A couple of years ago, the child bride and I did an expedition through the wilds of rural England and Ireland then slummed it round the Baltic on an upmarket cruise ship. Following is Part 1 of 7 describing our adventures.
Well the first stage is over. We left “sunny” England at sparrows this morning (Sunday), flew all the way to Dublin in cloud and drove down to Wexford in the pouring rain. But this is the start of stage 2 so back to the beginning.
After an uneventful flight from Brisbane to London we reached the threshold of Merry England, the immigration hall at Heathrow, and stepped into what can only be described as a zoo. I thought we were queuing up to board the arc. Thousands of people in a mile long queue that wasn’t moving due to a surfeit of processors – tea break I guess. Work to rule and all that. There was a bloke up the back doing a roaring trade selling seats in a Calais shipping container bound for Dover.
A nice touch in amongst all of this chaos is that immigration will process you as a family unit if you are travelling with someone. Consequently, when more immigration desks were eventually opened they were tied up for ages by roly poly, hirsute blokes in Bermuda shorts and polo shirts with their black bagged harem of 10, each carrying a child. Actually I’m exaggerating here. There weren’t 21 people at the desk in front of us. It was 16.
Anyway we eventually escaped to our hotel then picked up our car the next morning. We got an upgrade to a Jeep with all the mod cons – only had 5k on the clock and went like a scalded cat. This was deeply concerning to Nigella the sat nav lady. Plus the car kept telling me when to change gears. So I had Nigella constantly telling me to slow down and the car constantly telling me to change bloody gears. But we managed…..when I found the handbrake which was a button. So off to the Cotswolds.
Oxford was nice. There were cohorts of freshly minted graduates strutting around with proud parents and grandparents in tow. None of the current wave of idiotic political correctness was evident fortunately. I felt inspired….so we went to the pub – The King’s Arms obviously. And next time a Harry Potter movie comes on TV I’ll be able to say I’ve been to Hogwarts.
Bourton-on-the-Water was cute but odd – full of young Asians and old English. But it was a Tuesday so everyone between 20 and 60 was probably working in London or Birmingham (no, not really, that was a joke). Having been less than fully occupied in a vocational sense recently, the fact that people might be working has been a fading memory for me.
Stratford was next. Shakespeare right? Well yes but we found a pub that had been operating since 1594 – The Garrick Arms. That’s almost 200 years before Europeans settled in Aus. Love the history. Then we headed to Manchester and it was downhill rapidly (from our livers’ perspective) for the next few days.
Wednesday afternoon and evening with a cousin and his family was sensational except that the next morning we felt like we’d given Guns N Roses on tour a run for their money. Thanks everyone for never allowing us to have an empty drinking hand. Thanks a bunch.
Next was more great family hospitality from another cousin and family. First a trip to Blackpool to observe the cultural elite of the north-west (there’s my inner snob emerging). We went to the top of the tower which was quite a thrill. The last time we did that we lost any record of it when our camera was purloined in London by one of the south east’s cultural elite. And I can understand why the UK has got so good at athletics. Every second male wears a track suit although they do seem to all walk at quarter to three carrying a cannon ball in their shorts.
We talk about gentrification of tired old suburbs that have basically gone to the pack on all levels. My aunt lives in a street in a suburb that are now respectively the Park Lane and Mayfair of Wythenshawe in Manchester it seems. From being a focus of, as the bureaucrats would say, socio-economic under-achievement, you are now tripping over BMW’s and Mercs on the road and in driveways. The oligarchs have discovered the north west. What a turnaround in a few short years.
Prior to leaving my cousin lead the expedition to find the Hertz drop-off at the airport which had been cunningly hidden in another county.
Manchester airport and more bloody queues. At Air Lingus it was100m long with one check-in counter operating – ONE! After experiencing Heathrow then this I have come to the conclusion that the ability to queue is what made this country great. If the Brits queued like they do in a certain South Asian country there would be anarchy. And while shuffling interminably towards the desk I discovered that like many Asians, some Irish struggle with the concept of personal space. I guess it’s just their natural affection for people in general but what a nation of characters.
More to come.