Middling England

Well, despite remaining in England, the weather did pick up a bit. I mean, there was torrential rain on Tuesday, a morning soaking on Thursday and some spits and spots in between, but there was also some blanket white cloud and slots of blue sky in between. I even dabbled with the idea of wearing shorts at one point but thought the better of it. Before leaving this arguably blessed isle for a few weeks of continental shenanigans there were a couple of travel sectors to immerse oneself with a cup of tea in more well-to-do parts of England – the downs and heaths and cathedral towns of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire (all in one day!) and suburban niceties in Finchley N12 London.

Now if you want a nice town with a well-to-do air, a haphazard conglomeration of picturesque buildings and churches bordered by tinkling rivulets and Cafe Identikit Chainos, then the cathedral towns of Southern England are where it’s at. Basingstoke isn’t really one of them, but a very useful base from which to spend a few days with Dad and Sonia and venture out into the manicured wilds of the south. Such as Winchester, which is a place I like very much, and it was a rather pleasant and agreeable place for a Friday afternoon meander, enlivened by ice cream and a walk into the wetlands through which the transparent waters of the River Itchen lazily spread.

This has to be Dave Cameron’s Britain, where antiquated schoolboy uniforms intersperse with old majors and shooting clubs (those darn working classes are crossing my moat...load the barrels and unleash the hounds), and the closest thing to a riot is a non-linear queue for the Daily Mail. It spreads across through the crinkled bedsheet downs of Hampshire and Surrey and Sussex to other such well heeled places like Guildford and Farnham and Chichester. Despite not naturally being a conservative type myself, it’s really rather agreeable (if you can be rich and slightly intolerant of other foreign types).

Chichester is kind of like Winchester, just with a little less win and a bit more chi about the place. It also has a cathedral and a series of old buildings taken over by the likes of WHSmith and New Look. Mercifully it does have some shops which cannot be found in every other single high street in the UK, giving the place a bit more character and charm on a bustling Saturday morning. Plenty of places to eat too, including a number of food stalls offering sizzling off-cuts of meat placed at regular intervals in between buskers plying their variable trade. And giant baked potatoes, yum.

Like most British towns Chichester does have plenty of cloud but not too far away a sliver of blue sky lured me to direct Dad towards the Sussex coast and the retirement paradise of Selsey. Where, to be fair, the sun was out and summer briefly returned, but that was the sole highlight. It is hard seeing beaches and making inevitable comparisons to those wonderful sandy expanses in the antipodes. At least the British sands are enlivened by piers and machines for your tuppeny bits, but not in Selsey, with its one food van and smelly foreshore. But the sun was warming and welcome.

The drive back was significantly more charming, with the sun extending into the South Downs, passing through into Surrey and back on towards Hampshire. The next day, the sun did its best to hide once more, but it wasn’t all doom and gloom with the odd intermittent break back down in Surrey along the Devils Punchbowl. While I still don’t get the name – a little too dramatic for a series of cosy hillocks and heather downs – the punchbowl provided a very nice walk through forest and meadows and heath, with a few lookouts to boot. I always like lookouts, making a nice change from cathedrals. Even better when you are munching on a pork pie atop such a hillock.

Despite being all relatively tame and refined, there remain some wild critters around these parts. The lesser spotted small car for instance, and the lady chortle chortle, often found in the more common fourusby fouropianous. There were also some lizards of some type, that did not seem particular rare given their prevalence at another little heathy spot somewhere in Surrey. I am not naming where exactly so I can keep their presence protected, and not because I can’t remember or anything.

Changing tack somewhat, but equally secretive are underground nuclear bunkers don’t you think? I mean, you wouldn’t get one signposted or anything would you. Somewhere in deepest darkest Essex, the (now decommissioned) nuclear bunker was perfect quirkiness for a soggy day, a reminder of oddments and peculiarities encountered down under with Caroline and Jill, friends with whom I met both in the southern hemisphere, but with whom I now shared a northern hemisphere summer day on a depressing wet M25. The nuclear bunker was actually rather excellent – in part informative, scary, hilarious and, well, quirky. Just beware the realistic mannequins with dishevelled hair and no arms.

Elsewhere in Essex, where I don’t think a nuclear blast hit but can’t quite be sure, there was pub lunch with a scarily oily but quite delicious lasagne, random villages and more of the M25 and other salubrious roads. There were more pubs in Hertfordshire - if only a few of these hundreds of pubs could be lifted brick by brick and transported to Australia, along with the ales – and you know what happens when you mix alcohol with mannequins and the M25? No, well, I’ll tell you what, a trip to Asda like innit for some evening ‘mezze’ and container spotting. Yes, it really was a wild and wacky day out.

Most of the rest of the time in North London was spent fairly leisurely, revisiting shops and parks of Finchley with Melita and her little cute newbie, Orla, who I’m sure enjoyed the little walks out in the sometimes sunny weather as much as I did. A chance to indulge in people time more than spectacular and magnificent sights...although Finchley Tesco is possibly such a place. It got me thinking how wonderful everyone I see and visit is and how they make these trips possible – putting me up, feeding me, driving me around, trying to crack a smile on my face. It works, because just occasionally you may see me beaming.