Geoff & Chris in the UK     Letters & Photos: Previous Next

UK News May 2004

Chris was still not up to partying, following her surgery, so I had a relatively quiet birthday on 1st of May. We went out to the ancient Bear Inn at Berkeswell, one of our favourite places. This is one of the incredibly old pubs near here, with huge beams hanging low from the ceiling – requiring careful walking by taller patrons, a sign that the pub was built in the days when people were shorter! This pub used to open at 6am so that farm workers could fill their flagons before heading out to work.

We’ve now had four outings with one or more of Chris’s workmates. We’ve not made any friends outside our working lives, and probably won’t be able to unless we find another common bond with people. So we are investing quality time on this group of people, whose company we enjoy. Next month I’ll tell you about the “Spice Club” which I’ve joined – which isn’t as dodgy as it sounds!

May the 3^rd is a public holiday in the UK, in celebration of May Day. This year, we were determined to find some Morris Dancers and a Maypole, we went out to the National Trust property at Charlcote Park. 

However, It was a motley bunch of schoolkids who were strutting their stuff, and not a waving handkerchief in sight, but was a pleasant first day out for Chris after her operation. Because of the huge crowds there, watching a music and dancing concert, we didn't go on a tour of the house itself - so that's another place we must return to.

Our friends Lynda & Dave visited us again from Reading, and we took them around our favourite haunts of Hay Wood (where we've taken our bluebells photos), Baddesley Clinton. We then sampled the culinary delights of the 'Balti Triangle' again,  going to a new restaurant called Zebs. These Balti restaurants offer fantastic value for money, helped by their not being licenced so you can bring your own wine & beer. Their desserts are a little more conventional, with one containing "devious crunchy nuts" whatever they are!

Late evening, on the first of May -
The twilit May - the time of love.
Meltingly called the turtle-dove,
Where rich and sweet pinewoods lay.
Whispered of love the mosses trail,
The flowering tree as sweetly lied,
The rose's fragrant sigh replied
To love-songs of the nightingale.
In shadowy woods the burnished lake
Darkly complained a secret pain,
By circling shores embraced again;
And heaven's clear sun leaned down to take
A road astray in azure deeps,
Like burning tears the lover weeps..

Czech love poem, May, written by the 19th century poet Karel Hynek Macha

We're excited by the prospect of Aidan & Racheal coming to visit us for two weeks in October 2004 (arrive Birmingham Mon 4-Oct-04, depart Birmingham Wed 20-Oct-04). 

The highlight of that will be their having a marriage blessing ceremony in the very old Church where Chris was first married - St Nicolas Kings Norton. This Church really is ancient, portions of it date from Saxon times. It's not a wealthy Church, and hasn't been beautifully restored & is suffering from some neglect.  But it's a special place for the Salter and Priestley families.

The building to the left of the Church is 'The Saracens Head', a typical example of the ancient half wooded 15th century houses. It operated for some time as a pub, and has been donated to the Church to use as an office. The timber beams are so incredibly old & warped, it's a wonder that the building hasn't been condemned. In NZ it would have been pulled down ages ago, but here they value old buildings. There's a wonderful TV programme on the BBC called Restoration, presented by Griff Rhy Jones - on which amazing and weird old buildings are investigated and promoted to be the winners in the restoration contest. Voters dial an 0900 number to register their vote and to help pay for the restoration. About £3,000,000 is raised - which can make a huge difference to these projects. It's a great example of the public being involved. We're taping a few episodes of it to send to Richard & Beverley - contact them in August if you would like to borrow the tape.

Also due to visit us are our great friends Robin & Helen Tervit. They're coming over for a grand trip to UK and Europe. Hamilton friends of theirs will be here for a few days as well - Neil & Raewyn Towers. That will be a busy few days, during which we plan to take then on the high seas of the Birmingham canals!

Bullring Rotunda
The Rotunda is a famous Birmingham landmark, built during the concrete monstrosity phase of the 1960s. It became much hated, the IRA tried to blow it up (killed 21 people in the process), and it was scheduled for demolition. Then it became a 'listed historic building' and is to be preserved. The latest plans are for revolving restaurant on top - which I think would be an excellent idea, there's nowhere at present where you can go and view the city from any height. Most areas of the city are quite green - with lots of parks and trees, so it would be really nice to see it from a high level viewing platform. 

The building now serves as a place marker for the Bullring shopping centre, rated to be the best shopping in all Europe. It's a great place to lighten your wallet! Shame that they had to move a large cemetery to make room for the carpark. There must be a few ghosts wandering around there late at night!

Webcam, broadband
For my birthday, Chris gave me a 'webcam', a tiny golfball shaped camera which plugs into the computer. With it, we can have a video conference with other computer users. So far, this has been with Aidan & Racheal on several occasions, and we hope to meet more of you in this way, in the future! 

To make the webcam work properly, it really needs a 'broadband' internet connection (called JetStream in NZ) which I had installed last month. The main advantage of broadband is that I can be on the internet, and it doesn't tie up our phone line. The other advantage is that it is much faster for downloading information, so I've had a bit of fun with downloading music and movies. 

The squirrels which live in our back garden continue to delight us. When we came back from NZ, we discovered that they had completely wrecked our bird feeder (a wood & metal gauze container filled with seeds). 

We now have a more robust feeder, on which the cheeky thing sits for ages gorging itself on the food we put out!

We continue to be delighted when NZ makes it into the news here. Recently it has been Jonah Lomu in town for a book signing session, Mark Ellis winning the cheese rolling competition, Hayley Westernera becoming more & more famous, Jonathon Lemalu singing on the BBC, bloopers from Shortland Street on TV and the Royal NZ Airforce again flying into the airshow - this time with a Hercules.

The Colmore Row area of town in which I work is definitely the legal and banking part of Birmingham. Several bars operate in ornate buildings which were previously banks. The Old Joint Stock is a particularly impressive building, with statues and busts of unknown dignitaries arranged inside, with high ceilings, grand chandeliers and ornately carved oak woodwork.

Parked here recently was the car from the Chitty Bang Bang movie, a fun combination of old rowing boat and stainless steel!

Across the road from my work is a bar called Bar One 10, which has the odd feature of a huge video screen with the prices of drinks displayed on it in the form of a stock exchange listing. The more that a particular drink is purchased, the higher the price goes! Likewise, unpopular drinks drop in price. An expensive prop which none of the punters seem to take any notice of! They have a 40 year old Whiskey at £70 per glass!

A major mission for us in May has been the painting & decorating George's lounge, carpet, light fittings. For ages we've been encouraging George to have a bit of a facelift for his house (especially now that he owns it - having bought it from the Council). So out with the grey/blue carpet and in with terracotta carpet, newly painted walls & ceiling, wrought iron style lighting and curtain rod, new curtains & the place looks so much nicer. During this decorating exercise, I came to realise where Chris gets her occasional lack of patience and subtlety from, her Dad demonstrated the impatience and grumpiness which I've seen on rare occasions in my beloved. 

He found it terribly frustrating watching us amateurs, attempting to do what he had done for years as a professional. He had his own business doing painting and decorating. He would dearly liked to have done this work himself, but simply wasn't able to. When we went back a few days later, we discovered that he had lugged a roll of carpet out of the garage and attempted to lay it in the porch - which then caused his to suffer a lung collapse & and week in hospital. More on this in next month's newsletter. 

Added to that, we've taken out the rotting wooden windows upstairs, and replaced them with gleaming new PCV (plastic!) windows. The ground floor windows had been replaced a few years ago. Then we added a front door to the porch, to provide another level of security. He had a horrible incident a few years ago when a drunk/drug crazed man smashed his way into the house, terrifying George and Claire. He stopped only by George fending him off with a Samurai sword and a large vase. All of this left a lot of blood in the hall and George arrested for grievous bodily harm. Not surprisingly, the intruder didn't press charges, and George was released. He handed in the sword though, feeling that he was better without it.