Great Britain May 19 – 29, 1995 Friday/Saturday, May 19–20 – Los Angeles to London After a full day at work and a Santa Monica “Tommy’s Run” with our RAND co-worker Edson Smith (double chili-cheeseburgers, yum!), we got ourselves to the airport and on our British Airways flight. Claire and Alla were on our flight, too; they arrived at the airport, a little later than advised, with Ken and Rod. Both Robert and I were curious as to how the encounter with Rod would go; turned out not so bad, just a little tentative (I certainly had very little to say). After six years, what could one expect? At any rate, Claire and Alla did not get seats together, and wanted to try to fix that, so we left Ken and Rod at the security checkpoint pretty quickly and went to the departure gate. There Claire and Alla did manage to get their seats rearranged and wound up together just a few rows behind us. The flight left about 20 minutes late, at 9:30 PM, and I enjoyed six good hours of sleep 1, missing the food service, but awaking to find Immortal Beloved playing. How perfect it seemed; enjoying German music on a British flight. It really made me look forward to seeing Johannes Weissler and his very British brother Ulrich! We arrived at Heathrow at 3:35 PM local time Saturday. We had a very speedy pass through customs; it was probably an advantage coming into British Airways dedicated international terminal (#4), with most passengers on the flight having European Community (EC) passports. After collecting our luggage we tried to figure out where Claire and Alla should go, and how; they were headed into London proper while we were destined the opposite direction, out to Ascot. Apart from buses destined for the other three terminals, there was a real lack of traffic and it was not terribly obvious what to do. Finally they decided to take a taxi to their hotel and we arranged to call them later in the evening to coordinate dinner on Sunday. We went on to get our rental car, a very ugly mustard-colored Fiat Tipo, and drove out to Ascot via Windsor (mostly due to taking one wrong turn, but that wasn’t a problem). We passed large, open, grassy fields fringed with light forest – partly comprising Windsor Great Park, a former royal hunting ground – before reaching Ascot, home of the famous royal horse races. The drive followed the meandering Thames, past Runnymede, where King John signed the Magna Carta in 1215. We soon found our bed and breakfast, Lyndrick House, on The Avenue in Ascot. Dropping off our stuff, we took a short drive to Virginia Water, a nearby lake, to scope out the birding spots, but the car park required change and we had none. It was getting toward dusk anyway, so we went back to the B&B and walked up Kennel Ride road to a pleasant local pub, the Olde Hatchet. Good bitters (Worthington’s and Robinson’s Bests) accompanied by a filling dinner (steak and kidney pie for me, breaded plaice for Robert, followed by a yummy sticky toffee pudding with cream). We returned to the B&B for the night and had a bit of a struggle with the telephone, eventually managing to leave a message for Claire at her hotel: “See you at Trafalgar Square at 6:00 PM tomorrow.” Robert also got a quick call in to Trevor, a birding contact he made on The Net. Sunday, May 21 – Ascot 1Liza’s time-shifting paid off again! The Ascot area certainly was pretty; Ascot itself was full of red brick houses, some with bright red or blue doors and trim, and many trees. We had two great oak trees outside our window, and from our third floor vantage had great looks the birds, including cute blue tits and the clownish jackdaws. We both managed to sleep well last night – I didn’t feel the least bit jet lagged, time shifting works again! – and in the morning I just lazed about while Robert went out for a short neighborhood walk before breakfast, binoculars in hand and his white Arizona cap firmly on his head. Following our full English breakfast, we drove up to see Windsor Castle and walked through the state apartments. The castle is absolutely huge, very imposing but without the coldness and austerity of Caernarfon on the Welsh coast. It was a bit difficult to imagine anyone actually living there, though. The flag was up, which presumably meant Queen Elizabeth was in. We did get a glimpse of one of the rooms that burned in 1992. 100 rooms on five floors were damaged – and that in only one part of the castle. What rooms we did see were full of fine paintings, including a few Rubens, antiques, and history; it was a real treat. After that, we drove to the Hatton Cross underground station (opposite our old friends, Kenning Car Rental) and took the Tube to Piccadilly Circus in central London. We walked up Regent St. past many shops (mostly closed) to the British Museum, where we viewed various manuscripts from the British Library and part of the Egyptian antiquities collection. Late afternoon was spent at the National Gallery, and then we met Claire and Alla right outside in Trafalgar Square at 6:00 PM as planned. Alla was a little slow, but still walking; we were impressed at how well she was getting around. We found the Indian restaurant Robert and I had visited in 1992, and burned my senses to bits with a great lamb vindaloo. Heaven! We got Claire and Alla into a taxi and then tubed our way back to Hatton Cross. Unlike our 1992 park and ride experience, this time we could get the car out of the car park – thank goodness! We’re out tomorrow towards Somerset, while Claire and Alla have a few more days in London; we’ll connect up with them in Bournemouth. Monday, May 22 – Ascot to Vellow, Somerset We left Lyndrick House shortly after breakfast – me driving – and made a quick pit stop to try another ATM. Annoyingly enough our Versateller cards (Plus system) had not worked on Sunday, but Cirrus (Litton Credit Union) did; we thought we’d try one more time to see if the failure was a temporary thing or not. Thankfully, it worked this time; it would have been a drag to rely on just one card! Leaving Ascot, we stopped at Virginia Water for an hour or so of “twitching”, as birding is called in the UK. Sounds to me more like a spastic fit than a hobby. We did see some nice birds including moorhen, mandarin, and grey wagtail, and many mistle thrush, crested grebes, chaffinches and robins. From there it was on to Bristol, where under the pretense of stopping for a caffeine-laced drink (I was very tired by then), I got into a shopping mall – the Galleries next to Castle Park – and bought a dress at Laura Ashley. To be fair, I had seen the dress on Regent St. in London on Sunday; with the current exchange rate it was about $20-$25 cheaper than at home. We nibbled lunch at the mall’s food court, visited a book shop, and listened to see if anyone talked like Cary Grant; no go! Great Britain 1995 2 From Bristol we drove on to the Somerset region, first stopping at Chew Valley Lake. Another nice birding spot, despite little bug clouds in the meadows; we saw numerous ducks (mallards, shelduck), mute swans with cygnets, shags, common gull, and a lesser black-backed gull. Robert got a reed warbler, too. We finally finished up the day getting to our B&B for the night, Curdon Mill Farm in Vellow, near Williton. What a charmer; the brick mill house had been converted into an ivy-covered hotel and restaurant, and the brook still babbled noisily outside our window. We had a beautiful view of the hills, with pastures delineated by hedgerows, and sheep frolicking about, from our Pruggeresque 2 room on the top floor. Well, the young ones frolicked; the adults mostly stood around morosely, while the little ones ran in circus baa-ing. Guess the youngsters hadn’t figured out that they’re sheep yet. The garden at Curdon Mill was very pretty, too, having the added bonus of multiple, very friendly cats who, in return for much petting, allowed us to take their photographs. Dinner was at the restaurant at the mill. Fixed price of £19.50 each, a little expensive, but marvelous; asparagus as a starter, steak for Robert, “nut case” (phyllo-wrapped ground hazelnuts, veggies, and eggs) for me, served with loads of fresh vegetables (potatoes, carrots, cauliflower, and zucchini). We both eyed the large stilton cheese for dessert, but instead opted for sweets – chocolate mousse for Robert and sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and clotted cream for me. Yum! We resolved to look for local cheese factories as we drove into Cornwall. We did drive close by the Cheddar today, but didn’t have a chance to stop. Tuesday, May 23 – Vellow to Cornwall The sounds of the brook, the cries of peacocks and bleating sheep, and a nice full breakfast started our day. Gorgeous weather, too – we’ve been remarkably lucky thus far! Following breakfast we said goodbye to the cats and headed out to Exmoor National Park. There wasn’t much in the way of places to pull out, but we did stop once and get some looks at buzzard and honey buzzard.