This is the second video from our coast to coast walk back in May. These are pretty rudimentary videos but they give you an idea of the walk as we did it and for me serve as a souvenir/memento of the trip. I’m doing one video per day. This one is about the first day of the walk from St Bees in Cumbria to Ennerdale Bridge. I did the walk with my son Tom Davies with friend Mark (Ajax) Agius and his son Luke.
This is the first video from our coast to coast walk back in May. These are pretty rudimentary videos but they give you an idea of the walk as we did it and for me serve as a souvenir/memento of the trip. I’m doing one video per day. This one is about my journey to the start of the walk at St Bees in Cumbria. I did the walk with my son Tom Davies with friend Mark (Ajax) Agius and his son Luke.
If you are thinking of heading off for a UK based holiday you could do worse than a VW campervan hire from Anne’s Vans in Lincoln. Anne’s vans is our new VW campervan hire Lincoln business.
The idea came about when last summer we tried to hire a vintage VW campervan but couldn’t find one for love nor money. Every one was rented out for the season. This gave us the idea of buying our own van and hiring it out when we aren’t using it, which is most of the time.
The van is looked after by our friend Dave Cooper from DC Automotive and is kept in dry storage in his garage in Lincoln. It gives us peace of mind knowing that the van is well maintained and in top notch condition for both our own use and that of customers.
Our first van is called Betty. She is the first of perhaps a stable of vans that will grow as the business expands. Betty has been completely restored over a period of 3 years. She was stripped to bare metal and rebuilt from there up. Her colour scheme is the original paint job used when she left the factory.
Whilst the base vehicle has been kept to its original spec no expense has been spared on the interior which reflects the height of VW campervan luxury. There is even a porta potty that can be a life saver when caught short in a campsite the middle of the night. Everyone will understand the after effects of drinking lots of wine and beer whilst gazing at the sunset over a beach.
Check out the Anne’s Vans website for more info and to keep up to date with the VW campervan news.
Btw we did think of calling the website something else. I have the domain name vwcampervan.hire but whilst this might be good for SEO purposes actually the business is my lovely wife Anne’s and the name Anne’s Vans is far more personable. Also check out the Anne’s Vans Facebook page. If you are searching for “VW campervan hire Lincoln” then look no further.
All the best.
tref
There’s something about international train stations. Perhaps it’s because by and large we don’t have them in the UK, the Eurostar out of St Pancras being the exception. Seeing the names of what are to me exotic destinations up on the departures board is exciting. It also somehow feels appropriate that I am bleary eyed from a poor night’s sleep thanks to the usual waking up every half an hour to see if it is time for the alarm to go off yet. Or whether the alarm has not gone off when it should have more like. This morning I packed my stuff up in my room, fumbled my way around the living room to hug Hannah on the bed settee and set off. Rue Faubourg St Denis at 8am was just waking up. Shutters were being rolled up on shop fronts. Early commuters were starting to permeate through from Gare Du Nord and Gare De L’Est. Kids were being towed by parents, schoolward bound. I over heard one father say something to two kids decked out in identical coats. It ended in “uh?”. The verbal shrug of Gallic shoulders being instilled at a young age. Hannah has a lie in. She is meeting someone to hand over the keys to the AirBnB apartment at midday. Our instructions in the welcome pack were to leave the key on the table in the living room. However whoever comes in to clean up has lost their key and so needs ours to get a new one cut. That piled the pressure on us. Every time left the flat I had to treble check that I had the key with me. Accidentally locking it in would have been a bit a disaster considering that the backup had been lost. It feels strange leaving Hannah behind but she is a grown up now. We still have a lingering responsibility as she is still a student. Paris is the second half of her year abroad. She is studying French and Spanish with Catalan and has just finished six months in Toledo. Both her French as Spanish are now pretty impressive, at least from the perspective of someone whose Spanish extends to ordering two beers and whose French is frozen in time in 1978, the year of my Grade B French O’Level. I get by. Han is by now used to being left alone in strange cities, having made it to Toledo under her own steam. I figured it would make sense to go with her to Paris. Turning up alone in a big city is not a nice thing. I stayed 4 nights and achieved the main objective of finding her some accommodation. She has a student apartment in the 5eme Arrondissement with a Dutch girl and an Italian lad. A good place to be, near the Quartier Latin and the cafes of the left bank. Unfortunately the apartment doesn’t become available until the 20th so we’ve booked her into a cheap hotel just around the corner from the Gare Du Nord where she can catch the RER B to work. 15 nights in a hotel! The flat hunt was a bit of an eye opener. The first one we visited was cheap and would have been a great place to be had it not been for the guy whose flat it was. There was something about him that perhaps hinted at why he had been unable to let the room. The second was a nightmare. She was expected to share a room with a somewhat smelly girl and where the landlady kipped in the living room. A non starter. The third had real prospects compared with the first two. It was just around the corner from the Luxembourg RER B station, on the top floor of a nice old building. The problem with this one was that it was owned by a nice old lady. You got the feeling that it would have been somewhat stifling for a 20 year old girl after a bit of experience of life, and life in Paris at that. So now she’s behind me in Paris and I’m hurtling towards the English Channel and breakfast in London with her brother Tom. As I write we have passed a row of wind turbines. It must be a still day as the blades are pretty motionless. The train is half way between Paris and Arras. Big fields. Occasional villages. Lots of wind turbines. Looks cold out there. Paris was cold. This was a bit of a nuisance because every time we entered a cafe we had to peel off the layers or cook. Greenery is just starting to come though in some of the fields we pass. Growth from early planting at the end of last season, one assumes though I’m far from knowledgeable on the subject. Half the people around me on the train are asleep. The others are engrossed in gadgets as am I. A girl sat across from me is learning English. She has a dictionary and doing stuff with her iPad. We have just passed Bapaume, a place of significant historical significance from WW1 unless I am mistaken. Her name is Mlle Zena Saheli btw. The girl learning English. She has a letter of application open in front of her. Looks like she is a dancer. Not my business but it’s hard to not see what’s there in front of you. I have a coffee now. A medium latte, E3.20. I don’t drink much coffee but figured it was necessary on this trip. Either I spend the journey catching up on my zeds or I write stuff. So I’m writing stuff. When you look out at the frozen fields you really can imagine hte hardship of life in the trenches, especially at this time of year. It’s 10.14 Paris time. Hannah will be just starting to get up. No rush. Once she is checked into the hotel she has a few things she can be getting on with. Signing up for a Navigo and chasing up the bank to see why they haven’t been in touch with her to get her bank account sorted. Bloke next to me is asleep with his green sweater over his head. I took a picture although with the sun behind him it didn’t come out brilliantly. It’s going to be nice to get home and back into a routine for a week or so. I’m listiening to ELO on my earphones. I don’t have a huge choice of music on my phone so tend to listen to the same stuff time and time again. Normally I hop artists/tracks but I can’t be botherered to get that involved on the train. I’m not sure I’ve listened to the whole of ELO’s greatest hits (or whatever the album is called – I bought a load for my 50th Birthday bash 3 years ago). Before I forget I though the passport control set up in Gare Du Nord was a bit odd. You went through a French Passport Control and then separately through a British one. Why bother with two? Just a UK one should have sufficed I’d a thought. Anyway who am i to say? Eh? The fields are a bit snowier the further North we get. Hey we’re in a tunnel. I don’t think it can be the tunnel, the chunnel. I could be wrong. Hadn’t realised we were that near the coast. Must be it. No mobile data reception though. I got 4G on my way out. Probably because I’m still roaming and have data roaming switched off cos it’s a rip off. On the way out I got LTE but was still registered with O2 in the UK. Zena has packed her stuff away now and the green jumper is off his head. There’s something a little strange about being in a very long tunnel under the sea. It ain’t natural is it? We butcher our planet. Handy though if you want to get to central Paris quickly. I’m in seat 46 Car 14 btw. It’s handy for the cafe bar. There’s also a UK electrical socket but I’m in the aisle seat and I can’t be bothered to ask green jumper man to plug in my Chromebook. I’ve got enough juice to get me to London anyway. Only half an hiur until we’re due in London so must me bearly out of the tunnel now. Zena is having a bit of a kip. Feet up on the next seat in the foetus position. Her black trousers are torn at the knees. V trendy I suppose. Green jumper has opened a bag of mixed fruit and nut. Still lots of sleeping folk. Cmon guys. You can’t sleep your lives away. Do something. Oriental looking guy has woken up and is now checking his phone. I can hear the rustling of crisp packets or simlar despite having 10cc in my earphones. Also just had a bit of a shock. Lost this file I’ve been editing for two hours. Coming out of the tunnel and back in the land of connectivity I eventually found it on Google Drive. This is even though I was working on it offline. Wow. Cool. Back underground now. Maybe we are running through a site of Special Scientific Interest and they built dug the tunnel to avoid disturbing a butterfly, or a lizard. Or maybe someone put a hill in the way. I dunno. We interrupt this ad hoc dialogue to tell you that we are shortly arriving at Ebbsfleet. I suppose someone might want to get off there. In fact a woman has stirred and picked up her suitcase. As long as she doesn’t touch my bag we are all happy. Ebbsfleet is clearly convenient if you don’t want to haul yourself into Central London to catch the train. They didn’t have a similar stop in France though. Oo a few people getting off here now. It’s an uninviting looking station. Overweight member of staff speaks into his walkie talkie on the platform. Whistles blow. Presumably in code. Largish bloke not given the go ahead to depart yet. must be someone still getting off train.He keeps looking up and down the platform. The driver has taken things into his own hands and we are off anyway. I’m going to upload this now as I don’t know how much more editing time I’ll have before the final subterranean segment of our journey. Ciao amigos. It’s good to be back.
So starts the next phase. The next adventure. Southbound through a freezing cold English countryside to catch the Eurostar to Paris. City of romance. Hannah is about to start a 6 month stint working for Air France at Charles De Gaulle Airport and she needs to find accommodation.
Dozens of castles are for sale in Italy, apparently.
Adventurous
Seemingly random words and phrases on a journey
The fields en route to the coast are bereft of animals. There is very little grass for them to eat.
Sheep!
going underground
rresurface into grrey frrench febrruary
it’s a month with not much going for it. batten down those hatches. shove another chair leg on the fire, Doreen.
winter has beauty only when it is at its harshest
winter has beauty only at its harshest
winter, harsh beauty
gap in cloud cover above
blue sky
hope
mistletoe visible through barren branches
passed a war cemetery with perhaps 40 or 50 gravestones
There are four walls and a forward facing window. It’s a premium cabin on board the Ben My Chree. Out of Douglas for Heysham. Sounds like a racehorse but it isn’t. It’s a boat. Not a ship, a boat. It’s the passenger ferry from the Isle of Man. We are on it. In fact we are ensconced in our luxury cabin relaxing. All is quiet. The World Athletic Championships are on the TV and each family member is either quietly watching, reading the paper or buried in their laptops. Or both buried in laptop and watching the athletics. It’s easy enough to do. There are lots of gaps between races and lots of repeats of races, analysis, interviews and a look forward to the next round, heat or episode.
It isn’t particularly accurate to use the word episode. It isn’t as if track and field is like a soap opera or documentary, although the material may be there. “Shock off field antics of top runner”. “Athlete in for the high jump” etc. Athletes should not have the time to mess about off field. They need to stay focussed. Keep off the booze. And the fags. Live a healthy lifestyle.
That isn’t to say they shouldn’t enjoy themselves. A bit of relaxation does you a bit of good. Helps the performance on the track. The occasional trip to the cinema on a Wednesday night. Visits to the seaside and a nice walk along the promenade. No ice creams though. Yueuch. No good. Think of the calories. Bad calories. Have fruit instead.
My personal preference is for peaches, when in season, and bananas. I also like strawberries and cream though I am not an athlete and therefore don’t need to stay clear of the cream. Unless you talk to my wife. Mrs Davies.
This boat is comfy enough. The sea is calm. The sky is cloudy. We are just passing some sort of oil rig. Gas maybe. I don’t know. This luxury cabin is in marked contrast to a day trip to Liverpool many years ago. “The lads” were off on a day out. On the way there everyone spent the time in the bar, except me. I was seasick. When we arrived in Liverpool the outgoing boat had a bomb scare and had to return to the quay. In consequence there was no room for our boat and we had to stay mid river for two hours whilst they checked out the other one for bombs.
That was the last thing I needed having spent the whole crossing being ill. We got to Liverpool and set off for the shops. The we hit the fair at New Brighton where everyone except me indulged in more beer and ice cream. Finally before getting back on board the boat we had a meal at a restaurant near Pier Head. Steak.
Most of the afternoon I had spent recovering from the outward journey. I was now just starting to feel good again as we boarded for the return trip. I spent the trip home in the bar whilst the boys were ill over the side! It was an experience!
When we travelled on the boat as a family we always booked a cabin. It’s a lot easier to survive bad weather if you are lying down. When I left home and used to travel across to University at the beginning and end of each term a cabin wasn’t an economic prospect. Instead all the students used to get on early and head for the bowels of the boat where there were benches you could stretch out on. The first few trips were extensions of the parties we used to have after the school exams. Term for most people started and finished at the same time so there was always a quorum of people you knew on the boat. We would head for the bar and while away the trip with a few beers.
Gradually as people became established at their places of higher education the number of familiar faces on the boat gradually dwindled to zero and the focus grew on surviving the often rough Irish Sea weather.
I recall one end of term when I turned up at Pier Head on a Friday night for the midnight boat. The midnight boat was a good one to catch. It went a lot more slowly and you could kip overnight. I had my usual sausage and chips in the caff at the bus station at the Pier and then wandered down to the boat.
Problem. There was no midnight boat. The boat was there but it wasn’t sailing until the next morning. These were the days before the internet. You couldn’t simply go online and check the schedule. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that Pier Head in those days was pretty rough place to be of an evening. I could hear sounds of violence.
I chatted with the bloke at the top of the gangplank who, recognising my dilemma, took an executive decision and let me on board. This was “highly against regulations” but needs must. I spent the night in my sleeping bag in one of the passenger lounges. The cleaning ladies who turned up the next morning had a bit of a shock when I lifted my head above the seat to see what the noise was. Hey. A student’s gotta do what a student’s gotta do.
Travelling in those days was far more adventurous than it is now. I often used to hitch hike places, including to see my grandmother who lived about 200 miles away in South Wales. My longest hitch was from Greece to London but that’s story in itself.
Considering that the internet wasn’t around for much of my adult life and therefore the Third Law cannot have applied it has all gone quickly enough.
3rd Law Part 59 here
3rd Law Part 61 here
The sea is calm. Occasional waves run feebly up the beach. A fishing boat ambles across my field of view and I can see the mountains of Mourne, shadowy forms in the far distance. The herring gulls congregate loudly and there is a slight chill on the early morning breeze. Peel Castle remains a solid defence against the neerdowell.
6.30 am and the world is at peace. I wish I could paint. The rocks change colour as they rise out of the sea. Seaweed studded pastel brown crowned with a darker blacker band that fades upwards with streaks of mineral white that is gradually obscured by a topping of greenery. The real crown is the castle that sits around the top of the island.
The sun bursts through behind me as I look out to the west. The boat has moved out of my field of view though I can still see its wake and I now notice the buoys that mark the lobster pots on the sea bed.
Yesterday I saw a boat offload a big haul of crabs. Five half ton bags and fifteen crates. Good money at the market though the fisherman declined to enlighten me as to how much. He must have known.
I come here year after year. The early morning is the best time. The family still sleeps. The place isn’t totally deserted. Dog walkers and resolute joggers move on by. How many sailors are asleep in the yachts that fill the marina?
This year the “Dreamcatcher of Menai” is nowhere to be seen. Maybe it’s gone off on a cruise. That’s what you do with yachts. There is no point keeping them in the harbour all year round. Their whole purpose is world travel. How big the world is up to you. If I had such a boat I think I’d want at least to make some medium sized journeys. I don’t feel driven to brave the transatlantic run but certainly a jaunt to the Mediterranean calling in at suitably picturesque fishing ports en route.
Harbourside restaurants are a must. Maybe even the occasional industrial dock with a characterful bar known only to the locals and the visitors that arrive from the sea.
A shiver of relaxation runs down my back. This is a very peaceful scene. A dog barks but at first I can’t see it. Now it appears with its owner on the broken shell beach and trots up the slipway. An engine fires up out of sight behind me and fades away.
Behind the beach and beyond the castle is the breakwater with its white lighthouse. Nearer, on the right, the harbourmaster’s office guards the entrance to the harbour. There is no movement there now as the tide is out. A fisherman casts his line at the very end of the breakwater. That must be his yellow van. The scene on the breakwater is very different to the beach. There is evidence of humanity. The side door of the kiosk is open and the shutter slightly raised. It is about to open up for business.
A pickup truck joins me. In the bay four boats are tied up to buys. Waiting for the tide so that they can enter the harbour. I’ve noticed the environment here is different to the mainland. Outboard motors are left affixed to boats and fishing rods are in full view. Nobody is going to steal them.
The bay is full of ducks accompanied by the snouts of the two or three seals that live here. I don’t know what it is about this summer that brings so many ducks. This is not normal. Usually it’s herring gulls.
From the top of the breakwater I look for basking sharks. There are none. In all my years of coming I’ve only ever seen one but I look every time. Ever the optimist. They are out there somewhere. The volume of the gulls has increased. Maybe it’s time to get up and get looking for food. Maybe a threat has appeared. I can’t see but they are moving this way. The breakwater can be a risky place to be with so many gulls in the air. There is a fair percentage chance of being hit by droppings.
A small red car with a sit on top canoe turns up. Bloke clad in a short wetsuit gets out. Disappears around the back of the kiosk and then leaves again.
The gulls settle on the roof of the lifeboat station, a sturdy red stone building in the lee of the castle. It’s great fun to watch the lifeboat being launched. Adds to the mix of the summer holiday. I’ve never seen one being launched in anger, as it were.
The whole scene is getting lighter. I’ve been here for fifty minutes now. Nearly time to get back and make the tea. I think I’ve sussed the increased gull presence. A fishing boat arrived ten minutes or so ago. They think there may be pickings. I don’t think so. I think it’s just getting ready to go out. The RLNI flag flutters in the breeze. There is more activity now.
Life on board the yachts must be fairly calm. They are bound by the tides. At the moment there is nothing for them to do but just wait. Stick the kettle on and brew up.
A walker arrives. Time for me to go.
3rd Law Part 56 here
3rd Law Part 58 here
Filmy ferns at Farringdon
Harts tongue and shuttlecock,
Clinging to the brickwork, nodding in the breeze
Brunette-haired beauty,
Gets on at Barbican
Doing her mascara with a swift, sure hand
Regimented white tiles
March across Moorgate
Unrelieved by posters, or warning signs
Catenaries of cables
Sinuous and serious
Line the walls of Liverpool Street, purple and red
At last arrive at Aldgate
Ancient city gate
Floral tributes, staircases and journey’s end
In years gone by we would have sent postcards home from a holiday with pictures of what we have seen – castles, beaches, pretty cottages etc etc etc. Nowadays we just take pictures with our phones and post the best to Facebook et al.
This post is a selection of panoramic views of places visited in Barcelona. Click on each one to enlarge. That’s all.
View from the waterfront.
Rooftop view at the Hotel Jazz
Placa Reial just off La Rambla
Park opposite Sagrada Familia
Castello Montjuic
View of port from Castello Montjuic
More Montaljuic view
View from restaurant Xalet de Montjuic
View from top of Park Guell
Another Parc Guell view
Barcelona waterfront
There was a time when efforts to please gods involved human sacrifice and the building of large temples. Fortunately as humanity notionally grew more civilised this evolved to just building temples which were duly adorned with the creations of the finest artists and filled with the music of the best composers. There doesn’t seem to have ever been a shortage of cash available to fund such projects. Plenty of the faithful dutifully emptying their pockets on a Sunday and rich men buying their place in heaven.
Whatever you might think of the whole subject, religion has undeniably been the stimulus for some of our most enduring cultural output and most iconic of buildings. Religion has helped to shape the world in which we live.
For some considerable time now this has no longer been the case, at least from a cultural perspective. The best composers and artists freed from societal shackles are no longer limited to works of praise and have moved on. From the perspective of an outsider this means that the merits of contemporary religious cultural output are apparent only to those engulfed in those religions.
The one exception was the Sagrada Familia which I came across in Barcelona this week. This is a truly astonishing building designed by Spanish architectural genius Antoni Gaudi. It is almost disingenuous to call the Sagrada Familia contemporary because whilst the building is still under construction the design was started in 1883. In that respect it probably catches the tail end of the long era of great religious arts.
Notwithstanding that because it is still being built I feel justified in labelling it modern. Coming from Lincoln my benchmark is Lincoln Cathedral. Sagrada Familia is one of the few buildings that comes close to the magnificence of Lincoln Cathedral. Tops it even!
My daughter Hannah and I visited Barcelona last week and Sagrada Familia was on Trip Advisor as the number one tourist attraction in town. Being tourists we did the right thing. Initially we did the wrong thing. We just turned up. That doesn’t work. The queues to get in were two or three deep and stretched maybe a couple of hundred metres. There was no queue for the “internet advance purchase” entrance.
I considered switching on roaming and buying the tickets there and then. I figured that those queuing must be digitally ignorant or digitally impoverished. However the act of switching on roaming would have meant financial impoverishment so we cut our losses and elected to use the free WiFi of Hotel Jazz and come back in the morning.
The one thing that stuck in my mind was the strong high steel fencing all around the church to stop freeloaders sneaking in. We have to remember that this is a church. The idea that it has to have fencing around it to keep people out seemed very strange. I accept that they are still having to pay for the builders so I won’t dwell on the point.
The next morning we walked past hundreds of people to the front of the queue, flashed the booking reference on my phone and were in. Sorted.
Once inside you really do see why Sagrada Familia is the top attraction and has been labelled a World Heritage site by UNESCO. The building truly is awesome which I’m sure is part of the plan. It has also been designed to be fit for purpose with Biblical stories woven into its fabric and the layout pitched at the functional requirements of the church.
Aside from the grandeur what really stood out was the number of tourists ogling the place. You couldn’t move without getting in the way of someone’s photo opportunity. It was almost like a religious Disneyland. Guided tours thronged.
The nave was roped off so that people could go and sit and contemplate. This deference to spirituality was policed by a somewhat effeminate looking man in a red jacket who shoed people away for ducking under the tape to reach a seat and insisting they went around to the correct entrance at the back. He also quite rightly made me take my hat off.
It was easy to imagine the place on a Sunday, full of flock lead by gold bedecked incense swinging clerics. They were nowhere to be seen on our visit although we saw a couple of nuns doing the tourist thing.
The Sagrada Familia though, has hidden depths and behind the altar was a small window that let you look down into what was presumably the crypt. Here we caught a glimpse of where the hard core praying was done. Rows of wooden benches populated with people sat in front of a priest. We couldn’t hear what was going on but it was clearly a church service.
It was almost as if the church within a church was where the real action took place with the outer shell being the cash generative façade. Presumably those in the inner sanctum had not had to pay the 14.80E entrance fee to the basilica (19.30E with tour of the towers). Maybe they had an annual pass or their own separate, heavily guarded entrance.
Moseying on, looking perhaps for a coffee shop, we found a vending machine. They missed a trick there. Perhaps they didn’t have the space. Eventually we came across the souvenir shop. I bought a book and a fridge magnet and we went on our way.
Sagrada Familia is worth a visit but buy your tickets in advance and beat the queues.
wonderful colours in this market on la rambla.
