Saturday 3rd August
I was told at The Farriers where I stayed that a nearby café would be open at 7:30am. When I went out to dine I looked at the door and it didn't open until 8:30 - I was booked at The Farriers without breakfast.
The recommended Talbot was mediocre with poor service, and ONCE AGAIN, loud music.
At home, and almost everywhere, at night, I hear that wretched repetitive cooing of the pigeons or their near relations. In my room at The Farriers this was replaced with endless seagull squawking.
At 7:15 am I was asking the bin men if there was a café open. They told me of one that opened at 7:45, but slightly in the wrong direction. Off I went, and at 7:40 the lady told me she could serve nothing until 8:00. A nearby ambulance driver told me about a Texaco station a kilometre down my route with a bit of doubling back - all that took a lot of faffing, but I needed breakfast and liquid to carry.
Enjoyable walking followed with one five hundred yard exception of total jungle considerably taller than me and completely overgrown - this was without doubt still part of the SW, and apparently in situ to avoid a crop field close to the river. Further on the path doubled back on itself for half a mile to avoid another crop field which was irritating, but i suppose you can't perfect a whole route like this without some refusal for permissive paths. There were no places of refreshment for the whole day, but I had biscuits, almond slices and Fanta.
A noticeable feature today, and yesterday, was that almost everybody encountered averted eyes and failed to pass a greeting. Overall I reckon ninety percent of people, out in the country, over many years experience say hello - strange?
The Tourist Info office at Upton-on-Severn was open! It does close on Thursdays. Upton is a one hundred percent foreign tourist, English history attraction, as well as being an active boating centre. The TIO's fist attempt sent me to The Star Hotel where a huge base-beat speaker on the pavement was blaring out rap, with an attendant crowd of drunken, low life, twenty odd year olds smooching, screaming and shouting, and being generally vulgar. I turned and went back to the TIO.
I am now booked into a quiet and peaceful b and b at the other end of the high street, and close to The White Lion, " where the locals go when they want to eat out".
Despite all my moans, which are the items which create interest for readers I am enjoying this trip.
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I cast my mind and recalled you in your twenties: listening to the Gregorian chant with the record player turned way down, eschewing the company of young woman on the grounds that they tended to corrupt, prayer and meditation at 2 am, reading confined to George Meredith, fifty percent of your salary given away to missionary charities, a deliberately shaved bald-spot in the middle of your brown curly hair, occasional bouts of self-flagellation with barbed wire, throwing out the money-changers from the Wool Exchange. Yes, you've earned the right to be crusty about unfettered twenty-first century youth.
ReplyDeleteRR - The real 2:00am picture would have been at a "party" at someone's house, who I did not know, whose parents had unwisely left the house in his charge. We would have been at the pub until closing time, then more beer at the venue listening to The Modern Jazz Quartet, stan Getz, or Stan Kenton, and smoking hand rolled cigarettes in brown liquorice paper, and quoting learned by heart extracts from Under Milk Wood and James Thurber to each other rolling with laughter at the humour - very sophisticated. We scorned Elvis and the Beatles.
ReplyDeleteEvery generation says the same, but I do believe we did it with a bit more style than the current lot whose aim appears to be to drink strong alcohol until they make a right nuisance of themselves before pathetically passing out on the pavement.
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Hope you had chance to visit the renowned Map Shop in Upton.
ReplyDeleteWP- I bought from them years ago using their Internet service, and had a sudden reminder as I saw the shop down High Street, but I had no reason to use them at the moment.
ReplyDeleteAlways preferred Getz over MJQ.
ReplyDeleteBuy all my maps, over the phone, from The Map Shop - find them very knowledgeable and helpful, but never visited.
BC- hi John. I agree with you about the MJQ. There were so many greats to choose from and I saw nearly all of them when the great jazz exchanges happened in the 60s, mainly at St. George's Hall in Bradford. A particular favourite for me was Sonny Rollins.
ReplyDelete