Textualities (DAILY thought splats)
updated 02/August/2019 Adelaide, South Australia
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Leaving Germany to Horsham, UK
30 September SundayGoodbye Berlin. It has been an amazing stay. A really nice cosy flat, super hosts, beautiful views, great bikes and easy public transport. I think we'll be back. Our host, Frank, drove us to Schönefeld Airport (the secondary international airport of Berlin used for these short flights). We flew Easy Jet to Gatwick Airport, London. No drama, and cheap.
(notes from Narda’s diary) From Gatwick we took the train a few stops to Horsham. The walk to our Airbnb was a bit tough. 45-minutes with pretty heavy luggage. Haven’t got this quite right yet! The flat is at the end of a property which has historic homes. We are in a converted, beautifully decorated garage.
We arrived on a Sunday, walking straight into the yearly historic hot rod rally, (AmeriCARna “celebrating everything we like about American Culture with a big nod to the 50s and 60s era”. Oh boy celebrating Yanks – ‘hey I am one of them’) which would have been great to attend but we were stuffed and so walked another twenty-minutes to our new home. After examining our new digs, realizing we had not eaten since Berlin, several hours earlier, that there was no food in our pad, or in our luggage, we traipsed back to the centre of town. All the American car types and British viewers were heading out of town. The first couple of pubs/restaurants were either full or sold out of food.
We had a soup/sweet potato meal at a pub. Our place is called “Gingerbread House” it is at the “North Lodge” on Denne Road.
Who can not resist a swing tied to a high branch in a mighty tree in the Horsham countryside which is our new home (for a few days)?For 52 seconds of Narda swinging then talking to a flock of sheep don't let this clip go by without your attention...
This twenty-minute walk became our daily hike into town… can’t really complain. Especially when we were no longer dragging a suitcase and backpack along. At the end of our stay we took a taxi to the train station - old people stuff.
In the evening we cut across some paddocks and took the path less travelled; except, for the cow path we followed through the paddock, and over the train line.
Horsham itself is a quaint little town. In our planning we were going from Germany to Spain but there was a mix up with our Spanish booking, so we only have three weeks in Noja, Spain instead of what we believed was going to be four-weeks. Giving us a week to fill.Brighton was our first choice and we knew we needed to get to Portsmouth. We had spent several days in London at the beginning of our three-month European visit. We stayed with Narda’s family in luxury digs on the Thames near Parliament then. We weren’t too keen on going back to London, forget why – think it is due to its expensive nature, Narda found us this neat little Airbnb in Horsham.
On one of our meanders through town, I saw this gentleman having lunch with a rabbit. The reason I have my 300 mm lens on the camera most of the time is to get these types of shots and not be obvious. There is so much to unpack here (I hate that new expression…but…). Firstly, we see he is on his phone, no doubt talking with another rabbit. His rabbit mate is having coffee, but the man is not what does that tell us? The rabbit is obviously focused on the moment or possibly on a hawk flying overhead. The blue jumper tells that she could be he or who knows with this generation of rabbits, what they are into? Perhaps the man has suffered a great loss in life and the bunny is a replacement, wearing the missing person’s garments and drinking coffee or most likely tea as this is a British bunny and not a Yank bunny with milk… gosh, I just don’t know.
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1. Only our lack of imagination prevents us from knowing why British rabbits take milk in their tea. 2. Conversation intentions misunderstood by passing viewers give pause to reflect[/caption]“The place name Horsham was recorded in 947. Horsham was called a borough in 1235.” We went into The Parish Church of St. Mary the Virgin the oldest building in Horsham. It was completed in 1247. The street going toward the church has these beautiful houses, built in the 1600s and still standing.
A place to be seen, well, to be at, is the Horsham Museum and Art Gallery. https://www.horshammuseum.org/ We spent a long time in here. There are original artefacts from Percy B. Shelley. He is considered one of the best philosophical poets in the English language. I studied him at uni and for a semester knew lots about him. He was born in Horsham, August 1792, giving the reason for so much about him at the museum. He was promoted by his cool wife Mary Shelley the author of Frankenstein; for you generation XYZ people who may never have heard of the first beat poet, Percy Shelley (or I thought he was the original beat poet, maybe no one else agrees). Shelley had a most interesting life and both the bunny in the photo above and I encourage you to read the Wikipedia entry regarding him; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley
There is a lot in the museum with a lot of excellent art scattered around the place. The museum is free, making it all the more interesting when on an overspent holiday.
I was intrigued by the cemetery, seven – eight hundred years old. If there is such a thing as reincarnation, how many times have the original owners of the bones here been back on earth? Tourist kinds of questions but no one giving any answers.
As always, we got home before dark and watched our Netflix series or something we downloaded. We are currently watching the last season of ‘Episodes’ which we like very much.Narda developed a bit of a tummy wog so we went to the doctor. Not that I would write about that, and very possibly Narda will delete this when she edits and adds and subtracts… but what I want to share is the medical costs while being a tourist in the UK. Narda first filled out some forms, saw a doctor and when we went to pay, we were told that there is no charge for a first doctor’s visit in the UK. Well that helped the travel budget heaps. Then we went to the chemist (pharmacy, drug store) to get her prescription filled. Surely, this would cut into our budget. No! No charge for over sixty-years old. We went to another doctor in another place, I think it was Brighton, a week later, again no charge. Hey, USA, look at the UK for how to look after not only the local citizens but also anyone trespassing in your great land.
In Horsham we bought groceries at Sainsburys, which was only minutes from where we were living, and accessable by lovely country paths. Always good to find the local supermarket. This one was wonderful. It had everything. I bought 2 soft and sloppy bras.
After a couple of days of walking the length and breadth of Horsham, many times, we acquired the castle itch. There are so many castles in the UK. Where to go? We chose the one in Arundel, West Sussex, about half an hour by train from Horsham. Arundel Castle. It is about a fifteen-minute walk to the village, then up a hill to the castle.
We grabbed the GoldPlus admission so we could see all the rooms. At £19.50 (senior concession, £22 regular) it is well worth the cost.There are so many rooms and areas and histories to see and learn about. The place was founded at the end of the 11th Century. It was founded on Christmas Day 1067, by Roger, Earl of Arundel, one of William the Conqueror’ most loyal barons. Arundel Castle is one of the longest inhabited country houses in England. The same family (The ancestors of the Dukes of Norfolk) still live in a part of the castle and have for more than a thousand years.
As with most castles they had their own chapel.
We had lunch in the village and said that the next time in these parts we would rather get a place in this town than in Horsham. Nothing against Horsham, a lovely town, but hey, who doesn't want to live in a castle village more than a thousand years old?After three great days in Horsham – a very doable town as the whole place can be viewed and walked through in half an hour then twenty minutes to our country estate, we took a taxi ( 5 quid ) and then train to Brighton. Taxi to train station 5 pounds – train to Three Rivers then to Brighton.
Brighton
04 October ThursdayBrighton UK. How cool to be here. We have one in Adelaide and one in Melboure. Beachside suburbs all. One of those Australian towns named after a place in Britain. We also have a Horsham in Aus. Nothing like the Horsham in the UK.
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Brighton rail station - a really cool place[/caption]We asked the first person we saw once outside the train station for the street our Airbnb was on. She asked if we were here to see the Banksy painting. As it turned out the great street artist’s painting of two cops kissing was on our way to where we were going. Having just come from the Urban Nation street scene of Berlin we felt quite UpToDate with Banksy.[caption id="attachment_22589" align="aligncenter" width="573"]
Narda hanging with Banskey ‘kissing cops’[/caption]We got to 94 Theobald House over on Blackman Street a bit exhausted. It is not far from the train station but there is a stupid hill to clamour down then up then down. Again after 20 years of lugging stuff about the world one would think we would have it right by now. We did it right for our three months in India earlier this year, but we reverted to our old ways of lugging too much once again on this trip.05 October, 2018 Friday
We were near the top, I think it was floor 20, with fantastic views. The apartment itself was well done, trendy and comfortable. The elevators made us a bit nervous as well as knowing that another UN housing tower had burnt a year before killing many people. Narda does not like staying above about the third story, so we can escape in case of fire. Or at least to a floor that a firetruck ladder could reach, but 21 floors up?Zooming in on housing not far away.
Looking toward Brighton Beach,
After a good night’s sleep with no dreams of tower fires we headed across town to Brighton Pier. The pier is like a little city with restaurants, casino, amusement park rides and just cool views of the coast. It is called 'Brighton Palace Pier'.
We took random buses around Brighton and walked heaps. Here is a clip of that random bus journey - 2.55 minutes - well worth the time in your day to behold...We bought a bus pass and headed along the shore to Eastbourne. Nice town a bit like Brighton complete with a pier. Had an average Chinese Buffet lunch. I person who identified as Dench Photography, stopped Terrell and took his photo with his new hat.
Ah! My new hat. I wanted a hat like my mate, Randy, my friend for fifty years, who died a year or so ago. I have been looking throughout this trip then walking into one of those trendy clothes shops one finds in tourists spots, I spotted the hat for me.
Not being a hat wearing person it took awhile to get used to it, but it has become a fixture of my wandering ways. I was pleased and that is all one can hope for in these situations.BTW my mate Randy with his hat that I wanted to copy
The area we were in, not far from the train station, seemed like a trendy place. A lot of pubs, all very busy with lots of people sitting outside in the evenings. Street art everywhere, very much like Berlin. Generation XYZ flooding the streets and alleys. An easy city to find everything one needs. For example, I kept up my low-carb diet, and my blood sugars were like a normal person. It is so much fun being like a normal person. Well worth the effort. XYZ people are so young and annoying but they like their organic and vegetarian servings and they are really not far removed from the street scenes of 1960s San Francisco, New Orleans or NYC so all and all they are not too bad rustling about in the background.Snails.
They are all over the place. They are very colourful with patterns and crap all over. Very much like the cows, horses, bears… other cities have. I have been wanting a cow for a long time for our front yard and to have my son, Sacha, come over from Melbourne and piece it. So those of you who have no idea what to purchase for my next birthday (turning 72 and being in Adelaide, August 10, 2019 – not far away, so start saving, or get together with your neighbours and buy me one). Well I want a big plastic cow!The snails… Apparently there were 50 unique Snailspace sculptures which were auctioned off in December, so lucky us to see them(?). It was all for a good cause, a charity, Martlets providing people affected by terminal illness in the community. They were hoping to collect 20,000 pounds but I can not find whether they achieved that.
Brighton is really the place to go. Easy train ride from London and elsewhere. Funky, beat, colourful, and as with all Brits, friendly.
We didn’t go up the British Airways i360, a 162-metre observation tower on the seafront. https://britishairwaysi360.com/ We went into the lobby, the sun was setting, probably a good time to go on it but we would have to have waited for half an hour and we don’t like waiting so we walked along the pier and the beach and had a wonderful sunsetting time.
On Monday, 8th of October we hopped a train over to Portsmouth. We explored Portsmouth, stayed at a nice hotel near the ferry port. The old area is the place to be and Gunwharf is the place to eat and see stuff. https://gunwharf-quays.com/ we had a really good feed at a place that had an American motif – can’t remember the name but the food was cheap and tasty.Near our hotel is the Charles Dickens' Birthplace Museum. Unfortunately, it was not opened on either day we were there, but I sat on his step and sent him some good vibes in case he came back to earth and needed inspiration. Even wore my hat for him.
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Charles Dickens' Birthplace Museum[/caption]But at the end of the day we hadn’t come to Portsmouth to see Charley or eat at an American café or see old ships and navy stuff.
We were here for one reason. To take the ferry to Spain
We upgraded to a room with more space and a window with a view. This is a 24-hour overnight ferry. We saw these large ferries from our fifteen-story Norwegian Getaway room the year before as we sailed around the Baltic (see our cruise blog). On the Getaway we had a much larger room, balcony and spent too much time at the smorgasbord/buffet which made me forget the woes of being on a low-carb diet (I so forgot it I even gained weight). And the entertainment, and on and on… back to the ferry. It was good. Narda socialized, I found free Wi-Fi and there was a lot of room to roam the ship. There are cinemas, restaurants, swimming pool (which was closed due to some wind and cold; soft Brits I suppose) and several decks and lounges. We were on their flagship boat, ‘Pont-Aven' on deck 6 of a nine-deck ferry. According to their brochure, here in front of me, the passenger capacity is 2,416, room for 650 cars and 184 crew. Its service speed is 23 knots. Overall it is 185 metres in length. In contrast our Getaway boat was 326 metres – twice the length and has capacity for 4000 and crew of 1640. When we took it in 2017 it was the world’s largest cruise ship. But we still liked our little ferry. We love cruises. So much so that in a few weeks (end of February 2019) we are taking a four-day trip to Melbourne on a large cruise ship out of Adelaide. An easy way to visit my son in Melbourne as we spend a day there then sail back to Adelaide. Just the other day we were doing a search for ‘low-carb’ cruises. We found a few and Narda’s first question was whether spouses can eat regular food. OMG
During the night we hit some waves, a bit of a storm. We rolled around a bit and we were awake for a while wondering what we would do if we tipped over. Where are those life preserves again? What happened in that Titantic flick? Will my computer survive? Will my fridge magnet souvenirs be salvagable?
When we lived in China, we took the Dalian to Yantai ferry which was nowhere as nice. In that one, no doubt because we got the cheapest fare, there were four bunks in our room, and we shared it with some snoring and noisy Chinese people. The food was awful too. The ferry was obviously overcrowded with people sleeping in the halls and all over the deck. See our 2012 blog, Ferry from Yantai to Dalian https://neuage.me/2012/10/06/ferry-from-yantai-to-dalian/ with photos when we were young and clean saved (I mean me). That sailing made us more nervous as there had been a couple of accidents previously during the same crossing. In 1999, there was a terrible accident; 280 people died when the Yantai Ferry sank. The same company had another ferry sink near Dalian. Things to think about when sailing. Like watching YouTube disaster plane crashes before flying. All good preparation for travel.
Lovely overnight on the ferry. During the night it was pretty rough: little bit nervous a few times – have to confess. We met many friendly Brits. I met a lady (widow) in her mid 80s travelling alone. She said she wanted to travel still and did not like to be a burden to her kids. Very inspirational. Terrell met an interesting bloke who drove cars for insurance companies returning them to Spain or back to the UK or to France when the people could not. We had nice meals – full English Brekkie, big roast dinner etc. All good.And lucky me when I said no meat, they heaped lots of other ‘normal’ food on my plate. Fair price for meals considering we were at sea. No more than landlocked two and a half star prices.
10 October WednesdayFerry arrived at 6:15 pm; a couple of hours late due to rough weathe. Our hosts for the next three weeks in Spain collected us at the Santander, Spain dock. For a two minutes and seventeen seconds clip of this ride check here. BYW may as well turn off the sound - just noise from ferry motor and etc - no music but a glimpse of life on our boat... And to plug our little clip channel for our recent trips and other stuff in our world since 2009 check here. Prior to 2009 we used this channel. And for our India trip earlier in 2018 we tossed the clips up here
Next up will be Spain. Count your sleeps. We are.Thanks for sharing this moment with us.
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Terrell Neuage Thoughts 2019 updated 05 February 2019 Adelaide, South Australia
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