travel

For anyone growing up when the Wind in the Willows was a book well read, will recall Toad and his ‘Poop, poop’ when causing carnage in his motor car; I thought of this when I saw the television report of the enormous motorcade carrying President Trump to his golf course in Turnberry. You can imagine being forced off the road by this petrol driven snake and sitting there making faint ‘poop poop’noises. All this was happening whilst I was meeting with three former colleagues for our annual get together. There is always a years worth of catching up to do, which makes for a fun evening in a pub with rooms followed by breakfast together the next morning.

In amongst all the stories and dits was my tale of woe with GWR, trains cancelled when we came to leave London after taking our daughter there to visit the V & A and the British Museum. Further frustration followed for Jun and I a week later with delayed trains on our trip to Manchester. The compensation you can claim helps, but it does not take a way the stress of watching your connection pull out of Reading as your GWR train arrives 40 minutes late. We all laughed about it and two friends remarked their trains are never late. They are model railway enthusiasts, it seems to be a regular past time for former naval officers, when I served in NATO I had a Dutch colleague whose layout filled a stable and ran to the National Railway Timetable; he even had a stationmaster’s suit. It wasn’t a hobby, it was a vocation.

I still have some of my trains from childhood in their boxes in the attic, but when I heard my colleagues estimates of their network insurance value – Choo, Choo.

Lavenders blue, dilly dilly, lEnglish nursery rhyme and it seems apt this week with the arrival of our daughter, Chenxi, from China for a fortnights holiday. She has been searching for things to see, we have done London, Oxford and Scotland on her previous visits so this time it became Kent and the home counties.

Her desire was to see a Lavender Farm at Hitchin, so after her arrival and a freshen up at the Heathrow hotel we set off on a dismal day for north London and the northern home counties, more a case of Lavenders grey if you can see it through the rain. Nevertheless nice staff and a pleasant lunch. Then the flog around the M25. We stopped at Darwin’s House at Downe, which was a great hit with Chenxi, she liked the house, but fell for the garden. An overnight at the Old Bakery, Tatsfield, which is just reopening after changing hands, so restaurant and bar not open until this weekend, but a comfortable night with a good breakfast.

A slight detour on the drive to the coast to see the Japanese Garden Centre at East Peckham, beautiful set up and the owner kindly gave me some of his time. This blog will follow the development of the Sino/Japanese section of our garden over the autumn.

Eastbourne, heavily Devonshire, with hotels name Chatsworh and Cavendish Place and Devonshire Road. The complete centre has been dug up to pedestrianise, it seemed a number of shops had closed, but there were some interesing eateries. We chose Gao, Vietnamese Restuarant, Emma was our hostess and was breaking in a new assistant (English) our patience whilst ordering was rewarded with excellent food.

After breakfast off to Seaford, another pleasant coastal resort, seemed rather full of Americans, maybe from Brighton? Chenxi’s other must was White Cliffs, this was achieved by letting her and Jun walk from the Eastern end of the promenade up to the start of the Seven Sisters. Again job done. Then a drive home on the awful A27, a roadworks littered M27 and of course the manic A303 on a Friday afternoon. Despite our supposedly well mannered country and people, it seems all bets are off on dual carriage ways and merge areas. Home safely for a well deserved gin and tonic, sadly not lavender infused.