Day 23 - UK trip

17 April 2011

We left the campground mid morning and made our way to Whitehorse Hill via Highworth. We drove through a lot of flat farmland, shielded by hedgerows. There were numerous fields of rape (canola) and they are a stunning bright yellow. Very pretty but I couldn’t help but think ‘Ooh, evil monoculture. Rape seed plants sprouted on verges and between cracks in the pavement.

“I really hope they’re not GE” I commented as we drove past.

Terrible isn’t it? What probably looks beautiful to others disturbs me. Monocultures are an environmental disaster waiting to happen. And what if it was GE rape? It was sprouting all over the place.

Eventually we headed upwards into the hills and made our way to the White Horse Hill carpark.

It was a Saturday so the carpark was busy. Made me feel better about all the ‘Warning, car thieves!’ signs everywhere. We walked the gentle climbing path to the horse and what can I say? 

‘So what?’ springs to mind. 

It was much smaller than I imagined and apparently only completely visible from the sky. It’s protected of course so you can’t get near it, only look down on it so in fact you only see parts of it.

There were people there sitting above it on the grass with their cameras. It seemed a bit pointless to me. Perhaps they were contemplating the age of it, around 2500 years old. For some reason I don’t have it in me to be able to contemplate such a time span. Aaron apparently doesn’t either. It was more a been there, seen that , bought the t-shirt type moment for us. (Except of course we didn’t buy the t-shirt. (As if!)

We carried on up the hill to Uffington Castle. Hmmm. How do I put this nicely? It was a hill with raised earth surround. Apparently the castle had been wooden. We stood there looking at a large circle of grass and the sign that warned of a stiff fine to anyone caught damaging the site and basically that was all there was.

Don’t ask to see the photos (there aren’t any).

Ah well, at least we got some exercise and some fresh air. Had to pay for it of course, with it being another Pay and Display carpark.

We left, we had more important things to do, namely PUB LUNCH!

We meandered our way through country lanes to Swindon. Ooh yuck. What a grotty place and we only went around the outside of it. We didn’t go to the Magic Roundabout, although if I’d seen a sign directing us towards a Dougal and Zebedee shop I would have insisted we stop. We did however have to go through 22 (or thereabouts) roundabouts just to get around the outside of it.

“Oh my god. I never want to see another roundabout again” I said as we departed.

We were really hungry by then.

“Lets stop at a nice English pub” I said. And so we drove through town after town and every pub we came across had a near empty carpark. “No. Not there. Not popular enough!” I kept saying.

As we came through Langley Burrell there was a sign pointing off to the right “Hit & Miss Inn”.

Aaron swung a right and I didn’t complain.

There were only 5 or 6 cars parked outside. Hmmm. But then I noticed the peacock standing proudly on one of the outdoor tables. It appealed so we parked and went inside.

The cooking oil smelt very strong through the pub. I had a bad feeling about this.

We grabbed menus and took them outside to a table in the sun. It was an extensive menu but suddenly I didn’t feel very hungry. Aaron decided on the beef bourg… (something French) and then I thought, ‘This is stupid, I’m being petty’. I decided to have the mushroom omelette with chips and salad.

We ordered and then sat in the sun and drank and read the Sunday paper.

At some point the peacock took off from its picnic table and flew right over us and landed on the roof of the pub. Like a guard dog he seemed to be intent on checking out everything and everyone.

Lunch arrived and what can I say? It was the best tasting mushroom omelette I have ever tasted. I have not tasted mushrooms like that since I was a kid. As for the chips, light, crispy and perfectly cooked. I enjoyed lunch so much I ate it all, despite there being way too much for me. My stomach felt like it would explode but sometimes it’s worth it!

Straight after lunch we went to Bath. We had organized to spend the night with a friend and weren’t due to arrive until after 4pm. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the centre. I wanted to go visit the Roman Baths in the centre but at £12 per person for entry I lost enthusiasm pretty quickly.

I needed to find WiFi so we wandered back and forth through the streets trying to find a pub with free WiFi. In the end we could only find a bar. It was over £8 for 1 beer and 1 cider and in the end the WiFi didn’t work for us. Damn, damn, damn.

Friend Fiona and family live 2 km from the centre of Bath in a little cul-de-sac. I was surprised to find they had off-street parking for 2 vehicles as well as a good sized garden out the back. Being so close to town I wouldn’t have expected it. It was a lovely big house with plenty of space for their 2 young boys to run around.

It was great to see Fi after not seeing each other for probably 7 or 8 years. We had a really good evening catching up and discussing politics.

Fiona is very much into international human rights and welfare and a bit of an activist so although we fight different battles we have common interests. Good really as we were nothing like that when we met back in the 90’s.

The only downer to the evening was a call from home letting us know the vet wants to do more tests on Whisky for suspected kidney failure. I felt instant panic but had to put it out of my mind.