Another trip

Suitcases trundling, everyone hurrying
Pushchairs fill the escalator
A long long platform where numbered posts show us where to go
Our number is many posts along but eventually we are there
We struggle up the extra high steps into the carriage
And heave our cases onto the luggage rack
They have gained in weight somehow
Count the seats, Ahh! To sit down at last
More people and children seek out their seats
A long wait….. Children cry and wail
Standing to reach the luggage rack, we sort out the things we need for the journey
All the while squeezing back into out seat space to let others struggle by
A loud voice gives an announcement in three languages
A post slides silently by the window
You had not realised the train has started
You doze off for a while, when you wake it is dark outside
Your watch says 11:58AM, you are under the sea
A long wait….. Children cry and fidget
The toilet light is on - you wait – it goes out
Swaying and reeling you reach the door
The soap dispenser is empty
Swaying and reeling you return to your seat
You stand up and let her into the aisle
She too goes swaying and reeling down the aisle
But forewarned she carries a bottle of hand wash
A long wait….. Children complain and fight
We burst into daylight, we are in another country
A loud voice gives an announcement in three languages
We are at Lille
Are we there? Children ask and are ignored
The loud voice gives an announcement in three languages
Again a post slides silently by and we are off on the last leg
Another long wait…. Parents are getting tired too and voices rise
A louder voice gives an announcement in three languages
We arrive
The suitcases do not want to leave their rack
We stand in line for the door with our reluctant suitcases
A long platform and we trundle to the lift
The lift is out of order
We trundle to the stairs and lug the suitcases higher and higher
Loose change, keys, watch, dark glasses and mobile phone go into a tray
Our luggage slides into a tunnel with rubber strips trailing over them as they pass out of sight
We claim them after passing through an empty door frame
We are handed back our loose change, keys, watch, dark glasses and mobile phone
It takes forever to get it all back into the various pockets and purses
Another shorter trundle and our suitcases are taken
They will get to the hotel before us
We emerge into the daylight
A fairytale castle is silhouetted against the sky
The afternoon stretches before us and an excited child leads the way
We are here again

A week in Stratford upon Avon

Whilst visiting this quiet little town, buried on the borders of the Cotswolds, I got the strong feeling that Stratford upon Avon has some kind of connection with a little known playwright called William Shakespeare. It may have been the prominent theatre that tends to almost exclusively put on a lot of plays by this guy and is the home of a tiny bunch of enthusiasts who call themselves the Royal Shakespeare Company, or the many old Tudor houses that seem to bear names like ‘William Shakespeare’s birthplace’, ‘Anne Hathaway’s cottage, ‘Mary Arden’s Farm, Halls Croft and ‘The New Place’, all of which lay some claim to his immediate family. These subtle clues made me realise that this was some kind of local celebrity.

Shakespeare's Birthplace

I imagine that many of you reading this will have never heard of this little known playwright, who although recognised by the residents of this tiny country town, may not have spread far outside his home town.

Halls Croft, Shakespeare's daughter's house

Amazingly, for such an obscure playwright, there seemed to be a large number of tourists wanting to visit the town, many arriving from distant lands just to see his birthplace. Coachloads of tourists were constantly arriving and jamming themselves into the tiny hovels which had once been occupied by this local hero.  

Anne Hathaway's cottage, later Mrs Shakespeare

By the last afternoon of our visit, a Saturday, the open grassed area between the bridge over the river Avon and the Theatre, an area of at least two acres, which had been a pleasant place to stroll in the sunshine, was so crowded it was just a sea of people.

I think I should warn anyone from overseas who has yet been persuaded to spend good money in order see the place, that it is not very good value for money. Whilst there are many perfectly good modern clean, spacious and well lit buildings around the town, the tourist guides insist on sending their clients to see some really ramshackle buildings that are obviously very old and built to very low standards that would be firmly rejected by today’s more discriminating citizens.

There is no double glazing, the central heating and sanitation is primitive to say the least. The floors are extremely uneven and could cause accidents due to their irregularities. The windows are tiny and let in little light and the ceilings are so low that anyone over five foot in height stands a good chance of injuring their head on the low and protruding beams that abound in all these buildings.

This notice mind your head should have read mind your back.
Bending down so far was not good for lumbago.

Some of the local people were able to quote a few lines from the plays written by their local bard and will put on an impromptu play for the benefit of the tourists as a part of different guided tours.

Juliet

We were able to watch an extract from two plays, Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer night’s Dream. They were very good and The Granddaughter (TG) was entranced.
Unfortunately the theatre was closed for refitting and so we were unable to watch the real thing.

Although the weather started cold for the first two days, despite weather forecasts of rain and clouds, we had the most glorious weather for the rest of the week.

A visit to Mary Arden’s Farm was interesting, since it is run as a Tudor period farm and as far as possible keeps the traditional methods in use. The staff are all dressed in Period costume and provide a lot of information about how people lived and worked. They have a falconry exhibition and display certain birds of prey whilst explaining how they would have been used in medieval times to augment people’s diet by hunting with them. They also went through the hierarchy of who could use which kind of birds and the penalties of transgressing these hunting laws.

The Eagle owl refused to co-operate with the handlers and comically walked around rather than fly for them.

A Waddling bird of prey

Another one of the nearby places to visit in Stratford-upon-Avon is the Butterfly Farm. This is quite small but full of tropical butterflies and other insects and arachnoids. Once inside you are surrounded by butterflies, fluttering past and around you.

Food is put on the flower shapes to attract the butterflies

For some reason whenever I stood in a patch of sunlight, several butterflies settled on me. This did not happen to any of the others of my family until finally one settled on The Better Half (TBH) TG was quite disappointed that none settled on her. The one on TBH was able to disguise itself as a dead leaf when it closed its wings, which was obviously a survival tactic for that species. 

 It was quite hot inside, being kept at a tropical level for the insects, but we were glad of the change because the weather had not at that stage of the week warmed up much outside.

Close by is the stately home of Coughton Court, the home of the Throckmorton family since 1409 and we did the tour and listened to the guides give some really interesting stuff about the family history and their involvement in both the Gunpowder Plot and in the English Civil war.

Coughton Court

It had grown really warm by that day, and so for lunch we picnicked outside and whilst we ate, we were entertained by a single crow driving off a buzzard, a much larger bird. Later three buzzards soared above us climbing on the thermals until they were almost out of sight.

The crow chasing the buzzard off

The gardens of Coughton Court are very extensive and well maintained by the family. We were able to wander around and admire the views for the rest of the day.

Some blooms in the gardens

The daffodils were almost over but still had masses of blooms

The Lake in the gardens

A View from the roof of the tower

Another view from the tower showing some of the extensive grounds

Because we were staying in a self-catering place which did not provide an Internet connection, I decided to buy a 3G pay-as-you-go dongle. As I am sure many people will know, these things plug into your laptop and are supposed to connect you to the Internet via the mobile (cell) phone network using the modern smart phone technology but without an actual phone.
It was rather erratic but did allow me to get on line for a while each evening, just enough to get my e-mails reliably but it did not let me get into blogging at all well and most of my comments were often blitzed by it, so apologies to anyone who sees me regularly on their site and got nothing from me.

Apart from poor Internet which, contrary to TBH’s opinion, I can live without, it was a brilliant week and we are now resting our sore hips and knees, the result of being on our feet for several hours every day and being with a lively granddaughter.

Old Rockers

Well it’s true we are getting on a bit, but perhaps rockers is a bit of an exaggeration.   We both enjoy a range of music including rock, The Better Half, having been an Elvis Presley fan for most of her life and a Meatloaf fan for half her life, is not unfamiliar with rock, whilst I have a wide range of musical likes too, from Mike Oldfield to The Killers.   We are not regular concert goers but have had our moments and amongst other shows, we have been to a Pink Floyd tribute concert and more recently we went to the Genesis Turn it on Again concert at Twickenham.

 Genesis Turn it on Again at the Twickenham football ground

 On Monday we went to London to see The Trans-Siberian Orchestra perform at the Hammersmith Apollo.   The train we used to go to London was due into our station at 15.29 but did not arrive.   We did not want to catch another train because our tickets were concessions and had to be used on the specified train or pay an excess fare.  So we waited and waited, watching other trains arrive and leave without us, wondering if we would have to board a later train and pay the difference just so that we could get there in time. We had allowed ourselves enough time to travel and dine before the show so it was not yet urgent and that option would be a last resort.

Eventually our train did turn up at 15.50 and we were whisked off to London amongst the mobile phone conversations and frantic texting that seems to be de rigour for train passengers today.   

The Trans-Siberian Orchestra are not well known in the UK and are a kind of cross between heavy metal and a Symphony orchestra and have a range of shows that often feature a Christmas theme.

This was their only appearance in the UK, so we decided we could not miss the opportunity to see them live.

 What we went to see was Beethoven’s Last Night.  This is a fantasy composed by Paul O’Neill.  It is set on the night in 1827 when Beethoven died. The story supposes that he has just completed his tenth symphony and on the point of death is tempted in various ways by the Mephistopheles, who claims to own Beethoven’s soul. 

This is performed with a narrator telling the story and a mix of Beethoven’s music and heavy rock and songs, accompanied by a modern rock style light show.   Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea but I like their sound and have been hooked on their versions of well known music.   To check out one of their songs, follow this link.

  

Most shows nowadays find it hard to keep out cameras, because they could never stop everyone and remove their mobile phones, so they allow compact cameras in and I have been able to snap a few pictures. The one above having captured some of the light show effects.

Most modern rock concerts have excessively loud music, well above the safe levels of sound that would be allowed in any work environment.  Having knocked about in the electronics industry for many years and in the process worked in music studios and indirectly worked for one or two rock bands, I knew that if you go into any real music shop that sells modern instruments, you can always get professional earplugs there.  Not the great big ear defenders that look like overlarge headphones, but small discrete things that sit inside your ear.  These defend them from excess decibels but allow speech and music to pass through clearly at reduced volume.  Many professionals working in the live music industry use them because they would soon go deaf otherwise.  We always take these whenever we go to a concert now because we value our hearing.  It is actually much more comfortable listening at a reasonable sound level, even if the seat and floor are vibrating noticeably from the unreasonably huge sound that people seem to think is required at a live venue.

The only two shows that we have been to recently where we did not need to use the ear defenders were Phantom of the Opera and Stomp.

No doubt most people have heard of the Phantom, but in case you have never heard of Stomp, it is a fabulous show, where all the sounds are produced acoustically on all sorts of domestic equipment and the performers perform with such a huge amount of energy it is really exhilarating.   I thoroughly recommend it.

   

In terms of high sound levels, the Trans-Siberian Orchestra are no exception but with our earplugs inserted, looking a bit like a pair of deaf oldies, both with some kind of hearing aid, we were able to enjoy the concert knowing our hearing was safe and we were not going to go away with a headache.

The show was brilliant and very well done and at the end, the TSO went on to do a medley of other music from their repertoire and some other well-known songs.  We left a little before the end of the show, because we had to be back at Paddington station in time to catch the very last train home, so we missed the finale, which was a pity but not a disaster.

Another snapshot of the show

We took a taxi to Paddington station and the taxi driver conversationally asked us where home was. On discovering our final destination, he rather disturbingly pointed out that there were now three high profile murderers in custody who had been taxi drivers, the most recent murder and taxi driver suspect being in our home town.  However, he did not take us to a quiet side street and murder us but took us to the station, so we made the train with a comfortable amount of minutes to spare and did not have to fork out for accommodation. 

Whilst the trip out had been delayed by a train mysteriously held up just outside the station, the trip home was quiet and uneventful. 

I have one question about First Great Western trains, who on earth decided that the seats should have a pink plastic thing on them that looks like a giant ear stolen from Mr Potato head?

I have for some while been considering buying a new mobile, as my ancient one is starting to crack and the camera does not work any more.  So I have been looking at what is on offer.  I have eliminated most smart phones because you cannot use them in bright sunlight, and since many of them have no physical keypad, this means you can only use voice dial and so if it is sunny you cannot call someone you have not programmed in already.   I thought the blackberry may be a nice compromise and had been looking at it since it has a physical qwerty keyboard which allows it to be used for texting, emails and of course as a telephone, even in bright sunlight. 

At Reading a young lady got on the train and sat in front of us.  We were behind her but the gap in the seats allowed me to see that she took out a blackberry and for the rest of the trip was chatting to several friends on Facebook, I think.  Both her thumbs were flying over the keypad at about the best speed that I can type using the fingers on two hands.  Great I thought, this could be the phone for me, but I suddenly realised that the text it was using was tiny. Being the gentleman that I am, I had not been attempting to read what she was typing, but even if I had I would not have been able to read it. It was using about a six point font and I would have difficulty reading this even if I was holding it up to my nose, so the Blackberry seems to be eliminated too.

Oh well, perhaps I will just get a phone that just makes phone calls with a proper keypad and no gps, no apps and no internet, how boring. 

Press a little button

This will only mean something to those of us who watch British TV.  In the UK, to receive TV and radio signals you require an annually renewable TV licence, a peculiar system used in Britain to fund the non-commercialised BBC.  Not having a licence is an offence and you can be fined if found to be using a TV without one.    Recently there has been a campaign to persuade people to renew over the Internet and it has the most annoying earworm as a jingle which goes through all the reasons people press buttons on various gadgets in modern life. 

Generally speaking this brain washing by the BBC has partially achieved the desired effect on me because whenever this jingle come on I press a little button as quickly as I can, the MUTE button on the remote, but it has prompted me to adapt the jingle to this parody.

You press a little button to save your sanity,

You press a little button on the T V,

You press a little button to change the channel

Then you watch ITV

More spring pictures

I have just bought myself a new camera and of course I have been learning how to drive it. It has more menus than a four star restaurant and there are at least one hundred more functions than I will ever need but I have found out how to take pictures with it, the reason I actually bought it, so I have been snapping everything in sight.

The spring flowers have been coming out hourly over the last few days so they are the natural candidates for photos and here are some.

A pair of ring necked doves enjoying the spring weather

The sky has been blue and not a cloud in view with a pale moon high in the sky

Encouraged by the previous day's sunshine I persuaded TBH (The Better Half) to come to Birdlip which overlooks Gloucester, in order to snap some long shots of the view we get from there.  Normally you can see the river Severn and Wales in the distance, but instead of brilliant sunshine it was hazy and indistinct, and this was the best shot, just the boring old A417 dual carriageway leading to Gloucester.  For anyone from the USA viewing this page, Gloucester is pronounced Gloster - don't ask me why it is spelled like that, after all the most famous river in England is spelled Thames and pronounced temms not they-mes as you would expect.  Still that is nothing compared to Featherstonhaugh and Cholmondeley. Can anyone, who does not already know, guess how how these names are pronounced? 

Spring again

Another sign of spring arriving in Wiltshire.  The Snowdrops and crocuses have been around for a few weeks but these are the first daffodils in our garden so far.

What is it?

Here is a rather unusual looking object when viewed from this angle. They are not used much nowadays unless you have not quite got into the 21st century or like me, you are bringing old fashioned ...err ... things up to date.