Our Swan Song.

This will not be the final post to this blog, as I still have a few observations to make about the trip as a whole, but this will be the post that describes the final leg of our journey.  Alas, all good things must come to an end. The last two weeks were about driving through England in search of the perfect teahouse and the best fish and chips. We would hit a few more castles and would hang out with a few more sheep.  We were on a quest to find out what makes Britain English or perhaps what makes England British outside of London.  What follows is a summary of those two glorious weeks.

The story of leaving London is already well documented in a previous post, entitled “My Life is a Sitcom,” so I won’t go into that again.  But I still do need to wax eloquently about Cornwall, as all I did was trash it in the other post.  We stayed in St. Ives, a storybook village on the coast with more charm than should be legal for any one spot.  The weather was typical for our entire visit to the peninsula.  We were in a fogbank.  There was no rain and no real wind to speak of, other than a cool sea breeze that smelled of salt and yesteryear.  The cries of the seagulls were ever present and relaxing, unless, of course, one allowed it to remind one of a certain pizza-swiping episode.  There was a rather cheerful cemetery, if that is even possible, on the hillside between our country inn and the waves below.  I mention it because it added to the mystique of the place.

The fog doesn't roll in and out, it just hangs. 

On our way to get some Cornish pasties (to feed to the seagulls - see "My Life is a Sitcom")

Carol and I walked the town multiple times, taking in everything our senses could handle.  I loved it.  The oceanside is always a draw for me.  But this place felt like more than just a beach town.  It was a fishing village that never really decided to leave the nineteenth century.  If you were able to ignore the tourist shops and the cars, you could almost feel as if you had arrived via time machine.  We liked the pub that we ate in so much that we went back the next night.  The locals were so friendly that we wanted to hug our servers rather than just give them a monetary tip.  I refrained, just in case you were worried.  We’d given up hugging the restaurant staff back in Thailand when it inevitably resulted in the servers offering to take our children home with them.

We took a side trip to nearby Penzance, not just so I could sing Gilbert and Sullivan tunes without reproof, but because there is a killer castle on an island just off the beach there.  It is called Mt. St. Michael’s.  At high tide the island is a few hundred yards out to sea.  At low tide, there is a causeway that you can walk along to get there without getting your tootsies wet.  We walked.  We scaled the hill, and we stormed the castle, taking it with very few casualties.  Most of the defenses have been neglected I suppose.  Actually, a noble family still lives in it, so we were only able to see part of the inside.  But it was really the outside that was so magnificent.  The views were spectacular.  And there were just so many spots that put you right into the pages of a medieval storybook, or at least a Disney one, that I overheated our camera and melted the memory card.  OK, not really, but the photo-ops were numerous.  I can especially recall a courtyard that reminded me of Snow White, and a tower that just screamed Rapunzel.  Even the kids were into it for once.  Good times.

A couple more hours and we'd have to swim back.

Carol is refusing to "let down her hair".

J-Dawg just laid claim to the cannons..

The wrong-side-of-the-road drive out of Cornwall and north to the Cotswolds took about a week and a half.  Well, no, it took the better part of a day, but it felt like a week and a half.  That peninsula just keeps on going, and there is no multi-lane highway for a very long stretch.  Our new GPS actually guided us through detours to avoid bad traffic, so I named her Hermione, in light of her British cleverness.  A couple of lattes later, we pulled into our sweet little village, called Bourton-on-the-Water, and pulled up to our even sweeter little three-story home for the next four days, appropriately dubbed the “Cozy Cottage”.

The little sign on the wall behind Carol (to our right, her left) verifies that yes, this is THE Cozy Cottage.

By the by, it seems as if every town in the Cotswolds needs to make reference to fluidic physical geography in its name: “Bourton ON THE WATER”; “Stratford UPON AVON”; “Stow ON THE WOLD”.  What’s up with that?  Is there another Stow that is not on the Wold?  Is the drier of the two Stows a less appealing place and therefore poo-poo’ed directly in the name of its more moist neighbor?  And who names a river “the Wold,” any way?  I for one will not be drinking from that!

The “water” referred to in our town’s name, is a tiny little river that runs through the town where they have built a stone canal for it to flow, maybe twenty feet wide and only about eight inches deep.  Apparently, the locals play a version of soccer in the river itself.  But all we saw in the water, aside from wading tourists, were a few families of ducks that had taken up residence therein.  The baby ducklings were a non-stop source of entertainment for the kids, who would have preferred to stay and play “waddle-waddle” rather than take the many side trips that we had planned.  But we took the trips anyhow, and at least Carol and I were glad we did.

What century are we in again?

Anyone got a soccer ball?

Too cute.

The first day trip included a long family walk along the infamous public footpaths to the next town over which is called Lower Slaughter. And yes, there is an Upper Slaughter, though I don’t know if that is anything to brag about.  But at least the Slaughters do not tout that they are indeed upon the water. We got lost a couple of times.  We met cows and sheep and horses along the way. Not sure how I’d feel about being one of those in a town with such a name. We swam through fields of yellow with red poppies interspersed.  It was a glorious day for an outing.  We stopped at an old mill turned café and pigged out on ice cream afterwards, only to take a different route on the way back so that we could get lost again and become friends with even more farm animals.

Yeah, it was like that everywhere in the Costwalds.  I know.

OK, sometimes it was more like that.

The second day we drove farther a field.  First we hit a falconry, where hundreds of birds of prey are kept and looked after.  They had a little show-and-tell where we could get up close and personal with an owl and an eagle and a couple of hawks. They showed us how they were training them to hunt.  The birds would fly out a mile in the distance and then come right back of their own accord.  None of the birds were being held against their will.  If they wanted to fly off forever, they could. But they all liked the place enough to come back every time.  Seeing the difference in their flying and eating styles was pretty cool, especially when all was explained in real time. Did you know that most owls have terrible vision?  For instance, they can’t see your hand as you swipe it back and forth in front of their face.  It is their hearing that is so remarkable.  They can hear a mouse’s heartbeat from twenty yards away.  The whole place reminded me of the falcon episodes in the King Arthur story “The Once and Future King.”

One of the hundreds of local residents.

Action shot!

We continued north to Chipping Camden so that we could have tea at a friendly little spot recommended by good ole’ Rick Steves.  Carol and the kids sipped tea and held their little triangular sandwiches with their pinkies up.  I chowed down on a Shepard’s pie.  My manhood was put enough in question just by my stepping into that horrific place.  I wasn’t about to compromise what was left of my masculinity with a fruit tart!  No, the food was excellent. And I too can enjoy a cuppa’ every now and then.  But given  the option of beef and potatoes, I decided to give my pinkie a rest.

You should have seen their smiles AFTER they ate all of that.

The town was worth a good stroll, so Carol and I did just that.  The kids chose to just sit in the rental car and wait.  But it got hot, and they decided to roll down the windows.  This apparently set off the car alarm, and they had to endure ten minutes of blaring embarrassment while we walked on far enough away to be oblivious to the commotion.  We won’t be asked back to that town anytime soon.

We then continued north to Hidcote Manor where the gardens are so magnificent that the Brits made a museum of the place, even though it was actually built by a Yank.  We wandered through “room” after “room” of different types of landscape with ever changing flora.  We played croquet on one enormous lawn and tag on another.  We lay among the daisies and frolicked in the daffodils.  One section of the garden was labeled, “The Wilderness”.  How come that part wasn’t free?

Hidcote Manor 

Is this family in synch or what?

The hedges served to separate "rooms" in the gardens.

It's a rough life that this kid has.

Finally, before heading home, we stopped at a crazy building called Broadway Tower, that served absolutely no purpose other than to coerce “oohs” and “aahs” from passersby.  They call it a “folly”.  Apparently they are all the rage in Europe. “Sorry, Herb, ole’ chap, I can’t swing by to watch the cricket match today. I’m busy working on the folly.  Priorities, you know.”

I look like a giant, but I'm standing on a hill 100 ft closer to the camera than the "folly".

If it were American soil, they'd probably have built a water park or something.  I prefer this.

Day three in the Cotswalds brought a tour of our little Bourton-by-the-Water town in miniature. Some crazy people rebuilt the entire town at a 1:9 scale.  We walked around it feeling like giants.  They had a scale model of the scale model too, so that you could see smaller and smaller iterations of the same town.  It gave me a headache.  

Again, I'm huge.  Or maybe the town has shrunk a bit.

We also went for another “public footpath” walk, this time to Little Rissington.  There is also a Greater Rissington, but neither, sadly, has any body of water nearby to claim as its own.  We got lost again, as the paths tend to be more suggested directions rather than actual paths.  But getting lost was part of the fun.  And every time we finally came across another tiny little yellow arrow showing us that we were still indeed on the path and which way to go next, we felt a sense of accomplishment that we wouldn’t have felt on any clearly marked California trail.  Plus, there is something added to the adventure when your path leads you through the very center of private farm fields and over fences and such. But maybe that is just us. Perhaps trespassing is not quite the thrill for most normal people who aren’t quite as concerned about following the rules as it is for us goody-two-shoes’s.  I don’t know.  I just know we were always on the edge of uncomfortable whenever we took one of the “public footpaths” and I liked it.

Yup, that's the path.

And so is that.  

This really is the way you are supposed to go.

See?  Just follow the little yellow arrows.  The next one will be on the opposite side of that green field somewhere.

Here it is!

What do you do with the public phones now that everyone has a cell?  You turn it into a library!

One last shot of Bourton-on-the-Water.  Sad to say good-bye to the ducklings.

Our final day in the Cotswalds brought us to Stratford-upon-Avon where Shakespeare was born.  We toured his boyhood home and then toured Anne Hathaway’s cottage down the road.  Dude married up!  Her place was super-swank.  His family was a bit less well off.  Well, it was until he made his millions in London, that is.  I’ve never really been a fan of the Bard.  Can’t understand a thing he writes.  But I can respect his genius without having to like it.  To mine own self, I shall remain true…

Shakespeare's boyhood home as it would have appeared in his day.

We liked the artistry on the buildings in Stratford.  Still feels like the 16th century.

The gardens at Anne Hathaway's house, where 'ole Bill S. spent many an afternoon wooing her.  

We also visited a mechanical museum where crazy inventions were on display.  The hands above me clap when I clap.

The next stop was York.  We actually stayed in Harrogate, two train stops west of York.  One of Carol’s college roommates lives there and we spent some time with her family just enjoying the English ‘burbs.  Some home-cooking and lots of catching-up conversation was on the menu, and we were eating it up.  Josh and Chloe entertained their two little ones while the adults confused each other with colloquialisms that were not shared amongst each others’ cultures.  They made us Eaton mess, a local dessert made of meringues, whip cream and strawberries.  That recipe is something we’ll be taking back across the pond with us!  Old friends became new friends again.  We loved the whole experience, the family, the house, the neighborhood and the town in general.  Harrogate was more like California suburbia than any other place we’d been on the trip, and we felt right at home.

At least three of these children are adorable.  The monkey on the left?  Of that one, I'm not as certain.

 The grownups aren't quite as adorable, so we'll leave this picture in small size format.

We did take the train into York the next day, after a quick stop in Knaresborough where there was a really cool Roman aqueduct-like bridge over the river.  We walked the wall in York.  I couldn’t stop humming the little kids’ tune about “The Noble Duke of York Who Had Ten Thousand Men”. If you don’t know the song, you wouldn’t understand about the wall. And I’m not filling you in, you uncultured ignoramus! Look it up. Just kidding. Don’t look it up. You’ll be disappointed.

The Knaresborough bridge.

We went to a crazy museum/tourist attraction built over the archaeological site that was once the ancient Viking city of Jorvik.  Lots of genuine mashed skulls, punctured skeletons and pierced armor alongside less genuine animatronic Vikings told the story of the incredibly well preserved town as it would have been 1000 years ago.  We also spent a whole lot of time in a different museum that had exhibits that ranged from Victorian days to the 1960s.  Sadly that left us very little time to run around the incredible railroad museum that boasts that it is the best and largest in the world.  But we did learn a lot about corsets!

A crazy viking in Jorvik.

Josh is trying out the Victorian smoke shop.

Sorry Josh.  Underage smoking is punishable in England.  You'll be out on good behavior in 30 days or so.

Exercising in the prison yard.

Finally, we went to an “Evensong” service in York Minster, the giant Anglican cathedral.  Hearing the voices echo off the stone walls and ceilings a hundred feet up, while taking in the sunset through the stained glass masterpiece windows was quite an experience. Another shot at high tea at the infamous Betty’s Tea Shop, and we were done with our ten-hour whirlwind tour of York. It is nothing like New York, for those who are curious.  At least not as much as New England is like England and New Jersey like Jersey, or even New Mexico is like Mexico for that matter.  We didn’t go to Hampshire, but I’d venture a guess that it too is closer to its namesake than New York.

"The Shambles" is a crazy street in York where the houses seem to be falling over themselves.

York Minster.  

The desserts at Betty's were a bit unusual.

We left York and Harrogate the next day, but not after a quick trip to Bolton Abbey, which contains the remains of a 12^th century monastery and a beautiful open space, which would have been worth the trip alone.  We drove on to the middle of nowhere in northern England where we had booked a couple of nights in a real life castle.  Augill Castle is set in fifteen gorgeous acres of fertile grounds on the edge of Yorkshire Dales.  It was… enchanting.  Our room had been slept in previously by none other than Queen Victoria. Now that says something about the level of décor.  It had a giant four-poster bed and a fireplace but even pictures can’t capture the amazing feel of the place. 

Crossing the river with the ruins of Bolton Abbey in the background.  We played a pretty competitive game of pickle on that lawn.

Augill Castle.  Our home for two glorious nights.

Another view.  

Our royal suite in the castle.

We dined at a table set for 26.  We had the run of the entire place (other than the other guest rooms) and we took full advantage.  We sipped tea in the parlor.  We played chess in the library.  We watched movies in the theater.  We read novels in the lounge.  We played croquet on the lawn under the turrets.  We literally lived like royalty.  It was awesome.  We did manage to leave the place for a bit and walked from there to another castle, this one in magnificent ruins, which we climbed all over in search of the past.  But other than that and one hike on those crazy public footpaths, on which I have more to say in a bit, we chose to spend all of our time just enjoying our own personal castle.  I have included a couple of our photos here, but I strongly suggest you check out this link: www.airbnb.com/rooms/13253  to see more and better shots of the place, because you will want to follow in our footsteps.  Apparently, the Neals ended up at this same castle a year ago.  So in reality, we were following in their footsteps, unbeknownst to us until we got back.

One of the two dining rooms, set for only sixteen that night. 

Hippity-hoppin' on the castle's tennis court.

The remains of another, more authentic but less well-kept castle nearby.

Ruins are much more fun when you get to climb on them, don't you think?

I do need to tell the story of this particular footpath hike though.  It was just Carol and I.  It started out just like all of the other English countryside hikes, namely by our getting lost.  We moseyed down lazy roads and through farmers’ fields.  We climbed fences, as instructed by the footpath signs, and forded streams when necessary.  Each new section of path would be accompanied by the ever-present doubts that we were not possibly going the right way, only to learn later that yup, that was it alright.  At one point we had to hop a low fence into a pasture where there were half a dozen cows fifty yards away.  Well, at least they were that far away until we actually cleared the fence.  Then they started to charge.  Carol was unimpressed.  They were just cows after all, not bulls.  But they were coming on pretty fast.  If we stopped and looked them in the eye, they would slow down to a walk, but once we turned our backs to them and started on our way, they’d begin to charge again.  My demeanor was quickly progressing from nervous to terrified.

We turned again and they were no more than ten feet away from us.  Now I know they were just hoping to be fed, and we weren’t on the menu as I am fully cognizant of the whole herbivore diet thing, but I wasn’t ruling out he distinct possibility of a good trampling.  These ladies were probably near 1000 pounds a head. How many stones is that?  More importantly, are we sure this is the chosen public footpath?!?  Carol remained calm.  I took deep breaths.  We continued along the fence and the cows just followed us at our pace.  Just when it seemed like we were going to survive this and make it to the next gate, the leader of the pack let out a snort and my elbow became wet with beef bogeys.  All six cows simultaneously hit full stride.  Thankfully, they ran off in the opposite direction.  I managed not to pee my pants.  The rest of the hike was uneventful, save for getting lost twice more.  Some people are scared of spiders, some of snakes, some of clowns.  Not me.  I remain heiferphobic. Carol will likely not let me live this particular experience down and will undoubtedly forevermore torment me with the occasional well-timed “moo”.

They look so harmless when they are at a distance.  

We said goodbye to our storybook accomodations and drove back out to the east coast where we found Alnwick (pronounced Annick) Castle.  It is still the part-time home of the Duke of Northumberland, and was a working fortress first built in 1096 that saw many a Scottish raid. But it is now more famous for being the site on which the first two Harry Potter movies were filmed.  We took a tour.  The kids took a broomstick flying class.  We have a couple of shots of them zooming about the commons.  We made medieval art and slayed medieval dragons.  We ate medieval ice-cream and bought medieval souvenirs.  Fun was had by all.  But we couldn’t stay long because we had to make it to Scotland!

Welcome to Hogwarts!  I mean, Alnwick Castle.

Just flying around the grounds. 

I need to get me one a them brooms.

But there would be no Loch Ness Monster for us. No highland games and no epic golf courses either. Edinburgh was as far north as we’d venture.  We’d already logged a 1000 miles in England, and the kids just couldn’t be bribed or blackmailed into agreeing to spend any more time in that rental car.  I was more than ready to be done driving on the wrong side of the road too.  So we dropped off the car and even were spared the drop-off fee and the fee for an unfilled gas tank when we told them the story of our original rental back in Cornwall.  Hertz gets the thumbs up for that! 

So what do you do in Edinburgh when you can’t bear the thought of another castle or another museum or another Rick Steve’s walking tour?  Apparently, you do this:

All new meaning to "the Boy in the Bubble".

OK, we did a little more than that, whatever that was.  In fact we walked for miles around old town and new town and downtown and uptown for that matter.  But we didn’t really go in anywhere to visit.  We did duck into the national gallery for about twenty minutes.  We did eat dinner at a local pub.  But other than that it was mostly about people watching in the park and checking out the outside of Edinburgh Castle and Canongate and Regents Garden. We were pretty wiped out and I’m not sure we gave Edinburgh the fair shake it deserved with only one day to see the sights and 300 days of sightseeing already behind us.  But the weather was great so we tried to just enjoy the parks and the streets and the architecture and the feel of the place. We got to see men in skirts. We avoided the haggis.

I just don't have the legs for it.  Dude had talent too!

Sadly, the weather cleared when were no longer up this hill with a view.  Edinburgh castle is in the background on the left.

More Edinburgh

The more modern side of Edinburgh.

We spent quite a bit of time just people watching in the park.

We hopped a train back to London and stopped at platform 9-¾ since we were at King’s Cross Station.  The kids got to run through the wall, but the Hogwart’s Express must have already left, so we decided instead to keep them with us for the last couple of days.  We stayed in a scary part of town to save some money, but that put us close enough to have a last bit of fun in Grenwich with Mark, Michelle, Remy and Quincy Allen.  They were on the first day of their trip while we were on our last.  It's a good thing too, because on their own last day, once again back in London, they were able to pick up the much-missed Mr. Otter from the Underground Lost and Found for us. You see, sadly, Josh had managed to leave him on the train on the way to Heathrow airport.  When we got Mr. Otter back, he came with a photo album full of pictures of him sightseeing in London.  Way cool.  Thanks Michelle!  But one month prior to this, right before we left London, we, along the Allens, toured the Grenwich observatory museum where time is basically defined at the Prime Meridian.  We also got a quick look at the Cutty Sark, the fastest sailing ship on the seven seas for over a century. We pubbed it up one last time. We came, we saw, we kicked ass. Time to cross the pond.

Lodged atop a glass museum, the Cutty Sark isn't quite as fast as it used to be. 

Quincy, Remy, Josh and Chloe each has her/his right foot in the eastern hemisphere, and her/his left foot in the western hemisphere, as marked by the orange line segment above. This was at the observatory and museum.

Goin' thru the wall to catch the Hogwarts Express.

The flight home was fantastic, despite the fact that it wasn't accomplished via broomstick, thestral or hippogriff.  Everything ran smoothly on the plane and we even got to sit in the “Economy Premier” section, which means we got two seats to the aisle whereas economy had three.  The extra elbow room and leg room made the trip completely pain free, a concept unheard of before this.  Ray picked us up at the airport with no problems, other than missing Mr. Otter, and we were safely home in our own beds for the first time in ten and half months.  

Mr. Otter went sightseeing for a month in London without us, until Mark and Michelle picked him up at lost and found and brought him back to us.  Michelle took dozens of pictures of him out and about on the town for Josh.

This is what Mr. Otter was really doing for that month.

But Josh prefers to think of him as seeing the sights, like here at Westminster Abbey.

Or here, at the British Museum, checking out the Rosetta Stone.

It took us two days to recover from the time change, and the day after that we were off to family camp at Emandal for the week.  Nothing like a little relaxing vacation after nearly a year of vacation!

I’m sure if you’ve read this far, you want conclusions.  You want closure.  You want to hear how we’ve grown and what we’ve learned from this adventure.  Well you’re not gonna get it, at least not until the next and also last post on this beast of a blog.  Stay tuned.  I hope to post on the anniversary of our original departure…