Tag Archives: travel

Dedham and Flatford (Luke)

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Since we were in the area after having spent Sunday afternoon with Andrew’s parents, I called in at my uncle and aunt’s place, who live in Dedham with their two girls. I must say, it is an absolutely beautiful part of the country and a great place to raise a family. I stayed with them for a couple of days while everybody else headed back to Cambridge.

The evening I arrived we had a BBQ dinner (though I couldn’t eat very much after the amazing lunch we had been served at Andrew’s parents place), toasted marshmallows on the remains of the coals, then Mark and I headed down to the local pub for a pint and a catch up. We walked back to his house via the Essex Way, which is a public footpath / trail through both public and private property. One minute you’ll be walking through a farming area, the next around the side of a privately owned home. Although chilly walking through the fields, it was really lovely, and I must have seen a hundred rabbits bounding around. It was at this point I knew I had to bring Amanda back here so we could do this walk, but even better was still to come the next day.

Flatford Field

View from Flatford looking back towards Dedham. You can see Dedham church in the distance.

There are several famous paintings by John Constable which are of the Dedham and Flatford area. My grandmother owns a print of one of these called The Haywain, and when I learned that Mark now lives in the area where it was painted, I decided I’d like to go and see the spot which inspired the art – to walk around in a painting, basically.

The Haywain

Around to the left is where Constable would have stood to paint The Haywain.

The area in which Constable painted, called the Dedham Vale, is now officially recognised as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and as such is protected from ‘unsympathetic development’ to preserve the natural landscape.

River Stour looking towards Dedham

Looking back towards Dedham over the River Stour.

We were fortunate enough to have brilliant weather – the best I’ve experienced in England so far. We walked through wide green fields along the River Stour, trying not to scare the cows while we watched people navigating their hired boats down the river. We crossed the river and headed for Flatford, but not before stopping for a quick game of Pooh Sticks (came in second-last). Being as it was a bank holiday and fantastic weather, the area was full of families and couples out enjoying the sunshine and scenery.

Flatford Mill

The bridge to Flatford Mill, behind which lies the Haywain.

After visiting Flatford Mill, the area where Constable painted several of his most famous works, we walked back along the Suffolk side of the river. This path led past some very fluffy sheep and up on to a hill overlooking the valley. The hill was full of yellow flowers and dandelions. I’ve got some nice footage of the day which I will put up eventually.

Dandelions

Exceedingly green fields full of flowers and dandelions – one of England’s best features!

I just hope when we go back to do some more walks we get the same weather! 🙂

Friends and Food at the Cambridge Beer Festival

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This past week has all been leading up to the big weekend of the CBF and Leigh and Nikki visiting from Edinburgh. I managed to rope Jen in at the last moment and Matt made it down too, so add to that two days of blazing sunshine we ended up having an absolutely brilliant weekend.

Nikki and Leigh arrived first. Luke and I picked them up from Stansted on Friday and took them back to Bar Hill briefly before catching a taxi into town to maximise our festival attendance. The festival was absolutely rammed with people and everyone was indoors due to the evening being freezing and wet. We ate, talked and jostled for space until it was 10:30 and we were all kicked out. We repaired back to Andrew’s for much drinking and talking.

The most difficult way to drink.

There’s something very cathartic about talking to people (and I’ll be honest, a girl) from home. Nikki and I drifted off to the kitchen, then the bedroom, then back to the loungeroom in a night of epic conversations and catching up. A lot of drinking took place too, which meant a rather slow start the next morning.

I ended up asking Jen to catch a taxi from the station while I dealt with my headache (and felt monumentally guilty) then, mostly recovered, we all headed into town to make the most of the afternoon in the best way possible.

Punting on the Cam – a classic Cambridge experience. Normally I think photos make events look more pleasant than they often are. This afternoon was not one of those times.

It was gorgeous, just as pretty as I remembered, though it was a shame we missed out on hiring a punt and doing it ourselves. We had a good laugh at some guys who’d punted themselves into a willow tree and couldn’t get out but were shouting out to everyone going past that it was completely intentional.

Next was the final day of the festival. The ground had dried out enough to sit on and then eventually we got a table and drank and chatted until the sun went down and the cold started to seep in.

Back at Andrew’s Matt had just arrived and we stayed up for a while eating pizza and sharing youtube clips but we were all rather tired and couldn’t manage another huge night.

Pancakes for breakfast the next morning before waving off Matt, Leigh and Nikki. Jen joined Andrew, Mum, Luke and I in a trip to Colchester to have an enormous and delicious roast lunch at Andrew’s parents’ place. It certainly brought back memories – I used to go back every Sunday with Andrew when I lived there and we’d gorge ourselves on the amazing food then lie on the couches all afternoon.

Three Yorkshire puddings each!

We sat in the sun after lunch and played with Ferris, the family dog. It was just so nice. If I could be guaranteed weather, food and (most of all) company this good every weekend I’d leave Australia in a second. I love a warm day and a cold night. It’s just a shame there’s so few of them here.

We left Luke at his uncle Mark’s place – coincidentally Mark lives about 5 minutes away from Andrew’s parents – and drove back to Cambridge. A quiet evening watching ‘Bridesmaids’ with Jen and Andrew before a relatively early night in preparation for the big drive the next day.

Cambridge Beer Festival.. this time with pictures!

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After 2 days of loitering around and getting in for free, yesterday Luke and I finally got some work at the beer festival – and work we did. We started at about 2pm and worked through til nearly 10pm. We started off on the mead and wine counter, then did some glass washing, then when the festival reopened at 5 we were back to the mead counter but then Luke was taken away to serve beer after a bit.

The indoor area before opening. Over 200 ales on tap.

I had a great time with my lovely manager (actually the deputy but the real manager never showed up while I was there) Jo who was really friendly and thoughtful and organised. At the end of the night I told her what a great manager she’d been and she looked shocked ‘Really? What did I do?’ but it’s hard to put into words just how good it is working for someone who isn’t a raging ego maniac, a control-freak micro-manager or useless hippy – like half the people I’ve worked for at Rainbow (an Australian festival).

Working on the mead counter was very enjoyable. My knowledge of mead has gone from zero to better-than-most in one day. I tried nearly all the meads we sold. They ranged from very light to dark and there was a Christmas mead, which tasted exactly like Christmas, if Christmas was made of honey. There was also a blackcurrant mead, which wasn’t bad. We also sold perhaps 10 wines, all made in the UK. I didn’t even know wines could be made in this sort of climate.

The mead selection with the tiny wine (all English) fridges below. Uncorking wine was my least favourite job.

I think our stall was different to most, in that nearly everyone who came up hadn’t tried mead before and wanted advice. This was a bit daunting as I didn’t know anything, but all people really want is to try a couple and decide for themselves. Quite a lot of people were shocked or disgusted by how sweet it is and made funny faces, particularly a group of Japanese people.

A pork pie and a cheese plate. There was a terrific selection of cheeses – sadly not all were put out simultaneously. I’m still waiting to try a scotch egg. Toni – tried a Wensleydale with cranberries. Delicious!

I’ve saved up my tokens that we get for working and bought a few more in order to acquire a couple of bottles of mead for myself. I think there’ll be one to send home (at least!) and one to have here when a bunch of us get together in Edinburgh in July.

London

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I have so much to write about that I barely know where to start.

So many pretty flowers in London.

First of all, turns out my laptop is completely dead. I am quite sad about this, and as I remember things that are on it that are important I will no doubt become more sad. Photos aren’t too much of an issue because most of the photos I’ve taken are either on my camera, Luke’s computer (which I’m currently using) or a memory stick that I transferred a bunch of albums to a few weeks ago. Not everything will be there but the very best are on flickr too so hopefully not too much is lost. When I think that I have less than 10 photos remaining from my whole previous two year trip to the UK I have to admit that really things aren’t that bad.

Andrew has very kindly ordered me a new hard drive and he and Luke will install it when it arrives tomorrow and I swear I will be more diligent in backing everything up. For at least a month or two.

So, to catch up on the things I’ve missed recording so far.

London!

About a week and a half ago on a Friday Luke and I drove to London to meet up with Rowan and Kerry, friends from Melbourne. We had our first decent drive in Van Falen and it went pretty smoothly. As we’d be picking up Mum from Heathrow on the Monday morning and parking in London is crazy, we left the van at the airport and then caught the train into the city. We met up with Rowan and Kerry without incident and our first stop was Camden Markets.

Camden High Street.

If you’ve never been to Camden and you like alternative clothes, art and counter-culture then definitely go. The shops sell everything, from cheap t-shirts to vintage dresses (I bought a dress that looked like it would belong in an Austin Powers movie), there’s hippy clothes, both classic and classy, amazing leather bags, goth and lolita, moroccan glassware, nepalese furnishings and my old favourite, cyber-rave wear.

And the mecca of cyber clothing is Cyber Dog.

When I’d been there 10 years ago it was a big store with a dj and dancefloor in the foyer. These days it’s even bigger. The shop assistants still dress like Bladerunner extras and there’s dancers on podiums in the foyer too. There’s also a queue to get in. It was kinda nuts but fun to check out. Lots of uv stuff and novelty items. I’m not sure who’s wearing all this gear these days but there’s lots of people looking at it in the store. We weren’t supposed to take photos but I got some sneaky footage which will eventually make it into a video.

We wandered around some more shops then headed to the British National Gallery because Kerry was keen to show Rowan and I was happy to go. The BNG is one of my favourite galleries ever. Brilliant collection, gorgeous building, free… what’s not to like? We walked around fairly quickly, stopping at favourites, then met Matt outside.

Matt had come down from Nottingham to meet us and we’d planned to have a night out partying. I suppose the lesson we learned was that, if you’re planning a night out in a city and none of you actually lives there, a bit of planning is in order. None of us had really checked out what was going on and so we had dinner, dropped stuff off to the hotel room and then headed out into Soho. By the time we got out the pubs were closed and the clubs were full. Despite this just walking around was fun and it was great to catch up. The hotel room was big enough for us all to sit comfortably so we ended up having a bit of a party there.

Rowan and Kerry caught a night bus back to her parents’ and Luke, Matt and I got a decent amount of sleep.

The next morning we walked back over to Leicester Square. Matt knew a great Malaysian restaurant, nothing fancy but great food. I wished we’d gone there the previous night instead of opting for mediocre Italian. Then it was M&M’s World, which is just around the corner.

We hadn’t really planned to go but it was right there. Plus I like chocolate a little bit. The staff at M&M’s World were super-dooper-almost-frighteningly friendly. I took lots of photos and, miraculously, didn’t buy myself any chocolate. I did buy some for other people though. Which I haven’t sent yet. So it might be for me.

As a reward for not buying any chocolate I bought myself several Fry’s Chocolate Orange Bars in a newsagent straight after. These are the best chocolate bars in the world and, while you can get them in Australia they are never perfect – always broken and sticky or with that white fat bloom on them that you get when chocolate heats then cools. I got to eat these ones sitting in the sun by the Thames surrounded by tulips. Probably the best place ever.

After that we walked along the Thames and checked out what was going on, which was quite a bit because it was the weekend. Lots of buskers and people being statues (god knows why anyone would do this out of choice), pretty carnival rides and interesting things to look at.

London merry-go-round.

Matt and Luke take a break.

Soon enough it was time to say goodbye to Matt and then head back to the Heathrow Hilton where, instead of having an early night in preparation for meeting my mum at 5:30am the next morning, we stayed up til late watching a terrible movie on the tv. It had Vince Vaughn and Jason Bateman in it and it was about 3 couples who go to an island to repair their marriages. When I read that sentence back I’m not sure why we watched any of it, let alone the whole thing til the end. I can only claim, in my defence, that after 15 years of not owning a television I find them hypnotic. Trust me, it’s a thing.

The next morning, since Mum’s flight got in at 5:30 we thought we’d get to their airport at 6 since customs takes a while and baggage takes a while. Well, turns out they don’t take a while. Waiting for someone who has already gone through takes ages, however. Eventually we worked out that she was already back at the hotel and met up, me feeling quite flustered that I’d messed up the first hour of Mum’s trip. Mum didn’t mind at all – she’s pretty much unflappable – and then we hit the road and headed for Wales. The rest of the journey is recorded in a previous post. Suffice to say, we saw lots of amazing countryside and made it to Ireland largely without incident. Unless you count a flat battery as an incident. Which I do.

Windy days and long hair do not for good photography make.