Britain 2011: Scottish Parliament

The Scottish Parliament buildings are a lovely sight and it's pretty easy to get in to look around - we did have to pass through security, but after that it was pretty much as welcoming as the New Mexico legislature - in other words there were people around to answer questions and try to explain the voting procedures. I didn't pay too much attention to all the details about the electoral process. The Scottish National Party won the bulk of the seats in the May 5th election and we'll see what that holds for Scotland's future. To me, Scotland looked as if was doing very well economically - like Canada, its a resource-rich nation and the oil drillers were at work in the North Sea. The Kintyre Peninsula looked an awful lot like B.C. - full of cutblocks, only ours offer better skiing. If you go to Edinburgh, visit the Scottish Parliament - it's got a lovely view of Arthur's Seat and is across the street from Holyrood Palace.

Britain 2011: The Election

While in the UK, there were general elections in both Wales and Scotland and the voters throughout England had a chance to vote on an alternative voting procedure that was, unfortunately, soundly defeated. We saw lots of charming signs everywhere in England and this one was my favourite electoral sign. It says it all, doesn't it?

Britain 2011: Readers

One thing that I did notice in Britain - there just seemed to be more "traditional" readers than what we see in Canada - by this I mean people who are reading an actual book. I captured this picture of lunch hour readers in Edinburgh. Don't you love the yellow boots? I noticed book readers on the tube, waiting in line ups at stores, walking through busy stations - public reading in the UK still seems to be a bit of the norm and this is becoming a very rare sight over here in North America.

Britain 2011: Royal Wedding Day

We did hear a fair bit about the royal wedding in the last two weeks leading up to the big day. We happened to be in Edinburgh two days before it was to take place so the news coverage was extensive. On wedding day, I did watch the arrival of the bride and her sister at Westminster Abbey and their march up the aisle. Then I went to hang out the laundry in Thurso, Scotland. At noon, we took the ferry over to Stromness and the kids and teachers there didn't even get a day off school! This was a single "royalist" shot I was able to get on that particular day. Now, when I compare it to what we're hearing about the Canucks EVERY day here in B.C., the royal wedding was a pretty quiet affair. I've stopped listening to the radio (we really only get CBC) this week because I'm so tired of it all. Glad to know there's only one more day of it no matter who wins.

Britain 2011: The James Caird

On our last day in the UK, Dave and I travelled out to Dulwich College where Ernest Shackleton had been a student. The College now houses a "Shackleton Room" with various bits of history from his remarkable adventures. The boat, James Caird, is located here. I'd always wanted to see it after reading about his voyage on Endeavour and its aftermath. This is the boat that he sailed for 800 miles across the Southern Ocean, from Elephant Island to South Georgia. It wasn't all that small, to my mind, but remembering what the sea was like on the south coast of New Zealand, with waves that came all the way from Antarctica, I can't imagine how these folks survived. Five men were on board and they successfuly navigated themselves by looking at the stars and making mathematical calculations. It is one of the great epic survival stories and anyone with a longing for that kind of reading, I'd highly recommend anything written by Shackleton.

Scotland 2011: The North Coast

We stopped at Betty Hill for a short walk while we travelled along the north coast of Scotland. You can see why this would be a favoured place. The weather was perfect for travel that day (although pretty windy) and we continued to be amazed at the stunning scenery of northern Scotland. Driving towards the highlands afforded us the opportunity to see one of our favourite things - high hills! Blue skies, highlands, oceans, inlets, lochs, waving grasses, blooming gorse and pretty much empty roads - it can't get much better than that!

Britain 2011: I'm Sorry

Britain is a busy place and in London it is very crowded. The British are so very polite! Canadians are known for being super apologetic about being an inconvenience to anyone. I found that the British are even more that way! I earned so many apologies absolutely EVERYWHERE if someone didn't hold a door long enough, if we had to dodge around each other in a street, if personal space was too limited in the tube, and so on and so forth. I was a bit surprised at it all, actually. I guess compared to Americans, Canadians are considered to be apologetic and polite, but the British win this round everywhere. Even on the hiking trails, people moved out of the way and apologised for "being in the way". It is lovely to visit such a polite country, I do say! It was also refreshing to see so many people with a book in hand as well.

Britain 2011: The Photos

Finally got my pictures labelled and they are now ready for viewing at:

• Oxford and London
• Southern England
• Northern England
• Wales
• Scotland

I'm not the photographer that Dave is but I probably have a few more "human interest" shots. Enjoy!

Britain 2011: The Walks

Yesterday, Dave and I went across the lake to have our "season opener" which was pretty much a lakeside trail with a bit of distance. I couldn't help comparing it to my walks in Britain. Here, we have endless forest with unusual rock formations, often some pretty little woodland plants, fallen trees and stumps with glimpses out to the mountains. There, we had endless stone walls, fields of sheep, blooming gorse, unlimited views, and lots of manmade structures. This picture was taken on my favourite UK walk when I hiked from Tintagel to Boscastle. It's along the Southwest Coastal Path and you can see that I had a perfect day for it. This hike was probably the most "challenging" as well, because it went up and down a fair bit compared to other hikes that I completed. It's lovely to see how many people are out walking in Britain - we rarely see other hikers here in the Koots. The British are very friendly when walking, too; I felt like I said hello even more than in America! I love how they keep their dogs under such fine control. I feel a bit out of shape from my trip because the walking was easy and mostly flat. I covered good distances, however, and it's always fun to see the castle and abbey ruins as one covers the trails.

Britian 2011: Fresh Flowers

In the UK this is a common site - fresh flower stalls - and I was delighted to see how many times I noticed someone rushing through the streets with recently purchased fresh flowers in hand. In North America this is a relatively uncommon sight. While travelling the busy roads, I noticed fresh flowers placed in front windows - what a happy thing to see! I love having fresh flowers and usually only treat myself to bouquets during the summer when I can collect them from the garden. I'm always thrilled to have them. The lesson that I can learn from Britain is to purchase fresh flowers during winter - it'll probably make it much more bearable. Many of our campgrounds had flowers in the washrooms, too - not always fresh but the thought was there!

Britain 2011: The Allotments

Here's a picture of the community gardens in Berwick-upon-Tweed, more commonly referred to as an "allotment". Just before leaving the UK I read an article stating that 90,000 people are on waiting lists to get allotments throughout England and the waiters may have to be patient for 40 years before their turn will arrive! I have no idea how much one must pay to "rent" the land in these community gardens. I recognize how lucky I am to live in Canada with vast amounts of empty space and I have had the joy of looking after pretty good-sized gardens for the past 20 years. It was wonderful to see the British dedication to gardening and I hope that people will have shorter "wait times" because everyone deserves the right to grow food.

Scotland 2011

This was the favourite part of our trip. We liked the fact that it was so much quieter than England, although the north of England was definitely quieter than the South. The skies in this picture stayed with us for most of our 8 days in Scotland. We spent a couple of days in Edinburgh and then decided to travel north along the coast to John O'Groats. From there, we took a very quick trip to the Orkney Islands, spending a couple of hours at Stromness. The very best part of our journey was the drive along the north coast of Scotland and then revisiting the Highlands. It was there that I felt that I could walk forever. I'm perking up whenever I hear anything about Scotland on the news. It's a beautiful country with a long legacy of gifts to humanity. Let's hear it for the Scots!

Britain 2011: Along the Penine Way

I know that this isn't the greatest picture - we tended to have lots of haze in the distance while in Britain, but considering we are less than an hour from Manchester, this is pretty clear, I think. We spent about 4 hours walking one afternoon along the Penine Way through the Peaks District. We did another similar hike in Yorkshire Dales National Park. This picture is pretty typical of what we saw in the few hours of walking that we did. The weather was lovely, the breeze fine, the birdsong melodious. Neither of us were inspired to ever think we'd like to walk the whole thing at any time in the future. Compared to Canadian mountain hiking it seemed a bit monotonous. Don't get me wrong - we loved our hikes in Britain. But I gotta say, I think I live in the right place for me when I consider long, scenic hikes.

Britain 2011: Camping

This picture is pretty typical of many of the tents we found in the UK. They are enormous! It also takes the owners several hours to "pitch up". We'd laugh because our tent takes less than 10 minutes to put up and we never had to pay for additional awnings, guy wires, kitchens, etc. I noticed in 2003 - the British bring the entire kit to the campground, including the table. That's because they need to do this. We found a few places that offered tables to every camper, but I noticed that most of the tables seemed to be situated in the vans and caravans area when I feel it's the tenters who really need them.

Campgrounds throughout the UK are privately owned and with one exception, I'd say that they were all in excellent condition. The only luxury that is provided is the toilet block, but these were always clean (with one exception) and well maintained. While we travelled through NZ, we used a camper van and had kitchens, tables, toilets, showers, etc. provided. We didn't HAVE to have them. In Britain, we camped in a small car and could have used tables and kitchens and they were rarely provided. We had 3 camps with microwaves and we went back to one at Berwick-upon-Tweed just because of its excellent kitchen facilities.

Most of the time, we camped in a big farmer's field. I got to be pretty good at identifying campgrounds on the map which were close to major walks. I think I only had two occasions where we camped when I wasn't really handy to a public footpath which could take me all over Britain. I only felt "too close to a road" at one camp and this surprised me. Even in Oxford we could hear the busy highways as a background "hum", but the farmyard we stayed at was relatively quiet. It was great to be camping during most of "low" season because it could get crowded. I heard tents are to be pitched 3 metres away from another - it was only Easter weekend where we felt someone violated this "rule".

We probably averaged 17 GBP/night for camping. It was a little more expensive than B.C., I'd say and although we have the most beautiful parks in the world, it's now about $24/night for a really nice and private site with only a pit toilet, a picnic table and probably a shelter. The British would probably be aghast at our lack of toilet facilities.

Camping in Britain was a good experience. The great weather made the experience very bearable. Our first night out was April 3rd and many campgrounds were still closed but by the next week, most camping spots were on the radar. There are popular places to avoid if you don't like crowds, but overall, I'd recommend it as a way to see Britain. A small complaint would be that the "washing up" area was always adjacent to the caravan area, not the tenting area, and this seemed a bit idiotic to my mind. Overall, a great experience and we had 32 nights out to prove it!

Britain, 2011: Westminster

We had a fabulous trip to Britain this spring. This picture is taken on Day One, one of the very few days we had cloud cover for most of the day. We camped out for 32 nights all over England, Scotland and Wales. The weather was incredibly dry, warm and sunny most of the time. Our major focus was walking, castles, cathedrals and ruins so I didn't spend a lot of time birdwatching or going to museums.

Reflecting back on the trip, a big highlight for me was our tour of Westminster (pictured here), set up by our London host, Julie. It was really interesting to compare this historic building with its newer counterpart in Canada. I loved being inside Westminster - the actual House of Lords and House of Commons seem quite small - but the statues of Prime Ministers, Kings, Queens, and important political figures is special. As we look forward to voting changes in future elections it was grand to see the place where so many of the laws which have improved our lives got their start. I'm really grateful to have had the chance to tour this life-changing building. Thank you, Julie!

Home and Happy

It's been a long while since I posted and have to report that seeing my spring bulbs in bloom in the perennial border was a wonderful way to arrive home. We spent 6 weeks in the UK and had wonderful weather the entire time. B.C. didn't fare so well. It sounds as if spring sort of arrived at the beginning of May so we got home just in time to enjoy pretty much all of the spring bulbs. It's probably odd to see the daffs, tulips, lungworts, bergenia, forsythia, etc. all blooming at the same time - we didn't even miss the skunk cabbage along the highway near our neighbourhood road entrance. I'd say that all I missed were the crocus. My impatient waiting for seeds to germinate didn't happen and the germination seemed to be pretty good with all those things that I planted on March 29th. It's taking me longer to get over jet lag than I anticipated and have had a very busy 10 days since our arrival back here. It is good to be home and I plan a series of posts about the trip to Britain. Time to get the rhubarb pie out of the oven!

Snowdonia

Managed to "bag" Mt. Snowdon yesterday, along with literally hundreds of other people! We didn't get off to an alpine start - had a 90 minute drive to get through first, but got underway about 11 a.m. I couldn't believe the number of people with us! The Welsh are great walkers, I must say. We had good weather, but the distance views were not superb so didn't get to see the Isle of Man from the top of the peak. There were so many people on the peak at any given time, my summit shot will look mighty crowded. We chose the "tourist route" which was extremely busy, but any other routes we observed looked busy as well. It's not quite a highway, but that's pretty much how I'd have to describe that route. No snow, at least, but hordes of people! Now have a triumvirate - Ben Nevis, Snowdon and Snaefell in Isle of Man for "big" peaks in this area.

Cornwall

Don't know if this is unusual but we've had 4 days of sun in Cornwall! Have seen 3 lovely gardens and today visited Doc Marten's place at Port Issac. Charming town and full of tourists. Loved the sea coast and it only improved as we came to Tintagel. King Arthur legends abound and loved walking the castle ruins on this cloudless day with a gentle wind. The Old Post Office in Tintagel shows a gentler side of life and the samplers made by young girls 200 plus years ago amazed me. How life has changed over the years.