07/07/05: Winchester

Winchester was where I had originally planned on spending the weekend. I was a little wary about how long it would take me to get back to my place but still wanted to go by Winchester. Luckily, the lady who owned the B&B was also a sweetie, and offered to drive me into the town itself! So for that (and for the fact that she was a very gracious host and the place is very nice and clean and lovely and all that), I’m going to recommend her B&B here in my blog. I stayed at the Willowbend Country Views B&B. And it was good.

The day was rainy, dark and grey which wouldn’t have made touring the town that enjoyable anyway. I realized that I only had so much time, but knew I wanted to at least see the cathedral before I left. While Salisbury boasts the cathedral with the tallest spire, Winchester boasts the longest cathedral in the whole UK. The entry fee also buys you a guided tour, and unlike Salisbury, photos were allowed in Winchester Cathedral. There’s such history in that building because it’s been altered from the 7th Century all the way through to the 16th Century, went through being a Catholic place to an Anglican place to a Catholic place again and I think now it’s an Anglican place again. I think it’s easier just to call it Christian.

Winchester is also used as a forum for functions like art exhibitions, one of which was being held on that weekend I was there. Now that was weird. You’re there in this old building, which is supposed to have some kind of sacred fell to it, some parts of which were beyond ancient, there’s candles and everywhere, statues and icons of saints and bishops gone by, headstones and gravestones and tombs and stained glass windows and so on all around; and then all of a sudden there’s this massive 8ft high pile of melted plastic milk crates sitting by a bishop’s chantry chapel; and a plastic medical cast of a foetal skeleton atop the largest expanse of original medieval tiles in England. Because there’s an art exhibition going on in the cathedral.

What made the end of the tour really nice was the fact that one of the tour groups that went through the cathedral before us was actually a proper choir. And they got up and sang and it was a most amazing sound echoing throughout the cathedral. I could have sat there and listened to them for a lot longer than I did. It sounded magical. Even with ‘modern’ art in the form of a string of purple Toilet-Duck bottles hanging off what’s probably some 13th century hand carved marble pillar dangling in front of me.

Walked to the station in the rain, caught two trains and a couple of busses and walked home in the rain. Got home cold, wet, hungry, tired and slightly travel-sick, but a good time was had so it was all worth it.

05/05/07 – 06/05/07: Salisbury

This weekend was a long weekend on account of it being a bank holiday on Monday. On the Thursday and Friday leading up to it, I decided that I would go somewhere – but where? In a ‘throw-a-dart-on-a-map’ sort of moment, and with some names of places unknown being thrown into the air by Steve, I decided to go to ‘Winchester’. It sounded like a nice enough place. So on Friday night after school, I searched the web for B&Bs in Winchester. Finding a nice looking little place, I rang the lady, booked myself in for Saturday and Sunday night and then logged onto a door-to-door travel site to work out how to get from my place to her place. I wrote down the details, went home, and packed my bag.

Saturday morning, following my little note, I walked, caught a bus, walked, caught another bus, caught a train, caught another train, and ended up in a little town called Salisbury four hours or so later. I looked around me, and thought ‘Odd. You’d think that Winchester would have more “Winchester”s written around its town – why is there “Salisbury” written everywhere?’ Probably because I WAS in Salisbury. But as I walked through the town looking for the bus station, I thought ‘Waitaminute. This is actually a very cute little town! A great place to spend a long weekend! Why not?!’ And so I did. There were pictures of the renowned Stone Henge everywhere. It doesn’t take a genius that I must be near by. So I walked around the town a bit and decided to visit the Henge the next day. Lovely little place – check out the photos – and caught the bus to my little B&B.

Surprise surprise, the B&B was in the middle of nowhere in a town called Romsey. Not really anywhere near Salisbury… Or Winchester… No buses run to or from Romsey on Sundays and public holidays. Lucky me. How the hell was I to get back into town tomorrow?

I unloaded my bits and pieces, and having only a couple of hours left before sun-down (and because public transport makes me tired and queasy), I took a walk through the quaint little countryside that is Romsey.

The next day, I got myself a taxi to drive me into town, where I went to Salisbury Cathedral, the cathedral which boasts the tallest spire in the UK. The taxi driver was a lovely man whose name I should have gotten but didn’t. He knew his facts well – and the way he was going on, that is, without stopping, I was incredibly surprised that as I walked around the Cathedral later, I actually remembered a lot of what he said!

Taxi Driver [with thick accent]: ‘…it’s got the highest spire in the whole UK it’s 404 feet do you know how many metres that is it’s easy to remember it’s 123 metres high the tallest spire in Europe is in Germany at the Cologne Cathedral but ours is the tallest one built entirely of stone theirs uses wood and bits it’s the most fascinating cathedral ours it’s built in 1220 they only took 100 years to complete building the whole thing over there you see St Thomas’ that was built in 1220 too because the workmen who were building the Salisbury Cathedral needed somewhere to worship on Sundays while they were building this one oh this the original Sarum wall by the way used to run around the town did you know why it’s amazing it’s all based on the calendar no no it’s all true there are as many pillars in that cathedral as there are hours in the year and there’s only been one person who’s ever told me the answer to that before I told her and it was an actuarist from America but there are 8760 it’s an easy number to remember and there are as many doors in there as there are months in a year do you know how many that is that’s right 13 and there are as many windows in that building as there are days in a year…’

You get the picture?

So anyway. Salisbury Cathedral – lovely. Surrounded by buildings just as old, and what I found quite interesting was the fact that a few backpackers had already beaten me to the place. Here I was thinking I was out pretty early for a Sunday morning. I think the original cathedrals were places to gather and stuff, it’s not just a big church. There are little chapels scattered within the cathedrals themselves, and you’re literally walking over the graves of people within the cathedral walls. There aren’t any pews or anything like that. So I’m walking down one side of the cathedral and the Sunday morning service is being broadcasted out of speakers. I’m thinking that it’s somewhere out the front and that perhaps I may as well stick around for the service and get communion. As I get closer to the centre of the heart of the cathedral, which is amazingly elaborate and decorated with intricate wood and stone carvings, there’s this bunch of backpackers taking it in turns to stand in front of an alcove of some sort among the candles trying to get spiritually connected with a higher being or something, arms held out to the sides, head sort of thrown back – I kid you not, they were taking it in turns. And all this time, mass is being conducted somewhere else in the building. I so wished I could have taken a photo because it seemed so silly. I kept walking and found a little chapel towards the front – as plain as you could find a chapel to be, ordinary little wooden chairs in rows with a small altar and a priest and a few regular local parishioners. It seemed a little odd to me that the group of backpackers had decided that the most ornate and decorated part of the cathedral was where they would get close to divinity when they could have just sat in on mass in the plain, boring nook at the front and really got close to the real thing. Ah my snobbish religious and spiritual sentiments. Where would we be without them?

Right here: Sat through mass, had communion, then left (mass at 0800 is followed by a sung mass at 0900 which is followed by a full choir mass thing at 1100). Salisbury Cathedral holds the only one of the four remaining Magna Cartas that still exist which is still legible. As a lawyer to be, this I had to see. But was told by the lady that that area is closed until after the sung mass, and besides, it’s hard to see because it’s in the restaurant area by the coffee machine and people are always trying to get their coffees and – I know! WTF??!! It’s the Magna Carta! By the coffee machine??!! Sigh. I had to leave it because I had to catch the bus to the Stone Henge.

The Stone Henge… I decided to catch an ordinary bus which goes past the Henge rather than catch the tour bus. A grand saving of – woo hoo! – ten pounds! I told a few people I went to the Stone Henge and they were all ‘Wow! Didn’t you just love it?! I loved the Stone Henge…’ and so on. Um… To be honest, I felt silly. There’s no other way to describe it. The whole time I walked around these big rocks all I could think was: here we are. I’m standing in the empire that went around the entire world trying to colonise the inhabitants of other countries, trying to ‘civilise’ them and ‘assimilate’ them ‘educate’ them and ‘Catholicise’ them and so on so that they’d be essentially enlightened and advanced enough to be a part of the commonwealth, fighting for the good of God and King… We’re now in the 21st Century, we’re as technologically sophisticated, as mentally evolved, as culturally progressive as we have ever been in history (or so we like to tell ourselves) and yet here we are. This is what that same empire is offering as its symbol. Rocks. We’re paying money to gawk at and take photographs of a pile of rocks. It was a little bit like climbing Uluru. On its own – on my own – it would have been a spiritual experience. Surrounded by a million other people clicking away on their camera-phones, walking around a fence with a self-guided-tour walkie-talkie on a lanyard around everyone’s neck and having to pay a good deal of money to do it? It takes the whole mystical experience away.

Cynicism aside. Yes, it was good. Yes, it is amazing that they dragged all those rocks all that way. Yes, it is amazing that they were so accurate with the calculations as to create such a large-scale calendar. I did have a good time. I took some photos too. And see? there’s one of me in it smiling! One good ‘do-you-want-me-to-take-a-picture-with-you-in-it?’ offer deserving another.

Seriously. It was good.

On the way back, I asked the bus driver – who by sheer chance was the same bus driver who brought me there in the first place – to drop me off at Old Sarum. Strange that I was the only person in the entire bus. Creeps me out a little whenever that happens. Reminded me of that ride from Kuala Lumpur to Ipoh… a story for another time.

Old Sarum was cool. You can picture the civilization all those years ago. William the Conqueror gathering all his barons to this fortified castle to swear fealty to him. Odd that I enjoyed Old Sarum more, but I think it comes back to that whole point of crowds. There were a few people walking their dogs there, but that was about it. It was easier to feel connected to the place – to feel that there’s something special about it – when there were fewer people around. Check out the photos.

Getting back into town was a nightmare. No busses. I ended up walking for a couple of kilometers until I was just outside Salisbury and a bus came by – the very same bus driver! – and he was good enough to just pick me up even though I wasn’t by a bus stop. It was too late to try to get to see the Magna Carta, so I went and had some pizza – Mark’ll tell you I’ve been craving pizza since I got here! – and ordered myself another taxi back to the B&B.

He was a sweetie of a taxi driver too. Name’s Clive, and gave me his phone number so that if I’m ever in that area of town again, I wouldn’t have to stay at a B&B – I could go stay at his place. Yeah I know, sounds creepy, but isn’t that what travelling’s all about? Meeting people? And where would I be now without Steve? And wasn’t that how he and Clare met? Mmm. Restores your faith in mankind doesn’t it?

So all in all – a pretty darn good Sunday.

02/05/07: Oldborough Manor III

Today I sliced up my finger pretty badly. Mum used to bring surgical scalpels home when we were kids and I’ve been sharpening my pencils with a blade since I was, what? Six? First time in 20 years I cut myself with a blade.

I sliced my finger with my Stanley knife while trying to cut up a piece of Contact to stick a merit sticker into a kid’s book. The blade slipped on a bump in the ruler and very nicely slipped up the ruler and over two of my fingers, cutting a small chunk right off the middle finger, a corner of the nail from the index finger, before cutting through the finger itself. I grabbed the finger and ran into the lab tech’s office to get something for it. ‘You got any Steri-Strips?’ I asked. She was frantic because first-aid wasn’t her thing and she had no idea what a Steri-Strip was. She was so anxious and jittery and worked up it was funny. Blood was dripping everywhere and I was like: ‘That. I’ll take that’. ‘That’ turned out to be a massive wadding which I wrapped around my finger while rummaging through the box looking for something more appropriate. There was nothing. Saline wash, slings, band-aids, alcohol wipes, sanitary pads… that was it.

So I went out of my room, through the double doors, down the two flights of stairs, through the other set of double doors, outside, across the yard, through the set of double doors, down the hall, through the other set of double doors, down another corridor, through another set of double doors, down the stairs, and asked someone if they could take me to their first-aid room. ‘Why?! What’s happened?!’ I’m like, ‘I just want to check out what you’ve got, like if you’ve got some Steri-Strips or something’. So they take me to the first aid room. Which was a closet with a bed in it and some boxes. It didn’t look like anyone had every been in there except to put things into storage. The lady’s anxious as well, and moves some boxes aside and pulls out a box from under the bed. From that box, she’s pulling out more boxes to see what’s in them: alcohol wipes, sanitary pads… another box of sanitary pads… band-aids… alcohol wipes… more alcohol wipes… more alcohol wipes… band-aids… sanitary pads… and on it went. I’m go ‘Um… I don’t think you’ve got any Steri-Strips. If you find something I could wrap this up with could you let me know?’.

Anyway. I go back to my room and rummage through the first-aid box again, finding a bit of gauze, which I used. The lab-tech is very keen to help, but was embarrassed that they had no plaster to wrap the gauze around the finger with. So she goes ‘oh! I’ll get some tape!’ and runs off and comes back with a roll of Scotch tape which probably hasn’t seen the light of day in who-knows-how-long. I’m standing there with this bit of gauze around my finger and she’s trying desperately to find the end bit of the tape. She finds it, and tries to peel it off, only to have a little tiny bit peel of but the other bit’s stuck fast. After a while, there’s a small pile of little tiny triangles of Scotch tape on my desk. There’s still blood dripping all over the place – keep in mind, two of my students that very week had had blood noses in my classroom and there’s already heaps of blood splattered on my classroom floor which hasn’t been cleaned up yet because the cleaners only sweep, they don’t mop – Melissa the labby is getting more frantic and anxious, and I’m trying not to laugh at the hilarity of the situation. In the end, I found an eye-patch in the box with an attached bandage which would ordinarily wrap around the person’s head. So I just used that instead.

Meanwhile, there’s a toilet under the stairs in front of my room. It’s kept locked and the art teacher has the only remaining key to that toilet. Because her room is next to the toilet, it’s pretty easy to just walk in, grab the key, use the loo, lock the door, leave the key and head back. Anyway. I’d used the last of the loo paper a couple of days before and was surprised to see that two days later, the paper hadn’t been replaced yet. So I mentioned something to her at lunch, and she’s like, ‘oh yes I must get more toilet paper when I go to the shops’ and I’m like ‘what?!’ So she tells me: ‘We have to supply our own toilet paper’. Apparently, it’s that, or we can use the loo in the staffroom. Go back and read my description about how I got to the reception before. Then add to that, walk across reception, go through another double door, go around the corner, through another double door, up two flights of stairs, through a double door, round the corner, through another set of double doors, down the corridor and through a coded door. That’s the staffroom.

The school’s so completely fucked up that nothing actually happens and nothing gets done about it – there were live wires sticking out of one of my benches (I had to get the guys to switch off the power to that bench from the main); there’s a big sign above my door that says ‘fire exit’ but there’s no door handle on the door – you have to stick your finger through the hole that they drill there for the handle bit and try to pull the door open without getting splinters in your finger but the door’s got one of those self-closing boxes at the top that makes it extra hard to open; the kids don’t even bring a school bag to school; there’s practically no workable stationery, and clearly, the only things they need to worry about in terms of first-aid was disinfecting things and periods. If I didn’t laugh I’d cry.

I must add that the teachers are good. They work so hard to pull the place together. But they’re all so tired… I’d rather not end it on a bad note though. I do enjoy teaching. I don’t like the crap that goes with it, but I do like my job. Look at this: one of my year 10 boys brought a caterpillar into class. And it was so odd, they were all so into it. Not as in wanting to squash it or anything. A part of me thinks that they thought they could freak me out with it or something but obviously it didn’t work, so they just ended up taking it turns to have it on their arm during the lesson. Halfway through they got sick of it and took it outside. But they knew I carried a camera on me all the time so they asked me to take a photo of him. It. They did give it a name, but I forgot what it was.

29/04/07: Challock Woods

On the drive home from Steve’s place this morning (I’d spent the night at his place after attending a birthday party), we took a detour and drove through Challock Woods. Challock Woods is reknowned for its expansive carpet of bluebells that grow throughout the woods. They’d been growing there every year for many, many years. It was very cool and cloudy, the air was crisp and damp, there was a slight mist in the distance whatever direction you looked – all in all, a perfect day to be walking through the woods. Some of the woods were composed of plantation beech and birch, most coppiced, and the bluebells were gorgeous. I’ve taken several pictures – all of the same thing, but it was one of those sort of situations where you unconsciously click away in some useless attempt to capture the moment as fully as possible – surely the more you click, the more you capture? Heh heh! Check out the bluebells in the pictures. This set have not been labeled just yet since they speak for themselves.