Jolly Old England
10:40 p.m.
Allow me for a moment to fume about the terrible placing of road signs in the UK. Where I come from, every street corner has a post upon which are affixed two signs at right angles, naming the two different streets. Every street corner. There is no assumption that you will just know which street you are on. There are reminders everywhere, and that’s the way I like it. Well, it’s not like that in the UK. We found that roundabout (or traffic circle) exits were poorly marked, often tree branches would obscure the names, and in the case of turnoff roads, the name of the road often appeared level with or even after the turn. All right, I’ve got that out of my system.
We found the hotel and drove into its car park and started to unload our stuff. I walked around to the front of the hotel, dragging my suitcase behind me, when I came upon an iron gate, padlocked. We were effectively locked into the carpark which a moment before had been open. It was 10 p.m. My son climbed the fence and started to ring the doorbell but couldn’t raise anyone. I got back on the cell phone (which was included in the rental of the car, remember?) and called the hotel, letting it ring for a full two minutes before the girl on night duty finally picked up. Things were eventually straightened out, we were let out of the car park, registered and roomed, and proceeded next door to the pub, aptly named “The Old Gray Mare”, to drink away our sorrows.
My menfolk ordered brewskies, as we call them where I live. I did not want a beer, nor did I want wine or scotch. Instead, I espied a bottle of Cointreau behind the bar and requested a shot of that in a liqueur glass. The bar tender was rather taken aback and exclaimed, “No one has ever asked for that before!” The bottle had never even been opened. They didn’t have liqueur glasses, so I was served in a whiskey tumbler. I had two shots, and that just about took the edge off the day. It was as close as my husband and I got all trip to actually divorcing. He confided to our son at one point, “I don’t think we’re going to make it to 25.”
The next day we walked into downtown York, and wandered around the part of Yorkminster for which we didn’t have to pay admission:
Our next adventure involved another internet friend of mine, Shaun, who works in Gainsborough at the Tudor mansion there and we were to meet him for lunch that day. Over the phone he gave me very detailed directions on how to find him. They were terrible. First he told us to get off the A1 at an exit which didn’t exist. Then he gave us a highway number which would have taken us to the town where he lives, not where he works. He got the name of the supermarket wrong which we were to use as a landmark for finding his street. When we finally did meet, I told him that I had fantasized throttling him by the neck, throwing him to the ground, kicking him and then pummeling him with my fists for good measure. He started to laugh and said that after he’d hung up the phone his girlfriend asked him if he’d just given us directions. She said, “Don’t they know you?” Lunch was in a nearby pub, and in spite of the bad directions, Shaun turned out to be thoroughly delightful.
We had to go into the supermarket to buy something so as to avail ourselves of the two hours’ free parking, and saw this sign, which we thought was hilarious:
Back on the road again, this time we had excellent directions to follow to get to the home of a Xangan, who lives to the northwest of London in a lovely rural setting. After all the B&B’s and restaurants, spending a night in a private home with a real family was just what the doctor ordered. Duncan prepared us a delicious meal with produce from his own garden, got us rather loaded on excellent beer and wine, and we repaid him by playing on his various musical instruments scattered around the living room and singing. His two children are fabulous and my husband was most impressed by his daughter’s musical and poetic abilities. After pancakes and maple syrup for breakfast, we took our leave (sadly on my part) and continued on the road to our next adventure.
Seventeen years ago my husband and I were in England and visited Stonehenge and had been so overwhelmed by it that we determined our son should not miss out. Unfortunately, I don’t think he was as taken with the place as we were, but that’s all right. For me it is still one of the coolest spots on the earth.
From the Salisbury Plain we got back on the highway and drove to Brighton where we visited the couple we met last March in the Dominican Republic. We got lost trying to find them, too. They had invited us to stay with them that night, and it turned out to be a less-than-satisfactory experience. The guest room was their one-year-old’s room, which meant that little Jack had to sleep with his parents, and his father was coming down with a kiiller cold. Jack was up crying much of the night, and no one got much sleep, except perhaps for our son who had a bed of sofa cushions on the livingroom floor. My husband found a hotel for us to stay in the next night, and that worked out much better for everyone concerned.
There was no way my husband wanted to drive a car into London, so we took the train from Brighton, which didn’t take long at all, and we spent the afternoon walking along the south bank of the Thames viewing the sights.
Eventually we hopped on a tube train and took it to Richmond Station where we met yet another of my internet friends who took us to one of his favourite pubs for supper. We ate on the terrace overlooking the Thames where kayakers were paddling and people were strolling. The meal was excellent and we were treated to a beautiful sunset.
That night we had another adventure actually finding the hotel we were booked into. Again, street names are not well marked, or lit, and there was construction at the bottom of the road we were seeking, which just made matters very confusing. We had asked for a room with a large bed and a cot. Cot doesn’t mean the same thing in the UK as it does in North America. To me it is a camp bed, or a fold-away bed. When we got up to our room, there was a baby crib added to the furniture. My husband went back down to the desk and said to the clerk on duty, “Very funny!” He was extremely apologetic and gave us, at no extra charge, a smaller room for our son to use exclusively. Now that’s what I call service.
We spent the next morning walking around the seafront in Brighton, taking in the sights. We toured the grounds of the Pavilion before heading back to our car and out towards the airport.
Our adventure wasn’t over yet. Just a few minutes out of Brighton, the front passenger-side tire blew out on our car. Luckily there was a place to pull over and we used the cell phone (I knew it would come in handy) to call the emergency road service to change it for us. We ended up bringing the car back late, for which we weren’t penalized, but there will be a charge on my credit card for the cost of the tire, which I will have to take up with my credit card company. We finally got out of the car rental office, checked in at the airline counter, and eventually were on our merry way back to Canada.
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