and here I am back again. It's been a while and as most of you will know, I'm now back in my home in Auckland, New Zealand. And, yep, it's good to be back, mostly. It was simply fabulous to see Thomas again and then everyone else who I've met up with, still some people I haven't seen yet. I have to say it - already I've had enough of the grey rainy days! Still, summer's coming.
Now, I must go back to where I finished off last time - London, Cornwall, London,Bruges, London, Leeds, London, then home.
We arrived in London, Stansted Airport to be exact. It's so easy - just off the plane and onto the train direct to Liverpool Station and there we were, in the middle of The City, more or less. Usually the 'EU/UK passport holders line is enormous while the 'All others' line consists of one or two people but this time the 'all others' was really long and so it took ages to get to the front and then, the woman checking my passport etc, was more interested in watching the burqa-wearing lady than in me and my passport, but finally I was done and met Barry, who has a British passport and was through quicker than me, and then onto the train we went. We arrived at Emma's later than we thought but they still had dinner waiting for us - such beautiful people. It was great to see them again and to be back in Brixton.
We had Monday and Tuesday in London and then on Wednesday morning we got the train to Bodmin Parkway in Cornwall.
Barry's Aunty Hazel and Uncle John live in Wadebridge, Cornwall, and every time we've been to London we've talked about going down there but didn't until, finally, Barry went there before he came over to Azpeitia at the end of March and then, finally, I got down to see them this time before heading back to NZ. The last time I saw them I think was in 1992, I'm not 100% sure but some time about then and it was great to finally get down there.
Another train journey, this time watching the English countryside heading south-west:
the city of Plymouth!!!
another view of Plymouth - why are there so few trees???
and then there are cabbage trees! not in Plymouth.
It's about a 31/2 hour train journey and it all went according to the schedule. Hazel and John were there to meet us. It was wonderful to see them, they are warm and friendly and were very happy to have us stay for a couple of days. From the station we drove to their little village of Wadebridge which sits on the edge of the River Camel 8kms from the town of Padstow on the Cornish Coast.
We stayed with them for 2 nights leaving on Friday on the 16.04 train to Paddington Station, So we had almost 21/2 days with them.
After we'd had something to eat we had a walk around the village, not that it took a lot of time but it's always interesting to me to see places with locals who make such walking about so interesting with all their local knowledge.
here they are - Hazel and John in their back garden
In Wadebridge - this is the street leading out of the village to their street.
part od Wadebridge taken from the bridge looking down the Camel River inland.
On Thursday we went to the Royal Cornish Show and on Friday, before catching the train, we went to Boscastle and then to Bodmin Moor.
The show was fantastic and took me back to the days of walking about the Gisborne A & P Spring Show (Agricultural and Pastoral) only there was nothing 'Royal' about that show although we did wear our new summer dresses. I must say that the Cornish show is about 50 times bigger than the Gisborne show, which is still going, I might add. Interestingly, what they didn't have which the Gisborne show has, is a baking and preserving section.
We walked around with Hazel and John for a while and then they went off to do 'stuff' and we decided to go and see the animals and what fun we had. First we sat in the sun watching huge bulls being paraded around for judging, making our pick of the winner based on no knowledge what-so-ever. My gosh, there were some enormous bulls there. We also wandered through the big barns where the bulls and cows were resting up, and through a bit of the rare breed barn but there were so many people there we walked in one door and out the next. From there we watched some sheep judging and then it was time to find our way to the designated meeting point to meet up with Hazel and John and then it was time to wander our way to the exit. It was rather cool to just walk around with the locals listening to their 'English accent'.
I couldn't get over how big this show is. It's on for 3 days and around 130,000 people go each year, it was first held in 1793 and covers an enormous area but I don't know exactly how many hectares/acres. It would take the best part of the 3 days to get around it and that's not counting the time spent looking at things.
Anyway, we had a great time - oh yes! we had very delicious Cornish Pasties for lunch and one of the most disgusting coffees I've ever had the displeasure of tasting and then throwing away.
Here's some photos:
this is the 2014 champion ? breed bull.Yes, his tail is brushed and fluffed up to make it look like this.
a strange owl
there was a group of antique sideshow thingys
the horse and chooks looked like they'd terrify little children
and one of these music things
and then the next day we went to Boscastle on the coast and then to Bodmin Moor. Boscastle is on the Cornish Coast about a 30 minute drive from Wadebridge. It used to be a fishing village but the fishing is rather depleted and it is now mostly reliant on tourism and also, apparently, a lot of people have holiday homes there so that the population of the village dramatically increases in the summer, just like the viiages on the Basque Coast.
looking from the seaward end of the village. The big building on the left is a hostel.
the entrance to the harbour and the village. The only bit of the Cornish Coast that we saw
On the 16th August 2004 there was a flash flood through the village caused a huge amount of damage, most of the buildings were destroyed totally or partially but happily no one died. This house was almost destroyed and then rebuilt to be almost the same as it had been even replicating the sagging roof! Most of the buildings are eating places and/or accommadation places and most of the people who work here don't live in the village.
and so to 'the moor' - I was very excited to be going to a 'real live moor' having read many, many books featuring English moors so I was finally going to see one - woo hooo!
and here it is - Bodmin Moor
my first view - this part was one of the airfields from which planes took off for France in WW2 and there are still remnants of the concrete runways.
this is what's known as the rough part looking towards Rough Tor on e of 2 hills on the moor. The other one is a bit taller, 420 metres, and is called Brown Willy! We didn't see Brown Willy, just wandered around here for a bit
apparently it's unspoilt and there are still many bronze age hut circles on the moor and herds of wild moor ponies
there were quite a few more ponies but these were the closest ones
a very old bridge
Just after we booked our train tickets to Cornwall I thought that it might have been better to hire a car and have an explore of the byways of the English countryside HOWEVER - what does one see as one drives along the byway - hedges - that's what one sees, and occasionally glimpses of what's on the other side of the hedges. Oh, I was very happy that we hadn't hired a car.
finally the station
This time we had to change at Plymouth for the London train and ... train to Plymouth was 10 minutes late which meant that we missed our connection to London and had to wait for 11/2 hours for the one after the next one. The next london train was fully booked, the thing for us to remember is to allow for more than 5 minutes between trains. We were rather late in to London and then Brixton but the lovely ladies in Brixton had our dinner waiting again!! What treasures they are.
Well, I'd hoped that I would have also included Bruges and Leeds in this post but nope, that's not going to happen. I shall get more done tomorrow.
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