slope.  The farm itself sits comfortably mid hill surrounded by ancient outbuildings, fragrant smoke issuing from its several chimneys, lights softly glowing from its low windows. The trail circles above the farm's yard on a single track lane as we cross the top of the hill in what the Scots call the  gloaming--a blue twilight whose rich deepness yields an equally deep pleasure at our being here in this place at this time.  We see the lights of the village we've walked from blink on across the hills. They seem surprisingly far away.

Does the circular track start here? Or over there? Tom gets out the map and the torch, carefully studies it and leads us down a fenced perimeter--into the  deep--dark--woods.  Like a shade pulled against the sun, the thick trees, even in leafless winter, eclipse the light and we are blinded by the dark.  My eyes have trouble making the transition  and the trail having turned again to that slick muddy slide,  I do the sensible thing and grab Tom's arm for balance.  Okay, okay I admit I also grab it because the trees are really enormous and it is really dark and there are some odd little  crunchy noises coming from that  shadowy patch below us. 

Tom balances me, the map, the torch and himself as we negotiate the hairpin turns pocked with tricky holes that make our boots squelch and slide. The teeny torch does nothing more than show us  feet and as it is in Tom's hand it is his feet we are staring at.  The crunching noises have ominously stilled when suddenly a violent gust blows in rain and all of the tree tops above us become huge winged creatures who rise up angry, flapping and screeching and way too close. My feet shoot out from under me, I grab Tom harder--AND HE LETS GO. I shoot down the slope  sure that I'm about to be monster dinner and stop only when the mud grabs hold and leaves me sitting in its slimy tentacles.

"YOU dropped me!" I yell at Tom even though he  helps me up and does the best he can to not laugh and says that he didn't mean to drop me but the good news is that he saved  his map and glasses and they are not muddy at all.

I am so mad that I stalk off dripping mud and leaves and tears and even though the rain increases with my foul mood it does little to hose me off. I slog up the long hill until finally reaching the village road, tramp down  it in what is now a full tempest arriving at the cottage well ahead of Tom but have to wait to get in because he has the key. We do not talk for the whole hour it takes me to try to wash mud from my hair, my face, my boots, my trousers and my jacket.   Realizing that this is the best I can do in this trying situation I allow Tom to join me at the pub's fire where he placates me with scampi,  a hot baked potato and a large Chardonnay.

It isn't until we are ready to leave for the airport two days later and I catch site of the back of my jacket that I come to a fuller comprehension of the tenacity of Cotswoldian elements. I will fly back across the Atlantic Ocean branded by streaks of what I can only hope my fellow passengers know is just mud. 

The Wrong Kilt

 

Gwynedd is upset but not as much as  her daughter the bride. 

  "What do you mean they haven't got the kilt?"

I can hear her over Gwynedd's mobile phone as can anyone several blocks either direction of Prince's Street--and certainly the unfortunate man at  Edinburgh's  Moss Bros fancy dress hire who is the bearer of extremely bad tidings. The wedding is imminent and the groom, demands the bride, is wearing the kilt. I am here only as a bit player--the drama is between these three: mother, daughter and Moss Bros.

What am I doing here anyway?

It had  seemed perfectly insane--but also enticing.  I'd  called Tom on an early September day to share the amazing news that Julia and Will were getting married--in Edinburgh in early October and he'd  said, "Let's go".   Let's go?  Travel  to Scotland for a weekend?  "Sure--we've got airmiles."  Well, we do have airmiles and we could probably swing a Friday off work but,  as I pointed out to Tom--we hadn't actually been invited.

He called Gywnedd, Gwynedd called  Julia, I checked with the airline and we were booked more of a loooong weekend as we would be leaving on a Tuesday night when there were available seats.

Which is why I am here whiling away the time looking at the display book of Worse Case Scenario Weddings at Moss Bros where people usually hire tuxedos except  in Scotland where they hire kilts. The groom had ordered his kilt at the Swansea (what do the Welsh know about kilts?)  branch of Moss Bros and they'd gotten it wrong. The attendant says  he may be able to cobble together a substitute after a frenzied series of calls to Swansea to secure measurements but not the family tartan. He suggests the Scottish National tartan  and Gwynedd--in hyper mode now--automatically nixes it as she is Labour Party through and through but then comes to and realizes he means a different Scottish National (not the secessionists) and as the tartan looks very much like the one originally ordered, we take it and drive home through driving rain and two rainbows  feeling pretty smug 

Moss Bros tells us:

Contemporary Highland dress comes with an impressively dashing array of accoutrements:

•  

  Tartan kilt fastened with a kilt pin

• A decorative sporran (useful as a wallet and as a weight to prevent the kilt from swishing out of control) 

• Knee-high hose, secured with coloured flashes 

• Black-laced brogues, tied around the ankle

• The skean dhu (black dagger) which is tucked into the hose easy to grab in battle

• Tartan trews as an alternative to the kilt

• Shirt and tie (or bow tie and wing collar for evening)

The groom is there when we arrive and after dinner and a healthy sharing of a few drams of the very smooth Bunnahabhain (Bunahaven) single malt he has brought with him, the men take him aside to try his outfit on.  He strides into the kitchen in his clan finery-- lurchers and spaniels intent on licking his shiny shoes  and it is clearly apparent to all of us--but none so much as the bride--that it will not do. The groom is a strapping great lad--a kite surfer and outdoorsman on whom the kilt fits more like my mini in 1966. The bride is not happy--it will all have to go back.

The ridiculousness of the big man in the small outfit however makes all the whiskey cheerful men decide to put the outfit to good use. They leave for a bit and shortly later return with Tom happily decked in the kilt below and his new All Scotland  football team birthday shirt on top.  Tom has secretly always wanted to try on a kilt (don't all men?) and he enjoys himself parading around, striking Robert the Bruce poses for the camera and displaying his hairy shins as Moss Bros also forgot the knee socks. 

There are many funny jokes made, more Bunnahabhain consumed and as it is also Tom's birthday, a candle lit cake. I suspect that Tom's wish as he blows them out,  is to keep the kilt.

The wedding goes off without a hitch at the Registry office, as does the wedding lunch and the wedding dancing even though these Glasgow Uni grads have no sense of dance music.  Julia demands a Gay Gordon and we have a march around the marquee. It is freezing and the dancers are clad in puffy down jackets as we warm to the music.

We party late, enjoy every minute and leave early the next day casually arriving home in time to sleep,  get up and go to work as though we are old hands at this whirlwind transatlantic travel thing.

By Tuesday it is all faraway and long ago and I can only vaguely (Tom is wearing his birthday All Scotland tee short)  recall that we were in Scotland just the other day.    

Channeling the BBC

Massachusetts,Winter

There is a definite aroma of   Highland in my kitchen.   As I am in Massachusetts and nothing is on fire (other than dinner--but what's new about that) I am sniffing for  source.

 

This happens mysteriously  in mid winter. Peaty air wafts from my state of the art Logitech V20 laptop speakers which are audibly  producing the BBC broadcast "Around Shetland". As the Scottish radio announcer lets us know that the weather has "deterrrrriorated" with gales and gusts causing the cancellation of the Scouts meeting in Tingwall and the Alcoholics Anonymous session in Scallaway, the comfort of an earthy fire warms the room. The Shipping Forecast is up next.  

 

A big fan of Les Blank's old smellaround films where you could sit in the movie theatre watching AND smelling beans and rice, I am not at all surprised that the BBC can bring these wild islands in northern Scotland right into my kitchen. They do amazing things.

I work at home a lot. Although there are long days when I really don't want to hear another voice, there are many more when some grounding in life outside is encouraging. The BBC is, thanks to the miracle of internet, my best friend. I can start my day with The Latest News Bulletin and  BBC 4 . When  I need a cheery  break it's off to  Good Morning Scotland; although it is already noon in Glasgow.  Switching back to BBC 4 (my true love) I get the News at One, and on Sundays a read through of  what's in the papers. The BBC offers many of their listings on play it again status.  Midday gets me Woman's Hour and the Afternooon Play,  with timely interjections of  The News.

By early evening I'm ready for a break and the Archers. I used to think Jill Archer was a total drip,  but she is doing a surprisingly thoughtful job of raising her  annoying husband's dead lover's son Rory.

.

By nighttime it's Traveling Folk or  a  BBC4 documentary on global warming or hiking with  Rambling Claire and in the very late hours, there is always  local news from the Borders or Highlands or peaty Shetland. Sometimes I listen to Radio Wales or Radio Devon or Radio One. When I just want background comfort I dial in Radio Gaelic which is almost always an incomprehensibly speedtalking  rather impressive woman who I  imagine walking  around her kitchen with a microphone clipped to her apron as she  throws together a plate of clooty dumpling and giant haggis, dashing over every now and again to spin a disc. She plays nice faraway music like accordians and lonely fiddles.

Here's the thing about the British Broadcasting System(which also includes tv).  Approved by a Royal Charter it mandates that programming must appeal to a "diverse" population.  Nationalized  means that it is owned and run by the state, and not by the whims of  a profit making public.  It offers  54  radio stations and eight excellent tv channels (BBC1, BBC 2 etc) nationwide offerings are dedicated to a particular key stations including sport, Muslim and Hindu prayers , comedy, drama, talk, news and music, music, music.  There are no ads. None.  BBC stations are paid out of taxes. Each television in the entire nation is taxed at the substantial rate of  131.50 pounds for  a color tv, 44 for black and white pensioners over 75 pay nothing and blind people pay exactly half.

  When we're in the UK my husband listens to BBC 5 (sport) on his battery radio while he's taking a shower.  When I travel long distances for work I download a day of BBC on my Ipod and listen to Rambling or News at 8 , Book of the Week or the omnibus edition of the Archers all over again. Back when we had a Subaru Forester I was content just listening to PBS and the  instant weather channel but now the  Toyota radio is just a conduit for  my Ipod. Sometimes I have to shake off a poncy britedge  to my yankee speak when I get to work.

 

Such a deal.

It's a national treasure.

 

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Heads Down and Don't look Back

 

December, 2008  East Lothian, Scotland

 When people in the US wish you happy holidays, they generally mean, enjoy your time off. In the UK it is a far more literal term as it implies you are actually going somewhere to have a holiday. No one "vacations" at home, they just "stay" at home. My friend Gwynedd explained this to me when I tossed out an "Enjoy your holiday"  as we left the village veg and fruit shop. The veg and fruit man was still standing  dumbstruck in the doorway watching us waggle down the street with our little paper bags of earthy new potatoes and carrots. "He either thinks you know something he doesn't  and he's taking a trip, or you're nuts." Looking back over my shoulder, I could see that he'd decided on the nuts interpretation which seemed appropriate for someone who sold them.   Also note that I called the new potatoes earthy and not covered with dirt, as earth there is dirt to us and dirt there is dog shit to us.

Still, many Brits do take holidays during Christmas as most people have substantial time off from work and school and a week in sunny Majorca sounds pretty good  when it's usually dark at home. There is also a curious national affinity for driving a couple of hundred miles to a place where it will still be dark so that you can pay a lot of money to  have a holiday in someone else's  holiday cottage  and write cheerful entries about the rain and the fireplace in the guest comment book when you leave." What a lovely house in a beautiful location, we had a fantastic holiday.  Kids are longing to come back - thanks for a great week"

This is one of the years when we decided to join them.

We’re very fond of visiting the UK right after Christmas. Airfares hit rock bottom, we’re often in time for Hogmanay or some other excellent New Year’s bash and there’s usually no snow. Well at least there’s a lot less snow than December generally offers New England.

The best part though is in knowing that no matter how work pushed we are in the lead up to the “holidays” nor how endless the tasks inherent in celebrating with an ever increasing number of family under- fives, we know that the real gift is when we clutch our passports and ditch them all.

Having returned only a few months earlier from our year away from everything, it seemed frivolous to even consider leaving again but it had been an eventful interlude and by the time we’d had our second blizzard, we were more than ready to cash in some air miles. Some nights I would ask Tom to “tell me the story” of our impending escape. I’d make him include every detail and start from the moment we got in the car to go to the airport. Usually we were both nodding off by the time he’d seamlessly seen us nestled in our plane seats balancing flutes of champagne, but it was a comforting sleep that followed.

Although Tom and I were neck and neck in ruining Christmas (usually one of the twins does that) it only made our impending departure that much sweeter. Tom stuffed too many  mimosa oranges in the garbage disposal and stopped up the sink on Christmas morning and I broke the stove mid turkey. The next morning while the plumbers were taking apart the kitchen, one of the two year olds was pushed off the top of the couch by her older brother on my watch and had to make a VIP ER visit to have her  on duty doctor uncle (one of the twins) play hero by relocating her arm.

By the time we slunk out the next day we knew we deserved the ice storm that dogged us all the way to Logan.