Hollybank Woods

After yesterday's big adventure on Purbeck Isle and the Jurassic Coast and a late return last night, today was a no driving day. This morning we lounged about, Pam researching various nearby options while I wrote in my journal. It was late when we finally got going, so everyone was good with walking out of here into the Hollybank Woods and heading towards Rowland's Castle.

This was a long walk to a small town where, by the way, there is no actual castle. We sat in the grass together and ate the lunch we'd carried there. All in all the walk was lovely - great to be in the woods, and I'd say it was about 75 to 80 percent non-squabbling (But when we do squabble, we really squabble. We squabble like British royalty. No quarter.).

On the walk back we saw an English deer, which are slighter in stature and of a lighter hue than their American counterparts, and we happened upon a cherry tree which, while delicious, was too tall for us to decimate its fruit in the manner we would have liked.

Thought I had escaped driving entirely when Pam coerced me, over a delicious tortellini dinner, to chauffeur her down the road to Westbourne to get milk for tomorrow's coffee. She doesn't drive in England. Mostly she rides shotgun, screaming when I come to close to the curbs and yelling "thatched roof!" when we pass one of those.

Tomorrow, Brighton Beach.

Corfe Castle sandwiched between two beaches.

A two hour journey West along the coast yesterday yielded a castle sandwiched by a couple of incredible beaches. Yes, I said castle sandwich.

Lulworth Cove is a gorgeous beach destination on Britain's Jurassic Coast with something like 200 million years of geological history embedded in the limestone and chalk of which the whole region is composed. From Lulworth, we hiked up and over the steep chalk mountain to Durdle Door, undoubtedly one of the most amazingly beautiful places I've ever been.  It's a pebble beach with a spectacular limestone arch that's been carved/drilled out by the sea. In fact, according to Jeff, a teacher from nearby Bournemouth we met on the cliffside down to the beach, "durdle" comes from the Saxon word for "drill" or "bore."

The water was the clearest I've seen, like a glass of drinking water. Or more accurately, like a glass in which ice cubes have been melted, because it was that cold. Despite this, Rowan was determined to swim the 75 yards or so out to the arch from our spot on the beach. I was unwilling at first, but she convinced me by showing me that if I just kept my head and face out of the water, the cold was perfectly bearable (refreshing!). She also convinced me just by heading out on her own; parental instincts took over from there. Griffin couldn't be stopped either, so I was fully committed.

Pam and I hiked back over Chalk Mountain to the car park at Lulworth Cove and then met the kids, who left the beach 15 minutes later, at the Durdle Door parking, and we headed for nearby Corfe Castle in Wareham. An amazing ruin of a castle built by William the Conqueror. We got there with something like 45 minutes to spare, and the five of us ran around snapping photos of the crumbling castle walls and of each other standing among its doorways, windows, arrow slits and murder holes.

Five miles away, we reached the seaside town of Swanage. With a picturesque blend of old and new buildings cascading down the hillside to the water, it's a pretty idyllic place. In fact, we've decided to move there as soon as I can worm my way into a full-time work-from-anywhere situation. 

We laid on the beach and swam in the evening light; Berit and Pam walked into the town to forage for food, and when they returned with a couple of small pizzas, we ate them in the grass above the beach road.

Humps for 300 yards.

No epic plans for the weekend since we knew that, what with this amazing weather (sunny with temperatures hovering around 80 degrees - the last time it was this warm in July was seven years ago), all of Britain would be out and about. On Saturday, we headed down to Chichester for a market that turned out to be not much more than a handful of stalls in a car park. That said, we did buy cherries and crepes, and we had a wonderful time walking the downtown area, a street mall with a jazz guitarist and an opera singer and a 500 year old cathedral.

Tea and sausage rolls for Griffin and I at the cafe and the girls had scones. Pam ordered an ice coffee, which turned out to be coffee with ice cream. The kids are all screaming for ice coffee now. 

We walked the Chichester Cathedral grounds inside and out, and the girls each lit a candle and said a prayer. Then we were off for West Wittering.

The empty beach we saw at 8:30 pm on the cold night of our arrival on Wednesday was now thronged with Brits basking in the sunshine and playing in the waves. Parking was eight pounds, and the guy must have laughed to himself when I asked if there was any parking left, as it turned out to be nothing more than a vast field packed full of cars. We found a good space right next to the entry over the dunes and hit the water.

It wasn't nearly as cold as the Solent had been in Southsea, and we swam around for a while before the girls flopped down on towels and Pam, Griffin and I took a walk down the beach; for Griffin the walk was more of a run and jump and swim. When he wasn't trying to catch fish in the water, he was sprinting from the sand onto the water in an attempt to emulate the "holy Jesus lizard."

Every day is a contest to see who can find the funniest sign. Berit took yesterday's prize:

Today we headed off for another walk. This time to Kingley Vale - a National Nature Reserve steeped in historic antiquity. A site where man has been living and dying since just after the last glaciers rolled through Britain, Kingley Vale boasts ancient barrows, burial mounds at the top of the walk where the remains of Bronze Age chieftains were interred. It's also the home of yew trees that are up to 2000 years old and some of the oldest living things in Europe.

After Kingley Vale, we rested in the cemetary of Saint Andrews, a church built in 1060, before heading off again into uncharted territory. Our finds included the Weald and Downland Open Air Museum, a very cool attraction to which we will return another day, and Petworth, a gorgeous ancient town defined largely by the wall surrounding the Petworth House Estate as well as by the tearoom that Berit said was "literally the cutest place she'd ever been." And finally, on our way back to Emsworth, a wrong turn at a roundabout landed us accidentally adjacent to the Cowdray Castle ruins which, despite Berit's initial protestations about making yet another stop, was, in fact, her high point of the day.

I'm Henry the Eighth, I am.

A bit of history today, as we headed out on a jaunt to nearby Portsmouth and her big British naval ships:

HMS Warrior:  The world's first ironclad ship and the fastest and most powerful as well when set sail (and steam) in 1860. Never saw battle, so this humongous four level behemoth with its three ton Canadian pine figurehead is as well preserved as an Irish corpse.

HMS Victory: Admiral Horatio Nelson's ship and the one he died on. I'll get this wrong, but I believe it was while battling the French at Trafalgar during the Napoleonic Wars. Nelson was shot when he was up high on something and there is a bronze plaque that marks the spot on the deck to which fell.

HMS Mary Rose:  Fascinating and brand new museum that houses the recovered remains of Henry VIII's battleship, the HMS Mary Rose, which lay for some four hundred years from its sinking in 1545 to when they recovered it from the sea floor between Portsmouth and The Isle of Wight in 1980-something. The museum houses all the recovered items from the ship and a number of cool interactive exhibits. All of this surrounds the large open area that contains the remains of the ship itself. This setup reminded me of the Mammoth Site in South Dakota, where they built a museum around an active archaeological dig of a large area containing the fossilised remains of untold numbers of mammoths.

Nothing better to wash down a few hours of British naval history than a couple of orders of fish and chips slathered in salt and vinegar. Mmm... And then I dropped Pam and Berit off on Albert Street to check out the shops, while Rowan, Griffin and I spent some quality time swimming in some of the coldest water I've ever placed my body into.

"You get used to it," Rowan tells me. Which is true. After your body numbs up a bit. Griffin bailed to the beach after a short time, and Rowan and I swim-raced to the getty. Small English children on the shore threw rocks at us while their mums sat idly by. I think they thought we were the French, attacking.

After the arrival of Pam and Berit to meet us, we moseyed over to King Henry VIII's castle fortress, right next door to where we were swimming. As we were walking in, a tall young man in a suit mumbled something to Berit and I that sounded to us like, "mnmmsnnsn champagne bar smsmnnsn nsns nnsns champagne bar mnnnm..."

We thanked him, laughing to ourselves and walked into the open courtyard where young English hipsters were enjoying alcoholic beverages against the backdrop of a DJ spinning records next to one of the interior castle walls, and it occurred to me how different my misspent youth might have been had I done my partying in the historic castles of British monarchs and also how, while studying these historic monarchs in school, I had no idea that British youths were at that very moment partying in the very castles of said monarchs.

Tea and scones and trains. Oh my.

Our first full day in England was rather unplanned. In the morning, we lounged about our house and drank tea before heading out on foot for a 45 minute walk on a wooded path to Stansted House, a classic British stately home. Once there, we joined throngs of classic British ladies in tea and scones at the tearoom before wandering around the impressive grounds of the place. At the farm market there, we met Fred who informed us of fresh fish delivery on Friday (sea bass, mackerel, and many others) and pizza on the weekend.

On the walk back, we made a stop to pet the horses at Holme Farm, and another stop when we saw a sign advertising a stop on the Chichester Art Walk. The sign proved to be out of date, but as a result we met Alison, a friendly and talented potter (great raku!) who not only had been to Boulder, but who knew someone that both Pam and I used to do pottery with at the fire station pottery lab by Chautauqua Park. Small world (though I wouldn't want to paint it)!

In the evening, we drove to the small Emsworth town center where Berit found the 3rd, 5th and 6th books of the Harry Potter series in a used book shop. Yes, we already have them. Now we're evidently getting all of the books in their British versions.

Landed in one piece. Actually, five pieces.

Berit:  Wouldn't it be cool if one of the actors from Harry Potter lives in the house next door to where we're staying?!

Griffin:  If I see Hagrid coming out to the mailbox, I'll be like "Watchoo doin' Hagrid!"

The flight to London is like a nine hour stay in a very small hotel room with your choice of movies on a four inch screen and bad miniature food. You sleep sitting up while the teenage girl acros the aisle casts a constant glow from her iPad onto your face.

Everybody's a little cranky after the plane ride and subsequent hours in the airport and then on the road South, but we get here and wrap up the night with a trip to the Tesco, a Walmart-esque grocery (promised to help Pam find the small store with green food tomorrow) for supplies and then to West Wittering Beach where we show up at 8:30 pm, just as they're closing the parking lot gate. The kids spend a few minutes crazy diving into the waves before it's time to freeze-walk back to the car.

I sleep the sleep of the dead. Dream I am living with Pete Townshend.

It starts with a yo yo.

It starts with a yo yo at the airport. Actually it starts well in advance of that. Days of preparation for a five-person journey for 3 weeks in England. As if that wasn't enough we've been preparing our house for the three English people - the retired couple and her sister - who will be staying in our house while we are staying in theirs on England's southern coast.

We've got an 8 hour plane ride in front of us. Departure at 8:45 p.m. Denver time; arrival at 12:35 p.m. tomorrow London time. After that will pick up our car and drive an hour or so south to our final destination.

With hot tea and speaking this into my phone I'm sitting in front of the jetway. I was going to say that nobody seems to mind, however I was just asked to move. The girls are making movies on their devices , and Pam went to get a nice coffee drink. Griffin is still practicing the yoyo; wish us luck. Better yet wish to the British luck.

Cat and Mouse

Moving in old iMac out of the loft gave rise to this picture . Subtitle: Bellatrix , the dark.

Assassin

Griffin is dying to play assassin.

He learned the game while staying over at his friend's house where they play it at dinner. Quite likely you know the game. A card is dealt to each person - in our family's case, five cards - and the person who gets the Ace of Spades is the assassin and must try to "kill" each of the other players by surreptitiously winking at each of them before he/she is found out. Players who are winked at will "die" without doing so immediately after be winked at, so as not to make it obvious who was looking at them at the time. 

So Griffin's been dying to play (I can't stop doing that).

The past couple of nights we managed to have four of us at the dinner table which, while fun, makes a pretty short game of assassin, because once player one accuses player 2 of being the assassin and is told they are wrong, then player 3 knows for sure that player 4 is the assassin. See what I mean? Trust me, you need more people.

So tonight when Griffin couldn't get Pam and I to drop our books and come out to the living room for a game of assassin, he got the girls to drop their iPods and come into the bedroom, where we sat on the bed with our best poker faces (some better than others - you'd know Berit was the assassin as soon as she got the card the way her face lit up) and stared at, winked at, and laughed with each other until Griffin finally got to be the assassin, killed everyone, and Pam picked her book back up putting an end to the bloodshed.

The Summer of Chess

The Summer of Chess has begun. Well, it began on Wednesday - game one. We missed game two yesterday, but Griffin and I played again this morning. In fact, before I even got out of bed at 6:35, Griffin was standing in front of me, a black pawn in one fist and white in the other, making me choose. So I dress and we slop down some cereal as I quickly school my boy in the Way of the Pawn before I have to slide off to "work," as they call it.

Last night, Berit and Rowan were going to go out at midnight to meet friends to play flashlight tag. Pam’s feeling was that this would completely alright due to the fact that Berit - who is 15 now - has been perfectly trustworthy in her behavior. I was on the fence as to whether I needed to take a more conservative stance, but as usual I was easily swayed. I don’t think they went out, but I have no idea as I was studying the inside of my eyelids at that time.

Yeah, I’m starting this blog up again. I want to continue. how could I not? My first post here was 10 years ago on March 9, 2003: "If Jesus drinks hot lava, he will die." - Rowan

You can’t make this stuff up.