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millionreasons) wrote2021-07-24 09:42 pm
millionreasons) wrote2021-07-24 09:42 pm
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What I did on my holidays
Thought I would write about recent trips so that when I look back at the year in December I'll be able to see that I did do things in this, the year Covid II.
When restrictions were lifted, we went to see both sets of parents, whom we'd not seen for almost eighteen months. My parents have been in the same village for almost 50 years, whereas Dave's parents have lived in 8 houses since I've known him. After having lived in Sutton on Sea, southern Spain, Mablethorpe and Grimsby, thy've finally moved back to the Nottingham suburbs - where they were when I first started going out with D. It's near a nature reserve (an ex-gravel pit) and used to be a village, although there's no village centre there now, just an out of town shopping centre.. There is a really lovely pub called the Victoria Hotel about 5 miles away; we didn't go there, but instead visited the one at the end of the road, which had two bitters (one of them off) and three veggie options (2 not available). It made Wetherspoons look good.
Then we did a series of one days - to Broxbourne (messing about on the river), St Albans (walking around Verulamium in the rain), Reading (a hot day along the canal) and Southend (also hot and full of people from Barking). I really enjoyed walking along the pier, the longest in Britain (only a mile and a bit in actuality). We got the little train back to the prom, because I like little trains, but I preferred the walk - fewer people. We also had a very nice lunch in a quite adventurous veggie cafe where, after every menu choice by a customer, the millennial waitress said: "I support that".
Last weekend we went to Sussex. Originally, Dave and I were going wine tasting (at Hidden Springs vineyard) and then we invited our pals Jeremy and Viv along as well and it became a weekend, complete with 9 mile ride in the hot hot heat up the cuckoo trail (ex-railway cycle track) and a stay in a little flint cottage in Pevensey. Pevensey is a tiny village but in 3 parts: Westham, where we stayed, Pevensey itself - which we accessed by walking through the grounds of Pevensey castle with its Roman walls and Norman keep - where there was a nice pub and even nicer tea rooms. In the latter, we had scones for breakfast because there were no shops in the village, not even a Spar (later we found that that there was a big Asda 2 miles away where presumably everyone buys their groceries), and also Pevensey Bay, about a mile away which is a proper old school seaside place with a chippie, a cafe selling steak and kidney pudding (etc) and a pebbled beach where I paddled and Dave swam (and who was then the gentleman?)
We also visited Cambridge last week. I've been there before but once to go to a pick your own strawberry place outside of the city centre and another time to walk down the river to Grantchester (to have honey for tea), but had never gone the city centre before. We booked to go to Kettle's Yard, which is four workers' cottages knocked into one and decorated in the 1950s by an ex-Tate curator with sculptures, paintings and some found art. It was very peaceful and cool (air conditioning for the objets rather than for the visitors) apart from the guide taking us 'round, who wouldn't let us look at things without telling us all about them, rather than letting you make up your own mind. We also went around Kings College, or rather the chapel (where the choirboys bring in Christmas) and the grounds, which were beautiful in that English pastoral kind of way: lawns and meadows and the gently burbling river. Instead of delighting in England, this England, I'm afraid that my inner revolutionary communist came out and I ranted about how you could only get to this part of the river if you pay the entrance to the college. Even though the whole day was terribly hot, compounded by Greater Anglia trains running ancien rolling stock with no air con, it seemed like a good time to visit: after the students had left but there were very few American/Japanese/French tourists ruining the place.
When restrictions were lifted, we went to see both sets of parents, whom we'd not seen for almost eighteen months. My parents have been in the same village for almost 50 years, whereas Dave's parents have lived in 8 houses since I've known him. After having lived in Sutton on Sea, southern Spain, Mablethorpe and Grimsby, thy've finally moved back to the Nottingham suburbs - where they were when I first started going out with D. It's near a nature reserve (an ex-gravel pit) and used to be a village, although there's no village centre there now, just an out of town shopping centre.. There is a really lovely pub called the Victoria Hotel about 5 miles away; we didn't go there, but instead visited the one at the end of the road, which had two bitters (one of them off) and three veggie options (2 not available). It made Wetherspoons look good.
Then we did a series of one days - to Broxbourne (messing about on the river), St Albans (walking around Verulamium in the rain), Reading (a hot day along the canal) and Southend (also hot and full of people from Barking). I really enjoyed walking along the pier, the longest in Britain (only a mile and a bit in actuality). We got the little train back to the prom, because I like little trains, but I preferred the walk - fewer people. We also had a very nice lunch in a quite adventurous veggie cafe where, after every menu choice by a customer, the millennial waitress said: "I support that".
Last weekend we went to Sussex. Originally, Dave and I were going wine tasting (at Hidden Springs vineyard) and then we invited our pals Jeremy and Viv along as well and it became a weekend, complete with 9 mile ride in the hot hot heat up the cuckoo trail (ex-railway cycle track) and a stay in a little flint cottage in Pevensey. Pevensey is a tiny village but in 3 parts: Westham, where we stayed, Pevensey itself - which we accessed by walking through the grounds of Pevensey castle with its Roman walls and Norman keep - where there was a nice pub and even nicer tea rooms. In the latter, we had scones for breakfast because there were no shops in the village, not even a Spar (later we found that that there was a big Asda 2 miles away where presumably everyone buys their groceries), and also Pevensey Bay, about a mile away which is a proper old school seaside place with a chippie, a cafe selling steak and kidney pudding (etc) and a pebbled beach where I paddled and Dave swam (and who was then the gentleman?)
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We also visited Cambridge last week. I've been there before but once to go to a pick your own strawberry place outside of the city centre and another time to walk down the river to Grantchester (to have honey for tea), but had never gone the city centre before. We booked to go to Kettle's Yard, which is four workers' cottages knocked into one and decorated in the 1950s by an ex-Tate curator with sculptures, paintings and some found art. It was very peaceful and cool (air conditioning for the objets rather than for the visitors) apart from the guide taking us 'round, who wouldn't let us look at things without telling us all about them, rather than letting you make up your own mind. We also went around Kings College, or rather the chapel (where the choirboys bring in Christmas) and the grounds, which were beautiful in that English pastoral kind of way: lawns and meadows and the gently burbling river. Instead of delighting in England, this England, I'm afraid that my inner revolutionary communist came out and I ranted about how you could only get to this part of the river if you pay the entrance to the college. Even though the whole day was terribly hot, compounded by Greater Anglia trains running ancien rolling stock with no air con, it seemed like a good time to visit: after the students had left but there were very few American/Japanese/French tourists ruining the place.