25/05/07 – 26/05/07: London to Inverness

My Scotland Trip begins! YAY! Got dressed in my ‘traveling’ gear this morning (ie, Kathmandu everything), made it through the last day of term (which, of course, included taking my year 10s out to play ‘football’ during last period), and caught a lift into London with one of the teachers who drives in from London everyday.

I’d arranged to meet with Dixon and Spurls earlier that week since my bus to Edinburgh wouldn’t leave until 10pm that night. Because I was quite early, I walked around Covent Garden Markets for some time – now that was fun. Just sitting there people watching – the smells, the sounds, the buskers, the food, the fun – it was brilliant! While I was off in my own world walking around the square, I was startled by a man who had followed me and suddenly started talking to me. I nearly screamed and he saw this, got a quick apology out of the way then started to ask me where I was from. I must have had my angry face on because I was naturally suspicious and he backed off pretty quickly. Later on, when my backpack got a bit too heavy, I sat down and listened to a busker sing country music. He was clearly nervous because he tried to make conversation rather than just sing. There was a younger man who sang a lot better, but was poorly placed next to the carousel. It’s all about location location fellas! And wadayano. That same desperado had picked up not one, but two poor, Asian, naïve-overseas-student-looking ladies. He was doing all the moves – the lean, the laugh, the cool-calm-collected-look and so on. Damn I wish I’d taken a photo. The busker was obviously getting a little pissed off that the people sitting around him weren’t listening to him, so he started talking to people who were walking around through his microphone: ‘yeah that’s right, just walk right by’; ‘anything interesting in that newspaper there?’; and then, my favourite, something along the lines of ‘check out that guy – he can’t even hear me – but he’s been chatting up every girl who walks by – trust me, I’ve been standing here a while!’ and so on. Which made me laugh.

When Emma and Sarah arrived, it was strangely as if nothing had changed in the last five years. Both girls looked as gorgeous as ever. Sarah had dolled herself up so nicely to celebrate the last day of term. It was almost as if we were having ladies’ night dinner at her house just yesterday. How strange! And yet so comforting. We went to a pub and had a drink and caught up on our gossip; and it felt pretty grand. I couldn’t have imagined a better way to begin my half-term break.

Eventually, I left and got a couple of tubes to Victoria station to get my bus. And it was uncomfortable. I slept as best I could, which wasn’t easy given that I was – of course! – seated next to a very, very, large man who – of course! – wouldn’t stop sniffing. Speaking of which, what IS it with me and people sitting around me on buses who won’t stop sniffing?! Ask me about my bus ride from Singapore to Ipoh sometime. It wasn’t a short trip. Nonetheless, I found myself happy enough in Edinburgh on Saturday morning.

I had signed up with a Haggis Tour. The bus was brand new, the group small – there was only 19 of us, and the driver was well suited to his job – young, hip, trendy, passionate, professional, perfect. Of the 19 tourists, eight of us were ‘Straaaayans’. There were four Canadians, a Londoner, three New Zealanders including a South African-New Zealander, and only three Americans. 21% of us were teachers.

We drove past Perth, went over the Firth of Forth using a dodgy Forth Road Bridge so that we could take pictures of the nice, decent, strong Forth Rail Bridge; played some ‘getting-to-know-you’ games and stopped by Dunkeld. Dunkeld is a lovely little town with a great deal of history. In Dunkeld, there is a lovely old cathedral with an effigy in there of the Wolf of Badenoch, who was an evil, horrible man. And when he died, an effigy was made of him. And it’s said that wherever the effigy was, bad fortune fell upon that town. So the church in Dunkeld was paid a considerable sum of money to house the effigy. And it’s there to this day. The cathedral sits on the bank of a small but powerful-looking river. So we took some photos there.

After the Cathedral, we went to the Hermitage, which is a small though beautiful national park where the tallest and some of the oldest trees in Scotland grows. The uncle or father-in-law of one of the Dukes of Atholl had planted all the trees there a long time ago, and they’re still there till today. In return, his nephew or son-in-law (I forget – should research it!) had built the old lothario a little circular building called Ossian’s Hall where he could take his mistresses. Legend has it that the entire inside of the little building was lined with mirrors. They’ve re-done the place for tourists, maintaining the outside façade (complete with one of those secret-hidey-doors that looks like a wall!) but lining the inside walls with ‘paintings’ which tell the story of the old Cassanova. The funny thing is – and I’m sure it’s deliberate – the massive information panels and so-called paintings are actually done on mirrors, and they cover the entire walls of the inside of the building!

My god the folly was pretty. Built right atop a waterfall, the balcony faces a magnificent scene of the Braan crashing, pounding, thundering water on rocks surrounded by lush, verdant foliage and mossy banks. Just standing there on that balcony was enough to get one’s blood rushing. I must say, if some guy brought me all the way up there… but this is a family program. And I digress. It was really pretty.

I couldn’t help myself – I climbed all over the rocks and then wandered off the path. It wasn’t until I realized I was the only person walking did I turn around. Halfway up the track I found the tour guide puffed out, running around like crazy trying to find me. Luckily, I wasn’t the only one on the tour with an ‘adventurous’ streak. We had to wait for Rob the American who had a tendency to wander off as well.

Lunch was at Kingnussie, and we headed off to Culloden after that. Boy that was sad. I nearly cried. The Battle of Culloden was what began the Highland Clearances – what was essentially ethnic cleansing of the Scottish Highland peoples by the English. And all on the whim and for the ego trip of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Such tragedy. It was strange that all it was was an empty field with flags marking the spots where the Highlanders and English stood. There were several mass graves and headstones marking the places where various Highlanders were buried; and people were just walking their dogs through the field. But there was a most reverent silence that echoed throughout the field that moved me greatly. I’m pretty sure that I wasn’t the only one who felt that way.

Our very quiet busload of international guests then proceeded to a more touristy destination – Loch Ness! Not the most impressive Loch in Scotland, not the largest or widest or anything. Only special because there ‘might’ be a wee monster in it. Didn’t see anything when I was there though.

We stayed at the Inverness Youth Hostel that night (got the bottom bunk – Yay!). Not too bad. A most jam-packed 24 hours wouldn’t you say? Check out the photos here.

20/05/07: Canterbury

Being a city of great historical, religious, legal and literary importance, I couldn’t leave Canterbury out of my to-do list. So today was the day for Canterbury.

There was much commotion on the way to Canterbury when someone got the lines mixed up. Everyone had to get off the train and try to board another one. There were a lot, a lot, a lot of very angry commuters. Especially those who had prams and bikes, like myself, because we had to manoeuver stairs. Lots of stairs. Good thing I discovered lifts when I came to this station with my bike yesterday! When we got to the platform to wait for the new train, the information screen said that it wouldn’t be there for at least an hour. Boy were people seething.

There was an eccentric, mad-scientist-looking older gentleman who had shared the lift with me. The bike was a self-made EV; there were reflector panels attached to every movable part on it, and if that wasn’t enough, he had at least four clip-on battery-operated LED lamps clamped tightly onto several parts of the bike. On the back was your standard metal parcel-rack, upon which was a tightly taped up brown box held down by ocky-straps. And of course, the whole ‘look’ wouldn’t be complete if he wasn’t wearing some form of tweed with a flower in his lapel!

I was busting for a pee and figured that since there was an hour, surely it’d be okay if I just nipped off to the loo really quickly? And since he already had a bike, he wouldn’t need another one. So I asked him to mind my bike while I ran off to the loo. ‘Of course!’ said he. And off I went.

What kind of a story would this be if the loo was just there? Not mine! The loo was, naturally, in the furthest recesses of the station platform. And though I hurried through the ordeal as quickly as I possibly could, when I came out, the platform was empty save for my bike propped up against one of the roof pylons. The train was there, just about to pull out. There are allocated carriages for people with bikes and wheelchairs, but I had no time to find it. I ran to my bike and went to pull open one of the doors nearest me when I heard a voice. I looked up and there was the man, sticking his head out a carriage door, holding it open for me. ‘In this one!’ he called. ‘You can put your bike here!’. So I ran and got my bike into the special carriage just as the beeps sounded for the closing of the doors.

Phew.

Needless to say, the gentleman didn’t stop talking the entire way to Canterbury. He was an inventor in his days. Helped to get the reflector lights on bikes mandatory in the UK. Ah, thought I. That at least explains his multitude of reflector lights on his bike. He asked me where I was going, and when I told him ‘Canterbury’, he took it upon himself to be my personal guide to the town. What luck! I couldn’t help but grin. When we got to Canterbury station, he had a station attendant put on a fluorescent jacket to escort us (‘she’s with me’) across the tracks to get to the other side. Then with a simple ‘follow me’, he peddled off towards the city centre. My god the man had no fear. He just peddled through oncoming traffic like there was no tomorrow. I had to learn very quickly that the only way to survive the onslaught of pedestrians, cars, busses, taxies and so on was to stay as close to him as possible. Can’t beat ’im, join ’im!

When we got into the town centre, he motioned for me to follow him into Canterbury Cathedral. Now, there are two little doors to Canterbury Cathedral. You pay to go through one as a tourist. And apparently, you walk through the other one if you’re a local parishioner – like Mr Reflector Lights was! And luckily for me, ‘She’s with me. The package there’s for Pastor X’. He showed me where I could lock my bike up by the security guards’ hut, and insisted I come to mass at 11. So I did. What better way to get to the real heart of a Cathedral than to participate in mass right? What made it all the more special was that I hadn’t been to mass in a while, and this was a sung mass. And the Canterbury Cathedral Choir, all dressed up in their purple gowns, were amazing. There were several moments where I literally forgot where I was and just drifted off with their ethereal voices.

When mass was over, I went to walk around the town, deciding to leave my bike locked up safely by the security guard’s hut at the Cathedral. The town centre was much like any other town centre that I’ve seen here so far: a quaint mixture of old and new. I wandered the streets for a while, then went to see The Canterbury Tales show. Insert cheesy grin here. It was… ah… a little corny, but good fun. Actually, it was strange because I was completely alone for the entire walk. And at some points it was a little creepy because it was very dark and the characters were pretty well replicated. Basically it’s a bit like a theme park of sorts. You’re on the pilgrimage with the rest of the gang and you walk through each of the travelers’ tales. A good experience anyway.

One of the things I had to do before I headed home was use my English Heritage membership pass for a free entry into something. So I went to St Augustine’s Abbey, which is really important because it marks the rebirth of Christianity in south England. While I was walking there, a Chinese girl asked me for directions to the abbey. I told her that I was heading there myself and that she was welcome to follow me. We talked as we walked. She was from Beijing, and was here on a study-abroad program for her Social Work degree. She had a thick American accent, suggesting that perhaps she was taught by an American or Canadian. Strangely, when we got to the abbey, she decided that she didn’t have time to see the place, and turned around and left. I never got her name.

St Augustine’s Abbey was interesting. By the time I’d walked there and around it, I was quite tired though, and I don’t think I got the full experience out of it. Once again, I was alone, and because of that, there was a decided feeling of eeriness as I wandered through the graves of past bishops and so on. The skies were cloudy and dark, and it was spitting. I left early and went home.

As an aside, England’s famous for several of its ‘whitehorses’, carvings into the chalk hills made ages ago and maintained till this day. I was unable to get to them when I went to Salisbury but there’s a white cross in my area. So I took a picture of that on the train ride home. Click here to see other photos from this set.

19/05/07: Rye

Upon Tui's (Too-ey's), my new Marg's, suggestion, I took my bike onto the train and got myself to Rye to see what it had to offer.

It was a lovely day. The weather was temperamental – warm one minute and cold the next. Rye is one of the Cinque Ports in Kent. It’s a lovely little town where the streets are cobbled and every house has a cute name above its door; some of them more traditional, like ‘Durrant house’, some of them short and to-the-point, like ‘Christopher’s’, and some more adventurous like: ‘The house with a seat’, ‘The house with two front doors’ and ‘The first house on this street’.

I spent some time looking at the lovely kitch shops and stuff, then went to St Mary’s Cathedral, where I paid £1 to get into the bell tower. Uber Quasimodo feel! Bells everywhere, narrow passages – on a much smaller scale of course, but still: you get the whole ‘am-bi-yonce’ of the story, you know? The stairways and corridors were so narrow that I was genuinely surprised that I made it through. They were as narrow as, if not more so, than an ordinary step-ladder. The top of the tower offered a panoramic view of the entire city. You could see the gates, the salts, the castle, the little houses, the people – everything. It was gorgeous -- check out the photos.

After looking into the Cathedral itself, I went to check out Ypres Castle. It’s only a small little thing, but it was pretty. It was also locked up and they appeared to be renovating it, so I couldn’t see too much.

The highlight of my day would have to be Camber Castle. It was originally an artillery fort built by Henry VIII to guard Rye. But because the shoreline had receded so much since that time, the ruined castle stands surrounded by grazing sheep in what is now the middle of a paddock. Unlike most castles listed under the English Heritage trust, this one has not been restored or maintained save for what’s needed for public safety. It remains strangely unaltered.

There is actually a town not too far from Rye called Camber. So I started riding the 4 miles or so towards it in search of this ‘Camber Castle’ I had read about. The weather started to turn. You could hear the thunder rolling in and it became quite dark. I must admit, I got a little nervous. I usually do during storms. Thankfully, I was blessed with two X chromosomes, which allowed me to ask a man walking his dog for some directions towards Camber Castle. Apparently there’s no such thing as a Camber Castle in Camber. Camber Castle is in Rye. Of course! How silly. Why on earth would one put Camber Castle in the town of Camber?!

One really shouldn’t ask a man for directions. He sent me on wild goose chase for a path that doesn’t even exist. I had to ask a woman who was able to point me in the right direction. Just off the main road, there’s a little street. Behind a shrub on said street, there’s apparently a sign, that tells you to follow another little path, which will take you through someone’s farm (make sure you close the gates behind you), and if you follow the path from the gate, you should be able to see the castle after a while. If you knew to look behind the shrub for the sign, that is.

Very few people obviously came down this path because if it weren’t for some tyre tracks left from farm machinery, it would have been hard to realise it led to a supposed tourist attraction. I peddled my bike through the grass, thinking happy thoughts while ewes and their little lammies ran away from me, and the skies started to clear. But it was hard to do so when I had to keep trying to skirt around lumps of moist, soggy sheep manure. I couldn’t just ride over them because they would’ve splatted all over my back. The smell was anything but ‘fresh country’.

I think what made the whole experience of Camber Castle great was the solitude. There was not a single soul around for as far as my eyes could see. Just me, the sheep, the blue skies, the green grass, and the ruined castle. I climbed the walls of the castle and took some shots before walking back.

While waiting for the train, I got some fish and chips from the small kebab shop at the edge of the town. The man behind the counter laughed when I asked if I could bring my bike in because there was nowhere to lock it up outside. He told me to just leave it because no one steals around here. ‘You leave there for three weeks,’ he said with a thick accent, ‘and you come back is still there’. Hmm. Rye’s got to be a pretty decent place to spend you time if the local kebab shop owner can say something like that huh?

12/05/07: Down House

Today, my blindfolded dart-throwing-on-a-map (or in reality, my ‘where can I go with my free-entry pass?’) decided to take me to Down House. This was the place where Charles Darwin spent most of his life and where he wrote the Origin of Species. It was a fairly uneventful sort of day. Just went out on the public transport nice and early. Walked around his gardens. It was especially good for me because I had arrived a little earlier than most and so got to walk around his gardens on my own. It’s so amazing how something that simple could put one’s mind at ease. He had a special path put in the backyard where he’d take his daily constitution. It’s nothing particularly special, and yet, it somehow was. Special enough for it to merit being proposed as a world heritage site though. Anyway. No pictures allowed inside, but it was basically a nice family home, not extravagant, but it has been maintained by the English Heritage society as it was based on photographs and stuff taken by Darwin’s son. He had a big family, and the artifacts in the house, the letters written by him, the newspapers and stuff shows him off to be a family man firstly, a good and loving husband, a decent and upstanding citizen, and a scientist and philosopher. Took some photos of the outside. All in all, one can walk away feeling much inspired by this great man. And I did.

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.