Out of the city and into the Wiltshire
Jul. 18th, 2010 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsInto the countryside via the horror of Swindon. Matt is worried about getting on a bus outside of London - "How is it done?" John suggests bartering and that we should get some eggs for this purpose. We almost jump the queue because we've forgotten what things are like outside the M25. Indeed, when the bus breaks down outside the hospital, the passengers smile and share a joke and a fag. If it were the 253, people would have smashed the windows, pushed the bus over and set fire to it by now. Eventually, we get off at Ashbury and walk onto the Ridgeway through windswept corn, barley, wheat fields. Jeff walks along the 'alternative' public footpath which just goes the same way as the normal footpath - alternative but not really. The the Libertines footpath. We head to Waylon Smithers Wayland Smithy, the Celtic version of Highgate cemetery.
The land is full of legend. Nearby is where George slayed the dragon that made him famous (he complained about it after - "I freed the serfs, ensured princesses had the same right to rule as princes and brought in anti-feudal legislation, but all they remember me for is the sodding dragon") and nothing will grow in the place where the dragonny blood flowed. There's also Snivelling Hill where Flibbertigibett searched for birds' eggs, forgetting to buy some nails for old Wayland who rather meanly threw a large stone at his apprentice which pinned him down. Unable to move, he sat crying on the stone, the big baby.
Walk onto White Horse hill where we never really get a good view of the horse (or is it a dragon) and then down the hill which I walk at a pace five times slower than the others due to slopephobia, past some curious cows and onto, finally, the pub and then back to Ashbury where we arrive at the bus stop with 7 minutes to spare for the once-every-two-hours bus.
Drive through 6 miles of lovely rurality and then it's back into Swindon, the place where town planners go to die. It's a boring cliche for a North London lass to rag on Swindon but really....really! At least Slough has a stuffed dog in a glass case in the train station. Swindon has a train station and a shopping centre and that's it. Even Doncaster has a Georgian bit, a road of restaurants and niteclubs and the bit behind the market where the 'alternative' shops are. Swindon has a famous roundabout and ringroads. There's no church, no war memorial, no pubs, no theatre, no art centre, no library, not even a Wetherspoons and Wagmamas. Maybe the town centre is out of town. "There's not enough compulsory purchase orders in the world to sort out Swindon" quoth Sarga. Girls in neon and last year's hair-styles hang around, eyeing boys in plaid shirts and big white trainers (the grunge-casual look).
Via Allan we find a nice-ish pub and via Google we find a suitable Indian and then it's all over between us and Swindon. Except it's not because just outside Didcot, the train decides to have a nice rest and sit there for 40 minutes before returning to Swindon. I have a horrible feeling we're never going to be able to leave and we'll be stuck in shopping precinct 'n' 70s office block hell forever. The situation is exacerbated by a not-so-small child screaming (and I mean SCREAMING) for the duration of the delay because his mother won't let him run up and down the train (Oh please let him run up and down the train, I pray. Let him find an open door and fall out).
Eventually, we get to London where the tube train we get on decides to cease moving at Kings Cross. With all the public transport woes today, I'm expecting my thoughts about the 253 to come true, but good old Arriva buses get us home.
Realise that when I leave London I return injured; my feet are torn to pus and shreds, I've got insect bites and thistle scratches on my leg, cuts on my hand, a bump on my head from a branch and my shorts are covered in varnish from trying to go over a fence rather than the gate. Like a bad day on Oxford Street.
The land is full of legend. Nearby is where George slayed the dragon that made him famous (he complained about it after - "I freed the serfs, ensured princesses had the same right to rule as princes and brought in anti-feudal legislation, but all they remember me for is the sodding dragon") and nothing will grow in the place where the dragonny blood flowed. There's also Snivelling Hill where Flibbertigibett searched for birds' eggs, forgetting to buy some nails for old Wayland who rather meanly threw a large stone at his apprentice which pinned him down. Unable to move, he sat crying on the stone, the big baby.
Walk onto White Horse hill where we never really get a good view of the horse (or is it a dragon) and then down the hill which I walk at a pace five times slower than the others due to slopephobia, past some curious cows and onto, finally, the pub and then back to Ashbury where we arrive at the bus stop with 7 minutes to spare for the once-every-two-hours bus.
Drive through 6 miles of lovely rurality and then it's back into Swindon, the place where town planners go to die. It's a boring cliche for a North London lass to rag on Swindon but really....really! At least Slough has a stuffed dog in a glass case in the train station. Swindon has a train station and a shopping centre and that's it. Even Doncaster has a Georgian bit, a road of restaurants and niteclubs and the bit behind the market where the 'alternative' shops are. Swindon has a famous roundabout and ringroads. There's no church, no war memorial, no pubs, no theatre, no art centre, no library, not even a Wetherspoons and Wagmamas. Maybe the town centre is out of town. "There's not enough compulsory purchase orders in the world to sort out Swindon" quoth Sarga. Girls in neon and last year's hair-styles hang around, eyeing boys in plaid shirts and big white trainers (the grunge-casual look).
Via Allan we find a nice-ish pub and via Google we find a suitable Indian and then it's all over between us and Swindon. Except it's not because just outside Didcot, the train decides to have a nice rest and sit there for 40 minutes before returning to Swindon. I have a horrible feeling we're never going to be able to leave and we'll be stuck in shopping precinct 'n' 70s office block hell forever. The situation is exacerbated by a not-so-small child screaming (and I mean SCREAMING) for the duration of the delay because his mother won't let him run up and down the train (Oh please let him run up and down the train, I pray. Let him find an open door and fall out).
Eventually, we get to London where the tube train we get on decides to cease moving at Kings Cross. With all the public transport woes today, I'm expecting my thoughts about the 253 to come true, but good old Arriva buses get us home.
Realise that when I leave London I return injured; my feet are torn to pus and shreds, I've got insect bites and thistle scratches on my leg, cuts on my hand, a bump on my head from a branch and my shorts are covered in varnish from trying to go over a fence rather than the gate. Like a bad day on Oxford Street.
