Leaving the morning beach traffic of Sussex behind, crossing small rural towns and villages. Brunch in Winchester with John and Charlotte before walking up to King Arthur's round table, which led to jokes about this, the knights' dart board, and Monty Python ditties in my head.
Quiet days at the farm in Somerset, finding solace in reading on the bed beside the window, a cool breeze coming through the wooden frame. The window stays open at night, allowing in the calls of an owl nesting somewhere on the property.
The farm served as a base for exploration. Wales Cathedral is perhaps the best I've seen, due mainly to its geometry. The town gets bonus points for its olde sweet shop that feels more like a movie set, but is indeed patronized by lucky kids. A short detour over to Wookey Hole, mainly to get a photo of the sign.
Glastonbury deserves at least a night or two. Brighton's hipness has shifted with the times, where here it is still druids and star children both wizened and fresh. A feel like Sedona, to the Mission district vibe of her cousin to the south. The hippies are the majority here, the tourists the freaks. The two sides are more evenly balanced across the lawns of the ruined Abbey, but it is all spirit in the visitors at the Chalice Well, sitting eyes-closed in circles as the waters trickle into the garden and down the slope. The tourists return on the short hike up the Tor. The top is crowded, the summer afternoon hot. Far better to do this on a sunny day in winter, the farms stretching away under what would surely be crisp skies. We drive through this exact landscape as I look for a photo shot of a now distant Tor, passing very close to the site of the renowned eponymous music festival. I find out later that my stepdaughter went to school with the granddaughter of the festival founder.
Cheddar's two gorges, one walked in the early mist that eventualy burns off to reveal companions in sheep and cow. One of the dogs scares up a rabbit from its burrow nustled between limestone slabs. The larger gorge is deeper, more breathtaking. We wander the cheese and toffee shops, marvelling at the variety, a great deal of the wares going on to debit our luggage allowance on the flight home.
Bath now resonates as more than the hometown of a character in a Chaucer Tale. The Royal Crescent is familiar from TV and film, the Roman Baths familiar from history and previous travel. The town is small and charming and eminently walkable.
We break the journey again at the farm upon our return from Wales a week later. English evenings remind me of my youth in New Jersey, where the evenings hang on for hours. (Unlike Japan, where night falls like a curtain.) Pizza is browned in the brick oven, as the dogs and chickens hunt belong the table for crusts dropped by toddler Roscoe. Afterward, I sit outside on a bench, reading short stories by Ian Fleming until the living daylight fades away.
Multiple stops on the way back to Sussex. Castle Combe is almost a hole in the floor of rural England, a warren of church, modest estate, and corresponding simple cottages. Its quintessential English look seems more a film set, and it frequently is, most famously in Downton Abbey. I definitively figured out that we;d gotten it wrong, this staying in cities. Fine for a nightlife-seeking young man, but the quiet charm of the smaller villages has beckoned all throughout this roadtrip. Cities will be busy regardless, but these smaller spots empty out at night, and a pre-breakfast stroll guarantees empty photos.
Malmesbury Abbey is itself surrounded by an attractive little town, with a central Market Cross topped by a crown of arched stone. The "newer" 16th century church behind is grafted upon its ancestor that preceded it by eight hundred years . A lady minister walks briskly across the lawn, followed by a gaggle of kids, on the way to some summer hols activity. And the hilltop upon which this all stands offers terrific views over toward the Cotswalds.
Lacock too is a film set in its look, a charming series of narrow lanes running in right angles to one another. The pub is perfect, the abbey perfect, the houses perfect. But all is ruined by cars parked all along the latter, around which large crowds of tourists weave. Albeit incredibly picturesque, I give up on photography almost immediately, due to the visual clutter and overcrowding. A victim of its own success as a filming location for Harry Potter, the town seems to doing everything wrong, but for making tourists park just outside town. The parallels with Kyoto in its unthoughtful approach to tourism are too many to mention.
A return to Avebury, specifically Windmill Hill, which I'd missed on my last visit here in 2016. I shorten the hiking time by parking semi-illegally at a nearby Goat Farm (where Lai Yong opts to stay, for tea, cheese, and conversation), then power march up the hill, which is a very gentle incline, paralleling a fence and row of trees. Goats approach me as I pass, expecting a treat. The Hill itself has a few small raised circles, tombs of one of the oldest of the many Neolithic Avebury cultures that once lived and died here. I sit awhile atop the most central tomb, listening to the quiet, and the wind. I attempt to meditate, but the mind is too busy with thoughts of moving along. Driving back through the town proper, I wish we were staying the night here, as we'd stayed last time in nearby Marlborough, and today's weather is far better. I envy the people I see walking the stone circle, or merely sitting around town.
Our slow pace means we still face a close to three hour drive home, much of it after dark. We decide to take lodging in an old manor house, beside which has been built a small spa resort. On approach up the long meandering driveway we follow a fast moving Tesla, whose driver complains later to the front desk that none of the hotel's four charging stations are free. As he roars off again in a huff, I think that this is perhaps the most post-modern thing I've ever seen. The spa hotel is busy for a weekday, due mainly to a wedding being held in the old thatch farmhouse on the grounds. Luckily the noise of the reception that follows stays in the newer wing, and all is quiet in our 16th century digs. Before setting off in the morning, we read awhile in the conservatory, soaking up the peace. This would unfortunately wear off all to soon amongst beach traffic once we got to the coast, due mainly to clogged roundabouts. Some creative but frenetic navigation got us around most blockages, but that day too, grew long...
On the turntable: The Scorpions, "Comeblack"
