The Country Side

Spring has flushed the country with verdant lush foliage choking the Bridle Paths & Walkways with all manner of vines & flowers including prolific stinging nettle. If ever there was a hindrance to straying from the formed ways, this is it. Thankfully the Nettle is the garden variety we get and not that dangerous NZ native nettle often encountered in the bush. Still it is a painful  deterrent to wandering from the way in my stubbies.

The many shades of green 

Views from Old Winchester Hill

Old Winchester Hill Walk Way

The country side is gentle and probably the easiest way to describe it is "tamed", with gentle hills, pockets of bush and small farmlets dotting the landscape. It is hard to imagine any attempt to get away  from it all, in this area.


The Ways are contained by the hedge rows and line all roads, ways, lanes, and paths. About the only places were it doesn't block access and the view, are from the main highways.

Strolling through the woods

You often do sneak views of the country side but at large you are hemmed in. There are very few places to pull off the road and look, let alone park and get out.(I am told this is also to discourage any attempt by "travellers" to stop and stay put in their caravans as does happen ) The roads are almost ditch like and you are unable to get out, up and over. We've all seen the lanes in English Scenes but the actuality of it is somewhat more hindrance than quaint, and if you want to meander these ways woe betide you when the following Stirling Moss types sit on your ass pushing to get past and you have no opportunity to pull over. The lanes do indeed wander through the hedgerows and then emerge into little farm yards or right through a tiny settlement of several buildings. These are largely not used as farm houses and simply rented to the burgeoning throngs escaping the cities, as witnessed by,the lack of all farm related paraphernalia around the out houses, and certainly no animals. The farms have in many instances gone into management and are tended by managers and workers living else where. Whether this is true of much of the country we will find out as we travel.

Bill walking with his friend Ella

The hedgerows are largely, here in the south, Hawthorne and effective at brutal containment from both sides. They prune it on occasion as we see a lot of pruned offcuts littering the ways, this can't be easy on the dogs feet and as Owen has told us no good on bike tyres. The bridle paths are also choked with blackberry, (no sign of fruiting yet) and to our eye is an unchecked tangle, getting worse as summer precariously settles on the country side. I'm guessing the difference here is it doesn't grow unchecked for the whole year as we might  find in some areas of NZ, and with the constant traffic of dogs, horses, and humans, the slowing effects of winter, then the pathway ways remain in an open state. I understand the footpaths and bridleways are there from historic use and are generally not threatened by the land owners, as they can be if they fall into disuse.

There are people, Ramblers who roam the country side specifically walking, to maintain the Rights of Way and this is largely what our own laws regarding ROW is based on, as indeed was a point in question with the casual use of our driveway through our property at 177 when we first moved in.

A couple of days in the City of Oxford

Canal into Oxford City

Thursday we headed up to Oxford to catch up with Ros, our ex NZ English friend who has recently bought a home in the city of Oxford, which was only just over the hour north of where we are staying (via motorways of course). Stunning warm day, we arrived at Ros's who was still in town at work, parked the car and did a lovely 20 minute walk into town along the Thames River. Lots of alternative living along the river in some of the                                                                   lovely canal boats.

Christ College Gardens

Our "Free" Guide is in red beside me

We arrived into town just after mid day & was approached by a man doing "free 2 hour city tours" sounded like us we thought :)  so till then we filled in the couple of hours wandering the delightful town, eating some lunch on the way ( so many choices of foods), coming across other "free 2 hour tours", all having their own pamphlets of what they are authorised to do and where they will take you.  Bill made the right choice with the first guy, who took us around the city without actually going into the churches or University's but gave us a lot of history and showed us places of interest to go back to. Oxford is the home of the oldest university of the English speaking world - the prestigious Oxford University which was established in the 12th century. There are a total of 30 odd university colleges around the medieval centre of Oxford.

Grounds into University College

The Examinations Hall

The Bridge of  Sighs linking Hertford College.

 The city was buzzing with students on bikes (lots of bikes) or foot and equal numbers of tourists. It had a real summery feel about the place with all the old trees out in fresh leaf, the gardens were perfectly trimmed, and lawns immaculately trimmed.
We really enjoyed our tour (which did cost us £5 each as a donation, and well worth it. We found that they all had this way of charging)

Police on Bikes in hi viz

  It was then time to meet up with Ros at the Golden Cross, a 15th century building where William Shakespeare was rumoured to have had Hamlet played, for a wine or two. Then into another local Ros wanted us to visit and have cocktails. What a lovely introduction to Oxford.
It was then back to Ros's via bus thankully, and see her new home and all she has done since she bought it recently. She is amazing how she can visualise and transform rooms. It was a lovely catch up Ros, and to meet your friends.

Ros & I after a couple of wines & a cocktail!

Friday we strolled around more of Oxford not so sunny today, visiting churches and the Varsity Club Bar to get a fantastic view out over Oxford (and a nice coffee). Met Ros and headed back to her place for lunch before returning to Winchester. It is a long weekend here in England (Bank Holiday they call it - banks are normally closed - similar to our public holidays. It was a lovely look at Oxford, which if time allows we will return to before returning to NZ. So many things to do........ only so much time........!

Coffee with a view in Oxford- 4th Floor

The College Coffers trunk - look at the locks!

Plenty of spires & turrets in Oxford

We Have a Van.

Hallelujah.
We have a home, taking possession on Wednesday 27th May, all things going to plan.

Our "Hobby 600"

We had a short list and needed to travel well north to check them out which was a nuisance but there it was. We had limited our choices by wanting a left hand drive model. Otherwise you would be spoiled for choice. The upper end of the market is still expensive and lots of choice but the middle market is huge and you can get just about anything. We have not looked at buses as we were wary of  resale and emissions on older vehicles is becoming a real issue here.
So we had a day before we had planned to go north to visit our friend Ros from Nelson, now in her very nicely renovated home in Oxford. Ros had offered to also put us up (thanks Ros) but our base here has also been excellent.
So with the rental car at our disposal I saw on my list a last resort van not really considered as most continental conversions don't have a stove, they don't cook (go figure) and a smaller fridge than we like, but anyway, it was in West Sussex about 3 hours away so what the heck and off we went. It turned out to be as described, tidy comfortable, small fridge and no stove but acceptable without the need to go north and kick more tyres, so we cut a deal. We can live with a small fridge and work around the stove issue.

Internal

Rear with bike racks. Excellent.

 Another advantage is that it's thru a dealer who will guarantee it for a year which is comforting being 13 years old and 52,000 miles Which isn't overly high but not new.......
The bigger issue (there's always an issue for me) is the insurance. You are unable to legally drive a vehicle unless its got at least 3rd party insurance sooooo...
I had thought that with my residency IE not a permit but real residency, it would be easy but no, even having a pseudo address didn't help, I'm sure you could lie to get it but with insurers this will ultimately fail should you then file a claim. So all the regular insurers including our caravan club we just joined, run saying they can't do it. I'm guessing they are pumping money from a resource they know and understand and don't need to step outside the square. This must also be cause there is likely to be no likely hood of ongoing business, sooooo..... we go into the brokers hands.
The short story is we have insurance at 4 times what the locals can get it at and you just have to suck it up.
I have this perception that in a population this large that people are a resource that can be demographed and utilised to best advantage for almost any gain you can lever out.
The exciting bit is now we can kit the van out, like with bedding, eating utensils, BBQ etc. We also need to sort bikes, so we can start out and look around. Our hosts who have recently sold their motor home have offered some gear which is also helpful.
Too early to have a name but it is a Fiat Ducato so with its French origins we will soon coin something.

Around about & things.

The Burgeoning lower & middle classes are causing traffic kaos. It seems that as house ownership is a pipe dream for many the next best thing is to own a nice late model car, and as the housing model never allowed for its tenants to use anything other than public transport, the roadsides and footpaths are congested with cars all week as the owners still can't use them on a daily routine, there just isn't enough space, when they do they need to still park up outside the city areas and get park & ride buses into work places. This still doesn't stop the roads being very very busy..... all the time...... The public transport system is very good at getting you round but quite costly. As mentioned earlier the train to London which is a popular commuter trip worked out at 70 pounds return off peak, fot two, there will be concession and monthly pass savings but still....

We returned to Portsmouth after looking at a motorhome on Monday as we were still able to use our fortuitously gained tickets, again, and visited the submarine museum at Gosport across the harbour from Portsmouth. It was interesting stuff and a tribute to the privations endured by this arm of the Royal Navy.

Its been a little eerie for me discovering this area as Dad (Jim) was part of it here at Portsmouth as a navy recruit during the war. We don't know all the details as its been lost to the family over time but just recently I was going thru papers with Mum & found all his Service papers detailing different ships, postings and ratings acheived. To think that if I looked in the right places here his name records and signatures would still be in some archive, as a lasting reminder to his efforts in WW2 particularly on the Russian Convoys.

The country is laced with a roading system that moves vast amounts of traffic around at a goodly 70MPH(and we still talk in MPG as well). This was ideal as yesterday we drove to East Sussex to view a motorhome. We are using Google GPS on the phone and largely it works well except on a couple of occasions when either we fail to comprehend it's intentions, or it details its instructions a little late for us to implement.

Old cobble road in Rye- East Essex

But She (the voice) never chides us and sulks only briefly before rerouting us in a most professional manner.She has though, on a few occasions "ratted" us through the small country lanes which heaven forbid she ever does when we get the Motorhome. "Dumb Womans Way" being a twisted example just near Winchelsea. We just got thru this snaky lane  ok but a local told us of the foreign truck getting wedged in for two days before a digger was got in to remove a tree and scrape the corner out, as the roadside bank still testifies to.

Port of Rye

Our first week in England

The week has gone so fast, with visits to London, Winchester & Portsmouth keeping us busy.

London with Shard in background

Tuesday we headed into London by train (£71 return for the two of us- return for the two of us - NZ$150 , bit of a shock!) and met up with Helen & Ralph who have been over here touring for the last 7 weeks. It was their last day in England before heading off to Ireland then back home to NZ.

H&R Posing in London

We had a lovely lunch in an old English Pub. Bill is finding the English beers underwhelming, but hasn't given up on the search for the perfect beer!

London is looking much cleaner than we remembered, our host Kath said there had been a big clean up with the Millennium preparations. As is with all of England, so much history. Helen took us to the old London wall remains that used to circle the city from Roman times. (Remember Humpty Dumpty on the wall?) We then walked along the Thames river, with many construction sites at work. we saw the London Bridge in the distance, but didn't have enough time to get that far down, perhaps next time. We then caught the express train back ( Great with no stopping till it got to Winchester on it's way to Portsmouth) before peak time. As it was, by 4.30pm it was pretty busy, we got on board just before it left the station, then had to walk through the carriages to find seats. At the 3rd carriage we found one reasonably empty, lovely upholstery, air conditioning, more spacious. It was lovely till I saw the "First" on the head rests and windows! I asked the lovely gentleman beside us if they have a class system on the trains, he said "fraid so", so we asked if we would be moved on, and he said "fraid so". We moved on before being asked, and about ten carriages down found some seats.Phew! Big day in London.

Tuesday was a local bike ride on a couple of Owen's high spec bikes, great with all the bridle and foot paths they have through the country, it was nice and easy to get into Winchester & back without getting lost. Thankfully Bill is doing the navigation, I'd hate to think where we would end up with my mother's sense of direction.

Roman West Gate

Wednesday we went into Winchester to hire a car for the rest of the week so we could get out and about to look for our home, but when we got to the only Operator who is physically in Winchester had all their cars out on hire.

High Street in Winchester

We then booked a car for next week, and with it being such a stunning day we decided to do two guided tours in Winchester itself.

The Great Hall of Winchester

The first one in the morning was the to tour the City itself with all its history, and the one after our late lunch was on


Winchester Cathedral, beautifully maintained & restored cathedral. Again so much history in this area.
We are much more interested in history now rather than the dusty old history lessons at school. Both guides were really interesting to listen to, wonderful to learn so much about the city we are based in.

Winchester Cathedral                              

Inside Cathedral

Thursday was our first wet day, a great one to catch up on our motorhome searching, which was getting a little frustrating with all the vans available but not sure where the places are, and how to get there once we get our rental next week.
Friday was a very interesting day in Portsmouth, Kath took her friend Jo and ourselves down there for the day. Portsmouth is a historic maritime port, one of the main attractions being the "Mary Rose" King Edward the VIII's war ship from the 15th century which has been raised from the sea bed and preserved in a purpose built museum. An amazing presentation of the history of that period.

           

Portsmouth Spinnaker      

"The Victory"

S&B by the "Victory"

And the "Victory" Lord Nelson's battleship, fully restored and great stories by the guides of events at that time.

Jo had to return home for her son, so we continued our tour of Portsmouth which we felt a bit under clothed with a drop in temperature over the day. Hot drinks at a lovely tea shop looking out over the harbour watching all the boats coming & going, a busy port to France and other parts of the world.

Old Portsmouth & opening to sea.

Saturday - Motor Home day! Started off fine & sunny, very positive, but after a few hours of wandering around more expensive motorhomes than we could afford, we came home via a lovely little English Pub "The Hampshire Bowman" where we had amazing baked potatoes full of bacon & brie. The bacon is very tasty here I must say. Bill found a beer a little more palatable, but he is still looking for "the one" though!

Our Hosts Dogs Ella, Hobbs & Ruby

  

Landed safely in London

We flew into Heathrow just after 7.00pm Friday night, which was amazingly quiet and few people around. We had expected issues entering the country with not having proof we would be leaving within the 3 months we filled in on our arrival forms. 35 years ago I had a terrible time trying to get back into England from France, so I was super prepared with paperwork incase it was the same today. Well! It couldn't have been easier.

Our Welcome at Heathrow

We got out into the Arrivals lounge to find our lovely English host Kath awaiting us with poster of Big Yella just incase we had forgotten what she looked like after 4 years since we last caught up in NZ. We then did the 40 minute drive back to Owen & Kaths home in the village of Twyford, in Winchester.

Our current home in Twyford

Kath & Owen live in the Waterworks Managers Cottage which they are renting, along with their three dogs (Hobbs, Ella & Ruby) and one cat (Pip) while they are searching out to buy their home in the area.
We have just had a lovely weekend, with the temperature quite mild as we come into late spring and the long light of the days. (Daylight by 5.30am and dusk around 8.30 pm) Roll on a lovely long summer as we have just finished in NZ.
Bill is full on hunting for our next motorhome! Watch this blog!

Twyford Church & Cemetry

Bills version of Singapore: a riot of cultures and sensations.

Singapore was a riot of cultures and sensations.
We had been here in 1980 and really don't have many memories of the place.
As you realise we truly are infrequent travellers out side of godzone, and even though we like to think of ourselves as worldly wise, it was still an assault on all our senses.

Night time on the Singapore River

The first thing is the enormity of it all, I mean the world, it is big, really really big, even flying over Brisbane earlier in the week was a spectacle. Development everywhere spreading in all directions. At 10km high and 850 km an hr it is still a sprawling mass that went on for some time.As did the following desert..
The flight was long and very smooth but S would beg to differ. I'm sad to say she was pretty spooked most of the trip and can't have been much fun for her.
The in house entertainment was pretty swishy and the Singapore Girls very helpful, but  we were ready to get on the ground and get our bodies moving again after ten & half hours of incarceration.
The first real assault was the hot humidity. Its like a body hit, an energy sapping breath taking drain on your body. Thankfully the fact that all public building  space is air conditioned makes the place a little more tolerable especially for all the toffs dressed as you would expect at any business meeting in London or Wellington.
 The energy bill must be huge.

Lovely wide cycleways

It is Singapore's 50 year of Independence and plans are well afoot to celebrate. It is evident everywhere with lots of buildings being cleaned and tidied up, everywhere we ventured. Singapore's greatest resources would have to be unlimited cheap labour and very deep pockets. This is not to mention huge new development in buildings & infrastructure, city wide, teaming with ant like workers late into the night, though can't be sure, working 24 hrs.
The local paper makes mention of the care that is given to keeping noise nuisance to a minimum where this is happening in built up areas. Certainly as you travel at night there was much evidence of road works setting up to be undertaken into the small wee hours.

The other assault or juxtaposition of sense was olfactory. We were often salivating & excited by the food smells emanating from the food stalls as we drove by or pounded the pavements, but then as quick as, could be overcome (Sheryl almost gagging) by what I assume was sewerage smells venting into the street. Whether this was due to all the reconstruction and re routing of services, I can't say but would guess, may be to blame. Needless to say this put a quick stop to the salivating
Anyway our 3 days was full of us gawking, slack jawed, camera snapping, in awe, covering a lot of ground, not really even scratching the surface, there is a lot to do here and 3 days didn't cut the mustard.

Where some of the luckier residents live

We loved Chinatown and made some purchases there. It was like hundreds of $2 dollar shops plus much much more. Sheryl found it so overwhelming that she didn't make any purchases.I know! Unheard of !!!!!. I on the hand had a jolly old time:))

Amazing architecture

The other thing we did which I suppose in many way sums up our "a typical holiday" was the hiring of  bikes and doing about a 20km odd loop around the bay which followed pleasant waterside pathways through parks reserves and then through the river side cafes and bars, which in many places were very upmarket, and others still quaint  in the older developed ways, tho as alluded to, a lot of reconstruction impeding the way.

More of the cycleways

Nonetheless a highlight, and made the discovery of our hotel pool most welcome after 5 hours in the saddle and no air conditioning.The beer was also very welcome.
So after three days of exploration, energy sapping heat and mind bending architecture, we are now on the 13 hr leg to London on a plane less than half full and did I mention the entertainment system??? This leg has the latest model plane and it is very good with touch screens and a huge collection of music and movies and games. We also needed to enter thru the business section, (much to their discomfit) & wow. Keep buying the lotto is my mantra.

Bill went up in the Flyer alone!

View out to the harbour - Bill up in the Flyer

Singapore

We had forgotten after 35 years, how humid and hot Singapore was. With all buildings and vehicles having air conditioning, what a shock it is to walk out on the streets. Which we have been doing a lot of.
Met up with a friend of Amanda's on Tuesday who has been living in Singapore for the past four years, so was good to get advice on where and what to do. Thank you Amanda, it was lovely to meet Ros.
We have a bus pass for the time we are in Singapore which has been great to get around. There is such a melting pot of cultures here.
We started yesterday off with a massive downpour & thunderstorm that was full on for about an hour, then cleared to another hot humid day. Bill had a great time in China Town, so many tempting things, the shop keepers very keen to sell. I found them too full on and too much quantity of items, so lost interest in the shopping fast but loved watching the people.

We had a lovely evening last night along the river esplanade walking & doing a river cruise, such a mixture of buildings and colour. We are loving the "Cold Tiger Beer". 

Blending in with the locals

Such a mixture of cultures

The start of the evening on the river

Singapoure River