Nashoba, Base Green, Suffolk

     

There is still no immediate plan for us to move on, a frustration on some levels, but we are glad to avail ourselves to the needs of our English family, something generally impossible from the other side of the world. Last week we provided transport and companionship for Chris’s sister when she attended an eye appointment at the West Suffolk Hospital and now we are waiting for confirmation of her new tenancy so Chris can make a start on the redecoration before she moves in. This is all rather strange to us, especially as landlords ourselves, who are always responsible to undertake the decoration and maintenance of any property we make available for a tenant. Here it seems the tenant makes these changes and upgrades on their own account, although I do wonder if there is some miscommunication going on here. No matter, this is where we are for now.

Since last weekend’s wet weather, we have enjoyed several dry and pleasant days, and made the most of the time which would be otherwise idle.

One day we headed off to Ickworth the other side of Bury St Edmunds, one of our much visited and favourite National Trust properties. We were keen to undertake a significant walk, and this we did after picnicking in the car. For all the times we have walked about the estate, we had not walked up to the northern reach of the property, the most elevated mixed woodland and farm area, part of The Grand Tour which if walked or cycled in its entirety, is 6.4 kilometre long; the section we did was probably about two thirds of that and took us two hours, taking us up to the Monument dedicated to the memory of Frederick Hervey, Earl of Bristol, Bishop of Derry (1730 – 1803).

This character was one of the more eccentric members of the Hervey’s of Ickworth, the younger brother of the obvious heir to the title, studying law then joining the church, such a popular career path those who miss out on inheriting the mana and wealth of aristocratic property. Frederick became a royal chaplain to George III, thus remaining in the upper circles of society, and became the Bishop of Derry, known as the Earl-Bishop after he inherited the earldom from his brother in 1779. It was he who conceived and started the construction of Ickworth House in 1795. He was an ardent supporter of Catholic Emancipation which went against contemporary thought, and for this it was the folk of his diocese who raised funds to erect the obelisk that stand on the top of the hill within view of Ickworth House. 

We were disappointed that we had missed the spring blooms that we have encountered in the past here at Ickworth, although here as all about the county, the hawthorns are heavily bent with their veils of tiny white flowers, and the horse chestnuts are a mass of flowers. Young lambs were well settled into their public National Trust life; they showed little fear as we passed by.

The next day we set off to Combs, just the other side of Stowmarket, and walked for three hours following a network of public walkways across arable farmland, through ancient woods and past old Halls and Churches. The sun was hot, and shone brilliantly onto the golden rape crops, and along the edges the nettles grew lush and green. At one point we became lost, missing the trail sign and spent some time bushwhacking our way through brambles, hawthorne and rape on three sides of a large cropped field, before finding our way through a hedge onto the track we should have remained on. As we battled our way along the edge of the crop, we suddenly came upon the cannon sized barrel of a bird scarer gun which gave us quite a fright, although it would have given us much more of one had it gone off at that very moment.

We lunched on a pile of cut logs in one spinney, and on rising from our rest, spotted a Muntjac deer a little distance away. That, and the one squirrel we had spotted at Ickworth the day before, made for the only UK wildlife spotted so far this year.  

Our walk took us past farms named Holyoak and Pennyplot, Halls named Halfpenny, Combs and Badley and churches at Badley and Combs both named St Mary’s. Establishment of the farm houses and Halls date back to the 16^th century and the one church open to the public, or at least, to us, Combs St Mary’s has an honour board of Rectors which shows the first taking office in 1258.

We enjoyed views back over the western section of Stowmarket and northern views over the wide Gipping Valley. At one point we walked up a ride passing through Combs Wood, once belonging to the lords of the manor of Combs, now managed by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. Here dogs are not allowed, but elsewhere they cannot be excluded from the UK walkers’ experience. Notices attached to trees request that owners collect up the calling cards of their canine companions and keep their charges on leads, and yet we saw small dogs gambolling across the newly sown crops, their owners having no regard to the damage being caused. I have said it before and will say it again; English people are potty about their dogs. 

Today after popping into Stowmarket in the morning to attend to our laundry and re-provisioning our pantry and fridge, we decided to make the most of the sunny day; we headed out after lunch south across the charming countryside to Lavenham, a half hour drive passing through the delightful villages of Buxhall and Brettenham to one of the United Kingdom’s most beautiful medieval villages, or at least Suffolk’s. In fact the charm of lovely Lavenham draws the tourist in and today, even though it lies in the middle of a wealthy farming area, surely relies mostly on the tourist trade. In March 2015 when we wandered extensively around the compact village, we were unable to access the lime washed Guild Hall of Corpus Christi, a sixteenth century National Trust building. 

The town was built on the back of the cloth industry, as was the nearby Bury St Edmunds and Sudbury, and was once the 14^th richest town in England. Since the 1300s it had specialised in weaving woollen cloth. A century later, wealthy merchants controlled exports of this cloth and built their houses, guildhalls and church in grand style. A recession hit in the early 1500s and the rich merchants left, but subsequent generations of craftspeople sustained the struggling cloth industry and it was not until 300 years later that the townsfolk were able to afford to update their medieval town.

The Guildhall has had a long and varied life, all of which is well spelled out over the two floors of the building. It was erected in about 1530 as a meeting place and a place where Catholic religious guilds hired priests to pray for the souls of their members, both the living and the dead.

Before 1655 the Hall was used as a prison or in the language of the time, a “bridewell”. After then, it was used as a workhouse caring for orphans, the poor, infirm and elderly of the parish. The inmates were provided with food, shelter and education in return for work, spinning hemp, flax, and yarn, and weaving coconut fibre from India and Ceylon into mats and horse hair into upholstery fabrics.

Years later, between 1813 and 1839, a school was operated in the Hall, then later it was converted to alms houses and a grain store, then later again a chapel for the Primitive Methodists.

In 1887, public spirited Cuthbert Quilter restored the Guildhall range for the community. Quilter was an art collector, politician and philanthropist and forty six years old when he came to the rescue of the Lavenham Guildhall. He was one of the founding directors of the National Telephone Company (registered in 1881) and continued as a director and large shareholder for the remainder of his life, suggesting a rather forward thinking man. He was an agriculturalist adept at cattle breeding, a Justice of the Peace and an alderman of the West Suffolk county council, amongst many other achievements and milestones. Thus he was the ideal person to step in to save the Guildhall.

Much later, during the Second World War, parts of the Guildhall became a British restaurant, bathhouse and nursery, serving as a social centre and provider of meals for evacuees from London, It also hosted entertainment for foreign airmen.

Then finally in 1951, the Guildhall’s local trustees asked the National Trust to manage it for the benefit of the people of Lavenham, thus ending a rather long and odd history.

There was also an exhibition in one of the upper rooms about the talented Taylor family, writers and illustrators who settled in the village after moving from London and Colchester. Daughter Jane (1783 – 1824) is credited with writing the famous nursery rhyme “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”, one of those little treasures of information that one discovers when travelling.

We arrived back at camp, in time to rescue the washing before any suggestion of evening dew and to catch our host Ivan, to pay for a further week. We learned that this little Certified Site will be very busy over this coming weekend, and will surely be even busier the following, with it being the second of the May Bank Holidays. It is unlikely we will have managed to get away because we have yet to receive word about Margie having firmly secured her new home in Elmswell.

Nashoba, Base Green, Suffolk

After nearly a week back here in the United Kingdom, we are settling back into our little home on this side of the world. The caravan is set up here at Base Green, now a familiar campsite, and one where we are welcome for as many weeks as are required to deal with family matters that must take priority over the joys of random travel.

We flew into London last Monday, after the usual lengthy trip half way around the world. Emirates Airlines proved to be a winner, offering excellent meals, roomy seats even in cattle class, and a good selection of movies unlike Qatar Airways whose censorship minimises the range of “acceptable” entertainment, or at least for the likes of my discerning fellow traveller. Of course the obligatory sleeping tablet helped and we arrived relatively refreshed in the first instance. This did prove to be a red herring as the next few days unfolded; we have watched the dawn of far too many mornings and fallen into interrupted sleep earlier than normal.

The Ambassador Hotel in South Kensington was our home for the first three days, the hotel meeting our needs rather than our dreams, providing a generous breakfast each morning, a comfortable bed and excellent proximity to the Gloucester Road Underground station.

The first of the two full days in the capital dawned as the day before; warm, sunny, dry and unseasonable. We had booked a tour of Lords Cricket Ground, a Mecca for those who follow the sport and a good spot to wander about on such a fine day. We arrived well before the ticket pick up time of 10.30 am, were refused early entry given the crowds of Indian tourists already swarming about the grounds, but offered a bonus alternative.

Lords Cricket Ground is in St John’s Wood, north of our hotel, accessed by the Underground to Baker Street and a quarter of an hour walk. Similar time on foot takes one further north to Abbey Road, the location of that iconic pedestrian crossing and the home of Abbey Road Studios, formerly known as EMI Studios, creator of albums by a multitude of celebrities from Amy Winehouse to Stevie Wonder, and of course The Beatles, which everyone of a certain age knows. Next year will mark the fifty year anniversary of the famous crossing by the Beatles, illustrated on the cover of their 1969 album, “Abbey Road”, an event that will surely draw even more crowds than were there last Tuesday. We were delighted to have received this little tourist hint and have the opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the Fab Four. 

Back at Lords, we and our fellow tourists were hustled through security and into the museum, which is surely worth more than the twenty minutes we were afforded. One tour after another, each defined by a different coloured sticker, were being shunted through the routine, most of these Indians from the sub-continent, arriving here by the tour busload. Our own group were a more international mix, but it was clear that Australians are the second most common takers of the tour after Indians, and the rest of us, almost insignificant.

Our guide, Joslin (seemingly an English upper class name) spoke clearly and was keen to impress us, although despite his hearing aids, struggled to understand or hear questions coming from the group. Often he would stop in front of a painting, or an honour board, to ask a question, and every time the correct answer would fire back, and not always from the Indian men, but their wives who seemed to be as passionate and informed about the sport as their menfolk. Needless to say, I was simply tagging along as support to my husband but I will confess, I found the tour most enjoyable, or at least better than expected. We were led around the grounds, into the Pavilion, the stands, the media tower and another building where we watched the end of a Real Tennis game. The court here is one of several about the country where the original tennis game is played, that which spawned lawn tennis we know today.

Lord’s Cricket Ground, considered by many as the Home of Cricket, is the third reincarnation of the site originally established between 1787 and 1814 and was named after Thomas Lord who was servant to George Finch, 9^th Earl of Winchilsea who put up the funds. The grounds are owned by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) and are home to the Middlesex County Cricket Club. (I have to confess that until about half way through the tour I was interpreting MCC as the Melbourne Cricket Club, which is of course the MCG not the MCC; silly me.)

The current grounds can accommodate about 28,000 spectators; however the capacity will be about twice that once the two older remaining stands are torn down and replaced with more towering structures.  And the day we came, there were about 3,000 cricket fans checking out this cricket mecca.

After nearly two hours we emerged on to the street and made our way through to the western corner of Regent’s Park where we lunched in the warm sunshine on sandwiches and apples purchased from the Tesco Express on our way to the Underground. In fact it was so very hot, we sought the shade partway through our lunch.

We retraced our steps to the edge of the Park, back past London’s Central Mosque, a marvellous looking structure which almost invited further inspection; however we restricted ourselves to peering through the surrounding iron paling fence. Apparently it was designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd, he who designed the problematic Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, that very modern Catholic wonder that has been nothing but trouble since its construction. Hopefully the Mosque which was completed in 1978 has endured less structural problems; it is, after all, a little more traditional in its appearance, with its great golden dome.

Near here are steps providing access to the tow path of the Grand Union Canal, or more correctly this stretch, Regent’s Canal. Walking along this, heading westward, we encountered many fellow walkers and runners and cyclists, and were reminded once more of the joys of towpath walking. Grand houses gracing the southern bank of the canal soon gave way to the London Zoo, and then we arrived in the middle of Camden Town, and crossed the canal bridge at the Dock Markets, filled with tourists enjoying the bars and food outlets.

I visited Camden about ten years ago with my mother and two sisters; we were all amazed at the hustle and bustle, the variety, the vibrancy of this unique village in the centre of London’s urban sprawl. Today was no different, although I am immune to the wow factor of it all; the years of travel in the interim have sadly dulled the excitement of such places.

Still we enjoyed the buskers, and the service we received at our bank, and the two telecom providers we dealt with meeting our communication needs. After lingering some and absorbing the ambience, we caught the Underground back to Gloucester Road and so home. After freshening up and a bottle of wine, we took the Underground back to Victoria to have dinner at the Wetherspoon pub restaurant nearby, a tried and true choice, although this time the place was packed out with locals and very noisy. My previous menu favourites had disappeared however we received sustenance for good value and returned to the hotel satisfied with our day.

Our second full day in London was to be of my choice, although I had taken over the random touring of the previous day’s afternoon. We headed to the Museum of London on remnants of the old city wall. This offers free entry although in keeping with all such places, does request a donation and one must pay for a guide map of the museum. It’s an excellent establishment, full of items dug up around the city as archaeologists have been called in to assist during the construction of railways, rods and buildings. Visitors follow a route through history from prehistory, through Roman and Saxon times, and up to the present. Such is the museum’s popularity and functionality that school children from all over join the tourists in great numbers, with all the action and noise that only the younger generations can generate. In fact the noise level was so ghastly we escaped after an hour, seeking a quiet space, and lunched before re-entry. We had another appointment so as a result did not have enough time to see all the exhibits, so this will remain on our re-visit list however we will make sure we call during the school holidays or a weekend rather than term time.

The previous day I had talked my husband into seeing a show, because isn’t that what everyone does when they go to London? We had attended the opera at Covent Garden two years ago, so hadn’t missed out completely, but this time I wanted to see something a little less cultural, a Broadway type show. And so I found that The Book of Mormon had a matinee on Wednesday and we managed to secure tickets. Chris was not very enthusiastic, nor was he impressed with our seats in the theatre, however after a strumming up by yours truly, he found himself enjoying the show after all. In fact, so much so, that he said he would be happy to see it again.

 This musical show is totally irreverent, full of smut, political incorrectness, totally brilliant and not for those easily offended or children under 15 years of age. First performed in 2011, it won nine Tony Awards in that first year and has had rave reviews ever since, not least here and now from me.

We finished our excellent day with a menu de jour at an Italian restaurant near our hotel and turned in early in readiness for our departure the next day.

So Thursday, a day of great event, arrived, and we checked out in time to arrive at the Gloucester Road station just after 9 am. We took the Circle Line which took us directly to Liverpool Station, whence the East Anglian train service leaves. The train was packed tight and we stood for the half hour trip, clutching a central pole, with our large suitcases in front of our legs, our large backpacks between our chests and the pole, and my small zip bag strung about my neck. Bodies pressed in on us from all sides and I did consider a taxi would have made for a more pleasant ride. On arrival and after we passed through the turnstile, Chris took my Oyster card, considering himself to be a better keeper of cards than I. He reached into his pocket for his wallet, to find it was gone. “How could you have left it on the train?” I cried. 

“It’s been stolen”, he responded and I felt sick. Thankfully I had cards and cash on me, or did I? I reached into my small zipped bag and found that I too had been robbed. Stunned, nauseous, lost …... so many words, none of which really can convey the absolute dismay.

We made our way to the Transport Police office, tucked away in a corner of the station, where the one policewoman and clerk commiserated with us, and then on learning our train was to leave in twenty minutes, suggested we phone in our report later in the day after we reached our destination. They provided us with the appropriate telephone numbers and ushered us in our way. Fortunately our train tickets were printed on A4 paper and had been folded in the bag rather than our wallets, so we were able to board the train with bags and otherwise penniless, except for 50p Chris still had in his pocket.

On the train Chris phoned his brother, who was scheduled to meet us, for a cash advance. Naturally the call was overheard by our immediate fellow travellers and the couple across the table offered us snacks and drinks, all of which we declined, but we certainly appreciated their sympathy and advice. They were in the security business so had plenty to offer.

Hugs and kisses and cash were the order of the day as we emerged from the Stowmarket station, whereupon John took us back to his partner’s house where our car was already hitched up to our caravan and ready for us to head off immediately to our first camp of this 2018 UK trip. John and Mary were off to extend their bowling expertise; hence the greeting was brisk and efficient.

And so we have spent the intervening days cancelling bank cards and seeking renewal of all, talking to police and insurance companies, and being frustrated at the complexity of requesting new driver’s licences. Chris should receive his replacement UK licence within a couple of weeks, but the others will have to wait until we return DownUnder. I have recovered from the sense of violation and my fury directed at the cunning criminals has abated; Chris said even on that first day, “Don’t let them get to you”. Easier said than done, but the passing of time has helped me arrive in a better place.

We have spent bites of time with Chris’s sister and last night drove up with her to Blo Norton in Norfolk to attend the fourth reunion of long past residents, the third we have attended. There we were joined by John and Mary and spent the greater part of the evening enjoying family time rather than mixing and mingling with the senior folk of past Clarke memory. Rain was falling by the bucketful as we drove south late in the evening; at one point we ploughed into a great flood across the road and were glad we were in our rather hefty 4WD as opposed to the small sedan ahead of us who coped less ably than my own Chauffeur.

We are well set up on this little farmlet of Ivan and his partner, in the company of three other caravans, all of whom have been here since we left here late last year. The huskies still howl and moan at dinner time in the same manner they did when we were last here, there are now three more functioning showers, although still no washing machine and our hosts are no less friendly and hospitable. And the birdsong all day here in this rural spot is just a delight.

Ambassadors Hotel, Kensington, London

London has laid on superb weather for our last two days here in the United Kingdom, albeit very fresh this morning. Tomorrow promises to be even colder, but dry, which will make our progress through to Heathrow painless. Perhaps painless is not the right word, although we have shuffled items between suitcases and the weighty luggage that did my back in last Wednesday should be a little more tolerable. Alas, we do not travel light and worse still, we love books. The bequest of ill health has now spread to my dear husband, and now we are two hypochondriac curmudgeons, although I really have been trying to be cheery and bright. 

Yesterday after eating yet another wonderful breakfast, we set off on foot up to Kensington Park, and made our way through the sunny golden scene along with hundreds of locals who do this on a more regular basis, across to the Palace. We arrived about ten minutes before opening time, more by good luck than good management, because then we had no idea how long and slow the entry queues would become later in the day. 

The promotional material raves more about Princess Diana’s wardrobe exhibition than anything else, so I was a little hesitant about paying out the entry fee, however Chris was keen, and if he is happy to divest himself of our children’s inheritance, so am I. So we paid up and found there was so much more to take in that the frivolous pursuit of glamorous, glitz and privately designed outfits for day and night, work and pleasure. What a dizzy silly little thing she was, but then most of those who make their way on to the front pages of the tabloids are.

The Royals, William and Mary, bought this house in Kensington, then apparently as leafy as it is now, in the summer of 1689, hoping the village location “with very good air” would help William’s chronic asthma. They commissioned Sir Christopher Wren, he of St Paul’s Cathedral fame, to rebuild and extend the house, before moving in at Christmas time that year. It was here that Queen Victoria was born and spent her childhood, and here she met her beloved Albert. It is here that Diana lived after her divorce from Charles, and here tucked away from the roving public that both her sons have apartments these days. It really is a delightful location, with views out across onto the Serpentine and extensive parkland, although I wonder how much of these are enjoyed by the current royals with the paparazzi following their every move.

The area open to the public is divided up into separate areas with exhibitions about Victoria and Albert, Queen Mary II and her sister Queen Anne, the three German generations of women that guided and nurtured the Hanoverian Kings, and of course Diana and her fashion story. The sunken gardens are lovely too and it was beside these we sat to lunch, watched and stalked by several bold squirrels. You know that I am a push-over for these gorgeous little critters, however yesterday I had to stamp my foot several times to shoo them away.

From here we walked to West Kensington and caught the underground to Green Park, from where we walked up around past St James’s Palace and Clarence House, haunts of the past Queen Mother and more latterly of Prince Charles, neither structure very visible from street level. Then along Pall Mall and up into Piccadilly Circus where we sat on the central monument steps and listened to the buskers and took in the buzzing crowds of tourists, hoping no terrorists had chosen this afternoon to run amok. From there we took the underground back to Gloucester Road and soon back to the hotel on foot. Quite an outing for the unwell!

Later we went out again and dined at a local Greene King pub, this chosen by Chris because I have refused to have anything more to do with choosing a restaurant, deciphering their hidden charges or telling the hosts what they should do with these. I play the submissive dumb wife, albeit not glamorous or blonde. As it turned out the meal was delicious, we paid the listed price and came away without a repeat of the previous day’s fiasco.

After a wakeful night, I certainly did not feel like a grand city safari today, but nor did I wish to hang around all day between the four walls of our little room, so we set off again, lunch purchased at the nearby superstore so all options were on the table. We walked westward along Cromwell Road, until it became West Cromwell Road, on past Earl’s Court, turning down New North Road into Fulham in search of the market. Here market stalls selling fresh fruit and vegetables, fish and meat, were strung out along the main road, and the unsophisticated locals were busy stocking up from their favourite vendors. The shops that line the road behind the stalls are a mish-mash of general stores and food stores, no doubt with decade-old history and not a chain store to be seen. On we went down into Fulham proper, where no doubt we would have seen the smarter shops had we been bothered, but instead we caught the underground through to Westminster, joining the throngs of tourists in the city centre, soon escaping eastward along the River Thames until we reached the Tate Britain. 

This is my favourite art gallery, along with the National Portrait Gallery I suppose, and we spent some time here, before walking north to Victoria Station and catching the underground back to Gloucester Road. I remarked to Chris that if someone wanted to trace our rail route from our Oyster cards, they would find it all rather confusing, because we have covered great gaps on foot. I was glad to arrive back at the hotel and put my feet up, and would have napped longer had Chris’s brother not phoned with a query about the car keys. He has picked our Kia up today and it is now under his care until we return next year.

So there is little left of our 2017  UK trip, but another meal out tonight, god-knows-where, and our progress through to Heathrow tomorrow before we fly back to New Zealand. It has been an excellent six months (less a few days; very important to note) and I look forward to another episode in 2018, just a pity I have both begun and ended this one with less than good health.