Walking paths and badger trails…..

England is crisscrossed with ancient public walkways over fields and farms, through forests, public and private land. The walkways are sacrosanct and are kept up and maintained by the landowners. We have one going through our place. The other day we set off in the late afternoon and after walking through the woods came out at the end of Maple Tree Lane, decided on a path which went by a friends house, carried on past his place sure that we would link up soon with one of the paths that go through our place. Ha ha ha! Strangers in a strange land…..what would we know?…..We hooked onto what looked like the path, but was in fact a badger trail. Now badgers, which are nocturnal animals, about the size of a middle sized dog, follow the same path each night on their excursions, see photos…..one is a badger trail and one is a walking path (a special prize for picking the right one!!) Anyway, we followed a badger trail that led us into a hedge!!! It was starting to get dusk and we began to get a bit panicky……there we were in the middle of rural England, trying to find our way home…..we finally got to another lane which runs along the back of our estate…..there was a telephone box, in the middle of nowhere (just in case we had 20p and knew someone who cared!). We found our way home, just as the mist rolled in……exquisitely beautiful.
Ana and the boys arrived a few days later and in our excitement, having picked them up from Heathrow, lost our way home and spent the next few hours trying to find the A12 to take us back into Essex – now that doesn’t sound like much, but in Friday traffic, the smallest distances in London take hours……we incurred congestion charges, cause we accidently ended up in the centre of London…….and that’s another whole story. It’s unbelievably fantastic having Ana and the boys here……..more later……lots of love xxxxx

Cambridge…….

…….it was a beautiful day and so we decided to visit Cambridge. It’s glorious, it reminded us a little of Auckland, a lot of Edinburgh, but it’s Cambridge - what else could it be but a beautiful university town steeped in tradition. Without getting too metaphysical about it, you feel you are walking in the presence of greatness. The buildings themselves give a sense of what has gone before and the throng of students provide hope for the future……answers to global warming etc, which is very much in evidence here….. It has been declared officially Spring (about 6 weeks early)….and it is lovely, but rather confusing, some birds didn’t even bother to migrate! The bulbs are bursting out of the ground, the wildlife is getting very frisky! We are thinking about turning off the central heating and are quietly thinking “call that winter!!! ”
We visited King’s College and went to Evensong as the Choristers were singing. We have observed that England is quite conservative and reserved in a lot of ways, particularly around religion and as we sat in the chapel we were aware that this service had been taking place in the same way for centuries, (since Henry VIII) who would want to change it?
We didn’t have an epiphany, but it was very nice………lots of love xxxxx

There really are a lot of people in this part of the world……..

…..as mentioned previously 80,000,000, give or take a few. Because of this things take longer than we are used to. The distances are the same as in NZ and the roading system is brilliant, but it always takes longer than you expect to get to places…..and to get things done.
Anyway…we had to ‘tax’ the car – we call it Registration, but nobody here knows what we are talking about! Anyway, should be simple, did it six month ago. Off we went down to the PO…”no, love…you haven’t got the log book(????), you’ll have to get that from the DVLA” …..You what????? Anyway we finally had to go to the place where we could get this sorted..shouldn’t take long we thought.. wrong! We were number 365 and they were only up to 330, we took heart from the fact that the place was closing at 3pm (on a Friday?) and hopefully they’d see everyone before they closed! We got our ‘tax’ finally and we are driving a legal car again…for another 6 months.
We came back to our local for a pint and the pub dog was wandering around hoovering up the crumbs off the floor from lunch, we shared a plate of fish and chips…..pub culture is quite different to café culture but equally satisfying!
We went to London on Thursday, it was a rainy day so didn’t take the camera – damn! You always should. Anyway we spent a wonderful day doofering around the National Art Gallery and then the National Museum….we only did the Impressionists at the Art Gallery and the Egyptians at the National Museum….. plenty more to do on the next rainy day in London…………..wish you were here xxxxxxxxxx