Forever Britain, continued

Chuckle!

I just found an old journal of mine, while cleaning up from my nephew Aaron's visit. Aaron, his life partner Mike, possibly my sister Darcy, and I are in the planning stages of a trip to the UK for '08. This journal is a reminder of exactly what one can and can't do in the UK, Brit Rail pass or not! On one day out of two weeks in 1985, my friends and I had planned to go see Glasgow, York ,and Nottingham, all while heading back to London. Talk about ridiculous. The trip on the high speed, straight shot into London is about 12 hours! And as I have been to York since then, I know that rushing through it, and any of those other places, would be a waste. Even a guided bus trip couldn't cover that much ground in a day.

My sister wants to hike Snowdenia, which she has glibbly said can "be done in a day." While she is an experienced hiker, both on the Benten- McKay Trail in the south east and in Alaska, I will do my darnedest to talk them out of thinking that Wales is a simple layover. Lovely, lovely place, but due to roads not unlike Cornwall's (see last blog) not somewhere one passes through swiftly. My personal goal is John O'Groats in Scotland, and Lewis Island for the Callanish standing stones. Those too speak of much travel off the beaten path, so I will have to get input from the less traveled members of the crew. I've done the touristy stuff; they haven't. There has to be a certain amount of give.

Why John O'Groats? It is the farthest point north in the UK. I have been able to go to the farthest East, West, and South, and wish to pluck that final feather. I must say of the three so far, Land's End in Cornwall was definitely the most exciting. It was pouring down rain, with stiff winds coming off the coast. Mom stayed in the tea shop there while I walked against the wind out to the bridge that crosses over the eastern most section. It was probably a fool's errand to go out on that bridge, but at the time I found it invigorating. Even took a picture straight down off what would have been a deadly drop had the bridge flipped or given way. Every now and then, it's good to face one's limits and survive. Makes the simple things seem much sweeter.
(the image of that lovely spot snitched from: www.stives.uk.co )

Hm. Found a small but accurate picture of the Minack Theatre I wrote about before. Aother lovely reason to hang out in Cornwall.

I am not certain what most tourists are looking for when they go anywhere, but I myself am looking for the unique. Churches, government buildings, ...all that kind of stuff gets old really quickly. In the UK it has been a more metaphysical thing for me.
From Cornwall, mom and I moved our trip up to Bath. Wonderful B-n-B there, just as homey as the Vicarage down in St. Ives. We did the tourist stuff- the Baths (really over crowded with people- it was hard to get a feel for them) and then we moved on to our drive through Wales. Along the way we stopped in a place I consider very sacred- Chalice Well, in Glastonbury. The Tor there is also supposed to be connected to the Arthurian legends, and the whole area is believed to have once been the place called Avalon. That translates to The Isle of Apples. While the christianizing of the UK by Rome got a lot of things about the legends changed, the pagan roots to it all are still there. The Chalice Well is supposedly where Joseph of Aremethia (sp?) threw the chalice from the last supper to keep it from pagan hands, ...or something like that anyway. I ignore the story, because I know the well was sacred to pagans long before that. So was the Tor. I walked the Tor, no small feat actually, and took some pictures from the top of our car. It is by far the tallest thing in the area, and an imposing hike. We then took a rest stop at the well, where we befriended an english robin and her chicks! It was so cute.I would whistle to her after throwing whatever it was I tossed- some kind of biscuit I think- and momma would test the situation, then call the babies out to eat. If we hadn't had a bit of a schedule to keep, I think mom and I would've enjoyed staying there all day. The gardens around the well are very well kept up and just so peaceful. i did take some of the well water with me- like I said, it's sacred.

The drive through Bristol, over the Severn bridge and through Cardiff could most accurately be described as frustrating. We hit rush hour, and it got a bit hairy as far as I was concerned. Didn't help that I was having to deal in some part with a different language. The Cornish do have their own tongue, which is actually related slightly to Welsh, but the predominant language is still English. In Wales, Welsh holds an equal footing with English in the south and a predominant one in the North. How does one tell the North from the South? Street signs. They change rather abruptly I might add! Here I am trying to pay attention to the road, I glance at the sign to see if I am going the correct way, and something in my mind goes "What the hell did that say?!" I can laugh about it now, but it was scary and frustrating at first. I literally had to buy a translation guide to drive through this fairly small country!

I will leave trying to describe the Welsh tongue to another blog. Suffice it to say that "w" is a vowel to these people, and two d's is pronounced "th"....... And that's just the start. There was absolutely no temptation to watch TV that night in the lodge we stopped at, as all Welsh TV is in Welsh......So we listened instead to the river outside the back door. We found quite by accident the Nan Ddu Lodge, which had the river Ddu on one side and lovely high hills sprinkled with sheep on the other. The great glass doors in our room opened out onto one of the most peaceful scenes I can imagine the next morning. Wind in the tall, straight pines and cypress. Sheep bleating out in the field. Cool breeze wafting over the tumbling river. No cars. No planes. No radio or TV. No cell phones. No ipods or even walkmans. I knew right then why people fall in love with this part of the UK. It is part of Breton's Beacon, a national forest, right in the heart of Cmyru (that's Wales to us foreigners.)

Ah me. I am getting wistful again. The next day, we stopped many many times because we just couldn't pass this country by without seeing some of it. One place we stopped mom got involved with talking with a ranger, or whatever they are known as there, and I took a walk into the forest. The trees were young really, obviously re-plantings, but the magic there was almost overwhelming. I could feel the forest breathing, the whole pace of life in these growing things aorund me, and frankly, it was almost frightening. Here was a living space, where I was the outsider and possibly threat, and for awhile, I wondered if they felt they need to "deal" with me. I was in awe when we finally drove away and would love to go back and stand there as alone as I was that day again. Because- I wasn't alone.

a break here. A reminder to self- Mynach Falls. That particular place is a story unto itself. More later as I can.