Penmanfest - otherwise known as the Helen World Tour [5]

Week 5 Part 1

September 17

The Chinese restaurant was lovely and we were late home so this morning I started later than usual, not finishing a lovely breakfast and chat with Suzie until after 9am.

Then I decided that the quick way to Plymouth down the M5 would be boring so I headed over to Bridgwater then to the North Devon coast where I was heading for Porlock and the toll road to Lynmouth. Unfortunately when I reached Watchet I started to see signs saying the Porlock road was closed for maintenance and that I needed to choose an alternate route.

In a very silver lining way I saw a sign pointing left to Dunster Castle and Dunster 'Medieval' Village. So I thought this was worth a look and it was very interesting although the village was mostly early Tudor rather than 'medieval'. It has a lovely yarn market building and was very interesting to drive through being very tight in places.

The A396 is a very beautiful road and led me first up to the edge of Exmoor and then down the Exe River valley to Tiverton. There were parts with lots of pheasants on the road including squashed ones and I had to stop for a couple of them who were quite happy to be in the middle of the road. They are not the cleverest of birds!

At Tiverton I turned across to Crediton and the around to Okehampton. Devon is very pretty rural countryside and the scenery was full of patchwork quilt fields in green, gold, red and brown: all stitched together with green hedgerows.

The next section of my drive skirted the edge of Dartmoor as I headed down to Tavistock. With lots of spare time I decided to detour up onto the top of Dartmoor to Princetown where I accidentally found Dartmoor prison. Dartmoor is very sparse in vegetation but was beautiful on a sunny afternoon. Once again the sheep, cows and ponies were wandering loose on the road so I had to drive carefully. On the top of the moor are many little peaks or tors, with interesting rock formations.

I took another road down to the main road into Plymouth and as I was still early, I took a Park & Ride option and bussed into the Barbican area in the city centre. This is the old area of the wharves at Plymouth and is full of art shops, nice pubs and interesting buildings. I walked some of the way around the Royal Citadel on the headland before returning by bus to collect my car and make my way to John Saunders' place where I was staying. John is interested in medieval history, particularly Richard III, and his mother is a friend of mine at home.

John was home from work so I settled in before we headed off to have dinner with Julia, another piffle friend. Julia, her husband Mike and her three children were very welcoming and we immediately found things to talk about. Naturally topics included books and Julia's interesting job as a question researcher for University Challenge.

Dinner was excellent and I tried Plymouth Gin with water as is traditional and then with tonic as is preferred by me.

After dinner we chatted some more, watched the video of Julia's TV appearance on the program documenting University Challenge's 40 years onscreen and then took a look at the extension to the house which has been built to house Julia's books. This is huge by the way and I took an appropriate photo of Julia and Mike surrounded by books.

We were meeting John 's friends, Anne and David, at their home in Breage and had excellent instructions to follow for the two hour drive there, through Liskeard, Bodmin and Redruth.

We arrived in Breage in time for Anne to offer us coffee before we set out in their car for the rest of the journey to Pengersick Castle. This castle is privately owned by Angela Evans, a lovely elderly lady who is full of life and doing all sorts of improvements to the castle as well as encouraging developments to the garden and further archeological excavations.

Pengersick Castle is a four level, early Tudor tower. Originally a manor house was attached to the side of the tower however this no longer remains. Instead a late 19th century kitchen and more modern area was built in its place.

Angela has been working for more than twenty years to bring the castle to a stage where it is of interest to visitors and she has teams of volunteers who have helped to create a medieval garden, to restore some of the textiles in the building and to help improve it in other ways.

Some local people are now running organised 'ghost tours' of the castle, some of which are accompanied (on a voluntary basis) by Alexander, Angela's pure black cat.

Having a guided tour of a place like this by the owner was amazing and it was really interesting to learn the history of the Castle from Angela. We also saw where an earlier medieval manor house most probably stood and viewed some of the finds from a Saxon site discovered from an even earlier period.

Unfortunately one of the castle rooms appeared to have an excess quantity of fleas which decided to move home onto our jeans. We tried desperately to chase these away but spent the rest of the day feeling itchy and scratching, causing much hilarity.

Next David drove us on to Marazion, the village where one finds the causeway and boats that go to St Michael's Mount. A window table for us had been booked for us at the hotel so I sat staring out at the island while eating roast lamb. The tide was quite high and still coming in so we watched the causeway disappear and the boatmen operate a healthy trade taking tourists back and forth.

After lunch we hopped on one of these boats which ventured out into the choppy seas. John decided to sit toward the rear of the boat rather than huddle under the plastic cover up the front. This looked like a good idea until we hit the first cross wave and a huge splash left him looking semi-drowned. Having lived many years in Australia, he was not allergic to seawater and the sunny, breezy afternoon soon dried him out.

Due to Angela's contacts with Lord St Levan, the owner of St Michael's Mount, a private meeting with the Earl and a tour of the castle, including some of his private rooms had been arranged. This meeting was a little daunting but I know quite a lot about the history of the island during the 15th century so was able to sound a little more knowledgable than the average Australian.

Lord St Levan happily presented me with a copy of his book on the island's history but I forgot to ask him to sign it which was silly of me.

After a look around the private area (mostly built in the 1890s), Lord St Levan showed us a wonderful series of paintings by John Miller, a local artist, which illustrate the island's role at various historical points. A couple of these were stunning and I would love to find prints of them.

Anne had spent all morning making scones so we were treated to scones with jam and Cornish cream (yellower than Devon cream) before starting back on the journey home.

It was about 8.30pm when we arrived home so it had been a very long but wonderful day. Instead of being lazy I decided to catch my journal up to date tonight while listening to a tape of traditional Cornish music.

Week 5 Part 2

September 19

I set out from Plymouth about 9am after having seen John off on a train to London for a meeting and having said farewell to Athena, the adorable cat.

It was a bit cloudy but looked like being fine so I decided to detour off the main road to see Peignton and Torquay on the Devon seaside - bad idea! Really all I saw was Devon traffic which was awful and a huge quantity of boring hotels. The positive side being that I can put both towns on my list of places I never have to go to again. This is not a very large list.

So after going through Torquay I headed back to the main road and on through interminable roundabouts and traffic lights.

A much shorter detour later gave me a glimpse of Lyme Regis as I drove through. This looks like a lovely place to stay on a future trip thereby increasing that list. Parking was impossible though so I continued on to my first scheduled stop for the day which was Corfe Castle in Dorset.

This is a lovely medieval castle in spectacular ruin due mainly to the Civil War. After wandering up and down the various levels (trying to avoid groups of school kids) I sat on the grass to eat bread rolls with Somerset Brie in the sunshine - fantastic!

Then, after a look at the nice little town tucked under the castle, it was back into the car and time to discover that the Dorset roads also leave a lot to be desired. I decided that this was just going to be a really baaaad driving day. One of the highlights then was getting onto the major road through the New Forest which went straight and relatively fast - at last! Then it became a motorway briefly and back to a nice dual lane, A road.

By Winchester I needed a break from driving having covered about 200 miles so far in the day. I headed into town but followed the Park & Ride signs to catch the bus into the town centre for a quick look at the Cathedral and the shopping area.

Then it was back to the lovely, straight A34 which was still no problem even in 5.30pm traffic. There was a couple of minutes delay at the M4 junction but that was all.

I arrived in Abingdon, just south of Oxford, in time for a beer at The Nag's Head, a lovely pub on an island in the Thames, and a quick walk along the river in the twilight before heading to my B&B which was very comfortable although featuring an interesting decorating style.

September 20

I was up early as usual, even after four weeks away I haven't learnt how to sleep-in. First job on the agenda for the day was to clean out the car which had accumulated a month's gathering of things: feathers, stones, flowers as well as items I'd been buying and been given, especially Books!!!

The pile of things and the size of my suitcase showed an immediate incompatibility so I sorted a group of things which could be posted home - mostly books, a big pile thereof.

Then it was time to go off to Wantage to look at secondhand bookshops there with a piffle, Bevis. (And I only bought two more to go in the pile to post home which was really very restrained of me!)

Next stop on the plan was to drive out to see the Uffington White Horse. We climbed to the top of the hill, viewed the White Horse, now once again bereft of the rider and hounds that had been painted on recently and now mown off. The Castle Hill earthworks were also very interesting, showing the size of area that would have been protected by a timber palisade.

Wayland Smithy is also nearby, a stone age burial site dating back to around 5,000BC. The road signpost suggested that it was one mile down the ancient Ridgeway Path so we walked that way and walked . . . and walked . . . and walked, expecting it to always be in the next clump of trees. I'm guessing it was around two miles later that we finally reached the site. (And I made a mental note to check for a closer place to park the car if I'm ever back again.)

But it was a lovely peaceful spot and fascinating to see that people still leave sixpences there for Wayland to shoe their horses according to the legend (or five pences anyway).

By the time we had walked back to the car, it was getting late in the afternoon but I needed to see Minster Lovell which was high on my list of places to visit. There were some lovely villages on the way through from Uffington but unfortunately no time to stop and check them out this time.

I headed home for a quick change and then out again, this time to check out the famous pubs in Oxford - pub crawl? Moi?

First on the list were The Eagle & Child and then The Lamb & Flag, both visited by the Tolkein set and conveniently placed on opposite sides of St Giles. The Lamb had Old Peculier on tap - Yum! It should be noted at this point that I managed to resist the urge to order any drinks in Elvish!

Jesus College was the next stop where the bar was open during vacation for a special conference. There were signs saying conference members only, however knowing staff members helped to open doors so I was able to meet Chris, the bar manager, the Junior Dean and to see the lovely old college quadrangles.

A last drink at The Bear finished off the night and it was time to catch the five minute bus home - much better than driving and having to find a place to park in Oxford.

The cost even for surface mail was awful but still much better than ruining my back trying to carry them all with me.

The lovely post office lady even hunted out real stamps for the postage so my stamp-collecting father will enjoy them. The boxes looked like some weird variety of decoupage when finished.

Abingdon is a very pretty town and I had a bit of time to look at the oldest parts before taking the bus again into Oxford for the pifflefest. This time I got off at a different stop and walked down to the Thames to where the annual boat regattas take place. There were some lovely colleges to see on the way to The King's Arms on Broad Street, now a traditional pifflefest pub.

While I was looking through the pub for familiar faces I heard a cry of Helen from one of the rooms and there was a very familiar looking Elizabeth/Miss Layton together with Gillian/college cat and her husband.

Phone messages came through from a couple of friends of mine who were also heading to Oxford. Both were on their way but would take a couple of hours to get there from Kent and Sussex so we happily piffle chatted while waiting. Gillian had driven into Oxford which I thought very brave of her and she needed to get home relatively early. Elizabeth was just back from a holiday in Roumania which was interesting to hear about.

Mark arrived and although he really belongs in Penmanfests, he learnt to piffle very quickly. Mark's wife Sarah was playing hockey and joining us later for dinner. Alec also arrived and we had a long discussion about fan fiction (which he writes), Harry Potter books and other books.

After about five hours of piffling we left to meet Sarah, proving again the usefulness of mobile phones, then we had dinner at a nice Malaysian/Indonesian Restaurant. Sarah came loaded with things for me to take to New Orleans Penmanfest and also with a pair of Underground Map Socks for me - how wonderful!

It was time for me to say a final goodbye to Mark and Sarah, the friends I stayed with right at the beginning of my trip. I am hoping they will come to visit me in Australia soon.

September 22

I had to get away very early to Heathrow so I was awake at dawn getting the final bits of my suitcase packed and having breakfast. Then I drove down the A34 and M4 heading toward London and Heathrow. I had to leave the hire car full of petrol so detoured briefly into Slough to find a petrol station. The hire car return place was well marked and loaded all my gear into a shuttle bus for the ride to the terminal.

Although I had actually managed to leave with about 6kgs less in my luggage than when I arrived, (my suitcase was down to 22.6kgs) it was still uncomfortable to be back loaded with things to carry - I think car based holidays really suit me.

While waiting for my flight to Amsterdam I caught up with emails and phone messages as I wasn't sure what would happen to my mobile phone networks in Europe. Then I was off on the plane for my first visit to the Netherlands.

The flight was nice and the view around Amsterdam from the air was very beautiful: green outlined with water-filled canals and ditches (though I'm sure there is a much nicer Dutch word for them.)

When we were about to land a dark rain cloud arrived right over Schipol Airport so we cruised around for about 10 minutes waiting for it to clear which gave me further opportunity to check out the scenery.

This area is very beautiful and filled with canals and old (17th century) houses set along them. They are very picturesque and historically interesting as they include houses of famous Dutch sea explorers and probably haven't changed much in hundreds of years (except hopefully for more modern plumbing!)

After a lovely walk (not mentioning the rather cold wind) we moved into a nearby pub for a couple of glasses of Wieschke Witte (White Beer). Although this looked liked an Australian lager, it tasted lovely and was much nicer.

The day was still light but it was by now after 7pm so we headed for home where I played catching up with some emails on Grada's computer while she finished preparing a Rijstaffel (Rice Table). There was a lot more work involved in this than I had expected as it was a collection of three different meat curries, vegetables and rice.

Although this is a traditional Dutch meal now, the flavours of the foods show the influence of Dutch colonies, especially Indonesia. As I love Indonesian food, this was an ideal meal to feed me. Grada and I pifflechatted about how we each discovered Dorothy Sayers books and many other books. We talked about Grada's piffle trips to the US and her plans to be in Australia in a month or so, with maybe a chance to visit me.

Then it was time for bed, me on the extremely comfortable, convertible bed in the guest room (once we had been technical and worked out how to convert it). It had been a long day and I slept soundly till 6.30am.

September 23

For breakfast I enjoyed a crunchy Dutch cereal, courtesy of Grada's twin. Unfortunately I missed out on meeting twin as she was held up returning from Italy by a rail strike and couldn't be there to share the pifflefest.

Grada dropped me at the train station on her way to work. It was cute to note that Netherlands has "Kiss & Ride" signs too.

Then I was on the train for the journey to Bruges which was more involved than I expected and I needed to change trains a couple of times. Blue skies, pretty green fields and little towns dotted the route.

The train journey gave me time to catch up my journal, hand written at the time as my European power adapter isn't working and so my computer had run flat and my mobile phone was about to do the same.

I changed trains at Antwerp for one heading to Oostende, remembering that I had to get off at Brugge/Bruges. There were many interesting things to see on the way: farms of flowers, canals, boats and lovely buildings. Some of the towns looked very pretty from the train, Gent-St Pieter for one. I think I will have to try to get some practice driving on the right hand side of the road as it would be lovely to wander around this area by car.

When I was a few minutes out of Bruges I managed to get my B&B owners on my mobile phone, though it kept beeping to warn me of the low battery. They were able to come and pick me up from the railway station which was much better than carting luggage around the city.