We went to my father's last week - and I am going to give a brief itinerary - more for the purpose of record, rather than to fascinate the readership.
We drove there on Thursday - we started late and predictably everyone was starving by 3.00 when we came to a motorway service station - so we stopped and had "lunch" - from a weird new phenomenon, a noodle stall - rather like the somewhat ersatz ones run by angry Essexmen at country fairs and other public entertainments - this one was run by a fairly pleasant African woman. Why I would expect it to be run by people from a noodle-making race is odd, but I suppose it is because I still vaguely hope for some sort of authenticity. The noodles were average, my sushi was less good than Waitrose sushi (tragically this is my chief point of comparison) and we were not overwhelmed by joy.
The traffic was heavy and we turned off the M25 and drove through the great stockbroker belt around Sunningdale and Ascot remarking on its beauty. We drove through a considerable amount of woodland, and past some horsey establishments. It was sunny and everything looked remarkably green and lush for late August.
When we arrived at my father's I suggested we went out to eat at the nice bar above the river in Maidenhead. The pleasure of the place is in its situation, although the food isn't bad either. There is a terrace above the river, and a very rivery smell. We sat outside and drank modest amounts of SA rose (because I was driving) and ate various sharing platter things - then burgers, mussels and salads. My salad - "crayfish" was a bit insipid - tasteless fish, thin sauce - but not utterly unpleasant. The boys enjoyed their burgers and Pa enjoyed his mussels - so it was a nice evening experience.
DAY 1 OXFORD
It was a quick drive to Oxford - and I decided that for a change we would do the Park and Drive thing - so we went into town on the bus - Finn was free, it was £6.90 return for the rest of us - so pretty good value, compared with parking charges. I went to see S&L while the boys went to the Pitt-Rivers museum, which they really enjoyed.. S was looking really well and I heard that he is on a different treatment which seems to suit him well, and he is talking about things in the future so that's encouraging. We talked a great deal about books and writing and some family topics, and it was all thoroughly enjoyable. It was lovely to see them both and their youngest daughter - who has some rather extreme views on womenswear... actually they are views I have occasionally espoused myself - but hearing them from someone else I realised I didn't agree with them. Taken to their logical extremes they would result in us all wearing burquas.
I left S&L's house and took a taxi to the Pitt-Rivers... the taxi driver said very dubiously that there was no where to eat around there, He hung around, perhaps expecting I would jump in and return to the centre. However, once I had the map I saw we were about 4 minutes walk from a place with shops etc. and we found a nice cafe where M and I again ate salads and the boys had something else, we also ate sticky buns of a very high quality... delicious coconut and chocolate flapjacks, really lovely. It was a short walk to the Ashmolean which we all enjoyed greatly. They have very little original Greek sculpture, mostly Roman copies and plaster casts, but still good to see. M was pleased at some giant candelabra from Hadrian's villa which had elephants supporting one of the levels. We looked a lot of Egyptian stuff and I was forced into a discussion about phalluses (the God Min!!) in antiquity... the boys had much useful info about scarification in tribal cultures and what it's function was, so we were able to have some discussion about that.
I got into a bit of a panic because we had to find cash - but once we'd got some we relaxed and walked about, went to the covered market - very different now - and then to a lovely art bookshop in Broad Street, where I bought a number of birthday items for future use. Then we went and had a drink and went home. Back at the old homestead my father was planning a curry takeaway - and my sister C joined us. It was a fantastically good curry - hope my father doesn't do his usual trick with the rice! We had a vaguely disturbing chat about inheritance - and then went to bed very early.
2. BRISTOL
After a lot of good architecture in Oxford I wasn't sure what to expect from Bristol - but after leaving the nightmare parking/mall zone of Cabot Circus we broke away towards the old town, parts of which are like Bordeaux (unsurprisingly). We had a second breakfast - then went over to the Cathedral - an unusual building, heavily restored, but also with a great deal of surprisingly fresh looking medieval Decorated carving - uneroded due to the quality of the stone (like the stuff in Lecce I suppose, which hardens on contact with air). I did not take enough pictures, and there was no guide book either, so I found it hard to understand mmuch about the history of the cathedral, but it had some impressive features. The shop was closed for a month - hence lack of guide book. One remaining side of the cloister lead to a sadly Anglican coffee shop - they do this "simplicity" thing which somehow looks unwelcoming. Are they suggesting the coffee shop should be a place of worship too?
We then walked down to the waterfront area, and investigated the Arnolfini - the cheap food on offer in the caff there was no to Ned's liking - although I would have liked it. So we went to the next place we could find, a tapas bar with a haughty waitress. We had about 5 tapas and a couple of glasses of wine and a beer. It was a bit "mass catering" so not very interesting - then we went back to the Arnolfini and saw the Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition.... why was he so obsessed with Saint-Just? His work is amusing, I saw my favourite post card "A Tribute to Victor Sylvester" - as well as other agreeable images.
There is a good bookshop at the Arnolfini - yet even there amongst the small publishers and quirky novels I was apalled to see a copy of Harold Fry - a book so average that perhaps I would not have thought it possible.
I then sat by the water and made notes about TRF - something L had said about it had piqued me to feel I should expand on it... I was planning to go and get indoors, as there was a brisk wind, when Finn called to say he wanted to leave his event. I went to get him - an interesting walk down some odd little streets on different levels. One sight was very Bordeaux - a church tower that spanned a street with an arch beneath it. Once I had collected Finn and heard his tale of woe, how he had renounced fingerboarding forever... we went and had yet another coffee and waited for M&N. And so home, via the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Because we took the wrong turning we did not arrive at the top, but, more spectacularly drove along the road beneath it - it's a bloody long way up. It was very impressive - and we saw the Avon Gorge - the most rocky thing I've seen for years (East Kent is not rocky at all, anywhere. The nearest rocks are Tunbridge Wells, if you're desperate). I realised that I missed rocks, missed Ireland, missed holidays - but enough. Gradually the Gorge turned into suburbia - but it was good while it lasted.
We returned home and had very good fish and chips.
DAY 3 SUNDAY
There was a certain amount of aggro about what we should do. Lunch had to be Dim Sum - and Finn didn't want to walk a lot because of blisters, there was a move to go to the National Portrait Gallery (although Finn, astonishingly, wanted to go to the V&A) so we went to Soho - spent a small fortune on parking... and strolled around various bits of the newly-enlarged NPG - which always seems to have something new and fab - currently seemed to have a bit of a Philippa Gregory theme - main characters from The White Queen were on show. The usual BP portrait competition - the fashion for "photographic" portraits continues - occasionally with a nod to the fact that they are actually painted - like sticking in an obvious brushstroke or two. Then we went to have dim sum at "the cheap one" - which I think is called The China Harbour... it was pretty good. Afterwards we brought a number of buns at the bakery next door, mine was called "sausage and salad" - mysterious. We didn't go to CCK because of funding issues, but we walked past it to discover it has been rebranded as "The Dim Sum Palace" and looked thoroughly vile - ugly posters outside, but interior still full of unsmiling, cart pushers.
Finn and I sat in Leicester Square while Ned and Mark went to have a look at Thorn House, a famous modernist building on St Martin's lane, largely designed by Edward apparently, with a little help from Sir Basil Spens. Finn smoked, and gave a guy a light. I am sure this makes him feel grown up - both of the boys are now fully part of the "orright mate" culture - I envy them their relative ease with it. We then returned to the most treacherous multistorey car park I have ever been to - and managed to fight our way out of it, and home.
So that was our holiday. It was deeply enjoyable, just to be somewhere different, but I think on the whole I enjoyed the rocks most - because they weren't demanding anything of me, responses, thought, money. They were just rocks, Old Red Sandstone I suppose - and they'd been there for millions of years, and would remain for millions more - long after humans have destroyed the planet. How few things there are in my life that are demanding nothing of me. Oh well, plenty of time to relax when you're dead I suppose.
We drove there on Thursday - we started late and predictably everyone was starving by 3.00 when we came to a motorway service station - so we stopped and had "lunch" - from a weird new phenomenon, a noodle stall - rather like the somewhat ersatz ones run by angry Essexmen at country fairs and other public entertainments - this one was run by a fairly pleasant African woman. Why I would expect it to be run by people from a noodle-making race is odd, but I suppose it is because I still vaguely hope for some sort of authenticity. The noodles were average, my sushi was less good than Waitrose sushi (tragically this is my chief point of comparison) and we were not overwhelmed by joy.
The traffic was heavy and we turned off the M25 and drove through the great stockbroker belt around Sunningdale and Ascot remarking on its beauty. We drove through a considerable amount of woodland, and past some horsey establishments. It was sunny and everything looked remarkably green and lush for late August.
When we arrived at my father's I suggested we went out to eat at the nice bar above the river in Maidenhead. The pleasure of the place is in its situation, although the food isn't bad either. There is a terrace above the river, and a very rivery smell. We sat outside and drank modest amounts of SA rose (because I was driving) and ate various sharing platter things - then burgers, mussels and salads. My salad - "crayfish" was a bit insipid - tasteless fish, thin sauce - but not utterly unpleasant. The boys enjoyed their burgers and Pa enjoyed his mussels - so it was a nice evening experience.
DAY 1 OXFORD
It was a quick drive to Oxford - and I decided that for a change we would do the Park and Drive thing - so we went into town on the bus - Finn was free, it was £6.90 return for the rest of us - so pretty good value, compared with parking charges. I went to see S&L while the boys went to the Pitt-Rivers museum, which they really enjoyed.. S was looking really well and I heard that he is on a different treatment which seems to suit him well, and he is talking about things in the future so that's encouraging. We talked a great deal about books and writing and some family topics, and it was all thoroughly enjoyable. It was lovely to see them both and their youngest daughter - who has some rather extreme views on womenswear... actually they are views I have occasionally espoused myself - but hearing them from someone else I realised I didn't agree with them. Taken to their logical extremes they would result in us all wearing burquas.
I left S&L's house and took a taxi to the Pitt-Rivers... the taxi driver said very dubiously that there was no where to eat around there, He hung around, perhaps expecting I would jump in and return to the centre. However, once I had the map I saw we were about 4 minutes walk from a place with shops etc. and we found a nice cafe where M and I again ate salads and the boys had something else, we also ate sticky buns of a very high quality... delicious coconut and chocolate flapjacks, really lovely. It was a short walk to the Ashmolean which we all enjoyed greatly. They have very little original Greek sculpture, mostly Roman copies and plaster casts, but still good to see. M was pleased at some giant candelabra from Hadrian's villa which had elephants supporting one of the levels. We looked a lot of Egyptian stuff and I was forced into a discussion about phalluses (the God Min!!) in antiquity... the boys had much useful info about scarification in tribal cultures and what it's function was, so we were able to have some discussion about that.
I got into a bit of a panic because we had to find cash - but once we'd got some we relaxed and walked about, went to the covered market - very different now - and then to a lovely art bookshop in Broad Street, where I bought a number of birthday items for future use. Then we went and had a drink and went home. Back at the old homestead my father was planning a curry takeaway - and my sister C joined us. It was a fantastically good curry - hope my father doesn't do his usual trick with the rice! We had a vaguely disturbing chat about inheritance - and then went to bed very early.
2. BRISTOL
After a lot of good architecture in Oxford I wasn't sure what to expect from Bristol - but after leaving the nightmare parking/mall zone of Cabot Circus we broke away towards the old town, parts of which are like Bordeaux (unsurprisingly). We had a second breakfast - then went over to the Cathedral - an unusual building, heavily restored, but also with a great deal of surprisingly fresh looking medieval Decorated carving - uneroded due to the quality of the stone (like the stuff in Lecce I suppose, which hardens on contact with air). I did not take enough pictures, and there was no guide book either, so I found it hard to understand mmuch about the history of the cathedral, but it had some impressive features. The shop was closed for a month - hence lack of guide book. One remaining side of the cloister lead to a sadly Anglican coffee shop - they do this "simplicity" thing which somehow looks unwelcoming. Are they suggesting the coffee shop should be a place of worship too?
We then walked down to the waterfront area, and investigated the Arnolfini - the cheap food on offer in the caff there was no to Ned's liking - although I would have liked it. So we went to the next place we could find, a tapas bar with a haughty waitress. We had about 5 tapas and a couple of glasses of wine and a beer. It was a bit "mass catering" so not very interesting - then we went back to the Arnolfini and saw the Ian Hamilton Finlay exhibition.... why was he so obsessed with Saint-Just? His work is amusing, I saw my favourite post card "A Tribute to Victor Sylvester" - as well as other agreeable images.
There is a good bookshop at the Arnolfini - yet even there amongst the small publishers and quirky novels I was apalled to see a copy of Harold Fry - a book so average that perhaps I would not have thought it possible.
I then sat by the water and made notes about TRF - something L had said about it had piqued me to feel I should expand on it... I was planning to go and get indoors, as there was a brisk wind, when Finn called to say he wanted to leave his event. I went to get him - an interesting walk down some odd little streets on different levels. One sight was very Bordeaux - a church tower that spanned a street with an arch beneath it. Once I had collected Finn and heard his tale of woe, how he had renounced fingerboarding forever... we went and had yet another coffee and waited for M&N. And so home, via the Clifton Suspension Bridge. Because we took the wrong turning we did not arrive at the top, but, more spectacularly drove along the road beneath it - it's a bloody long way up. It was very impressive - and we saw the Avon Gorge - the most rocky thing I've seen for years (East Kent is not rocky at all, anywhere. The nearest rocks are Tunbridge Wells, if you're desperate). I realised that I missed rocks, missed Ireland, missed holidays - but enough. Gradually the Gorge turned into suburbia - but it was good while it lasted.
We returned home and had very good fish and chips.
DAY 3 SUNDAY
There was a certain amount of aggro about what we should do. Lunch had to be Dim Sum - and Finn didn't want to walk a lot because of blisters, there was a move to go to the National Portrait Gallery (although Finn, astonishingly, wanted to go to the V&A) so we went to Soho - spent a small fortune on parking... and strolled around various bits of the newly-enlarged NPG - which always seems to have something new and fab - currently seemed to have a bit of a Philippa Gregory theme - main characters from The White Queen were on show. The usual BP portrait competition - the fashion for "photographic" portraits continues - occasionally with a nod to the fact that they are actually painted - like sticking in an obvious brushstroke or two. Then we went to have dim sum at "the cheap one" - which I think is called The China Harbour... it was pretty good. Afterwards we brought a number of buns at the bakery next door, mine was called "sausage and salad" - mysterious. We didn't go to CCK because of funding issues, but we walked past it to discover it has been rebranded as "The Dim Sum Palace" and looked thoroughly vile - ugly posters outside, but interior still full of unsmiling, cart pushers.
Finn and I sat in Leicester Square while Ned and Mark went to have a look at Thorn House, a famous modernist building on St Martin's lane, largely designed by Edward apparently, with a little help from Sir Basil Spens. Finn smoked, and gave a guy a light. I am sure this makes him feel grown up - both of the boys are now fully part of the "orright mate" culture - I envy them their relative ease with it. We then returned to the most treacherous multistorey car park I have ever been to - and managed to fight our way out of it, and home.
So that was our holiday. It was deeply enjoyable, just to be somewhere different, but I think on the whole I enjoyed the rocks most - because they weren't demanding anything of me, responses, thought, money. They were just rocks, Old Red Sandstone I suppose - and they'd been there for millions of years, and would remain for millions more - long after humans have destroyed the planet. How few things there are in my life that are demanding nothing of me. Oh well, plenty of time to relax when you're dead I suppose.
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