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Whiteout
As temperatures at home in Christchurch plummet to overnight minuses, we are basking in the spring heat of London. The mercury tipped the gauge at 26 degrees the other day with unusual results. In parks and on the streets everywhere, luminous white bodies are being exposed to the sun, in our view putting low flying aircraft in danger of reflected sun strike. It is a phenomenon rarely seen in New Zealand, men walking down city streets with their tops off, others with shirts unbuttoned, bellies protruding shamelessly over belts. Public areas are given over to sunbathing, including at Hyde Park where people lounge about in the ubiquitous green and white striped deckchairs. We put this curious phenomenon down to the predominance of terraced housing which forces inhabitants to do things in public that really should be restricted their own backyards or, at worst, the beach.
We have another new friend here, an Australian called Ken who safely navigated us yesterday through the long and winding roads of Wiltshire and then onto Cardiff in the great silver Mercedes. Ken is our chosen voice on SatNav and we appreciate him very much, although Anousheh may live to regret loaning him to us. Ken is quite patient, giving instructions on which roads to take and where to go, never scolding us when we get it wrong, simply recalculating and offering fresh advice. Not once has he got cross, although Kaelene quite rightly pointed out that he could be programmed to give positive reinforcement when we get it right. Following an instruction like, “At the roundabout, proceed ahead and take the second exit left”, on the successful completion of the manouevre he could say, “Well done cobbers, mission accomplished”, or something supportive like that. At times we thought we could hear him saying “Speed up, speed up, you usually don’t drive so slowly.” Clearly he thought he was still with Anousheh.
We were in good hands with Ken and found ourselves, as planned, abandoning the motorway and weaving along beautiful country roads, passing though lovely little towns, although, to our ears, with rather unusual names: Ogbourne St George and Ogbourne St Andrew, Winterbourne Monkton and Winterbourne Bassett, Manningford Bohune Common, Manningford Abbots, Mannngford Bruce, and just plain old Manningford (are they related?) to name a few. But the purpose of this spur-of-the-moment deviation through these quaint little towns of thatched cottages and lush spring countryside was to visit Stonehenge for no other reason than it is there. And splendid it is. For the entry fee of around 6 pound (or free if you join the National Heritage outfit) visitors are able to wander around the perimeter of this World Heritage site to the accompaniment of a digital voice guide explaining its history and origin. The only downside was the swarming grass grub beetles which appeared to frighten visiting children, but no so us former hardy rural folk.
The British do countryside much better than we in New Zealand; the farmland is much more picturesque with woodlands and trees everywhere, the roads and lanes are often framed by hedgerows and villages are ribboned on either side with brick houses and quaint pubs. It is delightful.
We stopped at Westbury, a town which bears the same surname as Kaelene’s cousin and is famous for having a white horse measuring 180 foot wide from nostril to tail carved into a nearby hillside. This was done around 1800 to commemorate Alfred the Great’s victory over the Danes, 1,000 years earlier; better late than never we surmised. Until recently the horse shape was cut directly into the chalk of the hill, but maintenance proved too much like hard work and it was concreted over and painted white. Unfortunately the special paint used for the purpose isn’t as successful as planned as the horse turns concrete-grey from time to time and has to be repainted. Perhaps they should rewrite history and say the town is famous for its grey horse.
Unfortunately it was Wednesday when we called and the Westbury Visitor’s Centre is closed on a Wednesday, so we had to make do with buying postcards at the local knick-knack store. “We did have a fridge magnet once,” the proprietor responded to Kaelene’s request for souvenirs. It was probably sold after the war judging by the remainder of the stock.
If we had one complaint it would be that Ken is not equipped to deal with traffic congestion and it took us an hour to move two miles from the M25 entry onto the M4 after stopping for an early dinner at the Cardiff Hard Rock Café. Similarly, back in London, instead of taking an early off ramp, we were directed to leave the motorway at the point it meets the northern circular, a by-pass which runs close by our house. Unfortunately it took another hour to travel a few miles and, while that may just be a consequence of driving in London, Aussie Ken will have to find better routes than that if he is to retain our confidence.