Warwick FestivalIn late July we went to the town of Warwick (most famous for the fantastically preserved Warwick Castle) to see their street festival. I was initially wary of going to see Morris Dancers, but was delighted by was we found! There was so much more than some namby pamby blokes waving their handkerchiefs in the air. These guys where waving bloody big sticks around, had blackened faces, and performed mightily energetic dances!!! Chris evidently thought that the natives were friendly...
Warwick Castle is a must-see for all visitors to the UK. It is now owned by Madame Tussauds, the same people who own the famous wax works in London. We went there in 1996, on my first trip to the UK. The castle is mostly intact, with stunning grounds, elaborate furnishings & frightening dungeons.
On the Road
For a summer treat, we
took Rob's rather lovely BMW 530i car for a drive to Wales. This sexy silver car
was oozing with electronic cleverness, including satellite navigation. This is a
car which turns on the headlights automatically when it gets dark, turns on the
windscreen wiper when it starts raining, and a few more bits of German
ingenuity. I've never driven a car with SatNav before, and so was keen to try it
out to the full. We would think of a place, dial it into the computer control
panel, and see where 'it' would take us. Well 'it' turned out to be a sexy
american woman (voice). No matter what we did, she stayed slick and cool - it
was fun trying to catch her out - she would say 'turn
left' and so we'd turn right instead. We were trying to get her annoyed by not following her
instructions, she stayed calm though she directed us up some very narrow country roads
- barely wide enough for our
car let alone having room for any other car to pass! The only time she sounded a
little upset was when she said "if at all possible, turn around and go
back!" or 'attempt a 'u' turn now'!
We headed west from Birmingham, thinking that we might end up on the west
coast beach of Aberystwyth. At one point along the way, the road signs
starting appearing with Welsh translations - and so we realised that we had
crossed the border into Wales. Chris suddenly started
talking with a Welsh accent - a novelty (which very quickly wore off). Don't
understand why he got fed up with 'yakky da!'I quite like it - Contemplating the long distance to the coast (rather further than from Hamilton
to Raglan) we chose to instead head south. Chris had childhood memories of a town & castle
called Montgomery - so we told our American lady and were guided south. It's
the first time I've driven over hills in the UK and it was a wonderful feeling
to get off the plains and to see some long distance views. We stopped at
Montgomery for a while, meandering around the remains of the castle, checked out
the tiny museum, had a cafe lunch and then headed East - for a long 'round the
wrekin' trip back to Brum. Places visited included Montgomery, Bishops Castle,
Clungunford, Knapton, Ledbury, Pershore and Weethley. A rather nice
day's excursion, but refilling the petrol tank did bring tears to the eyes and
collateral damage to our bank balance...
Interestingly, diesel is slighly more expensive that 91 octane petrol , which means there's none of those smoke spewing old Jap imports choking the airways here.
Some more of the things which I have noticed on the roads here - the motorway bridges are much taller, permitting trucks to be taller, and car transporters are three stories high. On very congested motorways, like the M25 around London (and soon to be the M42 around the east of Birmingham), the speed limit is changed during the day to try to optimise throughput. Each lane can potentially be a different speed, with the limits posted on electronic signs about each lane.
I've seen a few odd things on the road, including a steam train on the back of a huge truck, tanks from the Iraq war (some of which fell off their trailer & caused a massive fatal accident). Twice in one day I was passed by a very heavily fortified police prison van, with 3 other police cars surrounding it on the other lanes of the motorway - lots of lights flashing, sirens wailing, traveling really fast. Methinks they must have a very high profile prisoner aboard, may it's that Iraqi Abu Hansa?
What I haven't seen are
any motorcycle gangs flashing their tattoos and leathers on noisy Harley Davidsons,
and very few Subarus with their distinctive exhaust sound. You do get to
see lots of very beautiful sports cars on the roads here, lots of Ferarri, Lamborghini,
Bentley, Lotus, Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, TRV and many more.
Lots and lots of Porches, everyone (except me) seems to own one). The photo
here is the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car which is touring the UK with a eccentric
looking chauffeur - handlebar moustache etc!
On 23rd June I encountered the worst traffic jam I've ever been in, taking 1/2 an hour to go just 1 mile, my 50 mile journey taking almost 3 hours. Wearing my rose tinted spectacles, I declared that traffic jams are a great equaliser, with hugely expensive cars going exactly the same speed as cheap old bangers like our car! Stuck in the traffic jam, anxiously watching the temperature gauge getting higher & higher... Going so slow gives a chance to look at the countryside more closely than normal, seeing deer grazing, black & white spotted sheep, baby foxes basking in the sun on the bank. There are lots of poppies growing beside the motorway.
There's been lots of publicity for the amphibious car designed by NZer Gibbs, this 'car' is being built in Birmingham & Coventy. Sir Richard Branson gave it a big boost by 'driving' on the Thames and over the Channel to France. While on the motorway I saw another amphibious car – a Dutton Commander (with a top speed of only 5 miles per hour on water). The Gibbs Aquada can do much faster than that...
I do approve of the law change in the UK which make the use of cell phones in car illegal. Of course there are still quite a few who flout the law, and I'm even seen some texting while driving. Idiots!
Another Spice trip that I have been on was to the Rugeley Power Station,
with its huge cooling towers. When I first saw towers like these 8 years ago, I thought they might have
must have been part of a nuclear power station - but no, Britain's nuclear
power stations are all on the coast. Rugeley is one of the huge coal powered stations which are aging and starting
to be torn down - the pollution (especially sulphur) from coal burning is quite high, yet there's
not many alternatives which are more favourable. Natural gas from the North Sea
is running out, and the UK does not like having to depend on Europe for it's
fuel supplies. It is highly likely that the UK will build more nuclear
plants, as well as hundreds more wind turbines.
One of these coal power stations features on the new TV advert for Audi sports cars - using the massive coal stockpile as a stunt racing track.
NZ and UK have both been suffering great storms and floods - Edgecumbe (where Jevon lives) had floods & earthquakes, while here, there was a massive sudden valley flood at Boscastle. We were worried that Jevon's chickens might have ended up at sea, but it sounds like they survived. Having worked with credit union people in the Bay of Plenty, and having experienced their laid back lifestyle, I was amused to hear in the news of the Te Teko people being very relaxed about evacuating the area!
We really enjoyed
watching the Olympic games, and were filled with pride at the success of the
NZ team, especially the town of Cambridge! There must be something in the
water there, which doesn't reach as far as Hamilton.
What was really annoying though was that the TV coverage here didn't show any of the kiwi's receiving their medals. We're being sent a video of the NZ highlights, so we're looking forward to seeing that. I didn't get to hear the NZ anthem at all - (don't forget to buy a copy of Max's long awaited book about the anthem, due out in October).
Here's Caitlin showing her enthusiasm for the NZ rowing team...
July'04 was my 12 month anniversary at Shoosmiths - it's hard to believe that I been in my job for a year now, the time has flown and I continue to really enjoy the work there. I'm a lot busier now that I was when I started, as the office has grown from 20 staff to over 40 in that time. Also, I am now travelling once or twice per week - working on the Northampton helpdesk most Thursdays, and often going to other offices (Nottingham, Milton Keynes) to provide them with support when their support staff were away.
As an amateur photographer,
I am in awe of the work of Yann Arthus-Bertrand. He has put together an
outdoor exhibition called Earth
From The Air, which is currently in Birmingham for 3 months. Centerpiece
of the exhibition is a huge world map. It's lovely watching families
exploring the map, with children told to go and 'find' different countries
on the map. Also, it's nice seeing people pointing out places they have been
in the world (or which to go to). New Zealand is at the very front of the
map, where people can walk onto it. We enjoyed this very much so go see
if ever you get chance.
Around the city center, he has placed large prints of his aerial photos of the world, a collection of stunning images, quite unlike any others I have seen. His skills of photo composition and lighting show in these award winning images. Many photos were taken at dawn, when the air is still, the sunlight deep orange/red and the shadows are long. He uses a helicopter for his photography, spending hundreds of hours in the air.
One
of the outstanding clever ideas of this exhibition, is a tactile display, on
which blind people can 'feel' what the photos feel like. It is made from
resin which has been shaped into bumps to reflect the light & dark of
the photos.
On the day that the exhibition opened, I met the photographer and had a quick chat with him. When I told him that I was from New Zealand, his aide commented that when they first printed the huge world map, that NZ was cut in half. Some wags commented that maybe this is another French slight towards NZ a'la Rainbow Warrior. They promptly had the map reprinted so that NZ was shown in full! The exhibition is paid for by sponsorship from Birds Eye (great branding eh?!) and sales of photos, books etc. I took the opportunity to buy the biggest & best of his books and begged that he autograph it for me (although being told he doesn't do autographs, he did!).
We try to see all
sorts of art and performance while we're here. One show which sounded really
interesting was Curzon
Street Living Exhibition, being held in the old (long closed)
Curzon Street railway
station. This very imposing (but desperately in need of restoration) building was in 1838 the terminal &
hotel for the Birmingham to London passenger train, though it closed soon
after it opened! A theatre group put on a full programme of song, dance,
drama, film - each in a different room and operating on a train-like
timetable. A public address announcement (they call that the 'Tannoy' here
in the UK) would announce which shows would be on each 'platform' every half
hour. I enjoyed the ghost story the most, going down into the dark basement
for the tale of those who perished when there was a fire in the 1800s. The
building is now destined to be the new premises of the Royal College of
Organists, with a theatre being built next door. It was great to see an old
building before it is refurbished (it was spotlessly clean, not at all
festooned with cobwebs!). A most curious feature of the building is the corpse
of a cat which was on display in a glass box, with a plaque suggesting that it had been
trapped under the floor boards as a form of good luck blessing by the
builders.
Domestic crisis! Our dishwasher broke down and to our utter disbelief it took FIVE weeks to get fixed. It was terrible, thought my life had come to an end - I was having to wash dishes by hand here and at my fathers - like the dark ages! The serviceman was from the Manchester area, why they couldn't get one closer to here is beyond me! The same thing happened last year when our fridge/freezer broke - they also had to come from Manchester = 2 1/2 hours away. The serviceman reminded us very much of Manuel from Fawlty Towers - a bumbling idiot who seemed to not really know what he was doing!!! He managed to flood the kitchen, seemingly surprised that water would come out of the pipes when they were disconnected, and then trying to use our large vase as a bucket (when we had lots of pots & plastic containers which would have been much more suitable).
Chris's Dad George is
surprisingly well at the moment (July), better than he's been the whole time
we've been here. He's still driving his car from time to time, and is
looking forward to another day of fishing and to entertaining Aidan &
Racheal. We've bought George a budgie for company. Here he is - his
name is Bill. He is very active and does all sorts of naughty things, spends
most of the time out of his cage parading around the lounge - Dad enjoys him
a great deal.
Talking of birds - Food here can be a little bit weird, eg looking at the label for MacDonalds chicken "contents: 78% chicken". What's the other 22% ?!?! There's been stories about chicken being mixed with pork enzymes which cause water to be able to be absorbed - to make the meat heavier and thus sell for more money. This is of little cheer to Muslims & others who buy chicken as they can't eat pork for religious reasons. We've slipped into the UK habit of buying pre-cooked meals, along with about 40% of the population. There's a fantastic range of chilled meals available, at what seems to be a very good price. We're both tired when we get home about 6:30pm, and I usually can't be bothered cooking - Chris is better than I, managing to do meals for us and her Dad several times a week.
Aidan is working on a contract in Malaysia for 2 months, to work on a super racing yacht "Maiden". Then, a few days after returning to NZ, Aidan & Racheal will be coming to visit us in the UK from the 4th to the 20th October!
Finally - thank you for the kind comments on my stunning figure - I have been going to the Gym. Here is Geoff - a photo taken with the same technique............?