Month: April 2016

Dublin; so much to do – so little time! We visited St. Stephen’s Park, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Christ Church Cathedral and Dublin Castle today. St. Stephen’s Park played a central role in the 1916 Easter Rising. There are numerious plaques around the park providing the historical context of the event. Unfortunately, we will not be in Dublin when the planned commemorative activities marking the centenary of this event take place in several weeks time.

I disovered that Temple Bar is not in fact a single “bar” (a drinking waterhole as us Aussies might otherwise relate to this word) but rather this describes a section of land reclaimed from the adjacent River Liffey upon which a number of businesses were created over a period of time. This area now contains a concentrated number of live music drinking bars and is a magnet for young people and the young at heart.

Tomorrow we go to the Guinness Brewery at 5 pm for a guided tour and beer tasting. We may also do something else but tomorrow we go to the Guinness Brewery for a guided tour and beer tasting. 🙂

Our short stay in Shrewsbury turned out to be an unexpected gem. I had imagined it to be a bump in the transit from Oxford to Dublin, but it turned out to be so much more. The town itself is very pretty, with splashes of colour courtesy of the local Horticultural Society. There is plenty of medieval stone, Tudor facades and Georgian architecture interspersed with green areas and open parklands. There was a complete lack of tourists and the crush of crowds pressing upon you as you might take in a pleasant vista or attempt to frame a particlar camera image.

However, it was the warmth and generosity of our hosts that turned Shrewsbury into the best stay on our trip so far. Ian and Vanessa welcomed us like relatives rather than paying guests and last night’s dinner was by far the best meal we’ve had. But, all good things must come to an end and so it was that we had to say goodbye and move onto Holyhead by train to take the ferry to Dublin. Ian saved us the hard slog of dragging our bags on the reverse trip to the station by driving us there and our departure was an emotional hug rather than a warm handshake.

The train trip to Holyhead passed through Wales arriving in the early afternoon. We boarded our ferry, The Stena Adventurer, for the three hour transit to Dublin and enjoyed a transit across a mill pond rather than what I imagined would be present on the Irish Sea. You could have skied across the water it was so placid.

We took a bus into the city centre and walked to our accomodation – tired but excited about continuing our adventures into Ireland.

Today we visited Attingham Park, a vast area of parklands containing Attingham Hall with associated stables and garden areas. The weather was perfect with blue skies and a light breeze. It was 6.5 km one way and it took about 1.5 hours to walk. For about half this distance we trekked along a narrow footpath adjacent to a road that appeared to be the back straight of Brands Hatch with cars speeding by in a hurry to be anywhere other than where they were at that instant in time.

When we arrived at Attingham Park we discovered where the cars had been speeding between. A vast estate now managed by the National Trust, Attingham Hall presents as a mansion from a period drama with the lower floor lovingingly restored to its prior grandeur and the upper floors currently being renovated.

We had been invited to dinner with our accomodation hosts, Ian and Vanessa, and so left for our return trek leaving sufficient time to freshen up from our adventures before arriving for dinner. Alas, our plans did not proceed as planned. Upon arriving at our lodgings, we were greeted by the harmonious strains of a bass and acoustic guitar and some male voices singing “Make Me Smile”, a 1977 song by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. Once inside the door we learnt that a couple fo friends of our hosts were also going to be joining us for dinner; Brian (the financier) and Jan (the retired solicitor). Brian (acoustic guitar and vocals) and Ian (bass guitar) were practicising for an upcoming gig for Jan’s 50th birthday. They are both active in other bands but have known each other for many years. Chris, Vanessa, Jan, two squabbling dogs and I sat in the kitchen sipping wine and talking until the two musicians joined us for what turned out to be a wonderful evening of fine food and entertaining company.

It was a great meal with lively conversation covering a vast range of topics; music, politics, the GFC, sport (cricket), Scottish sessation from the UK, Australia’s multilateral trade relations with China and the USA, etc. When I revealed that I was a drummer locked in an engineer’s body, I had to endure the usual round of good humoured jokes about drummers. Here’s one I hadn’t heard before; “Q: How do you know the drums are setup level?  A: When the drummer is dribbling evenly out of both sides of his mouth!”

It was biting cold and drizzling as we bumped our bags along Oxford’s cobbled streets towards the railway station. We had left our apartment early and arrived with plenty of time to warm up before boarding our train to Shrewsbury. Then things went awry. I won’t go into details but, as we dragged our bags hopefully across the bridge spanning the railway platforms, our train departed without us, and couldn’t have cared less! We dragged our bags back to the ticket office where I purchased another round of train tickets and we arrived in Shrewsbury exactly one hour later than we had scheduled and about 76 pounds lighter. (That is British Pounds; about AUD $154.)

Our accomodation in Shrewsbury was a bit of a walk from the station and we eventally arrived having dragged our bags about 1.5 km “up hill and down dale”. Despite the unfortunate progress of the day thus far we parked our bags and went out to explore Shrewsbury in the middle of the afternoon.

The town centre is contained within an almost complete circular arc of the River Severn with nine bridges spanning the river around the arc. A beautiful park faces the arcing river and we strolled along the river bank enjoying wonderful floral gardens. A section of the park used to be a quarry and has now been transformed into an enclosed flower wonderland that is locked up after hours. It is called The Dingle and was filled with brightly flowering and fragrant plants. The Shrewsbury Horticultural Society is an active association and the town is littered with flowering pots of colour adding very much to the overall charm and beauty of this place.

Our last full day in Oxford was invested with visits to the University Church, The Museum of Natural History, The Pitt Museum of Anthropology & Archeology and The Museum of The History of Science which turned out to be a good plan as it was heavily overcast, rained all day and cold.

The Museums of Natural History and Anthropology & Archeology were overwhelming with many detailed exhibits and plenty of interactive exhibits for young children and school groups.

The Museum of The History of Science was a curious collection of instruments, telescopes, microscopes, calculators and various other apparatus used by experimental scientists and educators. In a prominent location over a large fireplace was a section of blackboard encased in a protective cover. The blackboard was used by Albert Einstein during a series of lectures at Oxford in 1931.

Tommorow we transit via train to Shrewsbury.

Despite a number of attempts to do away with me using a blunt butter knife and poison me with bad beer, I am pleased to report that our tour of Midsomer Murders “shooting” locations was enjoyable but otherwise quite safe.

We were picked up from our accomodation by John and joined a band of three ladies from Norway. They spent a considerable amount of time during our time together attempting to persuade us that we should go to Norway for the natural beauty and agreeable climate. In turn we suggested they should visit Australia for our natural beauty and agreeable climate. I don’t wish to cast “nasturtiums” but I think our climate would be more agreeable for more of the time than theirs.

We were chauffered through Oxfordshire (principally) among tiny villages that reeked of character. We stopped at a few of the villages for photo-ops and food / nature breaks. John was a wonderful guide who had a background in public broadcasting on the BBC and a relaxed speaking voice. Although he had not watched every episode of Midsomer Murders he had a wonderful passion for the landscape and the character that each small village presented. He also managed to skillfully navigate our tour such that we did not get rained on at all despite there being plenty of rain about.

We stopped for lunch at Henley where the annual regatta is held. A local pub, The Argyll, where we had lunch, was used in a couple of epsisodes. They have a special beer named in the spirit of the series. I say this becasue it was bloody terrible!

Chris and I had a great day. It was wonderful to visit the small hamlets and soak up the character that Midsomer Murders have been able to weave into the series – and all without loosing a single tourist!

The Great Hall at Christ Church Oxford was the location inspiration for the “sorting hat” scence from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. Alas, a film set constructed elsewhere recreating the interior of the Great Hall was used for the actual movie but the grandour of the Great Hall was none the less impressive. You can almost see Harry, Ron and Hermione anxiously waiting for their names to be processed by the sorting hat.

The Divinity School at The Bodelian Library was used in several Harry Potter movie scenes also. It is most obvious as the Infirmary at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry where Harry, Ron and Hermione had various reasons to be patients and / or visitors.

Adjacent to the Bodleian Library is the Radcliffe Camera. This is a working library of the University with two upper circular floors for students, an administration ground floor and two subterranean levels stretching for hundreds of metres to the adjacent Bodleian Library and beyond.

With only several weeks till exams, all the libraries we were able to visit were strictly “no cameras”, “no speaking”, “absolute silence” with every seat filled with a nervous student hopefully cramming for their finals.

We finished the afternoon with a visit to Magdelan College and were able to wander with some freedom among the buildings and manicured lawns. We enjoyed tea along the banks of the River Cherwell before strolling along Addison’s Walk around The Water Meadow. C.S. Lewis (of “The Chronicles of Narnia”) held academic positions at both Magdelan College, Oxford and Magdelane College, Cambridge. There was a poem of his inscribed along Addison’s Walk. Something about birds – but all I could see were bloody squirrels – everywhere, oh, and a herd of deer, but they don’t count. Sorry Lewis!

On the way back home, we cross the River Thames. Today’s weather was a wonderful contrast to yesterday’s, with much sun and blue skies. I understand this is not common for Oxford so we are thankful to the Good Lord above for blessing our day today and pray he continues his favourable outlook on us tomorrow…

… for tomorrow we set off on a Midsomer Murders adventure tour. Should this turn out to be my last post, because I am murdered tomorrow, I have been reliably informed by a retired policeman (CID) I met in Cambridge, that you should “follow the money”. In the meatime, my will still stands.

Today we transitted from Cambridge to Oxford. The weather started out poorly. It was pouring as we waited for the bus to take us into central Cambridge to connect with our bus to Oxford. We had decided to make a connection via bus as the train would have required a detour via London; a more expensive and time consuming option. However, our X5 Stagecoach bus from Cambridge turned out to be a city based double decker (no toilet, no Wi-Fi, no leather seats, etc) due to a mechanical failure. It was interesting travelling in a double decker bus being flogged at 100 km/hr along the A421 motorway to Bedford. At Bedford we changed to a proper coach and completed our transit to Oxford in “coach” comfort.

Arriving in Oxford mid-afternoon amidst overcast conditions we set off for our accomodation. Our plans and map directions were working well until we hit a wall (literally). Without regard to Google maps or iPhone GPS enabled apps, some idiot had decided to excavate a whole city block for a grand infrastructure project and hadn’t bothered to send me a personal e-mail advising of the requisite bypass via London. (Bloody Vogons!) After some discussion with locals we were able to find a detour around the abyss and locate our lodgings. To add salt to the wound, it POURED for the last 200 metres, such that we arrived very much the worst for wear.

Note; the picture below was taken on Wednesday 13 April and does not represent the inclement conditions that were present upon our initial arrival. 🙂

Today, comments from our faithful college of followers in addition to Christine’s prior notes on “things to do in Cambridge” provoked us to walk some distance to the nearby village of Grantchester to enjoy tea and scones by the river Cam. Enjoyed by luminaries such as Virginia Woolf, the Orchard tea rooms is a popular location to enjoy refreshments along the river Cam. We were up to the task too; quills poised in expectation of a provacative treatise.

We walked back to Cambridge along the river Cam and visited the Whipple Science Museum. This is a compact and informative museum with many exhibits covering the range of Natural Philosophy that was common for the time. I particularly enjoyed the exhibits associated with James Clerk Maxwell whose equations have provided the basis for considerable contributions to physics and specifically electrical engineering. He was both a student and professor at Cambridge.

We wandered back to our lodgings for the last time. Along the way we visited the Mathematical Bridge that links Queen’s College across the river Cam. Tourist traffic through Cambridge today (Monday) was certainly much reduced compared to that observed over the weekend.

Tomorrow we depart for Oxford. A reliable source tells me that while Cambridge is noted for its science and technology focus, Oxford is equally known for its literary and humanities focus. I expect to be impressed by Oxford as much as I have been by Cambridge. The opportunity granted to students of both these universities seems a world apart from my experience.

Today we visited the Cambridge Centre for Computing History and the Fitzwilliam Museum and finished with dinner at a local pub – The Carpenters Arms.

The weather was clear and cold but with patches of sunshine which necessitated the use of sunglasses – having only been required a few times since our arrvial.

The Centre for Computing History was variously a collection of electronic junk or a treasurehouse of antiques charting the development of computing since the 1940s. There was a definate intent for interactive use of the devices on display that were operational. Chris and I lost at Space Invaders, PacMan and numerous other games that invloved jumping, shooting, dodging and other motor skills that we’ve long since lost.

We moved onto the Fitzwilliam Museum and spent the afternoon strolling among art works spanning the last 800 years and a special exhibit of Egyptian antiquities.

Thanks to those who have posted comments. It provides feedback and lets us know that we’re not broadcasting into a black hole. 🙂

We started planning tommorrow’s activities over our dinner at the pub but haven’t made any firm decisions about what to do as yet. That’s what’s good about holidays – you can elect to be free to decide what you’d like to do and when to do it. You’ll just have to be patient till tomorrow to see what we decided to do.