Hello, friends,
Feeling refreshed after having a dinner of leftovers, a nice shower and watching The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension with the girls. They tolerated it pretty well - it *is* an 80's movie and very quirky. I remember watching it more than once in college and liking it, and thinking tonight that... it's weird. But it's part of my youth and I thought they should see it once, anyway. There are definitely some good lines in it, and I love it that it doesn't take itself too seriously.
This one will be shorter than the one for Saturday, because we didn't do much yesterday, which was nice. Over breakfast we watched our church's Livestream service, which is 10:30 at home, and we were up by 7:30 so it worked out perfectly. After church/breakfast we drove out to La Jolla to go to the beach. We parked in this little cave of a parking garage, and there was no attendant on duty. It took us a while to find a sign that said we could pay on the way out if no attendant there.
We walked down to the beach, through not too much traffic and lots of construction, and were surprised to find the rocks covered with sea birds, including pelicans. A little farther south we saw our first sea lions, and stopped to watch them sunning on the rocks. Continuing on the path by the water, we came to an area where we could go out to get closer to the animals. We didn't get too close - probably no closer than 20 feet - but the sea lions didn't seem to notice. Farther along there was a [collective noun] of sea lions lying on the beach, fairly immobile in the sun, surrounded (a bit too closely for my comfort) by tourists.
I looked up the collective noun for sea lions and came up with several: bob, colony, crash, flock, harem (females), herd, hurdle, pod, raft, rookery, and team. These on the beach probably were closest to a "crash," because they were crashed out. We did get down on the beach, but we chose one that was sea lion free, so as not to have to deal with proximity of wild animals, no matter how cute. My elder kid and I waded a bit; the younger one didn't want to get her feet wet, but I said this might be the only time she'd be able to say she touched the Pacific on this trip, so she did.
We walked down to the Children's Pool, and there was a harbor seal on the beach. The PA at the lifeguard station blared that the seal was ill and recovering, and for people to stay 50 feet away. It would have been nice to have someone policing the other beaches a little better. At one point we saw a white woman go off and scream at a bunch of Asian people (whether native San Diegans or tourists, I don't know, but I suspect tourists, because locals wouldn't have gotten so close to the sea lions, I would think). She called them idiots and railed at them to "leave the sea lions alone" until most of them left the beach. While I applaud her sentiment (to protect the wildlife), I cannot condone her methods. I wonder if any of the tourists will remember the US as the place where the crazy white woman screamed them off the beach.
That brings up something else I've noticed on this vacation: while my fellow tourists may not be always very pleasant to be around, I've found the hired people to be extremely pleasant, from the store clerk at Michael's (we had to stop for origami paper) to the information people, to the period-dressed folks in Old Town, and the Zoo and Safari Park employees - everyone has been very kind, more than I've found in other places (save when we were in the UK last year and only had one person be grouchy with us). It has been a nice experience so far from that perspective.
After a couple of hours, we decided to go back home. We did sit for a good 20 minutes on the way back to the car and watch the sea lions frolicking in the waves, including leaping and body surfing. It was so cute to watch them all glide together through a wave, even though only one or two would end up on the beach. Some of them were lying on the beach and letting the waves roll them over as well. It was such fun to watch.
We found an attendant when we returned to our car and paid him, then sat in beach traffic for 20 minutes just trying to get out of town. I'm taking advantage of the time change while I can to get us all up and out early so we can find parking, etc. So far it has worked heavily in our favor, with good parking spots and crowds only increasing as we're ready to leave. We went back to the house for a little while, then went to Costco to get gasoline (what a line, egad) and a few other things, then stopped at Michael's (as stated above) to get origami paper because we forgot ours. We had dinner and did laundry - the washer and dryer are on the back porch, interesting - and then watched dumb Youtube videos for an hour or so before bed (James Veitch, Monty Python's Dead Parrot and Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, etc) because it's important to ground my kids in the classics. :)
time for bed,
good night
wb
Tuesday, July 31, 2018
Monday, July 30, 2018
This always happens to me. I have the best intentions of keeping up with my "journal" in this space, and then I'm so busy vacationing (vacating?) that I miss a day, which becomes two, and....
Well, this is my attempt to get caught up. We had a busy day today (more on that later) but are now back at "home" in El Cajon relaxing and recovering from the 100-degree heat.
(In case you're wondering why so much improved punctuation, I'm typing this on my computer rather than my Bluetooth keyboard, so the shift key works much better.)
Anyway... Where did I leave off? I think I covered Thursday and Friday (I did tell you about the Zoo, right?). So now for Saturday. We are in the are for almost a full week, so we decided to do the big park days (Zoo and Safari Park) on weekdays, and save the weekend for lesser excursions. Summer is the high season, but I figured weekends would be even busier, so Saturday we decided to go to Old Town. Old Town is the area where San Diego began. It became a ghost town after the "new town" (now downtown San Diego) was established, and then it became a historical site. I posted some photos yesterday on my Facebook page; since they are on my phone I don't have good access to put them here, so you'll just have to take my word for it. So to speak.
Anyway, we were still waking up early, so we got into Old Town around 9 AM and got a prime parking space in a free lot - huzzah. We went to the information booth to find out what there was to do. The parking lot was off the beaten path a bit, and most of the places didn't open until 10, so the girls were a bit confused as to what we would be doing. I only had a vague idea, so after talking with the information booth guy, I bought us tickets on the Old Town Trolley Tour. Genevieve wanted to go to one of the museums in Balboa Park, but since I'm the only driver, I didn't want to drive over there and find more parking, so I figured the Trolley would be a nice way to get there, in a hop-on, hop-off sort of way. The girls (especially the younger one) were a bit grouchy (she's not a morning person) so we were all a bit out of sorts by the time the next trolley arrived. I sat behind the girls at one of the openings (no glass, better photos) and we waited for... whatever came next. The information person said it was a money-back guarantee, so I figured, what the heck.
It turned out that the older male driver, whose name was "Philip, with just... one 'L' - still Phil" (which he said at every available opportunity, until we were all saying it along with him by an hour into the tour) was a retired missionary to Japan, and retired teacher, and he was charming and just corny enough, but really knowledgeable (as one would expect). We were about 15 minutes into the tour when my younger daughter leaned back and said, "Can we ride this all day?" I was very happy that it turned out so well.
The Balboa Park stop was third from the last stop (which was Old Town), so we ended up on the trolley for a good 90 minutes, listening to interesting facts about the airport (single busiest one-runway airport in the US, with flights taking off every 90 seconds), the military bases, the Coronado Bridge, architecture and history of downtown, average rainfall in August (0.07"), etc. It was really neat, and the kids didn't want to get off, especially as there was a pretty good chance that we would get a different tour bus driver for the last two stops, but we disembarked anyway.
There was an artisan show along the road we took to the Visitor's Center, with painters, jewelers with wire pieces, and a man selling ceramics. I am a sucker for a nice ceramic mug or bowl, so we picked them up and held them and admired them, and moved along. We passed the Sprekels Organ Pavilion, a huge open-air space with a pipe organ on a large stage with semi-circular architecture flanking it. Someone was playing a piece I didn't recognize, but it was impressive. It was probably 1/4 mile from the Visitor's Center to the Museum of Man, which my elder daughter had researched a bit and wanted to visit. There was a special exhibit (which cost a bit extra) on "Cannibalism: myth and legend," which she wanted to see. I wasn't particularly chuffed about that, seeing that the "edible" chapter in Mary Roach's otherwise very entertaining book about cadavers made me rather ill, but we opted in because she was really interested.
The museum itself was pretty simple; less occupied than the Public Museum of Grand Rapids. It had very "interactive" exhibits, including one on monsters. There was a giant dream catcher at the end of that exhibit which invited people to write their "biggest fears" on a paper feather and attach it to the dream catcher. The first one that caught my eye simply said, "laundry." I can see where that might be a big fear for someone....
Among the other exhibits was one called Post Secret, in which people are invited to send a post card with a secret they'd never revealed, anonymously, to the collector. It's made into an art project, so the secrets are "illustrated" in a fashion. There was a collection of them in one portion of the museum. As you can imagine, many of them were quite depressing, but a few of them made me laugh. We didn't last long in that exhibit.
There was an exhibit on race, one on ancient Mayans, one on the indigenous peoples of the San Diego area, the Kumeyaay, and one on animals and their relationships with people, so quite a diverse offering in this museum. We were tired and it was close to 1 PM and I was HUNGRY (having been up since 4:30 AM again) so we left he museum to get lunch, managing to find some pretty good sandwiches for not too much (my kids do realize we're spending their inheritance, I think). It was a good call to eat before we went back in to the cannibal exhibit, I think....
The exhibit was some of what one would expect, with stories about explorers, early evidence of cannibalism, and musings about whether "cannibal" was just another epithet (such as "savage") without any evidence to support that certain peoples were actual cannibals. The thing that disturbed me the most was the idea that since these unknown early peoples were shunted into "non-human" or "less human" categories by the explorers/missionaries/whatever, then even if they WERE cannibals, is that so bad? As if the mislabeling of a category of humans justified whatever actual horrific practices they engaged in. They mentioned the fact that the Europeans were engaging in similar acts to the human sacrifice and flaying of live people that the Aztecs did at that time, so who are they to criticize, because after all, the Aztecs "ritually removing and eating hearts... did it out of intense religious obligation: they believed that human sacrifices were responsible for the sun rising each day." Hm. Just because someone believes something strongly, or because it's a sanctioned cultural practice, doesn't mean that it's morally acceptable. I'm sure you can think of some examples yourselves.
Anyway, the spin on this made me uncomfortable, as did the later exhibits talking about which shipwrecks ended up in killing a crew member to be eaten, and the part about the Donner Party, plus the "edible human" "medicinal: section, which I had to skip because of revulsion. The museum had an interactive exhibit with plastic bottles hanging on the wall into which people could put slips saying whether they would eat someone or starve to death - some of those entries were kind of funny, actually, but by then we'd had enough of that. One part that I did think fascinating was a short film on the survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force plane crash in the Andes in 1972. I wondered how the survivors could make themselves eat another person. The story was riveting, and very personal. I still think I'd rather not eat someone else, but I've never been hungry enough or in a position to make that decision. I hope I never am.
Whew, sorry about that. It was a rather intense experience. After that we decided not to try another museum, but to walk back to the Trolley stop and head for home. On our way we stopped again at the ceramics booth and ended up buying three little bowls from the artist, who was a very personable fellow. We will enjoy eating ice cream out of those bowls, I think. It was only a few yards to the Trolley stop from there. There was an employee standing nearby to answer questions; she was also quite friendly and we chatted until the trolley showed up. And Guess Who was the Driver? Philip-with-only-one-L-still-Phil! We were excited to finish the tour with him, which lasted another 45 minutes or so. We saw the hill up which Tom Cruise's character in Top Gun raced a motorcycle, and Little Italy, and a few more things.
Once we got back to Old Town, there were a lot more people there. There was a demonstration of historical arts, such as quilting, basket weaving, and spinning wool thread on hand drop-spinners (whatever they're called - see how much I learned?) I felt sorry for the people in period costumes because it was almost 90 degrees. They were in the shade and there was a nice breeze, but still....
We got some specialty sodas from a place called "Old Town Jerky and Root Beer," which had more kinds of root beer than I had ever seen. I like root beer, but wow. The girls don't like it, but they found some other sodas so we bought two 6-packs of choose-your-own so we could each have 4. One of the ones we bought was called "Leninade" and the bottle says "Get hammered & sickled" and "A taste worth waiting in line for" and "a party in every bottle." I was amused. And the soda was pretty good. We drove home about 1/2 hour and chilled out. I made burgers for dinner and we watched "National Treasure" on Netflix (there's an account for guests here), which my elder daughter had seen parts of in school, but we'd never seen the whole thing. Not bad.
This has been long enough. I will continue with yesterday's installment (which I anticipate being much shorter) another time.
love
wendy
Well, this is my attempt to get caught up. We had a busy day today (more on that later) but are now back at "home" in El Cajon relaxing and recovering from the 100-degree heat.
(In case you're wondering why so much improved punctuation, I'm typing this on my computer rather than my Bluetooth keyboard, so the shift key works much better.)
Anyway... Where did I leave off? I think I covered Thursday and Friday (I did tell you about the Zoo, right?). So now for Saturday. We are in the are for almost a full week, so we decided to do the big park days (Zoo and Safari Park) on weekdays, and save the weekend for lesser excursions. Summer is the high season, but I figured weekends would be even busier, so Saturday we decided to go to Old Town. Old Town is the area where San Diego began. It became a ghost town after the "new town" (now downtown San Diego) was established, and then it became a historical site. I posted some photos yesterday on my Facebook page; since they are on my phone I don't have good access to put them here, so you'll just have to take my word for it. So to speak.
Anyway, we were still waking up early, so we got into Old Town around 9 AM and got a prime parking space in a free lot - huzzah. We went to the information booth to find out what there was to do. The parking lot was off the beaten path a bit, and most of the places didn't open until 10, so the girls were a bit confused as to what we would be doing. I only had a vague idea, so after talking with the information booth guy, I bought us tickets on the Old Town Trolley Tour. Genevieve wanted to go to one of the museums in Balboa Park, but since I'm the only driver, I didn't want to drive over there and find more parking, so I figured the Trolley would be a nice way to get there, in a hop-on, hop-off sort of way. The girls (especially the younger one) were a bit grouchy (she's not a morning person) so we were all a bit out of sorts by the time the next trolley arrived. I sat behind the girls at one of the openings (no glass, better photos) and we waited for... whatever came next. The information person said it was a money-back guarantee, so I figured, what the heck.
It turned out that the older male driver, whose name was "Philip, with just... one 'L' - still Phil" (which he said at every available opportunity, until we were all saying it along with him by an hour into the tour) was a retired missionary to Japan, and retired teacher, and he was charming and just corny enough, but really knowledgeable (as one would expect). We were about 15 minutes into the tour when my younger daughter leaned back and said, "Can we ride this all day?" I was very happy that it turned out so well.
The Balboa Park stop was third from the last stop (which was Old Town), so we ended up on the trolley for a good 90 minutes, listening to interesting facts about the airport (single busiest one-runway airport in the US, with flights taking off every 90 seconds), the military bases, the Coronado Bridge, architecture and history of downtown, average rainfall in August (0.07"), etc. It was really neat, and the kids didn't want to get off, especially as there was a pretty good chance that we would get a different tour bus driver for the last two stops, but we disembarked anyway.
There was an artisan show along the road we took to the Visitor's Center, with painters, jewelers with wire pieces, and a man selling ceramics. I am a sucker for a nice ceramic mug or bowl, so we picked them up and held them and admired them, and moved along. We passed the Sprekels Organ Pavilion, a huge open-air space with a pipe organ on a large stage with semi-circular architecture flanking it. Someone was playing a piece I didn't recognize, but it was impressive. It was probably 1/4 mile from the Visitor's Center to the Museum of Man, which my elder daughter had researched a bit and wanted to visit. There was a special exhibit (which cost a bit extra) on "Cannibalism: myth and legend," which she wanted to see. I wasn't particularly chuffed about that, seeing that the "edible" chapter in Mary Roach's otherwise very entertaining book about cadavers made me rather ill, but we opted in because she was really interested.
The museum itself was pretty simple; less occupied than the Public Museum of Grand Rapids. It had very "interactive" exhibits, including one on monsters. There was a giant dream catcher at the end of that exhibit which invited people to write their "biggest fears" on a paper feather and attach it to the dream catcher. The first one that caught my eye simply said, "laundry." I can see where that might be a big fear for someone....
Among the other exhibits was one called Post Secret, in which people are invited to send a post card with a secret they'd never revealed, anonymously, to the collector. It's made into an art project, so the secrets are "illustrated" in a fashion. There was a collection of them in one portion of the museum. As you can imagine, many of them were quite depressing, but a few of them made me laugh. We didn't last long in that exhibit.
There was an exhibit on race, one on ancient Mayans, one on the indigenous peoples of the San Diego area, the Kumeyaay, and one on animals and their relationships with people, so quite a diverse offering in this museum. We were tired and it was close to 1 PM and I was HUNGRY (having been up since 4:30 AM again) so we left he museum to get lunch, managing to find some pretty good sandwiches for not too much (my kids do realize we're spending their inheritance, I think). It was a good call to eat before we went back in to the cannibal exhibit, I think....
The exhibit was some of what one would expect, with stories about explorers, early evidence of cannibalism, and musings about whether "cannibal" was just another epithet (such as "savage") without any evidence to support that certain peoples were actual cannibals. The thing that disturbed me the most was the idea that since these unknown early peoples were shunted into "non-human" or "less human" categories by the explorers/missionaries/whatever, then even if they WERE cannibals, is that so bad? As if the mislabeling of a category of humans justified whatever actual horrific practices they engaged in. They mentioned the fact that the Europeans were engaging in similar acts to the human sacrifice and flaying of live people that the Aztecs did at that time, so who are they to criticize, because after all, the Aztecs "ritually removing and eating hearts... did it out of intense religious obligation: they believed that human sacrifices were responsible for the sun rising each day." Hm. Just because someone believes something strongly, or because it's a sanctioned cultural practice, doesn't mean that it's morally acceptable. I'm sure you can think of some examples yourselves.
Anyway, the spin on this made me uncomfortable, as did the later exhibits talking about which shipwrecks ended up in killing a crew member to be eaten, and the part about the Donner Party, plus the "edible human" "medicinal: section, which I had to skip because of revulsion. The museum had an interactive exhibit with plastic bottles hanging on the wall into which people could put slips saying whether they would eat someone or starve to death - some of those entries were kind of funny, actually, but by then we'd had enough of that. One part that I did think fascinating was a short film on the survivors of the Uruguayan Air Force plane crash in the Andes in 1972. I wondered how the survivors could make themselves eat another person. The story was riveting, and very personal. I still think I'd rather not eat someone else, but I've never been hungry enough or in a position to make that decision. I hope I never am.
Whew, sorry about that. It was a rather intense experience. After that we decided not to try another museum, but to walk back to the Trolley stop and head for home. On our way we stopped again at the ceramics booth and ended up buying three little bowls from the artist, who was a very personable fellow. We will enjoy eating ice cream out of those bowls, I think. It was only a few yards to the Trolley stop from there. There was an employee standing nearby to answer questions; she was also quite friendly and we chatted until the trolley showed up. And Guess Who was the Driver? Philip-with-only-one-L-still-Phil! We were excited to finish the tour with him, which lasted another 45 minutes or so. We saw the hill up which Tom Cruise's character in Top Gun raced a motorcycle, and Little Italy, and a few more things.
Once we got back to Old Town, there were a lot more people there. There was a demonstration of historical arts, such as quilting, basket weaving, and spinning wool thread on hand drop-spinners (whatever they're called - see how much I learned?) I felt sorry for the people in period costumes because it was almost 90 degrees. They were in the shade and there was a nice breeze, but still....
We got some specialty sodas from a place called "Old Town Jerky and Root Beer," which had more kinds of root beer than I had ever seen. I like root beer, but wow. The girls don't like it, but they found some other sodas so we bought two 6-packs of choose-your-own so we could each have 4. One of the ones we bought was called "Leninade" and the bottle says "Get hammered & sickled" and "A taste worth waiting in line for" and "a party in every bottle." I was amused. And the soda was pretty good. We drove home about 1/2 hour and chilled out. I made burgers for dinner and we watched "National Treasure" on Netflix (there's an account for guests here), which my elder daughter had seen parts of in school, but we'd never seen the whole thing. Not bad.
This has been long enough. I will continue with yesterday's installment (which I anticipate being much shorter) another time.
love
wendy
Saturday, July 28, 2018
Hello, friends,
Greetings from sunny San Diego, California. The 'shift' key on my bluetooth keyboard isn't working very well, so forgive me if i'm not great with capitals - they take a lot of effort.
today is day 3 of our vacation, and so far it has been a good time. The girls and i actually left Michigan on wednesday because our flight was out of chicago and our friends Rose and Chris offered to let us stay at their house (in addition to leaving our car there for the duration). We had an uneventful drive to chicagoland, had a nice dinner and relaxed evening watching a movie, and then took a cab to the airport thursday morning without a hitch.
the time in the airport was about what one would expect; we didn't eat lunch there because we were full from breakfast, and we brought snacks for the plane, so we were pretty well set. the flight itself left about 30 minutes late because we were 1) waiting for some late arrivals, and 2) waiting for a clear runway. the pilot was funny and friendly-sounding and said he would fly at 32,00 feet so we could go faster. and we did, because despite the delays, we landed at our original arrival time at LAX. we caught an immediate shuttle to the car rental place, used the "express" servie to rent because i had reserved a car, and picked out a cute red nissan Rogue (?) hatchback, and drove away. into an hour of LA rush-hour traffic.
Thankfully, i had Genevieve navigating with my GPS, and we were tired and punchy enough to laugh our way through the traffic for the next 75 minutes or so. we are staying near San diego (el cajon) so we had to drive 130 miles after we got off the plane. The girls didn't want to bother trying to find a place for dinner, and by the time we rolled in at 8 local time (11 on our inner clocks) we were too tired to eat, so we went to bed.
day 2: i woke up around 4:30 and couldn't go back to sleep - an expected result of going to bed at 9, i suppose - and the girls got up closer to 6:30 or 7. We found a local place to eat breakfast (we hadn't wanted to stop for groceries the night before, either) which was not crowded and very good. i still have leftovers in the fridge from that. we went back to the Airbnb place we are renting, which is a tiny place above a detached garage with one bedroom and a fold-out couch in the living room. There is plenty of space for the 3 of us, though.
after that we got ready and navigated our way to the San Diego Zoo, and got there just as it opened at 9. i think it got to almost 100 degrees; even if it didn't, we were pretty hot and worn out after 6 hours of walking around the very hilly, very scenic (in two senses - beautifully laid out, and no straight way to get anywhere) and well-tended park. we declined to spend $12 each on a sandwich. we had brought out cooling towels and sun-blocking sleeves; i've never tried wetting the sleeves down before, but we did yesterday, and it was AMAZING. highly recommended for keeping cool and preventing sunburn.
There were so many cool animals. Sometimes we walked through exhibits and read all the info; sometimes we wandered by, appreciating the overall impression, and sometimes we say around and watched the monkeys playing or whatever. of course the pandas had us gawking and cooing. There weren't any babies there but the adults are so cute that one can hardly help it. The elephants were another favorite. The gift shops are always so neat - in between the kitsch, there are some really nice things, so i picked up some presents for people at home (already!).
after 6 hours we were tired so we came home. the girls hardly complained at all, even though we were all a bit grouchy from the heat and hungry for dinner. we landed at home for about an hour (and spent some of that time watching youtube videos of baby pandas) and then i headed out to get groceries. i had to go to two places to get everything i needed, and when I got home and fixed dinner it was about 7. That dinner tasted better than anything i've eaten in a while.
I feel very blessed to have the kids i have - they are good-natured and mature, as well as funny and charming. this while vacation would have a different feel if they were complaining or bickering, but they continue to get along as well as ever.
i think i will leave this hear and talk about today in another post. Thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers for us. We are having a lot of fun.
love,
wb
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Catching up, again
Good morning and happy Sunday.
Right now we are moored "in the wild" (that is, there are no permanent mooring rings in our location, so we had to put in our mooring pins) not too far from Bradford-on-Avon (not to be confused with Stratford-on-Avon), southeast of Bath, near the lock. It's about 60 degrees, and I actually went for a run this morning, because we are next to this miles-long towpath, and I thought I ought to. It wasn't much of a run - lots of walking, because I'm out of shape (for running, at least), plus the gravel is harder to run on than pavement. The pavement here (we are not too far from a residential area) would be hard to run on as well, as the asphalt is full of little rocks. No good for barefoot running, anyway.
Thursday we went into Bath again, to see some of the things we had not seen. We split up with Martha and Larry and agreed to meet up at the Abbey at a certain time. We stopped at Minerva's Art Supplies (where we had stopped the day before) and bought the kids some ink for the dip pens we got at the Jane Austen Center. We also found a fabulous bookstore where we could have spent all our remaining time, and I'm sorry to say we bought a few books (not because of the books but because we have to carry them now). I also got to photograph "Mr. Bennett," a character in costume standing outside the Jane Austen Centre, with muttonchop whiskers and top hat. He has worked there for over 10 years and is supposedly the "most photographed man in England." When we got out of the Jane Austen Centre the previous day, however, he was nowhere in sight; therefore I was determined to get a photo of him today. We struck up a conversation, mostly about conversation: I asked him if he had a lot of interesting conversations, and he said in his British accent, "Not really. Most people - not you - are really BO-ring, like all they do is watch the telly. They're very BO-ring - not you, of course." And so forth. Maybe he liked to be asked about himself; most people find that interesting. Makes me wonder what everyone else says to him that's so BO-ring. Our conversation was cut short when a tour bus stopped by to "ask directions" (a ruse, really) - but I got a photo of Mr. Bennett talking to the bus driver.
After that Giselle was hungry, so we stopped at the Intermezzo Express, where we had eaten lunch the day before, and got her another sandwich, even though it was only 10:30. I think both my kids are going through a growth spurt - they are certainly eating enough. The proprietor, Tony, remembered us from the day before, and we had a nice conversation as we waited for Giselle's sandwich to toast.
We headed for the Abbey after that and met M&L. There was a communion service being held at the front of the church, so they asked no photos there, but the rest of the place was fair game. There was an exhibition of "diptychs," in which an artist had done an illustrated manuscript/calligraphy page of a Bible verse, and the opposing page was a stitched/quilted picture. It was gorgeous, but most of the plates were behind glass and difficult to photograph because of the glare. They had postcards in the gift shop with reproductions so I bought one or two. Giselle bought a deck of cards with monarchs of the British Isles; 52 of them and 3 "jokers" - I don't know my history well enough to recognize two of the jokers, but one of them was the king who abdicated in favor of his younger brother during World War II. I learned that from "The King's Speech." Who says movies aren't good for you? I thought it was a nice souvenir. We had fun later putting them in order or reign.
After we went to the Abbey, we stopped for lunch at the same place where T, the girls and I had lunch on Monday - Gourmet Burger Kitchen. I was able to get another kids' meal (side of corn on the cob and a chocolate shake - yum) and the server recognized us. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. We were right near the train station, so we stopped to ask about trains to Scotland for Monday. The person who helped us was named Tracey, and she made us reservations on an appropriate train. I didn't know we could do that, because we have BritRail passes, but she said, "You paid for your ticket, same as everyone else, so why shouldn't you?" So we have reservations.
Walked back to the boat, and set off toward Bradford-on-Avon. We got to go through our first lock, which was an interesting experience. Larry, the girls and I went up to operate the paddles, and open the gates, and M and T piloted the boat into the lock. We were going "uphill" so we had to let the water in to raise the boat up to the next level. Clever engineering. After that I got to pilot the boat to the "winding" place, where we turned the boat around and headed back toward the lock to moor. We found a place about 1/2 mile from the lock and about a mile from town, but I didn't know the distance until I looked it up last night. We were right by a stairway leading up the the road, and we turned right when we should have turned left (not that we would know this) and walked along a residential street all the way into BoA, as they call it around here. Once there, we found an information center (and M&L bought duck food for the kids to use instead of crumbs to feed the ducks, who tend to follow people around, begging) and got some maps. We walked around town and did a bit of shopping, then walked back via the Tithe Barn and then the canal. It brought us on the path next to the lock again, so we were much closer to town than I had thought.
Time to get going, so more later.
blessings,
wendy
Right now we are moored "in the wild" (that is, there are no permanent mooring rings in our location, so we had to put in our mooring pins) not too far from Bradford-on-Avon (not to be confused with Stratford-on-Avon), southeast of Bath, near the lock. It's about 60 degrees, and I actually went for a run this morning, because we are next to this miles-long towpath, and I thought I ought to. It wasn't much of a run - lots of walking, because I'm out of shape (for running, at least), plus the gravel is harder to run on than pavement. The pavement here (we are not too far from a residential area) would be hard to run on as well, as the asphalt is full of little rocks. No good for barefoot running, anyway.
Thursday we went into Bath again, to see some of the things we had not seen. We split up with Martha and Larry and agreed to meet up at the Abbey at a certain time. We stopped at Minerva's Art Supplies (where we had stopped the day before) and bought the kids some ink for the dip pens we got at the Jane Austen Center. We also found a fabulous bookstore where we could have spent all our remaining time, and I'm sorry to say we bought a few books (not because of the books but because we have to carry them now). I also got to photograph "Mr. Bennett," a character in costume standing outside the Jane Austen Centre, with muttonchop whiskers and top hat. He has worked there for over 10 years and is supposedly the "most photographed man in England." When we got out of the Jane Austen Centre the previous day, however, he was nowhere in sight; therefore I was determined to get a photo of him today. We struck up a conversation, mostly about conversation: I asked him if he had a lot of interesting conversations, and he said in his British accent, "Not really. Most people - not you - are really BO-ring, like all they do is watch the telly. They're very BO-ring - not you, of course." And so forth. Maybe he liked to be asked about himself; most people find that interesting. Makes me wonder what everyone else says to him that's so BO-ring. Our conversation was cut short when a tour bus stopped by to "ask directions" (a ruse, really) - but I got a photo of Mr. Bennett talking to the bus driver.
After that Giselle was hungry, so we stopped at the Intermezzo Express, where we had eaten lunch the day before, and got her another sandwich, even though it was only 10:30. I think both my kids are going through a growth spurt - they are certainly eating enough. The proprietor, Tony, remembered us from the day before, and we had a nice conversation as we waited for Giselle's sandwich to toast.
We headed for the Abbey after that and met M&L. There was a communion service being held at the front of the church, so they asked no photos there, but the rest of the place was fair game. There was an exhibition of "diptychs," in which an artist had done an illustrated manuscript/calligraphy page of a Bible verse, and the opposing page was a stitched/quilted picture. It was gorgeous, but most of the plates were behind glass and difficult to photograph because of the glare. They had postcards in the gift shop with reproductions so I bought one or two. Giselle bought a deck of cards with monarchs of the British Isles; 52 of them and 3 "jokers" - I don't know my history well enough to recognize two of the jokers, but one of them was the king who abdicated in favor of his younger brother during World War II. I learned that from "The King's Speech." Who says movies aren't good for you? I thought it was a nice souvenir. We had fun later putting them in order or reign.
After we went to the Abbey, we stopped for lunch at the same place where T, the girls and I had lunch on Monday - Gourmet Burger Kitchen. I was able to get another kids' meal (side of corn on the cob and a chocolate shake - yum) and the server recognized us. Not sure if that's a good thing or not. We were right near the train station, so we stopped to ask about trains to Scotland for Monday. The person who helped us was named Tracey, and she made us reservations on an appropriate train. I didn't know we could do that, because we have BritRail passes, but she said, "You paid for your ticket, same as everyone else, so why shouldn't you?" So we have reservations.
Walked back to the boat, and set off toward Bradford-on-Avon. We got to go through our first lock, which was an interesting experience. Larry, the girls and I went up to operate the paddles, and open the gates, and M and T piloted the boat into the lock. We were going "uphill" so we had to let the water in to raise the boat up to the next level. Clever engineering. After that I got to pilot the boat to the "winding" place, where we turned the boat around and headed back toward the lock to moor. We found a place about 1/2 mile from the lock and about a mile from town, but I didn't know the distance until I looked it up last night. We were right by a stairway leading up the the road, and we turned right when we should have turned left (not that we would know this) and walked along a residential street all the way into BoA, as they call it around here. Once there, we found an information center (and M&L bought duck food for the kids to use instead of crumbs to feed the ducks, who tend to follow people around, begging) and got some maps. We walked around town and did a bit of shopping, then walked back via the Tithe Barn and then the canal. It brought us on the path next to the lock again, so we were much closer to town than I had thought.
Time to get going, so more later.
blessings,
wendy
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Wednesday
Hello friends,
I was right - the day turned out sunny and pleasant, though it was iffy there for a while - cloudy and a drip of rain once or twice. We headed into Bath and walked through the city; we started at a particular store that Martha and Larry wanted to see, stopping at the post office for them to change back some Euros from a previous trip first. Then we walked to the King's Circus, which is a big architectural circle of apartments with some pretty interesting features, including acorn structures on top of the buildings, and took some photos there. I have a panoramic feature on my camera that works pretty well, so I played with that for a few minutes. We next walked to the Crescent; again the panoramic photos. There were two ladies standing by the wrought iron gate, talking and smoking. I got them in a few photos, then decided to move over next to them to get them out of the photos (I had been waiting for them to move on). Of course right when I moved, they started walking away in a direction that pretty much guaranteed they would be in all future photos for the next several minutes. I gave up.
We had walked by the Jane Austen Centre on the way to the Circus and headed back there. Martha and Larry decided to go to a park nearby, because they were not interested, but our family went in and had a little guided tour talking about Jane Austen and her family, her time in Bath and its influence on her novels, etc. The rest of the tour was self-guided, with a short video hosted by the actor who played Wickham in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. I had read P&P to the girls a few months ago, and we had watched the BBC miniseries, so they knew what was going on. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite "comfort" books, like a blankie if I'm not feeling well, or just to read its familiar funny scenes. There was a place to try on period costumes (which we did not do) and to write with quill pens, which both the girls enjoyed enough that we bought some nib pens in the gift shop. They also had some attractive little editions of Austen's writings for sale, and I admit I bought a couple of them. I haven't ready any books of hers other than P&P, and I was inspired to do so after this visit, and see what they have to do with Bath as well.
After that, we found Martha and Larry in the park, and all set off to find some lunch. There was some hemming and hawing - it's always tricky to synchronize the agendas of 6 people - so we split up again and they went for fish and chips, and we went to a little hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop called Intermezzo Express, where they made sandwiches to order (rather like Subway, but much better, and with cooler accents). The bread was amazing. We sat on benches in the square to eat and met up with M&L again after the appointed time, and walked on.
On our way to the Roman baths, we stopped in a few shops including a candy store that was AMAZING. The kids wanted Chocolate Frogs (Harry Potter) so we got those, and some fudge. There was also a discount shop called Works that had books, Terry Prachett audiobooks, office supplies, toys, etc.
We got to the Baths around 2:45 and paid the admission. It has an audio tour given through a device rather like a telephone handpiece; you dial in the number of the exhibit you want (they are listed on the signs) and listen, or not, as you like. I thought it was good, but it effectively prevented us from talking to each other because we were listening to the dial up guides, and after a while it got to be a bit much for me because all i wanted to do was sit down. It was also very crowded after a while, and the masses of people listening to the audio tour and not paying attention to where they were going, all packed by the exhibits, got to be too much for me. I think there comes a point by which time one's brain has seen enough and can't process any more. I hit that place about 2/3 through the Baths. So all that remained was to wait for the rest to catch up (I walked ahead slowly with the girls, who tuned in here and there to find out about the exhibits). We spend about 2 minutes in the gift shop, which was quite nice but I was done, then walked out to the main plaza again. We made an executive decision to go back to the boat, because we were all pretty tired. We can moor here until this afternoon (48 hours) so we will go back into Bath again today and do a few more things.
As we walked home we passed a place that we had seen two very pretty snails the day before. Giselle and Genevieve didn't recognize the path, and I said, "It's where we saw the snails yesterday." They vaguely recalled it, and then Giselle said something about "Snails are ugly; snakes are cool." I said, "Watch out - now you've made them angry and they are going to come swarming after us - amble for your life!" Later on, we found some blackberry bushes along the canal and kept stopping to pick some. Giselle (who i think wanted to get home) said, "I think the snails are catching up with us...."
I had bought some minced (ground) beef at the grocery store the other day, and so I made burgers for dinner. One end of the package was frozen (efficient tiny fridge, a bit too cool) so I just "scrunchled" it loose. I had enough thawed to make 6 small burgers. We also had some berries from the store, and that we had picked.
M, L and T went "for a walk" after dinner. M&L went to the grocery store, I think. The girls and I stayed in the boat, which was idling to charge the battery. I couldn't believe they wanted to go for a walk - I thought my legs were going to fall off.... I transferred some photos from my camera to a USB drive (which took longer than I thought) and then my nifty galifty internet hotspot refused to work, so I went to bed. It seems to be working this morning, so here's hoping. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep which has been typical for me this vacation. There is a lot of foot and bike traffic on the tow path by the canal which is gravel, so one can hear passers by quite easily. I think Ill get up and have some breakfast.
Have a good day, all. :)
wendy
I was right - the day turned out sunny and pleasant, though it was iffy there for a while - cloudy and a drip of rain once or twice. We headed into Bath and walked through the city; we started at a particular store that Martha and Larry wanted to see, stopping at the post office for them to change back some Euros from a previous trip first. Then we walked to the King's Circus, which is a big architectural circle of apartments with some pretty interesting features, including acorn structures on top of the buildings, and took some photos there. I have a panoramic feature on my camera that works pretty well, so I played with that for a few minutes. We next walked to the Crescent; again the panoramic photos. There were two ladies standing by the wrought iron gate, talking and smoking. I got them in a few photos, then decided to move over next to them to get them out of the photos (I had been waiting for them to move on). Of course right when I moved, they started walking away in a direction that pretty much guaranteed they would be in all future photos for the next several minutes. I gave up.
We had walked by the Jane Austen Centre on the way to the Circus and headed back there. Martha and Larry decided to go to a park nearby, because they were not interested, but our family went in and had a little guided tour talking about Jane Austen and her family, her time in Bath and its influence on her novels, etc. The rest of the tour was self-guided, with a short video hosted by the actor who played Wickham in the BBC production of Pride and Prejudice. I had read P&P to the girls a few months ago, and we had watched the BBC miniseries, so they knew what was going on. Pride and Prejudice is one of my favorite "comfort" books, like a blankie if I'm not feeling well, or just to read its familiar funny scenes. There was a place to try on period costumes (which we did not do) and to write with quill pens, which both the girls enjoyed enough that we bought some nib pens in the gift shop. They also had some attractive little editions of Austen's writings for sale, and I admit I bought a couple of them. I haven't ready any books of hers other than P&P, and I was inspired to do so after this visit, and see what they have to do with Bath as well.
After that, we found Martha and Larry in the park, and all set off to find some lunch. There was some hemming and hawing - it's always tricky to synchronize the agendas of 6 people - so we split up again and they went for fish and chips, and we went to a little hole-in-the-wall sandwich shop called Intermezzo Express, where they made sandwiches to order (rather like Subway, but much better, and with cooler accents). The bread was amazing. We sat on benches in the square to eat and met up with M&L again after the appointed time, and walked on.
On our way to the Roman baths, we stopped in a few shops including a candy store that was AMAZING. The kids wanted Chocolate Frogs (Harry Potter) so we got those, and some fudge. There was also a discount shop called Works that had books, Terry Prachett audiobooks, office supplies, toys, etc.
We got to the Baths around 2:45 and paid the admission. It has an audio tour given through a device rather like a telephone handpiece; you dial in the number of the exhibit you want (they are listed on the signs) and listen, or not, as you like. I thought it was good, but it effectively prevented us from talking to each other because we were listening to the dial up guides, and after a while it got to be a bit much for me because all i wanted to do was sit down. It was also very crowded after a while, and the masses of people listening to the audio tour and not paying attention to where they were going, all packed by the exhibits, got to be too much for me. I think there comes a point by which time one's brain has seen enough and can't process any more. I hit that place about 2/3 through the Baths. So all that remained was to wait for the rest to catch up (I walked ahead slowly with the girls, who tuned in here and there to find out about the exhibits). We spend about 2 minutes in the gift shop, which was quite nice but I was done, then walked out to the main plaza again. We made an executive decision to go back to the boat, because we were all pretty tired. We can moor here until this afternoon (48 hours) so we will go back into Bath again today and do a few more things.
As we walked home we passed a place that we had seen two very pretty snails the day before. Giselle and Genevieve didn't recognize the path, and I said, "It's where we saw the snails yesterday." They vaguely recalled it, and then Giselle said something about "Snails are ugly; snakes are cool." I said, "Watch out - now you've made them angry and they are going to come swarming after us - amble for your life!" Later on, we found some blackberry bushes along the canal and kept stopping to pick some. Giselle (who i think wanted to get home) said, "I think the snails are catching up with us...."
I had bought some minced (ground) beef at the grocery store the other day, and so I made burgers for dinner. One end of the package was frozen (efficient tiny fridge, a bit too cool) so I just "scrunchled" it loose. I had enough thawed to make 6 small burgers. We also had some berries from the store, and that we had picked.
M, L and T went "for a walk" after dinner. M&L went to the grocery store, I think. The girls and I stayed in the boat, which was idling to charge the battery. I couldn't believe they wanted to go for a walk - I thought my legs were going to fall off.... I transferred some photos from my camera to a USB drive (which took longer than I thought) and then my nifty galifty internet hotspot refused to work, so I went to bed. It seems to be working this morning, so here's hoping. I woke up at 4:30 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep which has been typical for me this vacation. There is a lot of foot and bike traffic on the tow path by the canal which is gravel, so one can hear passers by quite easily. I think Ill get up and have some breakfast.
Have a good day, all. :)
wendy
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
Catch up 2
Hello, friends,
I think I got us up to Sunday night. It is now Wednesday morning and so I'll try to get caught up all the way before we get our day in Bath started.
Monday morning we got up early - the kids didn't even complain - got our stuff packed, rechecked the sweet little house for leftover stuff, and left. There was a moment of panic when I couldn't find the car key but it was superficially packed - I didn't have to open every bag to find it - and another once we walked around the block to the little parking lot when Giselle discovered that her mp3 player was not where she usually puts it. Easily enough fixed - we swung the car around and drove by the place for a last check. It wasn't in the house so she knew she packed it - somewhere. We got in the car and drove to the rental place, which is kind of an overstatement - it's a former gas station turned car wash with no parking, no real drop off, and signs everywhere that say "no parking." I managed to find a spot not blocking any gates or driveways, we said goodbye to the car and walked 1/2 block to the train station, where we caught the 7:25 to Cardiff Central. We actually got off one station before that. It was so cool to hear the station names being announced both in Welsh and English.
We were on the train for about 2 hours before we reached our stop, then trudged to the information kiosk and found where the train to Bristol was, then connected to Bath from there. We got to Bath around 12:30 and walked around a bit. In order to get out of the train station, one has to run one's ticket through an electronic turnstile; we have rail passes and they wouldn't fit, so we asked the nice employee by the exit what to do. He very solicitously let us out, and told us where to find a grocery store. We were right near the bus station, and wandered a bit, before we realized that we didn't ALL have to drag our luggage to the grocery store, so I left Genevieve and Thad with the bags on a bench in the square, and Giselle and I scouted. The store was another block away - no problem. We decided to get lunch, as we had eaten so early, and settled on a burger place. I got a kids' meal which came with a grilled corn on the cob option and a shake, so I was happy.
While we waited for our food, I trotted over to the grocery store and picked up some supplies for the boat, which we had arranged with my mother-in-law and her husband to do, because where the boat company is has no good grocery store. Then we took a taxi after lunch to the marina. I was SO glad not to have to drive anymore; riding with the taxi driver, who presumably knows what he's doing, was bad enough. (He drove safely; it's just the narrow streets with maybe 1.5 lanes between hedges and stone walls that get to me.) The kids here are not out of school yet; I think they have another week. Apparently the school day is about 6 hours - Genevieve was envious that they get to "sleep in," but I reminded her that they go to school through July, and she decided she likes her school hours/vacations better.
We met Martha and Larry at the Bath Dundas Marina just before 2, but the boat wasn't ready yet, so we walked around by the canal, used the bathroom, etc. Then we had a tutorial by a man named Gareth, who had been commandeered to do it for us (I think they were VERY busy). He said he hadn't done it in a year but it seemed to go fine. We had watched a youtube video at home about how to run the boats that I think was released by the narrow boat company, so a lot of it was familiar already. Larry, Martha's husband, is captain (obviously), and he made me "assistant skipper," probably because I was standing there when Gareth asked who was second in command, and Larry pointed to me.
We got a much later start than we had thought - more like 5 than 3. Gareth took out the boat from the marina, which was fine with me, as there were boats on either side for about 1/2 mi or more (I couldn't really tell) and it was tricky. Then Gareth left and walked back (there is a tow path on one side of the canal all the way along) and Larry took over. He and Martha had piloted a narrow boat in Wales with some of their other kids and grandkids last week, so they knew what they were doing as well, which was nice. After having had to be in control for 4 days of driving, it was nice to let someone else take over.
We went a few miles and then found a place to moor, and some people got out and wandered around, and some of us organized photos, repacked, chilled, wrote, whatever. The boat is tied up to permanent rings on the shore of the canal. Larry has a map showing where the turnaround points are, and the bridges and locks. We haven't done a lock yet, but there were two bridges, one swing (pivots laterally to open) and lift bridges, which have to be levered up to let the boat through. There are set procedures for opening them, and each boat has a key that unlocks the bridge (if needed), and foot traffic has the right of way over boat traffic. When we get to one, I'll take photos and post them on social media. :)
So that was Monday.
Tuesday morning we got up; Genevieve and I took a walk together and found some blackberries (just a handful of ripe ones) which we brought back, since both of us like to pick the but neither of us likes to eat them. Then we went with Giselle and Thad to a little waterfall which was down the path and across the train tracks (crossing those made Genevieve nervous). Back to the boat and underway; it was my turn to pilot. The boat is 62 feet long and when you steer, it pivots from the center, so it takes some getting used to. I let Larry take over for some very narrow bits when a couple of other boats were passing on the other side, but otherwise it was not too hard to get the basics.
We found out Monday that our 240V plugs didn't work, nor did our Wi-Fi on the boat, so we planned to head for the Bath marina to get that checked out. We can't go any farther than that because our boat is too long for the next turnaround and the company doesn't want us going on the river, where there's a current. When we got to the marina it was very crowded, so we had to turn around to find a spot to moor. That's where I stopped writing yesterday. Larry got out to go to the marina; the rest of us took a little longer to get ready, so we decided to go toward the city and find a grocery store (small dorm-fridge-sized fridge in this boat). We did that, and wandered around the outskirts of the city a bit. By the time we found Larry again, the company had been on the boat and said that it hadn't idled high enough the day before to charge the battery, but now it was reset and fine. The engine has to either be running (forward)or in high idle for at least 6 hours a day to charge the battery.
We returned to the boat with our groceries and stowed them, then got ready for an excursion into Bath (walking). We are somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes' walk fro the city center. It was raining, interspersed with raining harder, the whole time we were there. Our family had been asked if we brought the good weather with us (it was cloudy one other day, the say we went up the mountain), so I'm guessing it has been unseasonably sunny. I didn't mind the rain too much but it makes it more difficult to walk around. We did a bit of sightseeing (externally, didn't go into anything), found an art supply place and a wool shop, and then ate at a place called "Sally Lunn's," "The oldest house in Bath." You can buy the "famous Sally Lunn buns" in the restaurant's museum.... which makes me a bit alarmed. The museum was closed by the time we were finished with a traditionally British meal (chicken and sauce on trenchers was mine) so we were unable to determine whether the bread in the museum is antique or not. ;) We'll find out today.
Finally, bedraggled and damp, we walked back to the boat and hung all our wet things to dry. Larry started up the engine (we were a couple hours short on charging anyway) and turned on the heat, which goes through little radiators on the walls all along one side of the boat. We discovered that the vents in the ceiling tend to leak; there were small drip puddles on the rug and also (unfortunately) on Martha and Larry's duvet.
We settled in and watched a movie (The Court Jester, with Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury, and Glynis Johns, c 1954) on my Kindle, and then went to bed about 10.
And I'm done with yesterday - ta-da! This morning we're having breakfast and will head out into the city. The clouds are clearing off so I think it's going to be a nice day.
ta-ra
wendy
I think I got us up to Sunday night. It is now Wednesday morning and so I'll try to get caught up all the way before we get our day in Bath started.
Monday morning we got up early - the kids didn't even complain - got our stuff packed, rechecked the sweet little house for leftover stuff, and left. There was a moment of panic when I couldn't find the car key but it was superficially packed - I didn't have to open every bag to find it - and another once we walked around the block to the little parking lot when Giselle discovered that her mp3 player was not where she usually puts it. Easily enough fixed - we swung the car around and drove by the place for a last check. It wasn't in the house so she knew she packed it - somewhere. We got in the car and drove to the rental place, which is kind of an overstatement - it's a former gas station turned car wash with no parking, no real drop off, and signs everywhere that say "no parking." I managed to find a spot not blocking any gates or driveways, we said goodbye to the car and walked 1/2 block to the train station, where we caught the 7:25 to Cardiff Central. We actually got off one station before that. It was so cool to hear the station names being announced both in Welsh and English.
We were on the train for about 2 hours before we reached our stop, then trudged to the information kiosk and found where the train to Bristol was, then connected to Bath from there. We got to Bath around 12:30 and walked around a bit. In order to get out of the train station, one has to run one's ticket through an electronic turnstile; we have rail passes and they wouldn't fit, so we asked the nice employee by the exit what to do. He very solicitously let us out, and told us where to find a grocery store. We were right near the bus station, and wandered a bit, before we realized that we didn't ALL have to drag our luggage to the grocery store, so I left Genevieve and Thad with the bags on a bench in the square, and Giselle and I scouted. The store was another block away - no problem. We decided to get lunch, as we had eaten so early, and settled on a burger place. I got a kids' meal which came with a grilled corn on the cob option and a shake, so I was happy.
While we waited for our food, I trotted over to the grocery store and picked up some supplies for the boat, which we had arranged with my mother-in-law and her husband to do, because where the boat company is has no good grocery store. Then we took a taxi after lunch to the marina. I was SO glad not to have to drive anymore; riding with the taxi driver, who presumably knows what he's doing, was bad enough. (He drove safely; it's just the narrow streets with maybe 1.5 lanes between hedges and stone walls that get to me.) The kids here are not out of school yet; I think they have another week. Apparently the school day is about 6 hours - Genevieve was envious that they get to "sleep in," but I reminded her that they go to school through July, and she decided she likes her school hours/vacations better.
We met Martha and Larry at the Bath Dundas Marina just before 2, but the boat wasn't ready yet, so we walked around by the canal, used the bathroom, etc. Then we had a tutorial by a man named Gareth, who had been commandeered to do it for us (I think they were VERY busy). He said he hadn't done it in a year but it seemed to go fine. We had watched a youtube video at home about how to run the boats that I think was released by the narrow boat company, so a lot of it was familiar already. Larry, Martha's husband, is captain (obviously), and he made me "assistant skipper," probably because I was standing there when Gareth asked who was second in command, and Larry pointed to me.
We got a much later start than we had thought - more like 5 than 3. Gareth took out the boat from the marina, which was fine with me, as there were boats on either side for about 1/2 mi or more (I couldn't really tell) and it was tricky. Then Gareth left and walked back (there is a tow path on one side of the canal all the way along) and Larry took over. He and Martha had piloted a narrow boat in Wales with some of their other kids and grandkids last week, so they knew what they were doing as well, which was nice. After having had to be in control for 4 days of driving, it was nice to let someone else take over.
We went a few miles and then found a place to moor, and some people got out and wandered around, and some of us organized photos, repacked, chilled, wrote, whatever. The boat is tied up to permanent rings on the shore of the canal. Larry has a map showing where the turnaround points are, and the bridges and locks. We haven't done a lock yet, but there were two bridges, one swing (pivots laterally to open) and lift bridges, which have to be levered up to let the boat through. There are set procedures for opening them, and each boat has a key that unlocks the bridge (if needed), and foot traffic has the right of way over boat traffic. When we get to one, I'll take photos and post them on social media. :)
So that was Monday.
Tuesday morning we got up; Genevieve and I took a walk together and found some blackberries (just a handful of ripe ones) which we brought back, since both of us like to pick the but neither of us likes to eat them. Then we went with Giselle and Thad to a little waterfall which was down the path and across the train tracks (crossing those made Genevieve nervous). Back to the boat and underway; it was my turn to pilot. The boat is 62 feet long and when you steer, it pivots from the center, so it takes some getting used to. I let Larry take over for some very narrow bits when a couple of other boats were passing on the other side, but otherwise it was not too hard to get the basics.
We found out Monday that our 240V plugs didn't work, nor did our Wi-Fi on the boat, so we planned to head for the Bath marina to get that checked out. We can't go any farther than that because our boat is too long for the next turnaround and the company doesn't want us going on the river, where there's a current. When we got to the marina it was very crowded, so we had to turn around to find a spot to moor. That's where I stopped writing yesterday. Larry got out to go to the marina; the rest of us took a little longer to get ready, so we decided to go toward the city and find a grocery store (small dorm-fridge-sized fridge in this boat). We did that, and wandered around the outskirts of the city a bit. By the time we found Larry again, the company had been on the boat and said that it hadn't idled high enough the day before to charge the battery, but now it was reset and fine. The engine has to either be running (forward)or in high idle for at least 6 hours a day to charge the battery.
We returned to the boat with our groceries and stowed them, then got ready for an excursion into Bath (walking). We are somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes' walk fro the city center. It was raining, interspersed with raining harder, the whole time we were there. Our family had been asked if we brought the good weather with us (it was cloudy one other day, the say we went up the mountain), so I'm guessing it has been unseasonably sunny. I didn't mind the rain too much but it makes it more difficult to walk around. We did a bit of sightseeing (externally, didn't go into anything), found an art supply place and a wool shop, and then ate at a place called "Sally Lunn's," "The oldest house in Bath." You can buy the "famous Sally Lunn buns" in the restaurant's museum.... which makes me a bit alarmed. The museum was closed by the time we were finished with a traditionally British meal (chicken and sauce on trenchers was mine) so we were unable to determine whether the bread in the museum is antique or not. ;) We'll find out today.
Finally, bedraggled and damp, we walked back to the boat and hung all our wet things to dry. Larry started up the engine (we were a couple hours short on charging anyway) and turned on the heat, which goes through little radiators on the walls all along one side of the boat. We discovered that the vents in the ceiling tend to leak; there were small drip puddles on the rug and also (unfortunately) on Martha and Larry's duvet.
We settled in and watched a movie (The Court Jester, with Danny Kaye, Angela Lansbury, and Glynis Johns, c 1954) on my Kindle, and then went to bed about 10.
And I'm done with yesterday - ta-da! This morning we're having breakfast and will head out into the city. The clouds are clearing off so I think it's going to be a nice day.
ta-ra
wendy
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
Catch up
Hello, friends,
Note: I don't have a working spell checker and I'm writing on a tempermental Bluetooth keyboard, so please be forviging of typos and spelling errors.
Wow, now I'm three days behind. Vacation is so full and nighttime is for sleeping, not blogging. But now we are on the narrow boat, and I'm done with my driving stint for now (mainly because I now have consistent Wi-Fi, which is spotty on the canal).
I think I left off after Friday. Saturday (still in Wales), we drove a few miles to a nearby town, Llandudno, which I had heard was a big tourist town. Well, it's a bit town, anyway, seaside (right off a peninsula). It is a big town, with a large grocery store, shopping centre, clothing stores, etc. Obviously it's a place people live and shop, because the kitschy Welsh souvenir-type items were conspicuously absent. There were many hotels and eating places, double-decker bus tours (enclosed and open), and a huge pier with carnival-type kiddie rides, food, arcades, cotton candy (candy floss), etc. There was also an Alice in Wonderland-themed park, meaning grassy area with gazebo, etc, not a theme park. There was a smallish stone circle in the middle (small compared to, say, Stonehenge). I have no idea if it was real. I mean, the stones were real, but I have no idea if the circle itself was ancient or not - there was not much of a marker.
We wandered and took photos - it was a beautiful day, sunny and probably 70 or 75 - and Giselle wanted ice cream and was getting a bit grumpy about it, so we had ice cream for lunch. I had clotted cream and honey flavor with a piece of Cadbury Flake (yum). We went back to the car (which was parked in a huge grocery store parking lot) and moved it, because it said there was a 3-hour time limit and I wasn't sure how strict they were about enforcing. We went back into town and into a few shops and an interesting gallery, but then jet lag caught up with us and we decided to go home. We did hit the grocery store for some dinner items - it was a lot like Meijer, or a Super Walmart, with clothing and tools and seasonal items in addition to a huge food selection. Cadbury chocolate is ridiculously inexpensive, so of course we're making it a staple. They have flavors here not available at home, so we're taking advantage and sampling several kinds. :)
In the afternoon, after driving home (egad, getting better but stil nerve-wracking), the family hung out at home and I went for a photo walk in town and on the old city walls (no charge to wander on the walls). I found out the charge and hours for the castle itself, and took a lot of photos, and went home. That night we cooked the mince we bought in the grocery store (that's ground beef, to you) and had that for dinner, then watched While You Were Sleeping. Giselle and Thad were playing British Monopoly, and Genevieve kintted an infinity scarf for the AirBnB owner, which we left on a stuffed (plush) sheep that stands on the itty-bitty hearth.
End of Saturday.
Sunday - leisurely breakfast - scrambled eggs, cheese, pancakes, and what they call "back bacon" which is really more like ham. The kind we had was realllllly salty. I found out later that what we call "bacon" is called "rashers" here. They put their butter in the fridge and leave the eggs on the counter, which I thought was interesting. A lot of people bring their dogs into stores here as well.
After breakfast, we walked over to Conwy castle (about 1/2 mile) and paid the admission fees to visit the castle proper. There was a demonstration called "Lord of the Wings" of prey birds, mostly owls but one falcon or hawk, never found out which. The birds were all rescued and most of them were unable to be returned to the wild. We got to pet them. There were several kinds - a barn owl, a screech owl, an Indian Scops owl (so cute and little), and a 16-week-old tawny owl named Archimedes still with some pinfeathers. So fluffy.....
There was also a weapons demonstration, mostly single- and two-handed broadswords. Genevieve did volunteer, with a 10-year-old lad, for "training," which involvd holding the weapon at arm's length infront of her while the man in charge counted to 5, then rotating it to horizontal (internal rotation at the shoulder, anatomically speaking) and counting, then back upright, then lateral rotation (palm up). Genevieve was able to hold her weapon with her arm straight without faltering, and brought it down slowly when the man said they were done. Then the lad and Genevieve were oufitted with padded bonnets, maille coifs, helmets, bucklers and swords. Then the man running the demo said, "Which one is better? Only one way to tell - ready, FIGHT!!!" He immediately said, "No, no, I'm kidding!" But Genevieve is so used to getting ready to bout that she partially went into an en garde stance. It was so cool.
Conwy Castle was also cool; it's just a shell (like Caernarfon), but had steps up the towers where you could see the city and the harbor. I have a panoramic function on my camera and played with it a lot at the tops of the towers. We'll see if the photos come out.
We walked into town and picked up some pastries (meat pies and such) from a bakery, and walked out to the harbor side to eat. There we saw but did not go into the "Smallest House in Britain." We wandered around a few shops, one of which sold sword replicas and mead, and which had a lovely Northern Inuit dog visiting. :)
After that we walked home, gathered a few things and then got in the car again (egad) and drove about 75 minutes to Chirk Castle, which is a livable castle, built by Thomas Myddleton in the 1600s. It was very fancy inside whith lots of period furniture, cornices, carvings, etc. I liked the stone shells of castles better, but it was worth seeing. The driving was mostly on the highway, so I felt pretty confident. It was Sunday evening and the traffic heading out of Conwy was pretty thick (plus there was a Bryan Adams concert in a nearby town - not sure if this was the cause of some of it) but we were going the other way, so that was nice. There was a bit of tricky driving when we got back into Conwy, with people hurtling toward me in the opposite direction on narrow winding streets with parked cars on my side of the road - I think I hit the folding side mirror on something, but there wasn't any damage. Whew. You can imagine that I was VERY glad to be done with driving the car. If I had to do it all the time, I'd probably get used to it - that day I felt pretty confident except for the last 5 minutes of the journey - but I don't think I'd ever enjoy it. Now I'm wondering if I'll remember how to drive on the right side of the road when I get home.
Sunday night we packed. I was very proud of the girls, who packed without being reminded (once we talked about what the plans were for the evening). I think there were leftovers for dinner; I don't really remember. Thad went out to climb the mountain near Conwy (a big hill, really) before bed, but I was tired from waking up at 5 (seagulls and other birds are REALLY noisy in the mornings) so I went to bed. It gets light around 4 and dark around 10:30.
Oops, mooring the boat now so time to go. To be continued.
cheers,
Wendy
Note: I don't have a working spell checker and I'm writing on a tempermental Bluetooth keyboard, so please be forviging of typos and spelling errors.
Wow, now I'm three days behind. Vacation is so full and nighttime is for sleeping, not blogging. But now we are on the narrow boat, and I'm done with my driving stint for now (mainly because I now have consistent Wi-Fi, which is spotty on the canal).
I think I left off after Friday. Saturday (still in Wales), we drove a few miles to a nearby town, Llandudno, which I had heard was a big tourist town. Well, it's a bit town, anyway, seaside (right off a peninsula). It is a big town, with a large grocery store, shopping centre, clothing stores, etc. Obviously it's a place people live and shop, because the kitschy Welsh souvenir-type items were conspicuously absent. There were many hotels and eating places, double-decker bus tours (enclosed and open), and a huge pier with carnival-type kiddie rides, food, arcades, cotton candy (candy floss), etc. There was also an Alice in Wonderland-themed park, meaning grassy area with gazebo, etc, not a theme park. There was a smallish stone circle in the middle (small compared to, say, Stonehenge). I have no idea if it was real. I mean, the stones were real, but I have no idea if the circle itself was ancient or not - there was not much of a marker.
We wandered and took photos - it was a beautiful day, sunny and probably 70 or 75 - and Giselle wanted ice cream and was getting a bit grumpy about it, so we had ice cream for lunch. I had clotted cream and honey flavor with a piece of Cadbury Flake (yum). We went back to the car (which was parked in a huge grocery store parking lot) and moved it, because it said there was a 3-hour time limit and I wasn't sure how strict they were about enforcing. We went back into town and into a few shops and an interesting gallery, but then jet lag caught up with us and we decided to go home. We did hit the grocery store for some dinner items - it was a lot like Meijer, or a Super Walmart, with clothing and tools and seasonal items in addition to a huge food selection. Cadbury chocolate is ridiculously inexpensive, so of course we're making it a staple. They have flavors here not available at home, so we're taking advantage and sampling several kinds. :)
In the afternoon, after driving home (egad, getting better but stil nerve-wracking), the family hung out at home and I went for a photo walk in town and on the old city walls (no charge to wander on the walls). I found out the charge and hours for the castle itself, and took a lot of photos, and went home. That night we cooked the mince we bought in the grocery store (that's ground beef, to you) and had that for dinner, then watched While You Were Sleeping. Giselle and Thad were playing British Monopoly, and Genevieve kintted an infinity scarf for the AirBnB owner, which we left on a stuffed (plush) sheep that stands on the itty-bitty hearth.
End of Saturday.
Sunday - leisurely breakfast - scrambled eggs, cheese, pancakes, and what they call "back bacon" which is really more like ham. The kind we had was realllllly salty. I found out later that what we call "bacon" is called "rashers" here. They put their butter in the fridge and leave the eggs on the counter, which I thought was interesting. A lot of people bring their dogs into stores here as well.
After breakfast, we walked over to Conwy castle (about 1/2 mile) and paid the admission fees to visit the castle proper. There was a demonstration called "Lord of the Wings" of prey birds, mostly owls but one falcon or hawk, never found out which. The birds were all rescued and most of them were unable to be returned to the wild. We got to pet them. There were several kinds - a barn owl, a screech owl, an Indian Scops owl (so cute and little), and a 16-week-old tawny owl named Archimedes still with some pinfeathers. So fluffy.....
There was also a weapons demonstration, mostly single- and two-handed broadswords. Genevieve did volunteer, with a 10-year-old lad, for "training," which involvd holding the weapon at arm's length infront of her while the man in charge counted to 5, then rotating it to horizontal (internal rotation at the shoulder, anatomically speaking) and counting, then back upright, then lateral rotation (palm up). Genevieve was able to hold her weapon with her arm straight without faltering, and brought it down slowly when the man said they were done. Then the lad and Genevieve were oufitted with padded bonnets, maille coifs, helmets, bucklers and swords. Then the man running the demo said, "Which one is better? Only one way to tell - ready, FIGHT!!!" He immediately said, "No, no, I'm kidding!" But Genevieve is so used to getting ready to bout that she partially went into an en garde stance. It was so cool.
Conwy Castle was also cool; it's just a shell (like Caernarfon), but had steps up the towers where you could see the city and the harbor. I have a panoramic function on my camera and played with it a lot at the tops of the towers. We'll see if the photos come out.
We walked into town and picked up some pastries (meat pies and such) from a bakery, and walked out to the harbor side to eat. There we saw but did not go into the "Smallest House in Britain." We wandered around a few shops, one of which sold sword replicas and mead, and which had a lovely Northern Inuit dog visiting. :)
After that we walked home, gathered a few things and then got in the car again (egad) and drove about 75 minutes to Chirk Castle, which is a livable castle, built by Thomas Myddleton in the 1600s. It was very fancy inside whith lots of period furniture, cornices, carvings, etc. I liked the stone shells of castles better, but it was worth seeing. The driving was mostly on the highway, so I felt pretty confident. It was Sunday evening and the traffic heading out of Conwy was pretty thick (plus there was a Bryan Adams concert in a nearby town - not sure if this was the cause of some of it) but we were going the other way, so that was nice. There was a bit of tricky driving when we got back into Conwy, with people hurtling toward me in the opposite direction on narrow winding streets with parked cars on my side of the road - I think I hit the folding side mirror on something, but there wasn't any damage. Whew. You can imagine that I was VERY glad to be done with driving the car. If I had to do it all the time, I'd probably get used to it - that day I felt pretty confident except for the last 5 minutes of the journey - but I don't think I'd ever enjoy it. Now I'm wondering if I'll remember how to drive on the right side of the road when I get home.
Sunday night we packed. I was very proud of the girls, who packed without being reminded (once we talked about what the plans were for the evening). I think there were leftovers for dinner; I don't really remember. Thad went out to climb the mountain near Conwy (a big hill, really) before bed, but I was tired from waking up at 5 (seagulls and other birds are REALLY noisy in the mornings) so I went to bed. It gets light around 4 and dark around 10:30.
Oops, mooring the boat now so time to go. To be continued.
cheers,
Wendy
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