Fun Down South

A busy week this week as we headed south for a few days to London and Southampton with some other interesting places on the way.

We piled ourselves, our luggage and the indispensible satnav into the Citroen on Monday morning and drove down to Cambridge. Once we eventually found somewhere to park, we walked down to the river Cam (surviving about a million “punt ride” offers) for a nice picnic lunch.

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Back in the car to our hotel in Greenwich, then Monday afternoon and most of Tuesday in London. We visited as many Monopoly places as we could find (we’ll have to find more next time) and managed to fit in a couple of hundred tube rides, a visit the Victoria and Albert Museum and a wander through Fortnum and Mason, a plush and expensive store on Piccadilly. We also got to revisit the rose garden in Hyde Park which was even more beautiful than it was back in May.

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We all enjoyed being in London again and catching up with our friends the Brands for dinner and a trip to Canary Wharf on the DLR.

On Wednesday morning we set off for West Kennett Long Barrow, a Neolithic tomb which you can actually go into - after a long climb against incredibly strong winds if our experience is anything to go by! Next stop was Avebury where there is a stone henge around the town. You can walk amongst and even touch the stones, unlike that other henge on the Salisbury plain. We discovered that eating anything sweet outside at this time of year will attract loads of wasps then set off in the rain to see the Cherhill chalk horse and a quick stop at Stonehenge.

In the car again to Salisbury Cathedral, where we saw a statue commemorating the life of Evelyn Lovett, wife of Bishop Ernest Neville Lovett.

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Thursday was spent at Beaulieu (pronounced “Bewlee”) near Southampton. Owned by Baron Montagu, the estate was opened to the public in the 1950s to commemorate the involvement of the previous Baron Montagu in the development of the British motoring scene. It’s now run like a theme park with the National Motor Museum, an event arena, Victorian gardens, the Palace House and Beaulieu Abbey. The highlight for Jack was the “World of Top Gear” exhibition, which included many of the wacky creations of the tv series – they truly live up to the show’s motto “Ambitious but Rubbish”.

Another highlight of Beaulieu is the falconry show. It may sound strange, but having an owl with a 6ft wingspan fly 6 inches above your head is a thrilling experience.

Beaulieu:

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National Motor Museum:

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World of Top Gear:

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Friday saw us heading back home with a short stop in Stratford-Upon-Avon, the home of William Shakespeare. After wandering about the town we were treated to a short but heavy downpour – something to help make the visit to Stratford so memorable!

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All in all, a very enjoyable trip despite the amount of bank-holiday traffic on the way home – the 90 miles of motorway and A-roads from Stratford-Upon-Avon to Lincoln took a bit over 3 hours.

What’s An Ep Worth?

Douglas Adams (the creator of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy) joined with John Lloyd in the early ‘80s to produce The Meaning Of Liff, which provides humorous definitions of place names, mainly in the UK. 

According to “The Meaning Of Liff”, Epworth means:

“The precise value of the usefulness of epping (defined as the futile movements of forefingers and eyebrows used when failing to attract the attention of waiters and barmen). It is a little known fact that an earlier draft of the final line of the film Gone With The Wind had Clark Gable saying ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give an epworth’, the line being eventually changed on the grounds that it might not be understood in Cleveland.”

Epworth is actually in north-west Lincolnshire and was the boyhood town of the Wesley brothers:

• John – Anglican minister & the founder of Methodism.
• Charles – Anglican minister & prolific hymn writer.
• Samuel - a well-known composer and organist in the 17th century.

You can read more about the Wesleys at this web site.

We spent the day on Wednesday looking around the town, their home (The Old Rectory) and the church where their father was the rector – St Andrews.

 

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When Samuel Snr was appointed rector, the family was not accepted by the locals because he was appointed by King Charles, who was rather hated in the area. The locals didn’t give to the church because the king had appointed him, so his income was very low and he ended up in debtor’s prison a couple of times.

Their clock only had one hand - not because they couldn’t afford the minute hand, but because each hour was divided up into 15 minute segments, so a minute hand was not necessary.

John’s ministry took him all over the country preaching. When he returned to Epworth he was not allowed to preach at St Andrews so he preached outside from his father’s tomb. Each year on Wesley Day (a Sunday near the 25th of May) the minister of the Wesley Memorial Church in Epworth preaches from Samuel Wesley’s tomb at St Andrews.

Why the picture of the Red Lion pub? It seems that King James I “felt the diplomatic need to order the display of the red lion of Scotland in public places all over England to show who was boss; obviously not a man to bear a historic grudge. This would have convinced many a publican a red lion hanging outside his pub was a good idea.”

Settlements, Amusements and Battlements

Firstly, sorry about the quality of the pictures this time. We forgot to take our camera with us (twice) so the photos were taken on our phones and they’re just not as good.

We had a big start to the week with our boxes of things finally arriving from Australia. We now have the kids’ toys and games, books, our IT gear (alright, Scott’s IT gear), our own doonas, kitchen things, art supplies and, best of all, our piano and guitar.

And a nice end to the week with us being able to watch our niece Meredith’s wedding to Dave in Sydney live on the internet. At 3 o’clock on Saturday morning. It felt a little like one of my recurring dreams – the one where I’m sitting in church and suddenly realising I am wearing only pyjamas. At least nobody in the church could see us. If you want to find out how they streamed the wedding to the internet go to http://www.ustream.tv/mobile.

But, you’re probably wondering about the title, huh?

Settlements

Man, the bureaucracy here is amazing! One example is our internet provider.

• I called them to organise phone and broadband and was cut off half way through the application process. I called back a minute later and completed the application with a different operator, who advised that the connection would be in place in two weeks time on July the 1st.
• I called them one week later to check on progress and was told that the application wasn’t complete, so I needed to do it again. Then they told me that it would be 2 weeks and no, they can’t make it any quicker even though it was their fault.
• A router arrived in the post a couple of days later.
• A technician came out on the appointed day to connect the line – yay! So I called them to find out what time the internet would be connected only to be told there was a problem but it should be connected within 24 hours.
• The next day (Friday) I called again and was told that someone would call back. Didn’t happen.
• I called again on the following Monday and was told that the application had been cancelled so I needed to do another one. A little peeved by this stage I went through another application and was told it would take 2 weeks to connect and the system wouldn’t allow them to do it any sooner. More peeved now, I asked to speak to have a complaint registered as it would mean that the connection was going to go in 5 weeks after I first applied – they said they’d see what they could do.
• They called me back to say that they couldn’t change anything (so the connection would still go live in 2 weeks, no sooner)  but would look at some kind of “goodwill gesture” once the connection went live.
• The Friday before it was due to go live (and 44 days after I first did the application) I connected the equipment to the line and turned it on. Hey presto, the internet connection was live. So much for not being able to do it any earlier than the 14 days!
• They did eventually call back to sort out the goodwill gesture, so we’ll get a couple of months of free internet. Better than nothing, although later that week another router arrived. We don’t know why.

We had a similar issue with our car insurer which thankfully got sorted out (after 3 weeks of hassling) as it would have cost us an extra £800 per year. Did I mention that it’s the same company as the internet provider?

Breathing slowing, rage subsiding.

Amusements

On Sunday we had a day down at the seaside resort town Mablethorpe where we had some time on the lake and had fun at the amusement park.

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Battlements

On Wednesday we travelled down to Tattershall Castle. Built by Ralph Cromwell (the Lord Treasurer) in 1434, it was one of the first castles to be built of brick instead of stone. 6 stories high, its foundation walls are 15 feet thick and it has a real moat. While it had the usual castle defences it was really only built to show how rich and important Cromwell was.

It was bought by Lord Curzon in 1911 and he spent an obscene amount to restore it and open it to the public. He left it to the National Trust when he died in 1925.

The castle has brilliant views of Lincolnshire – Lincoln Cathedral was clearly visible even though it is 20 miles away. It was quite surreal being in a 550 year old castle and having fighter jets almost constantly taking off a mile away from Coningsby RAF base. Surreal but enjoyable. If you look closely, you’ll just make out a couple of them in one of the photos.

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Of Isaac, Jane and A Real Shambles

After a couple of weeks of illness, we’ve been out and about a little over the past week or so, mainly around Lincolnshire but we did venture up to York as well.

Woolsthorpe Manor

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Located at Woolsthorpe-By-Colsterworth, a few miles south of Grantham, Woolsthorpe Manor was the home of Sir Isaac Newton. Soon after earning his degree from Cambridge in 1665, he returned to Woolsthorpe to avoid the plague and while there he formulated his theories on calculus, optics and the laws of gravitation. The famous apple tree is still there and the property is now owned by the National Trust.

Belton House

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This place was awesome. Built between 1685 and 1688, Belton House was supposedly a “modest country house” but in reality is a magnificent enormous place with beautiful formal gardens and the best adventure playground in the county. it was used as two separate houses (Rosings and Netherfield) in the BBC production of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice – the one with Colin Firth. Our National Trust membership was worth it just in visiting this place – we’ll be going back again.

York

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The old city of York is still enclosed by fortress walls and houses the beautiful York Minster, the ruins of St Mary’s Abbey, the Multangular Tower (built by the Romans) and the famous and quaint street – The Shambles.

We enjoyed all of it, but mostly browsing through the shops in The Shambles, marvelling at the incredibly wonky-looking buildings which would contain no straight edges in sight and (completely out of character for the Lovetts) buying some tasty treats from the “Chocolate Heaven” chocolatier.