Day 35: Bath to Dordrecht - photos included now

Day 35:  Bath - Dordrecht,  Friday  January 14^th

OK – I’ll now admit it:   we should have had a GPS thismorning!  To get from Bath to Bristol aiport (about a 45 minute trip), we had a choice – take the major freeway through Bristol and then south to the airport  OR  take a more minor road and turn north to the airport.  The distances were very similar and given that we would be driving at the beginning of peak hour, we opted for the quieter back road.   BAD MISTAKE!!

All was going fine and and after ten minutes or so we saw the first of what we presumed would be quite a few signs to the airport.  We were in a ‘congratulating ourselves for good decisions’ frame of mind.  We would be at the airport in plenty of time.

Then, although the road map indicated that we should go straight ahead, a road sign indicated to turn right to the airport.  We dutifully followed it.   BAD MISTAKE!!   That road was going to take us right into Bristol, which we were trying to avoid.

A couple of kilometres or so up the road, we could see on the map that we could follow an even more minor road across to the airport and outsmart their intent for us to go into Bristol.  How sweet – we were travelling down a real country lane, past quaint houses – much better than freeway!  Pulling right over to let other cars squeeze past didn’t worry us, because much of the time cars had to pull right over to let us squeeze through – no worries.

Then Uh-oh!!  The last village before we were to get onto the road before the airport was cut off because of roadworks to its main street.  We had a ‘’diversion’’ sign to follow – will we take the left diversion or the right diversion??   I was inclined to take the left but Roger was inclined to take the right and it did seem that most traffic was going to the right.  So round to the right we went.   BAD, BAD, BAD MISTAKE!!!!!

After following that road for about five km, we found ourselves thoroughly bushed, getting more and more anxious about time, not knowing which way to head and clearly in the outskirts of Bristol!  By then it was 8:35 am and we were in the middle of school/work traffic.  After  we had sat in a traffic jam, not moving for about ten minutes, anxiety levels were rising rapidly in both the driver’s and the passenger seat.  Should we take our chances of the traffic jam  clearing soon or should we turn back and retrace our steps a few kilometres?  

We decided to do the latter so, probably now breaking speed limits, back we went to where we had seen a sign to a village close to the airport.

My thouhts as we sped…..How much under the pre-flight three hour mark will we be booking in now?   …..Oh goodness – we still have to return to car to the rental place and we still have to fill it with petrol!!!   …….What if we miss the plane?  I don’t think there are any more flights to Amsterdam today – what a shame to have to miss one of our precious days in The Netherlands!.....Please drive carefully Rog – we have a 600 pound (about $900) excess on the car!    Notice that these were thoughts – I didn’t dare voice any of them as Roger was anxious enough as it was!

Brakes were applied with great force as we met up with a truck coming the other way!  That slowed us down a bit more as our car and the truck carefully manoeuvered their way past each other.

Finally, it seemed out of nowhere, we were at an intersection which took us south to the airport.  Whew!!  Now, just follow the sign to where rental cars should park.   Oh no!  This is the short term car park –a one way lane of course.   Back, back, back with the car but then other cars came into the laneway.  So, doing a several-point turn, Roger turned the car around and drove out against the traffic.  We closed our ears to the toots and abuse from other drivers and found our way to the correct turn for rental cars.

With  HUGE relief, we finally pulled in to the right place.  There was a guy there to meet us as though he had been expecting us.   How wonderful it was not to have to deal with any minor car damage – thank goodness we didn’t bother with extra payment to remove the excess!!

The last thing we did before lugging our cases to the check-in, incidentally in sufficient time, was for us both to take a Valium.  Were they a reward or a precaution against further stress?   I’ll leave it to you to decide. 

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I was able to relate such a long-winded tale as there wasn’t a lot more that happened today.  The flight to Amsterdam was only an hour or so.  We took longer than that to get through passport control and collect our baggage.  Robyn was waiting for us and we were happy for her to guide us to the train.  It was about an hour on the train, first to Rotterdam and then to Dordrecht, where they have just moved into a new apartment.

We went first to drop our cases at our B&B.  It is in a ‘hof’, which Robyn tells us used to be a residence for nuns.  They are now available for purchase but apparently  only women are allowed to own them.   Our hosts, who own a house across the fence from the hof, run this little part of the hof as a B&B.  There are three bedrooms a teeny-tiny kitchen and the smallest bathroom I have ever seen!  Just the width of a small shower, there is just the shower and a toilet.  It is all done out in the lovely Dutch blue and white and is lovely and cosy.  Fortunately we are the only occupants though – I wouldn’t like to be there with up to four other people.

The next stop was Robyn and Damien’s new apartment, with which they are justifiably thrilled.  It is one of several apartments that are in a 19^th century bank building.   The front room, which is a dining room come study is heritage listed and has original wood features and leadlight windows which are just gorgeous.  Then the rest of the apartment is contemporary and very stylish, all in black and white.  Everything is spacious and of such good quality.  They are particularly thrilled that they now have room for a full sized fridge.  The main feature that they wanted when looking to rent a new apartment was that it should have some outdoor living space.  Well they sure have that.  The apartment is on one of Dordrecht’s many canals.The living room opens onto a balcony which overlooks the canal.  In summer they will be able to spend time on the balcony and enjoy not only the canal but also one of the city squares which is only a few metres along from their apartment.

We ended the evening with a tasty meal at one of their favourite Italian resturants and then walked the eight or so minutes to our B&B.

Day 33: Asfordby to Bourton on the Water

Day 33:  Asfordby to Bourton-on-the-Water,  Wednesday  January 12^th

Today as we drove through the misty rain all day, we were very mindful of the floods in Brisbane.  Several people have emailed accounts to us and we have seen or heard several news updates, so we are keeping posted on it.  The scenes of the water rushing at tremendous speed are certainly unbelievable.

After photographing the ducks and swans on the brook that runs past Amberleigh, last night’s B&B at Asfordby, we visited the church which is right next door.  In no time at all, hey presto, we came across Heazlewood (or rather Hazelwood) graves:  James Heaselwood, died 1742 aged 65;  James Hazelwood Snr, died 1795 aged 80 and his wife Mary, died 1795 aged 81   and also Elizabeth, wife of James  Hazelwood, died  1797, aged 52.  I have been doing so much research into Roger’s Peck and Nunn families that I have forgotten the chain of names for the Heazlewood line.  Stupidly, I did not commit them to the computer befor e I left home, so have to scratch around in the dark.  However, I think that one of these James’ is the father of ‘Old Henry’, my great-great-great grandfather whom I had not yet located but who I knew to be buried there at All Saints Asfordby.   After photographing and transcribing these gravestones, we kept looking, finding dozens of Marriotts, dozens of Houghtons and quite a few Harts.

Going to a different corner of the churchyard, I went toward  two gravestones over by themselves in a far corner.   They both turned out to be Hazelwoods – one of them ‘Old Henry’.  More photographs, taken under difficulty  as it was very wet underfoot and Henry’s stone was right infront of a tree, so Roger had to sit on the wet shoots coming off it to take a photo of me next to the stone.  A we walked back towards the church, there were another two Hazelwood stones, so certainly no lack of success today.

Of the three churches we have visited:  Hadleigh, Blunham and Asfordby, this was by far the smallest.  Again the door was open and in fact, a group of mothers were holding playgroup in the church while we were there.  I noted and photographed the timber fretwork which I think ‘Old Henry’ had carved -am I right?

From there it was down to Brook Lane where the family lived.  Again I was cross with myself for not noting the actual house, however as there were only two houses, I photographed them both.  The houses of Asfordby are not as charming as those in Hadleigh or the old ones in Blunham.  Although obviously old, they are fairly non-descript.

We headed to Coventry for lunch and spent an hour or so at the famous bombed-out cathedral which has been rebuilt into a magnificent modern cathedral.  As most will know, the skeletal remains of the bombed out  cathedral are still there,  as a testament to peace and reconciliation.

Our attention was turned to the fact that in exactly the same block of the city, only about a hundred metres away from the cathedral is another huge church with a spire- obviously Anglican as its name is Holy Trinity.  Roger went to investigate and found it is, unbelievably another functioning Anglican church!  While I was wondering what on earth had happened to him, he was chatting with some men he found in the church and they told him that there actually used to be not two but three Anglican churches on this block!  This one is actually older than the cathedral, having been consecrated in 1043 (yes, that’s right- before William the Conqueror) and established by Lady Godiva!  Of course it was a Catholic church then and in the years of Catholic/Protestant turbulence from Henry V111 on, it had a very chequered history.  Anyway, both cathedrals remain – two whopping churches to maintain, two congregations, two lots of clergy, two organists.  You’ll be glad to know that they do combine for 8am mass each Sunday.

We had hoped that some daylight would be left for our drive through the Cotswolds, but by the time we got lost a couple of times, that became a vain hope.  Until thisafternoon we had been singing the praises of the road system with its brilliant numbering system.   We have a very good map and have had no trouble at all getting around.  Cathy Dale had advised us to most certainly get a GPS because of the ring roads around the cities and we can now see what she was talking about.  However, I really think we are better off without one because I can just imagine Roger abusing it at every turn and me screaming at him in reaction.  So for us,  good old-fashioned map reading  is better, even if we have had to ask for directions a couple of times.  One of these was as we were leaving Coventry.  We realised we were heading the wrong way so Roger did a U-tu rn, only to find ourselves heading into oncoming traffic!!  Another speedy  U-turn to correct our legality and save our lives and we sought somewhere to pull over to ask directions.

As I write this, we are sitting in the bar area of the Mousetrap Inn in Bourton-on-the-Water, where we have booked in for the night.  It is warm and cosy with a large open fire – a typical English pub.  We have had a delicious lamb chop and roast potato dinner.  There seems to be a meeting happening  at the table next to us and we are half expecting the Vicar of Dibly to arrive!

For the benefit of those who have not travelled in the UK, it might be interesting to write a few things we have noticed:

-          Relatively  few detached houses.  Almost everyone seems to live in a double-storeyed house which is attached to at least one other, if not part of a whole terrace.

-          Most of the quaint old villages that we drive through seem to have a newer part on the outskirts.  The houses in the new part are always architecturally similar to the predominant style of houses in the older part of the village. 

-          All the roofs have a much steeper pitch than ours – most are 45 degrees whereas the Aust standard is 23 degrees.

-          Even small towns (apart from Blunham – see yesterday’s blog) seem to have shops selling high quality interior design goods, kitchens etc.

-          England just seems to be a cobweb of freeways and narrow, windy roads

-          We have no sooner left one city than we are on the outskirts of another.   Birmingham for example, is separated from Coventry by only 30km or so.

Tomorrow, which will be our last day in England, we plan to poke around the Cotswolds in the morning and then head to Bath.  Hopefully there will still be a bit of daylight left for Bath.

Day 32: Hadleigh to Asfordby

Day 32:    Hadleigh to Asfordby,  Tuesday  January 11^th

As we head towards Asfordby, I reckon that there will be time to write the blog before we get there.  Then with a bit of luck, I will be able to post the last few days tonight.  I’m not counting on it though as I am finding internet access more difficult than I had anticipated.

We left Hadleigh about 9:30 and were in Blunham by lunchtime.   The first part of the drive was along a narrow country road edged by hedgerows – just charming.  From mid morning though, we ha ve been on more major roads which are not nearly so charming but the bonus is that our progress  is faster.

Our hopes for Blunham to be more productive in terms of ancestry were thoroughly dashed.   The gravestones were just as illegible as those in Hadleigh – just faster to get around as there were not nearly so many.  We were really surprised with Blunham.  Having expected it to be a sizeable town where we could get lunch etc, we found it to be really lacking in shops.  It had quite a few houses, most of them reatively new and substantial, but next to nothing in retail.  There are two pubs, one local store which is closed for the winter and a butcher shop in the front window of a house which is in one of the residential streets!  There is one church – the Anglican church which has existed since 1200!!!  Poet John Donne was one of the rectors there.  This has the graveyard that we scoured in vain for some Peck graves.

Blunham is the town in which John Peck was born and where he worked as an agricultural labourer until 1853 when he migrated to Australia.  It was he who married Maryann Nunn (see yesterday’s blog) in 1854.  They were married in St James Old Cathedral, William St Melbourne, just a few months after John had arrived in Melbourne.   We do not think that they knew each other back here in England, so obviously they were fast workers.

Agan we found the church open so we spent some time in there.   We have been all afternoon on the road to Asfordby which is some way past Leicester.  We are travelling on the main south-north freeway, the M1.   We seem to be coming across places to pull over for petrol/coffee/toilets very frequently – every 10-20 km or so.  One that we pulled into is called ‘Welcome Break’ and there they have a food court, newsagency, several coffee shops etc as well as the petrol.  We wonder if that idea will catch on in Australia.   We notice that Starbucks has really caught on here – they are a dime a dozen.

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Now we are here in Asfordby at the B&B that Chris and Cathy recommended.  It was dark when we got here so we haven’t yet explored but it is next to the church where we are hopeful of finding Henry Heazlewood’s grave.  This B&B is, I would say, the original house, so it has a bedroom, lounge, kitchen and bathroom.   It has been nice to relax in the lounge watching TV for the first time in a month.

We have been watching on the news, the coverage of the floods in Brisbane.  What a devastation with now eleven people dead and about seventy missing.   Will summer in Australia ever be free of natural disasters?

Tomorrow we will explore Asfordby and then move on to Bourton on the Water in the Cotswalds.

Day 31: London to Hadleigh

Day 31:    London to Hadleigh,  Monday  January 10^th

From today, all our England travels will be by car, which we have picked up in Chelmsford, a major town about 40km out of London.  To get to Chelmsford, we took the train, making our last journey on the underground.   Because we have two large suitcases plus three smaller bags, we wanted to avoid peak hour – I’ll write more about peak hour later.   Therefore we left our hotel at 6am and were just arriving at Chelmsford as dawn was breaking at 8am.

From there we drove to Hadleigh, the birth place and childhood home in Suffolk of Roger’s great-grandmother,  Maryann Nunn.  We fairly easily located Duke St, which according to the 1841 census, is where the family lived.  Unfortunately no street number is listed on the census, but there are several very old Tudor style houses in the street still, so we imagined the family living in one of them. 

Hadleigh was, in past centuries, an important market town and we can see from the distance across which the old houses are spread, that it was quite a large town.  Many of the old houses remain, which gives the town a very quaint atmosphere.  It is still a  very substantial town with quite a few high quality shops behind the quaint exteriors.

We located St Mary’s church which we imagine would probably have been the Nunn family’s church. (Pictured at top of this page)    The door was open so we went in.  It’s very beautiful, with a glorious stained glass window at the front – done in the 1870s so Maryann, who arrived in Australia in 1853 wouldn’t have seen it.  It’s obviously still an active church:  there are Sunday School tables at the side and other signs of it being quite an active church still.  Of course we scoured the church graveyard for Nunn graves, especially Maryann’s father Samuel, but to no avail.  (We don’t expect her mother would have been buried here as she emigrated to America in 1854 with one of her other daughters. ) Unfortunately so many of the gravestones are unreadable, with moss and lichen having grown over them or in some cases, they are covered in ivy.  Even stones that are relatively recent – 1960s for example, have badly deteriorated, much more so than those in our cemeteries.  I guess this is a result of much harsher weather.   We looked and looked but not a Nunn grave did we see – not even a more recent Nunn.  We can only conclude that if they are there, their gravestones are some of the unreadable ones.  Unfortunately the library was closed, along with many other things, on Mondays, so we were unable to get any further information to give us clues.

There is a more general cemetery in Hadleigh also and around 3 o’clock, when it was very cold and windy, we spent half and hour or so scouring that one too, with similar result.

We had tea at one of the local pubs and are now sitting in our cosy B&B which is in a newer part of Hadleigh.  It is just delightful – a converted garage (as in the garage of a house), so is completely detached from the house.  There is a beautiful little garden just outside our door and I can see that it would be wonderful in summer.  The hosts are a very nice couple a bit younger than us and they have made it a very cosy place to spend the night.   She has just been up with a mountain of croissants for our breakfast and there is a container of cornflakes for Roger, so we are both happy.

We have a big day of travel tomorrow.  We will end up at Asfordby (Heazlewood country) but will go via Blunham in Bedfordshire which is Peck territory.   We hope to have more luck with gravestones in those villages.

Before we get too far away from London, let me comment on the Underground rail system.  Could we please take up a collection to send our new minister for transport to London so we can just have a carbon copy of their system???   It is just so user friendly,  the trains are super frequent –the longest we waited for any train was three minutes, and that was on weekend days – and everything is so well signed,  you can’t help but get it right.  The best thing is their ‘Oyster card’, the London version of Myki, but guess what?  - it works!!!   We bought one each for 5 pound, loaded them up with 25 pounds and it was so easy to just scan on at the beginning of each journey and scan off at the end.  We then just used the train and buses willy nilly for two days.  When we handed them back in thismorning, not only did the price of our cards get refunded, but also the unused credit!!

Not all is rosy on the underground however.  The squash onto the trains is unbelievable -even worse than Rome.  It was bad enough on Saturday and Sunday so what is it like on week days we wonder?  This is why we were determined not to be travelling at peak hour with our luggage thismorning.  Anyone who has experienced the squash on Melbourne trains in the last couple of years – these are only baby squashes!! 



Day 30: London Day 2 - edited

Day 30:    London Day 2      Sunday  January 9^th

Our Sunday started with morning service at St Paul’s cathedral, the church in which Charles and Diana were married.  They have a strictly no sightseeing policy on Sundays (so no photography either) but they welcome people to worship there.  The congregation was large – five or six hundred.  Wardens in red vests and tailed coats wandered around the edge of the congregation during the whole service  -probably checking that noone was elicitly photographing or videoing.   Thanks to the swivel screen on my camera, I was able to take a few elicit shots before the service but I didn’t dare to do so during it. 

It was a sung Eucharist with an all male choir, complete with a couple of counter tenors,  doing most of the singing. There were two organs used for various parts of the service – one with five keyboards and lots of pipes and the other a smaller pipe with only one or two keyboards.  (Roger thinks it may have been electronic but it sounded very much like a pipe organ.)   The acoustics are not fabulous – with so much marble in a largely empty cathedral, there was lots of echo.  Also, the organ had a very long delay on it – the organist told Roger that it has a ten second delay!  (All of these are details mainly for Warrick.)  All in all, it was a great experience to be at St Paul’s for a service.

Yesterday on the bus tour we had passed The Monument, a huge tower which Charles 11 had erected to commemorate  the Great Fire of London in 1666.   Like St Paul’s cathedral and many many other buildings in London, the architect was Sir Christopher Wren.  The top of the tower  is a copper vase with ‘flames’ coming from it, but otherwise the tower is unadorned apart from fluting.  If laid on its side, the tower would reach the exact spot where stood the bakery which was the origin of the fire.  The fire, which burned for three days,  destroyed more than 13,000 houses and destroyed vast areas of the city of London including 89 churches (the original St Paul’s cathedral being one of them), hospitals,schools and other public buildings .   Incidentally, it also killed millions of rats, so ending the Great Plague.  By some miracle, according to the engraved information on the side of the tower, no lives were lost. 

King Charles 11, who, if I remember my history correctly, was a very extravagant and self- gratifying king, had this magnificent memorial erected and at the time it was the tallest structure in England.  He also seized the opportunity to have the city rebuilt along more structured lines with wider streets, more substantial houses etc.  So all in all, the Great Fire had a huge effect on London of the day as well as on London as it currently stands.

The Monument has an internal spiral staircase of 311 steps.  We saw that as a challenge and up we went, having great views over the city.

Then it was back onto our bus, which has a live guide on it rather than just an audio as many of the buses do, to Trafalgar Square.   From there we walked down to the Houses of Parliament, past Downing St.  When Roger ventured to ask one of the policemen on duty at the gates across the end of street, which one was No 10, he kindly saw a need to open the gates, just long enough for me to get a quick photo.  From the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, we made the short walk across the road and around to the front of Westminster Cathedral, where William and Kate will be married.  Unfortunately we were not able to see inside the cathedral but in fast fading light, I was able to get some rather nice shots of the outside. 

We had hoped to see ‘The King’s Speech’ but once we got to the the cinema at Picadilly, we found it was not screening again until 8.15.  It was only 6pm, very cold and dark and we have a very eary start tomorrow, so we will have to see the movie another time.

Day 29: London Day 1 - previously called Day 30

 Sorry folks - I seem to have the days mixed up.  This is the first of the blogs that previously only had pictures.  I have now inserted the text to go with it.  It's been a long time coming I know,, but it has been 5 days since I have had internet long enough to fix these up - and now I only have it for one hour, so I'll get done as much as I can.

Day 29:    London Day 1      Saturday  January 8^th

Starting the morning with a much appreciated sleep-in until 9:15, we then breakfasted in the delightful conservatory of our little hotel, which seems more like a guesthouse than a hotel,  before heading out for the day.  We had been introduced to the London Underground last night when we went to the West End, so today we used it to get to Hyde Park and Marble Arch from where we picked up a hop on-hop off bus tour.  This has proved to be another good move as it will take us to all the places we want to see in our two short days in London and being winter, they have a two days for the price of one special.

Our first major stop was at Buckingham Palace, from where we went around to Tower Bridge.   We got off the bus before the bridge and walked over it to the notorious Tower of London.  Unfortunately our timing wasn’t great, as we arrived there only 45 minutes before it closed.  I had misunderstood their closing time, but we still elected to go in and to see what we could in the time available.  We saw the crown jewels and the model of the Cullinen diamond, the biggets diamond in the world which has been cut up for various pieces of obsenely valuable royal jewels.  It was interesting seeing all the various pieces of golden harware that are involved in the coronation, especially seeing that it won’t be too long before they are used again.

By 4:30, when we left the Tower, it was dark and very cold.   We made our way to St Paul’s Cathedral to check out the times for tomorrow’s services.  We had a tasty dinner and a nice red wine at an Irish pub, then made our way back to the Tower, this time for the Ceremony of the Keys, for which we had successfully applied for tickets.  This is the ceremony, that has been carried out every night without fail for the last 700 years, to lock up the gates to the Tower.  They only let about fifty view it each night, and you have to apply for tickets weeks in advance.   We felt very priveledged to have been given tickets.   By the time we had stood in the freezing wind for about an hour waiting for it to start though, we felt less priveledged!  There are strictly no photos allowed, so unfortunately I cannot post any of it on the blog.  Basically however,it is a ceremony of fifteen minutes or so  when four guards go by lamp light with the keys to lock first the outer gate then the inner gate.  On returning to the centre of the castle they are challenged by a Queen’s guard who asks, “Halt, who comes there?”   One guard replies that it is the Queen’s keys and the guard says, “Pass Queen’s keys, all is well.”   The four guards then march towards the White Tower (the first – William the Conqueror -  of the several towers which make up The Tower of London) .  The Last Post is played and then the keys are taken to the monarch (or in current days, the keeper of The Tower).

Day 28: Paris to London

For days 28, 29, 30  .....

In the interests of keeping somewhat up to date:

First see the pictures

Then  read the book!

In other words, I’ll post the pics for now and over the next few days I will  catch up with the text.