Category Archives: family

around home, family, history, UK

Colchester

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I played the part of bad-son this weekend past & went off up to Colchester to distract Mum from her university studies. It took me a few trains & hours to get there, but it was a nice day on Friday to stroll through the City. Another bonus of living in London – in a short time I’d strolled past St Paul’s, the Royal Exchange, Bank of England, the Lloyd’s Building & the Gherkin, all architectural masterpieces in their own way, before eventually finding Liverpool St station.

Colchester was the Romans’ first capital in England (before they moved to the more central Londinium) & is the oldest settled town in the country. Later on Friday afternoon we had a pleasant wander, checking out the Hollytrees Museum which gave a good outline of the last few centuries in Colchester, then enjoyed the late afternoon sunshine in the extensive gardens nearby, crossing the old Roman wall (also the oldest in the country) & checking out a large water-tower which could only be Victorian in its splendour.

The water-tower, Jumbo, through the old Roman wall (first century AD)

Colchester Town Hall

After a surprisingly good sleep on the floor of Mum’s room, I settled for watching the first Rugby World Cup semifinal online – Wales vs France. A game that had a lot of the occasion taken out of it by that careless & dangerous tackle. I’m not completely surprised that the French made such hard work of it, but I was disappointed that the Welsh didn’t have the nous or skill to put at least one more kick over – they missed so many penalty & drop-goal opportunities. We popped over to campus in the afternoon for Mum to get some books out of the library. Most importantly, this was my first opportunity to see & ride a Paternoster Lift – I had not know that they existed until the previous day when Mum told me about this example. Basically, it’s a continuously moving chain of small boxes (two person) that you can hop on & hop off at any floor you want (there are no doors – so watch you don’t have a go at self-amputation of an unwanted limb). All good fun – especially when you go in to the dark & over the top through the loft.

Mum about to disappear into the unknown

Late afternoon was spent in the charming little riverside village of Wivenhoe, a short bus ride away. With little winding streets, houses & shops doing their utmost to stay close to upright, plenty of small yachts & boats docked & more bright autumn sunlight slowly sinking away it was nice pottering around.

More rugby on Sunday morning with All Blacks playing very well indeed in an intense semi-final to end up utterly outplaying & dominating the Wallabies. Once again, many missed kicks – but enough went through that it was a comfortable margin in the end. I might have to find some Kiwis to watch the final with next week – shouldn’t be too hard in London. We had a good long visit to the Colchester Castle (a Norman one built on the remains of an old Roman fortification). Curiously, the castle has been a museum for eighty-odd years & a visit there is more about the museum than the castle itself. The museum mostly dealt with the Roman period of Colchester’s history & was very good. After that I endured the perils of travelling by rail in the UK during the weekend, on my way home three separate rail journeys were disrupted by that scourge – Planned Engineering Works. Great to spend the weekend with Mum – hopefully she can now not be disrupted for a little while & settle down to the study at hand.

And Now For Something Completely Different – I’ve had to choose between two different process engineering jobs last week. In the end I went for the role just out of Southampton at a good [£5K+better benefits] less as Hereford is really so much further from an airport & London & all its travel options – travel is the main motivator for being here, after all. Also, I wasn’t too keen on being told when to take three of my five weeks of annual leave a year (mandatory plant shutdowns). I feel like a bit of a wally turning down a much-better paying job from people that were really keen to employ me – but there you go. At this stage, I should be at work at the start of November – I’m looking forward to settling down to life for a while & having some money coming in so I can plan brief & not so brief trips to Europe & north Africa. The biking will be a lot flatter around Hampshire, but I might just have to build up a single-speed, come touring machine, & satisfy myself with mid-week rides in the New Forest & so on.

around home, family, UK

Cambridge

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Getting up & watching Rugby World Cup matches in a cold lounge wasn’t the best step for my health – but thankfully it’s only a two or three day cold. So when I found Mum’s day-trip (put on for the Study Abroad students) to Cambridge was on Sunday, a plan to go up & see her & the town was hatched rather hastily. As it turned out, Trish was keen to go up as well so we ended up driving. Cambridge is another one of those places I’d been meaning to visit for a while & hadn’t quite had the opportunity or sufficient motivation to do so.

It’s a much more compact town than I remember Oxford being, mostly devoid of parking – so the Park & Ride just off the M11 was most handy. We met Mum just as she was finishing up her lunch & heading off on a walking tour. With a week of settling into uni & organising all sorts of things, she is doing well if a little tired – I imagine it will be nice to have had classes finally start today. Trish & I wandered around a bit down twisting cobbled streets & through courtyards – getting a good look at Christ’s College Chapel, crossing the Cam a few times & stopping to watch the novice punters doing their utmost not to fall in the river or knock themselves out on low bridges.

Meeting Mum again there was more wandering around spotting various famous colleges – a few I must admit I only had heard of from watching University Challenge a year or two back. There were people everywhere, being a weekend in very much a tourist town – I’m glad my university was overcome by sightseers, although Massey doesn’t exactly have much on Cambridge otherwise. It was pleasing to see bikes almost everywhere – although it did seem that their primary purpose was to clutter railings, we saw proportionally few being ridden.

Mum rejoined a very large group of foreign students to make sure they didn’t miss the coach back to Colchester & we continued back down the motorway to visit Trish’s (& Mum’s for that matter) cousin Carol & Barry for a huge roast meal, a catch-up & much family history. Another pleasant little outing, even if it wasn’t the best recuperation plan.

family, UK

Somerset & Bath

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It was great to pick Mum up from Heathrow much too early on a Saturday morning a week and a half ago. Even if that did mean driving through London well too early on a weekend – not that days of the week have too much meaning to me at the moment. We continued west towards Somerset, ducking off when the M4 was closed & wandering around a pleasant little Wiltshire village, lunching & then trying our luck again on the roads. The direct route west through Bath was too snarled up, so it was north back to the motorways. Eventually we were at Mum’s cousins’ (Gary & Joan) place, where I promptly left her to get over the jetlag (which apparently never eventuated) to go down & visit John & Anna (who I met years ago biking in Rotorua) & their young twin daughters. Esther & Lydia sure have grown since I was in Canada. My shoulder dictated that this was my first visit to Taunton without a bike; even so I enjoyed just hanging out as we watched the girls, shared travels stories and looked over my photos from North America.

Back up at Burnham-on-Sea Mum & I spent a relaxing few days trying to avoid getting painted when we walked through the hallway, moseying around various quaint villages (I didn’t get any cheese in Cheddar – “Not much call for it? It’s the single most popular cheese in the world!“, visiting various family & friends, frequenting charming centuries old pubs. I even managed an interview in Bristol on the Tuesday for a job I wasn’t particularly keen on – it was a mercifully short interview. I was delighted to have the new Jack Reacher novel arrive on my Kindle mid-week – a good look as to how Reacher came to be drifting around the States “solving” various problems with usually staggering amounts of violence.

Highlight of the week was getting to Bath finally – a place that I’ve skirted around on the motorway numerous times & never quite had the time to pop in & visit. Unfortunately it ended up being a rather rushed visit, but I got to see the main things I wanted to. That Wednesday was the start of a purple patch of weather – five sunny calm days in a row with the mercury getting up in the high-20s each day. A very pleasant surprise as the days get shorter heading in to October. Consequently, there were plenty of people out & about in Bath (I imagine there usually are – except on the bleakest of days) & we briefly wandered through town towards the Abbey & the Roman Baths.

The Celts first had a temple here around the geothermally heated spring & the Romans built up a temple & the baths here in the first century AD. Those first baths were eventually lost after the Romans left Britain, but much of their complex has been revealed & is part of the facility today. Most of the current buildings & statues date from the 1800s. The audio-tour is very informative & it’s always nice wandering around old architecture & engineering. The various artefact displays & reconstruction of some of the Roman temple were very well done too.

The main drain – nice algae too

There was just enough time to enjoy the late afternoon sun & walk up to see some of Bath’s famous Georgian architecture. The Royal Crescent is particularly impressive – as you would expect a Grade I listed building to be.  With a huge green lawn in front of the crescent, it’s a wonderful setting for the arc of facade that was finished in the 1770s.  I found it interesting that the architect (John Wood the Younger) designed & built the facade only.  This meant that people bought their own section of the front & then had their own architect design the house behind.  At the front this shows up with many different styles of windows & doors, while at the back there is a real hodge-podge of building styles & sizes.

The week rounded out with Mum & I driving down to Dorset to see another cousin (Pamela – Gary’s sister – who I’d last seen when I was four, apparently I’ve grown a bit). All the driving on A-roads was just tedious – so busy & small. After a week of driving through various parts of England on tiny roads in an under-powered rental, I was really missing driving my Outback around the big empty wide roads of North America. There was a much longer & better job interview on Friday near Southampton before we got back to London. The weekend of great weather was mostly spent with Mum organising herself for university, more meals with family & eventually taking Mum up to Colchester & moving all her belongings in to her flat on campus. It’s a little odd taking your mother to university.

around home, family, London, UK

Shooters Hill & Dulwich Picture Gallery

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Eager to get out of the house while it was sunny, albeit still windy, on Sunday Trish & I went & picked up Nora (my great-aunt & Trish’s mother) for a small outing. We didn’t really intend to, but somehow we ended up at Shooters Hill. One of the highest points in London (not really saying much) there are good views south across the field. We spent a bit of time wandering through the 8000 year old wood dodging the acorns being blown from the trees above us. Nora did surprisingly well with the (very modest) amount of walking & I was glad to go somewhere I hadn’t been yet.

Having an arm in a sling is as tedious as usual, but with Trish repaying all I did when she was recovering from her broken ankle I shall be able to keep my arm immobilised longer than usual this time. With Saturday’s trauma I’ve been pretty tired & have spent well too much time watching my favourite Canadian cop drama – Rookie Blue. That title is only bestowed on it due to the small sample-size; Corner Gas being the only other Canadian show I ever watched regularly. But now I’m all caught up to the end of the second series & struggling to fill the time – maybe I just wanted to hear the accent again, even though Canadian seems normal & unaccented to me, for now. Well, I’m still looking for work but that just consists of more time on the internet & looking at vacancies that I’m not quite qualified for or that just sound boring. I should go & see the Vocation Guidance Counsellor – but I don’t even have the right hat for that. We’re slowly starting the redecoration of the middle room, but chipping paint off an old fireplace is slow at best using my left hand.

Yesterday was Trish’s birthday so we took a little outing to the Dulwich Picture Gallery – another place I didn’t get to last time I was here. Famous for being one of Sir John Soane’s designs & the first purpose-built art gallery open to the public in England, the collection is small compared to some of the larger galleries around but very impressive in its content. There are numerous Gainsboroughs, Rembrants, Rubens, van Dycks, Reynolds & a couple each from Canaletto & Hogarth – and many more besides. I think my favourites were those by Gainsborough. With the skylights there is plenty of light streaming in – I recommend visiting on an overcast day. The glare on the higher positioned paintings was too much & had me wandering around in random directions just to try & get a decent view of many pieces.

We had a short stroll around Dulwich Park, which has recently been returned to its original Victorian layout. It is very nice with big open spaces bordered by big old trees – we didn’t even get attacked by any geese or swans. Avoiding the random toll-gate in the middle of suburbia, we tiki-toured home; I suppose if your school is almost four-hundred years old you’re quite welcome to put a toll on these new-fangled automobiles. Over a very pleasant & large dinner out I was regaled with very interesting stories of Trish’s seven years travelling & working in Australia.