Life as a servant part II – Reinventing oneself……..

.......In the olden days he would have called himself by the grand titles of “Rose Pruner” – Cellar Master and Game Keeper!!! The interesting thing is the reality check that living outside your comfort zone gives you. And we’ve found that travel really does this.
In England, we know nothing and nobody, so this means that we are “nobodies” and so as Ana said “you can take a holiday from yourself”. He’s enjoying his new gig as - dead header - grog monitor and chicken herder!!!!
That’s not to say that it doesn’t have it’s ’wrist slitting’ moments!!!
Enough time has lapsed now for us to share an “Oh my God” moment from several weeks ago.
Woke up late one morning and wondered why? Something was different……..”Oh
sh--t”, we hadn’t heard the bantam cocks crowing!!! Rod leapt out of bed and disappeared for 20 minutes, while I snuggled up and enjoyed a few extra zzzzzzzzzzz’s. He walked back in ashen-faced…”I forgot to lock up the bantam hutch and the fox has taken all the bantams!!!” These bantams were our employer’s pride and joy. It was horrible. Our employer’s were fantastic. They were more concerned about Rod having a nervous breakdown and said “what’s done, can’t be undone – leave it be”. We now have a fresh flock and they are the most guarded, over-protected group of chickens you could imagine. It’s hard sometimes here, but we love it…….miss you all heaps and look for your emails, it reminds us that to some people we are ‘somebody’ xxxxxxxxxxx

Clacton on Sea – Thorpe le Skolen – Frinton on Sea or Walton on Naze ????????.....

…..we finally opted for ‘Walton on Naze’ for our day and night off after much deliberation – there are so many choices??? Anyway, what the heck is a “Naze” we wanted to find out. Now going to the beach in England is definitely not like going to the beach as we know it. In some instances it can be more like going to the Easter Show, but that’s another blog. Beach Huts (the size of a small windowless garden shed)????????? Now what are they about? You can’t just go and buy one for a start, you have to wait years in some instances to get one and then apply…. Now if you are lucky ….”lucky”?? …enough to finally get one, it is going to set you back anything between £30,000 to £60,000 no kidding! So what we really want to know is what do you do with it? You can sit in it, while everyone else sits on the steps or on the sand, or in the many purpose-built shelters. I suppose you can change into your togs in it…..and you can make a cup of tea in it. You could chat with the hut people inches away on either side of you, or in front of you or behind you….. BUT! you cannot sleep in it or have more than about 4 people in it. We just don’t get it………..
Anyway back to ‘Walton on Naze’ - we stayed in a gorgeous little pub, great food, an excellent bottle of NZ wine and went to sleep to the sound of the sea – bliss. They said they didn’t want to do breakfast until 10am, which was great for us – a sleep-in AND a good walk before the most enormous breakfast we have ever undertaken. Then we went for a walk along the most interesting beach. The cliffs behind it are crumbling away and washing down bits of fossilized trees, bones, all manner of things. It is one of the most significant paleontological sites in England. I found a fossilized poo for Sammy, we also found sharks teeth and Rod thought he had found a large tooth thing and so lugged it back up the cliff only to find out it was a fossilized sponge of quite modern times – like a mere few thousand years, where as my poo is 2.6 million years old!!!
Also there is this amazing tower, 3 or 4 centuries old, which is 9 stories of art gallery……by the way we finally found out that Naze is a derivation of an old English word for nose – so Walton on the Naze is named because it’s on a bit of land that juts out………………lots of love xxxxxxx

Aldeburgh.............

…….pronounced “Allborough”……is a little village on the coast which we decided to drag ourselves away from the pool at our place and visit. The most glorious coastline, with lovely pebbles (no sand to get in your fish and chips – which are THE best in the world!). We stayed in a little Inn opposite ‘The Moot House’ which is in effect ‘The Town Hall’ where the council still convenes. Our Inn was 16th Century and the Moot House was much older than that. Incredible, when you think of the sea air continually battering at it. The fishing boats just launch off the beach and you can buy fish caught that day from the little shacks. As we strolled through the village, we came across Magoo the parrot. Magoo stands on his front fence and says “hello” to people as they walk past and then as we walked away he made the most astonishing noise of a telephone ringing!!! Certainly got our attention!
We saw this ‘thing’ in the distance and as we walked to it we found it was a huge sculpture of a scallop shell. Benjamin Britten, the composer lived in Aldeburgh and it is a tribute to him. It’s very tactile, you can climb and sit on it, though it does dominate the landscape and as such is very controversial. Speaking of dominating the landscape and I guess for us very controversial, if you see the long shot of the beach, there is a very large round white dome to the left – is it a sound shell or theatre we asked – nope it’s a nuclear power station…….here’s the thing, we drove down towards it and couldn’t find it…..as you get near it, it disappears…how do they do that? (One has to ask…why were we driving toward it???) Lots of love, we really enjoy hearing from you so thanks for the Emails, we are missing friends and family dreadfully xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx