…and big and smokey it was…

Shane in London

G’day Petals,








Grimy grey and brown with fumes, flat, large and permanently bustling:  a “Mud-Larkers” experience: finding gems amongst it all.

Persia, Circa 1500, V and A

The cornucopia of the V and A, the overwhelming quantity of beautiful works in the National Gallery, the importance of educated looting, amateur archaeology and research at the British Museum, the idiosyncrasy of Tate Modern with delightful exchanges with Charles the info assist and the historical context of British art at its "Big Brother, The Tate.

Charles

The private galleries and “heavy” door-guarded jewellery shops in Dover and Grafton Streets where 70,000 BP will get you a restored C18th painting, “probably by….. from the school of……” and where the Faberge pendant is discreetly POA....

Mr Darwin's Pigeons, Natural History Museum

... then to The R.A.  to see the Richard Diebenkorn exhibition and note on leaving the remembrance panel to the 2006 academicians who died in First World War as battalion members of “The Artists Rifles.” 

 At the Neo-Classical space of the Maritime Museum at Greenwich an odd synchronicity to the trip observing a fashion shoot to tail the Parisian one

Royal Naval College, Greenwich

and the loquaciously helpful and knowledgeable information from Ron in the painted Dining Room who was well matched in friendly helpfulness by Daphne at Southwark Cathedral and plein-air street artist Rick ( www.rickholmes.co.uk ) too, at the nearby market.

Artist

The friendliness of the business woman we shared a lunch table with at V and A and the conversations with Lucy (“the dresser” from Miss Saigon”) at the Tate; the Oxford couple and another woman at the Wallace Collection, as well as the bus travel banter with Katrina
 ( kat@katrinaskoberne.com ) certainly belied the traditional view of English social reticence.

John Holland Pub, Waitress, Vicky

The Buses. Taking a week to nearly understand the timetable system, we Wombats can now understand why it was the Brits who de-coded the Enigma Machine.

Prices in London? Prohibitive!  

Democracy is so Overrated

Travel was around three times more costly using the "Oyster Card" than was its Parisian “Metro” equivalent, as was food in all its forms except perhaps take-aways. 

London

Beer?  I’ve learned I prefer Lager to Ale and Mrs Wombat now likes a Lime slice in her G and T and only Schweppes Tonic, si vou plais..

It was all interesting but oddly….once will do it.

  

London 2

And now, for  a long, long flight in cattle class… baaa, baaaa, baaaaaaa.

Hoo-roo possums,

Shane

Which in finishing this travel note is not to forget the help and advice from Brian and Jan at Claris’s in Biddenden for their assistance and detailed knowledge of their beautiful wares. 

Brian and Jan at Claris’s in Biddenden

www.moorcroftinkent.co.uk

and of course...

Shaidin in Hyde Park.

...understanding The Goons and Monty Python

Shane at Wells

G’day Possums,

we’ve been nine days in Rabid-the-Hun’s favoured land, observed travelling rituals and personality traits in a enclosed space aboard the ferry, believe we have discovered the root of Australian driver aggression and shopped, eaten, touristed sites and been well entertained by the Sue’s x2 in Cornwall.

First meal was breakfast at Plymouth’s “Duke of Cornwall’ (Best Western). Two small Bread rolls, packaged (small) Jam, two packaged Muesli’s w/ Milk and 2 Teas for 21 BP had us thinking we were about to diet severely but a day later Cornish Pasty’s sitting in the warming sunshine of St Ives Harbour with a dozen or so Gulls (which make Aussie seabirds look like Budgies) was a tonic.

Plymouth

Sue2 sashayed us into Barbara Hepworth’s studio and garden which was revelatory of the sculptor’s practise and influences with much fun from tots playing artist with plasticine and soapy water which was in a Hepworth sculpture that they could play in but adults were not allowed to touch!

Gardens at Trebah and Glendurgan, dramatic cliffs at Porthcurno and visits to Zennor and St Levan churches and sampling the local Ales were spiritually uplifting.

Trebah, Cornwall

Towednack, Cornwall.

Porthcurno

Then on to points East: another Pasty in Launceston, on to Exeter Cathedral, which was brilliant and then to of Shepton Mallet. ….and Elmo.

Exeter Cathedral

This town featured in a BBC series of re-living the past “High Streets” through various epochs in a hope that it would revitalise the retail strip and community. It was not successful. 

Elmo of Shepton Mallet

Our host said the proletariat called it “Shit and Smell It.” “Chez Puton,” is the title apparently preferred by the bourgeoisie, but it was in nice country and made a good base for the sublime Wells Cathedral and the defiantly 60’s Glastonbury… and yes, we waddled up the bloody Tor , had a 360, observed some woman ritualising and tripped down again wondering… why?

It was here in a coffee shop we over-heard fragments of a West Country older male’s monologue to two similarly aged and one younger woman that could have been written by Thomas Hardy. 

“ ….weeellll she ‘ad a chiold out o’ wedlock…  but ‘e ‘asn’t bin any ‘elp….. never comes to see me in yeearrrs……an’ I would'n be trusting those you don’t know to live wit.. they’ll do yer wrong if it suits ‘em… (to young woman in group who was discussing having to live away from home for uni) naaaa ,…it’ll all go-o wrong.” All said with a self righteous and facially inexpressive impassiveness. 

Glastonbury

One of the dining highlights of Shepton Mallet was a restaurant waitress whom I imagined had been told to look at the John Cleese Service Training videos but instead had taken to heart every episode of “Fawlty Towers.”

We we also less than “whelmed“ by Bath, Bodium and Great Dixter although the conceit at Bath of repeating a very spare and simple design in an arc 120 or so times does have impact. 

Bath

Perhaps the Tourism Lily gets a little too Gilded and perhaps looking deeper might assuage disappointment but this is such an expensive place that I’m beginning to wonder if we Antipodean tourists are paying away the Brits’ role in the GFC that Oz didn’t experience?

Sissinghurst and Lacock Abbey on the other hand, were utterly delightful with Petworth House mind boggling in its extensive art collection and Scotney Castle, very pretty.

Petworth House

Here are two "littlies" exploring Wells Cathedral. Little girl said in answer to my question: Do you think you might get to be 800 years old as is this Bishop? "When I get bigger," she said seriously.

I think there are only three names for British pubs: “The King’s Arms”, "The White Hart” and "The Red Lion,” though we did drink at the “Tinners Arms” in Zennor but it was over 400 years old and Cornish, so it was long before the Brits had learned queueing, conformity and the dull Tory Style Conservatism.

Tomorrow, off to the Big Smoke.

Cheers Petals,

Shane.
PS one last one from St Levan in Cornwall... reminded me of Rabid-the-Hun our pathetic Anglophile Prime Minature.

St Levan, Cornwall, Pew Carving

Jumping the Ditch.

Shane in Dinan

G’day Possums,

I suppose we dream that food tastes better when the the service is good and the ambience congenial. 

Two eating occasions recently proved that in spades.

Mrs Wombat and I had just escaped the attentions of a lovely but over insistent (in a Jehovah’s Witness/Mormon manner) evangelical “Catlic" gel in the Eglise St Julien in Domfront. 

St Julien, Domfront

The church itself is unusual as it is a 1920’s Ferro-Cement re-imagining of a Byzantine Basilica and quite stunning in its gilded spaciousness. Although it really deserved further exploration the “joyous witness” being experienced and a somewhat rumbling Wombat belly had us retreating to the more rational light of the street to look for an eatery.

Voila… 50 metres ahead was the le Bistrot Julien.

Bistrot, St Julien, Domfront

We entered and being 13.00 it was crowded but the woman behind the bar took a brief look around and said “5 minutes.” Whilst we waited we observed the hum of the place and the direct efficiency of this woman as she took and delivered orders, provided drinks and settled bills for an establishment of some 30-40 patrons.

We were seated 5 minutes later and our order from the plat de jour (E11, 3 courses) and the menu, of a main, dessert and a beer were delivered fairly soon after. All happened without drama, fuss or pretension through the agency of one person and the meals were excellent in preparation and taste and great value, totalling E29.00.

Haute Bretagne Floral and Botanical Park

The next day we explored the Botanical Floral Park of Bretagne which is part of an C18th estate and the Chateau Foltiere a few km outside of Fougere… a lovely place, despite the Teddy-Bear Picnic’s kitsch-ing their way through the walks to hopefully entertain bored children.

After an 11/2 hour wander in steady drizzle our home prepared cold picnic seemed less than a good idea and we found that the Chateau’s old exterior kitchens had recently been taken over by the restaurant, “Galon ar Breizh" from Fougere and calling itself Galon ar Breizh “au comgagne” for this incarnation.

Galon ar Breizh

 As we were being ushered into a relatively small sparsely furnished room, the power failed and the mono directional light from the windows falling on the other patrons and the furnishings had me re-calling  the paintings of Le Nain and George la Tour as the room presented in solid chiaroscuro.

Power was quickly restored and a superb meal followed. The classical rustic simplicity of the surrounds were complimented by the elegance of the attention to detail in the quality of the Tartines, and a Cremette d’ Anjou which fully reflected its historically “heavenly" reputation. 

Again the price was more than reasonable.

Galon ar Breizh

In service, quality of product, cooking and presentation these two establishments seemed to me in their different settings to encapsulate French food at its simple best…..

“le Bistrot St Julien”, Cite Medievale. 2 Place St Julien, 61700 Domfront.

and

“Galon ar Breizh”, 10 Place Gambetta ,35300 Fougeres.

Dreams of another kind have been French road signage: you know the dream.. the one in which that object you’re trying to reach keeps getting further away? 

Apart from facing the direction opposite to which you are heading they seem to gradually evaporate as you approach your destination and the route numbers have altered across Communes or Departments….just for the sheer fun of it…. and running the circle of a roundabout three or four times IS a means of self preservation.

Hey-Ho… but that's all over, well in French at least; we are presently rolling around the Channel in a drizzle on our way to Plymouth on the good ship Melton-on-Sea.

Hoo-roo Petals,

Shane

Some extras....

Au Paradis des Enfants

An unintentional piece of irony at "Juno" Beach.

Madame Sevinge, Vitre

St Roch's Marc de Ouilly

Pip having her 4 seconds of transcendence

Spanish Family