Epistle from Jersey

Oxford was a blast! Zoe & Al were amazing hosts, and we packed a bunch of adventures into our short stay: A tour of the old university town, including a classic punting side trip on the river Cherwell, (a tributary of the Isis, which is actually the Thames, don’t ask me, its just an Oxford thing) a climb up St. Mary’s Tower, where I took some photos, (already shared some at the end of the last blog), an excellent lunch (I had Steak & Kidney Pudding!) at an old pub accessed by a secret passage only known to the locals (and fortunately, Al too!), a visit to the natural history museum, a tour around a couple of University “quads” – actually very refined gardens with PERFECTLY rolled lawns, rose beds and academics lolling around having their afternoon tea .
We also strolled through the university botanical gardens, where they seem to have samples of just about EVERYTHING that grows in soil. On our second say, we went for a hike near Dorchester, an old Roman town, making a modest climb to a hilltop that offered a grand view of the Thames valley with the church spires of Oxford on the horizon. Thanks, Zoe & Al for a great visit, and your help with our previous blog posting and photos!


Dad and I left Oxford about 2 weeks ago, setting our course south, in the general direction of Bosham (pronounced Bozzum), Dad’s childhood home. After a couple days of cycling along the narrow by-ways, and staying in campgrounds, we came to Bosham, and had a poke around. Another picturesque village in a picturesque country, with some funny memories and apersonalized tour from Dad, the very best. He knows, to my surprise, more about boats that I would have thought, and was able to explain every little nuance of the harbour, apparently he was quite the little sailor as a kid.
From Bosham we cycled to the Isle of Wight, perhaps the most visually stunning as it was a super hot day, add to that the slow pace of things and the excellent stone architecture and we had a wow day, finally hitting a shower in the well kept hostel in Totland, and a most agreeable pint of English Cider.
Thence came the journey to Weymouth, through the new forest, which is actually an old forest. I’ve noticed the features can change so rapidly, from lush island to windy heath lands, and it was a blustery day, with much map consulting to find the safest roads, which we did. It started raining and we decided to stop in for a bit to eat, and the obligatory pinty. We came upon the “Green Lamb” in a little village called Corfe Mullen, and there partook of fine ales, ciders and a warm meal, which greatly improved the mood, as I am finding good food and ales often do. I must say that I would make a good Hobbit indeed!
Upon leaving the pub we headed south and made very good time to Wareham, where we embarked on a brief train ride to make it to Weymouth before dark, finding a most agreeable Farm on which to pitch a tent and rest our heads.
Trains have been a mostly hassle free affair for us and I am relieved, as I was a tad nervous at first. I am sorry we don’t have a system like it in Canada, and if anyone says we have Via rail, I say “Balderdash!”, it’s too expensive and doesn’t serve the smaller towns and cities. But I digress.
It was off to Hawkchurch, this time without the trailers, having left them at camp. Hawkchurch is where my Grandmother, Dad’s mum, is buried. We toiled all day, as it was very hilly, and finally came in the early afternoon to the village, and spent an hour searching for the gravesite, which we never found! Couldn’t find a trace of it. We suspect that it has been grown over, as it was a flat stone. We sailed back just in time for another pub dinner and hit the hay, it had been a 100kms of up and down and all around, but we had a great day, and as usual, I was impressed with Dad’s increasing level of fitness and vigour, hooray for Dad! (Roman roads, by the way, are as straight as you get over here, and a highly efficient means of getting around by bike as they are gently graded and often not busy. The better to move troops around, no doubt)
Morning saw us packing up for the impending trip to Jersey on the Condor Ferry Express, which is the fastest ferry I’ve ever been on, it fairly zooms along, and in no time at all we were docking at Jersey, bound for the parish of St. Ouen, home of my late aunt Sylvia and Uncle Robin, along with cousin Duncan. Finally, a little while to rest and get ready for phase 2 of the journey to the continent, and catch up on a long overdue moot with family from afar.


And so the dayz go on….
Dad and I find ourselves about to leave Jersey after a wonderful week and a bit stay with Uncle Robin and cousin Duncan. A beautiful, lush island, Jersey plays host to many species of lichen and plants and trees (Maples, Beeches, Ivies, thistles, gorse etc etc), and has a nice stretch of coastline, although it is a small island, only 45 miles square. Gorse, by the way, is about as unpleasant a plant as I’ve met, an evil cross between thistle and devil’s club, though it’s flowers have the singular quality of smelling like coconuts. I’ve cycled around Jersey twice, and it doesn’t take long, which makes me wonder about the amount of cars on this island, it seems everyone has one, and you often cannot exceed the speed of a bicycle anyways, so whatz the point??? Silly humans tsk tsk.
Anyhooo…Dad and I have been reeelaxing and taking the small but surprisingly busy island in bit by bit, hiking sections of the coast or cycling, yesterday we did a farm tour on an organic farm, which re-inspired me, the gentleman took us on a 2 hour tour, and he’s growing a lot!
The long beaches here play host to many surfers of all kinds and I find myself drawn to watching them from the beach, the kite surfers especially catch my eye, and I like how they whip along for hours at a stretch. The tides have their rhythm too and I find that this changes the feel of the place, and it’s something I want to understand more, because I’ve realized I really don’t understand the first thing about tides, except that they can be dangerous and exceedingly swift. (Which, by the way reminds me that the Bay of Fundy in NB, Canada, has the highest tide in the world, I think it’s something like 500 metres)
Having stayed for quite a long stretch has introduced some steadiness back into the days and it’s nice to wake up with a kitchen to maketh breakfast in and lunch and so on. Dad has, of course, been cooking up a veritable storm and I’ve been enjoying THAT very much, as the deep fried EVERYTHING here in Britain leaves something to be desired, though there are the odd resto’s and what not that do serve good hearty food, a lot of it is fried. So coming back, it’s good to have a place to cook. Not to mention the tasty pies and trifles he’s been making with the ample supply of blackberries that grow virtually everywhere here.
Robin and Duncan have been most gracious and I have been enjoying their company very much. Often we stay up until late talking and, for me, listening to stories of yore. Robin, being a meticulous saver of pictures (as well as a damn good photographer in his own right), has some real gems of Dad’s youth, as a baby and the like. I was amazed that they even existed and I must say it is odd to see a photo of Dad without that ubiquitous moustache of his. There’s a beaut of him with his mum and Uncle Robin, looking up playfully at his older brother. We’ll see if we can’t get them posted at some point. Connecting with Dad’s side of the family is really good, as it was always such a mystery to me, and now it’s finally coming together. I believe this truancy was mostly due to sheer lack of interest in writing letters and the like, but in their older, wiser years the family is finally getting their act together.
I have been absorbed in playing with the pencil crayon set that my aunt Corrie gave me before I left, to draw on blank postcards, it’s been a real blast. I can’t draw worth a damn, but I can make bubbles and dots and cool patterns. I’ve also been catching up on some long overdue reading, and would suggest to anyone and everyone that “man without a country” by Kurt Vonnegut is absolutely one of the best contemporary works I’ve read in a long time, not that I read a lot. So read it if you get the chance, it only takes an hour or so, but is worth every line, I am sad that he’s no longer around.
I’ll leave you with a joke of his, my love to all of you

Funniest joke in the world: “Last night I dreamed I was eating Flannel Cakes. When I woke up, the blanket was gone!” har har har
Peace
Roger ;) xoxox (as usual, for the ladees ONLY!)

Har Har says I (not).
Jersey has been indeed a wonderful sojourn. I should mention that I lived here for a few years in the 1960’s, just before I immigrated to Canada, so the visit has also been a trip down memory lane! Roger has given the subject good credit, so I won’t elaborate more, except to say that there are more photos, that will have to wait until we find a broadband connection. So far we have taken 1 GB of images, (most are rubbish, but some are OK), which will need editing before we can share them. Robin helped us copy our card onto a CD, so we can venture forth with an empty memory card and a fully charged battery.

Tomorrow we take the early ferry to St Malo, in Normandie, and on to the next stage of our journey. We shall leave the English language behind, and embrace la langue Francaise, jusqu’a notre arrive au Pays Bas. Et bien, ma chere famille, et mes cheres amies –Au revoir! - a la prochaine!.

Journey so far

Anavale

We arrived in Edinburgh on a moderately warm day after a fairly uneventful flight. The Air Canada flight was on a brand new Boeing, quite comfortable, with fancy A/V technology that actually worked, and more legroom than the airbus fleet. The flight attendants, however, not so brand new. I had to resist asking our attendant how she would compare the Super Constellation and De Havilland Comet to the new equipment.

I was still a teenager when they retired those venerable airliners, so you do the math. At least airliners face mandatory retirement.

Fiona and Guy met us at the airport, and we piled our bikes, trailers and luggage into the back of their SUV. We stood back to admire our superlative packing achievement, finally realizing that there was no room for passengers. Passengers, of course, meaning Roger and Chris.

After a few minutes of trial and error, we managed to invent a couple of new Ashtanga poses, and perched ourselves on top of the luggage, with our heads sticking out of the open roof hatch. And so we went, merrily down the highways and byways of the Pentland Hills, rather like a giraffe transport from the circus, waving at the passers by as if we always travelled in that fashion. I think we had them fooled, because everybody just casually waved back.

Mushrooms at Dawick

We arrived at Fiona & Guy's little farmstead, Annavale, after about an hours drive through some very impressive countryside, ancient villages, across moors ablaze with gorse and heather, and 2,486,967 sheep. Roger counted them. Annavale is located near Biggar, a charming little farm town with two vets, two fish and chip shops, two fleshers and .... FOUR pubs. A sign on the town limit announces drily: Edinburgh is big, but Biggar is Biggar.

Fiona and Guy have two horses still on their holding, but apart from the considerable work associated with feeding and doctoring hayburners, live contently in retirement. We were treated like Kings, fed like Gourmands, and provided with a wealth of local lore and knowledge, which gave us a great start to our trip.

Guy, being an engineer, is a natural mechanic, and was able to help us assemble our bikes and trailers, and troubleshoot some problems that we encountered. Roger wanted to pack him in the trailer and bring him with us, but he graciously declined.

We were also able to have a brief but good visit with Roger's cousin David, who lives at Annavale, but was off the day after we arrived to visit Brian and family in Canada. He is going to drop in and spend a few days with Phillip in Canmore.

Hopefully he will enjoy his visit, and come back again when we are all at home to welcome him. Towards the end of the week, David's sister Harriet drove up from Dumfries to spend the weekend, so we were able to enjoy a reunion with her as well.

Family at Annavale

Whilst at Annadale, we went off on daily 'training' runs, and managed to cover quite a bit of the country around Biggar, including a visit to the chapel at Roslin, which apart from its recent fame as a venue in the Da Vinci Code, is significant to us through its historical connections to the way to Santiago de Compostela.

Stone Scallop of St James

Highlands

Rear view

After a wonderful six days at the Oxley's, we were finally ready to embark on the tour. We cycled in a south easterly direction through the Lanarkshire hills into the Scottish Border country, spending our first night at Hawick (pronounced H'oik), about a 100km ride. We had actually intended to stay at a Hostel in a little village called Burnfoot, which was shown on the ordnance survey map that Guy had very kindly donated.

However, the map was some years out of date, as was the hostel, having closed its doors some years previously, according to the lady across the street tending to her rose garden. This, of course, was a bit disappointing for yours truly, having decided that 85 km was quite enough for the first day.The bike trailer seems to get heavier as the day goes on.

England

Craig and Betsy

Rachel

Next day we passed over the Border into England, making it as far as Haydon Bridge, where we spent a couple of fun days visiting with Rachel and Craig, and their amazing little daughter Betsy. Whilst there, we made a ride over to Hexham to visit the bike doctor for some minor surgery, load up on some groceries, and purchase an up to date map!

Then over the Pennines, (a real ball breaker, at least for yours truly, Roger thought it was a walk in the park) to the shores of Ullswater in the Lake district.

Ulswater

Ulswater

There we checked into a 'campground', where we able to put up our tent next to the burn (creek) and walk up to the 'clubhouse' for supper and a beer. The 'clubhouse' was very tacky, playing english holiday maker type music that reminded me of Butlin's and Pontin's, but the food was OK, and the beer as cold as one can expect in England.

Kirkstone pass

After a restless night, trying to sleep through the din of an adolescent sleepover party happening in the next tent, we woke up to a brilliantly blue sky, bringing a warm and sunny day, and set off south through the Lake District, over the Kirkstone pass to Ambleside, down to the ferry crossing over Windermere (England's biggest lake), and on over hill and dale to Kendal, where we booked into the hostel for the night.

Coming into Kendall

The hostel is in an old building with narrow creaking staircases and tiny windows; the men's dorm of course was under the eaves in the top floor, with a low timbered ceiling - nothing like a little tap on the head on your way to the 'bog' in the middle of the night to make one appreciate the standard eight foot clearance found in Canada.

I wasn't the only victim either, as I heard a succession of muffled yelps and curses from the other guests from time to time through the night. Being Saturday night, we joined the venerated and ancient english tradition of queuing (lining up) at the local curry house for dinner, and actually had an excellent meal. So nicely spiced, that we got double enjoyment from it. (I could smell the curry in my sweat the next day, along with the other usual morning after sensation that a good curry brings!).

Walking back to the hostel after dinner, we were entertained by the many troupes of young ladies, plastered with make up and beer, adorned in the miniest of mini skirts, valiantly negotiating the cobblestones in their high heels and handbags, as they trolled the streets for young gentlemen. The lads, of course, were all sensibly avoiding the fuss by ensconcing themselves in the pubs, watching soccer and swearing noisily at each other over the tops of their pint glasses.

The hostel provided an excellent Sunday breakfast, after which we loaded up our steeds and headed off for the Yorkshire dales. The roads at first were blissfully quiet, as the local population was sleeping off the effects of Saturday night soccer.

Except for the older folks of course, but this is a country where people still walk to church. I suspect more because the country churches have cemeteries instead of parking areas, and the local constabulary strictly enforces the drinking/driving laws.

(Church here is always followed by a visit to the adjacent pub. The English are, of course very civilized.) We made good time, and managed to reach the quiet country lanes of the Dent Dale before the motor cycle clubs hit the main roads for their Sunday Run. We passed a number of these processions, lined up getting tea from the roadside canteen - some with their souped up crotch rockets, and notably one group of about 150 bikers, average age 60 to 70, all riding vintage machines such as BSA, Triumph and Nortons.

Viaduct, Dentdale

We even encountered a large group of Mini Cooper enthusiasts, who all zoomed by us, one after the other, rather like a bunch of Shriners in the Canada Day parade. The day started to turn a bit grim and cold, with rain in the air, and a wind that was becoming 'a bit thin' to use the local Yorkshire parlance.

So we were not disappointed to reach Settle, at the southern end of the Dales, and board the weekly train (yes, that's weekly, as in once a week, every Sunday. In fact the last train of the year, as it is a seasonal service) to Preston.

The train arrived a bit late, so we missed our connection to Oxford, and had to spend the night in the station waiting room, huddled under the security cameras to avoid becoming a target for some drunken chav. (English vernacular for a brotherhood of gentlemen with a pugilistic nature and a very discerning attitude towards people of a different cultural background).

We therefore had no trouble making the morning train to Oxford, and arrived to find the fine weather had leaped ahead of us. Having spent a pleasant day cycling around the ancient university town, we presented ourselves at Zoe and Al's, who are very graciously hosting us until we leave on Thursday morning.

Roger finally gets to fulfill his dreams of punting in Oxford, but gets stuck in the mud.

Chris helping out.

Botanic gardens - Oxford.

Bridge over river Cherwell.

Weeping willow and punts.

View over quad from St Mary's Tower, Oxford spires.

Radcliff Camera - Oxford.

St Mary's spiral staircase.

And that's it so far! A huge thanks to Mr. Al Power for helping set this post up, we couldn't have done it without him, or at least not this well. It may be sometime before we are able to set up another post, but rest assured that we will do our best to keep everyone informed. Time to hit the road again, it's been a lovely stay in Oxford, thanks again to everyone who let us stay with them and who fed us.
Peace
Chris and Roger ;)