Thursday, June 30, 2005
On the road again
Well, I'm back in England (again). And having a completely excellent time (again!). How come places are so much more fun when you're just visiting them? I guess because you don't have time to get bored and you don't have any responsibility. Now if I could just find a job that involves flitting from one country to another...but then there is something to be said for home, and I guess I have to grow up at some stage (boo).
But for now England is great. I don't mean the country itself - I arrived to find that 1,000 of its commuters had been locked in overheated trains for most of the previous evening - but my friends and family. At some hideously early hour on Sunday I flew to see my Dad in France. It was a complete surprise for him and he spent the rest of my visit there in shock, but we still had a great time.
[Right: Ten minutes before I took this photo, Dad thought I was in Canada. Hence the look on his face]
My Dad and stepmum run a B & B (check it out: http://www.dufreche.com/), as well as a vineyard and small menagerie (they've got dogs, cats, horses, chickens, and they're thinking of getting geese and ducks). Their property is huge and includes a large lake. It's in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but only a car's drive away from fresh supplies of wine and cheese.
The result? French heaven. We had a birthday lunch for Dad on Sunday with our French neighbours (and some English ones) in the sun in the back garden. When we got so hot we couldn't take it any more, we all headed to the lake to cool off (below). Except the French neighbours who went to milk their cows.
The next day they showed us how it was done. They've got 24 cows and, with the help of a machine that milks 8 of them at a time, they can get the whole job done in about half an hour. So we stood there and watched these cows' udders in absolute fascination, asking about the Common Agricultural Policy in pidgin French and trying not to breathe through our noses. It was brilliant fun in a totally weird way.
[Left: me and my stepmum in her & Dad's field. Yes, they live in a Constable painting]
We also did all the stuff we usually do at Dad's - ate large amounts of gorgeous food, sunbathed, and did karaoke. And I got to ride my Dad's tractor (below)! I could have stayed there forever.
But instead I allowed myself to be herded back to 'London' Stansted by Ryanair (whoever thinks East Anglia is anywhere near London needs a serious geography lesson). And yesterday I sampled the delights of Redhill (pronounced 'Red-eww' by the hoodie-wearing locals) with my friend Ele who I hadn't seen in ages. We had a great time scouring the charity shops, although we managed to resist the lure of Argos and Primark (I can only handle so much pink velour and 9-carat gold earrings).
[L-R: Nick, Ele and Stu at E&S's house in Redhill. I spent many happy evenings there when I was studying "meeja" at the local college]
I recently read a book called 'Crap Towns', listing the 100 worst towns in England. Redhill wasn't in there, which surprised me. But we did manage to walk through there without being bumped into, mugged or verbally abused, which makes it the Emerald City in comparison with a lot of English towns. Like Basingstoke, which you really shouldn't visit without an emergency supply of Prozac.
It's funny - a lot of Canadians think England is a mixture of Pride and Prejudice, Notting Hill and Austin Powers-style 1960s London. They think it's beautiful and charming and the quality of life is incredible. They get such a shock when I tell them our apartment in Ladbroke Grove cost $700,000 and still had human crap in the stairwell. If Hugh Grant ran a failing travel bookshop in real life, that's where he'd be living, not some quaint little houselet in Portobello Road.
Well, anyway. For now England is great - I can whizz around, see all my friends, eat too much food, hardly sleep, and generally have the time of my life. And then I get to go back to Canada. What more could I ask?
But for now England is great. I don't mean the country itself - I arrived to find that 1,000 of its commuters had been locked in overheated trains for most of the previous evening - but my friends and family. At some hideously early hour on Sunday I flew to see my Dad in France. It was a complete surprise for him and he spent the rest of my visit there in shock, but we still had a great time.[Right: Ten minutes before I took this photo, Dad thought I was in Canada. Hence the look on his face]
My Dad and stepmum run a B & B (check it out: http://www.dufreche.com/), as well as a vineyard and small menagerie (they've got dogs, cats, horses, chickens, and they're thinking of getting geese and ducks). Their property is huge and includes a large lake. It's in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but only a car's drive away from fresh supplies of wine and cheese.
The result? French heaven. We had a birthday lunch for Dad on Sunday with our French neighbours (and some English ones) in the sun in the back garden. When we got so hot we couldn't take it any more, we all headed to the lake to cool off (below). Except the French neighbours who went to milk their cows.
The next day they showed us how it was done. They've got 24 cows and, with the help of a machine that milks 8 of them at a time, they can get the whole job done in about half an hour. So we stood there and watched these cows' udders in absolute fascination, asking about the Common Agricultural Policy in pidgin French and trying not to breathe through our noses. It was brilliant fun in a totally weird way.
[Left: me and my stepmum in her & Dad's field. Yes, they live in a Constable painting]We also did all the stuff we usually do at Dad's - ate large amounts of gorgeous food, sunbathed, and did karaoke. And I got to ride my Dad's tractor (below)! I could have stayed there forever.
But instead I allowed myself to be herded back to 'London' Stansted by Ryanair (whoever thinks East Anglia is anywhere near London needs a serious geography lesson). And yesterday I sampled the delights of Redhill (pronounced 'Red-eww' by the hoodie-wearing locals) with my friend Ele who I hadn't seen in ages. We had a great time scouring the charity shops, although we managed to resist the lure of Argos and Primark (I can only handle so much pink velour and 9-carat gold earrings).
[L-R: Nick, Ele and Stu at E&S's house in Redhill. I spent many happy evenings there when I was studying "meeja" at the local college]I recently read a book called 'Crap Towns', listing the 100 worst towns in England. Redhill wasn't in there, which surprised me. But we did manage to walk through there without being bumped into, mugged or verbally abused, which makes it the Emerald City in comparison with a lot of English towns. Like Basingstoke, which you really shouldn't visit without an emergency supply of Prozac.
It's funny - a lot of Canadians think England is a mixture of Pride and Prejudice, Notting Hill and Austin Powers-style 1960s London. They think it's beautiful and charming and the quality of life is incredible. They get such a shock when I tell them our apartment in Ladbroke Grove cost $700,000 and still had human crap in the stairwell. If Hugh Grant ran a failing travel bookshop in real life, that's where he'd be living, not some quaint little houselet in Portobello Road.
Well, anyway. For now England is great - I can whizz around, see all my friends, eat too much food, hardly sleep, and generally have the time of my life. And then I get to go back to Canada. What more could I ask?
