Wiltshire: White Horses, Wet Pie, and a Wee bit of Wool

We have been blessed with great weather again, so out we roll the tents and pegs for a camping weekend in Wiltshire with M-8 (whom recently became my Squeeze), Mr & Mrs Deno, a sparkly hired grown-ups car called The Annihilator.

Avebury Stone Circle
After deciphering out of the infamous ‘Magic Roundabout’ in Swindon (there’s nothing magical about it, other than being bloody confusing), we headed in a beeline towards the mystical and sheepish Avebury for the Stone Circle and some education of how people lived before the time of calendars, tiled roves, television and Christianity. (Quite happily, probably).



White Horse at Cherhill
The large white figure glistened in the hills from a distance, and seem to run along with us as we roamed the highway. The soil in the area is actually chalk, and way back around 1000 BC the practice of leucippotomy ie. The art of carving chalk horse figures started in Southern England. There are quite a few white horses in this area, and this one is in Cherhill was first carved in the 18th century and was last restored in 2002.

We parked The Annihilator on the road and walked up the hill towards the chalk figure and a monument. There’s lots of pink beetles flying around which caught a lot of my attention. It wasn’t until a young boy from Manchester that started picking on a dried pile of bird droppings that I discovered that the diet of birds here contained pretty much entirely of these little beetles. Lovely.

Pub lunch at the White Horse Inn
When you live in London you tend to forget that people stop eating lunch and only drink beer after 2pm, but we managed to squeeze in some food at the White Horse Inn just outside of Calne. So I am no longer a Steak & Kidney pie in Suet patry virgin.
But I might have to abstain now.










Lacock
Lacock is a quiet and beautifully preserved little village near Calne, the entire village is owned by the National Trust. I refrained from touching anything because I know I will break stuff, including the precarious bench a whole bunch of tourists are sitting on. We headed into Lacock Abbey for a poke around. This is in fact reportedly the location where the first film negative was developed by William Tolbot in 1835 by photographing this very window. But most visitors are actually more interested in the abbey as the set for Harry Potter.

Calne in the Evening
After settling into the campsite, the boys were hankering to watch the Portugal vs Turkey game of the Euro Cup, so we went into a quiet little pub in Calne. The place looked pretty conservative and red neck, but I was having a good time over fish’n’chips until some racist dickhead made some really quite offensive remarks to me on my way to the bathroom. This later developed into what I recall as an episode of me quite bravely and politely starring a big bloke down with a one liner and without cracking my temper. Well done WaWa, but its time to leave before more of them arrive to beat us into pulp.

Castle Combe
Castle Combe has an air of Miss Marple cuteness and intrigue. The golden glow of the stone houses that line the curvy streets surround a peaceful village life away from the hustle and bustle, but this is the best setting as a façade for a well planned criminal activity – how could anyone here be cunning enough to be a murderer? And how would such a innocent and pretty little town hide any brimming secrets? For example, I can totally see the owner of the café which serves the best espresso and banana cake in Wiltshire motivated by the candid discovery of a fortune buried under the large well in the middle of the small town centre.

Dyrham Park
I am a huge Merchant & Ivory fan so it was such a delight to find out that Dyrham Park is where Remains of The Day was filmed. (is it just me or am I thinking I am just going from one film set to the next??) Set in an elegantly landscaped 300 acre area, it used to be a deer hunting park for the original owners (generations dated back to 17th century). There are still hundreds of deers living on the property, and it’s a real pleasure seeing them bounce in flocks from hill to hill in their light brown dotted coats.

The house itself reminded me of the continental European palaces, huge sunny rooms decorated in decadent interiors, art, and memorabilia’s from centuries of travels and socialising with other members of the upper class. Its full of random stair cases and spaces, complete with its own trompe l'oeila and a dumb waiter's room. Of course there is the intrigue of the complicated relationship between the upper class aristocrats that enjoys the luxuries and the working class male and female servants that clean up after them – but only the fake marble walls will know. What is left of the ‘downstairs’ to remind us of their lives is a line of bells that used to ring when they are called to duty, an extremely well equipped kitchen that can support a culinary team of 40+, a butcher the size of a double bedroom, and the ‘rent room’ – a huge space with a rim of seats organized for leasees of the surrounding farmlands to sit and wait while they pay rent to the estate’s owner. That’s English class, economy and power in a nutshell for you.This is the scenery from the nice walk we did around the estate before we headed home on the train from Swindon, though not before we were caught by some overtly friendly and over-bored locals for a good old chat about Helen Clark and the weather.

Some More Animal Friends

I am concious that I have been very slack at the moment with blogging but please believe me that I have been kept very busy away from my lap top. Updates to come below in a day or two, but thought I'd entrall you with images of some fuzzy friends for now.

Blakki the Pub Cat
This is the Pub Cat who would easily inspire a song by Andrew Lloyd Webber, that lives at The Seven Stars, a very classical hole in the wall English pub around the corner from the Law Courts near my work











Bird and Babies*
On a recent trip to Oxford, the Merton College Mummy Duck was not very impressed with me when I stood in her way to the river. My apologies again but I think your bundles of joy are just gorgeous.
*(Bird and Baby is also the nickname of a famous Oxford pub called Eagle and Child)




Meanwhile Back at the Farm in New Zealand
Dad sent me some pics of Merlin who's been busy on the job with Alma Thud. The crazy blood thirsty kid is not even five months old! Look at that strut!

Let the Bluebells Bloom

With the main agenda being getting out of a London which is now ruled by Boris Johnson the Hideous Clown, the exploration of the English country side continues this weekend as we head over to Hampshire. Wendy & Emma’s relos, Janice and Derek live in Petersfield, a town about 1.5 hours train ride Westwards from London. They were kind enough to have us over for the Bank Holiday weekend, with the intention of showing us around in Winchester and further afield in Dingledell, where the bluebells bloom in the month of May.

Janice (family lineage research extraordinaire) and Derek (Snooker commentary extraordinaire)’s typical suburbia house made me homesick. It’s a cute little house tucked between others like itself in the quarter acre that I am so used to seeing back home in New Zealand. The screetching of the front door when a neighbour or family arrives, the rug under the wooden coffee table, the sound of the kettle, the smell of freshly cut lawn, the glass door that leads out to the back yard with pot plants and moss-covered ornaments, a shed that the boys tinker around in… and a giant soft couch that moulds around the shape of your body when you throw yourself and your hang over in it…

The rides in J & D’s car through the leafy country roads was ecstatically beautiful. Every corner we turn in the windy roads there is something cute and characterful to admire. The thatched roofed houses that has been sitting there for centuries nurturing generations and generations of families; the regally painted and traditional road signs, the bold buckles and belts on the horses along the road, the hardy plants that spur out of cracks of geriatric stones of abandoned walls that once probably was the fort of a forgotten war. Rather than the awesomely dramatic and bleak scenery in the open spaces of New Zealand, the Hampshire country side is quaint and elegant, humble but cultured in comparison. The fact that human habitation and economic need has been shaping the landscape and negotiating existence along the rivers and the meadows means that every stretch of space here appears to be a co-created art work between human and nature. The aesthetics of the little villages and hamlets along the windy roads expresses a way of life that has been forged and carried on for thousands of years, a way of co-existing with nature and making the somewhat unvaried everyday existence creative and meaningful along the way, and the ever abundant country-folk humour of the country folk.

Here are some pictures of Winchester – founded by King Alfred, first King of England in the late 800s BC, and famous of its stunning cathedral. Jane Austin is buried in the Cathedral, and John Keats lived here and penned a number of poems here. In fact Deno took us on a tribute to him on the walk he would have done every day around the meadows and
the streams behind the town. Apart from the soothing views, here we found some very cute water birds and their young.

Moorhen feeding young in Winchester
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorhen
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/m/moorhen/index.asp

Duck and Ducklings

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duck

Here are pictures of the bluebells at Dingledell on Sunday, surrounding a completely different setting of a Buddhist monastery, where we took a laid back walk through the incredibly tranquil hill side with waterfalls and English pines.

Lastly, I'd like to end with the beautiful poem by John Keats, which he wrote as he walked upon the beautiful little country path.

Ode to Autumn
by John Keats c 1819

Seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease;
For Summer has o'erbrimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clo uds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river-sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

Clever Diving Bird

This is the clever pied shag (or pied cormorant) we spotted on a bridge between Motuoapa and Turangi. It caught about 10 or so fish in the space of the one minute we saw it. Try and view it enlarged if you can to see the tiny fish.

Billy the Bulimic Goat

Coco my cuz has gone back to Taipei for the summer holidays and I am babysitting her goat Billy Billson for her. He's a nice boy, got a bit of an attitude but is generally cute and adorable enough to get away with being a bastard. Watch him tell me to 'fuck off' in the videos.

Billy had a mate (probably same sex lover) called Brown who recently died. Billy got a bit inconsolable and stopped eating, wouldn't move, and lost a bit of weight and got a bit scruffy, we thought he was going to die too. But now it seems like he's completely picked up again and eating like mad, as you can see. I hope it lasts. His favourite food at the moment is banana peels, but everything, anything goes.

I trimmed his hooves the other day all by myself, thought I was quite clever really. You can say hello to some of the other bovine friends I've met in the past here and here.

Big Big Bird

Shenyang Sunshine

Shenyang is a large (but not so large compared to other cities in China!) city of about 8 million in far North East China, very close to the North Korean boarder as well as being fairly close to Mongolia to the West and Russia to the North. It was originally a Manchurian hub, ie. where the non-Han Chinese Qing Dynasty rulers are from, and a lot of the Qing Dynasty tombs and remains are still there. The Russian were in Shenyang during the Russo-Japanese war (1905ish) and then again during the Soviet era, and the heritage in terms of military buildings are still pretty evident.

From the photos that I've seen, the winters here are pretty harsh. The snow can be quite overwhelming and completely engulf a two meter wall, and you ski on the lake as a sport. But we arrived in the late summer/early autumn, and the weather couldn't be more beautiful. The sun is not scorching like in Bangladesh, and the air not humid or dry, just so comfortable like being in a lightly cool room. Everything smells fresh and birds are chirping. This has to be the best weather I've had since I left New Zealand!

Peter & Margaret are lecturers in English at a local tertiary institute, and their contract included a sweet little apartment near Beiling Park. It really does feel like home here, everything is so cozy and comfortable. The apartment block is next to a busy road where farmers markets take place daily from 4am till about lunch time, then a busy night market in the evenings. P&M’s students came to meet us on the first afternoon, they were a group of extremely enthusiastic girls whom made me feel like I am an amusement somehow because they had so many questions for me and giggled at everything T & I said. They left with a promise of taking us to Kareoke – ha ha!!

Best Neighbourgh Ever - The Street Market
The most fascinating thing here is definitely the street market right next to P&M’s apartment. 7 Days a week at the crack of dawn, literally hundreds of fresh food stall holders set up shop on the street – fresh fruit and veges, then the dried nuts and spices, and the breakfast stalls selling all kinds of steamed buns, “tofu brain” (ie. Silken tofu) you eat with soy sauce and coriander etc, bean stuffed mochi (sweet sticky rice balls), omelets, dumplings, fried dough, mixed salads, hot sweet soy milk… you’re spoilt for choice. It is all very traditional – the bigger stall holders come with their trucks loaded with the produce, while the smaller stall holders might come with a donkey cart, and the mochi guy rolls around with a glass cabinet with mochi inside. It all climaxes around 7am, the bright and early time when most Chinese people get out of bed. If you turn up at 9am most of the stuff is gone, and by 12pm the street is literally empty except for the regular shops and restaurants.












The evening food and junk stalls come back at about 4pm to set up for the nocturnal round – you can’t miss it because the smell of BBQ lingers the air for the entire evening. On the top end the junk stalls sell anything from clothes, home appliances, shoes, tools, dog food, books, porn, and exercise machines. The lower end an array of food stalls cook up a storm in their respective woks – P&M’s favourite Mr Fried Rice does a huge portion of fantastic chicken fried rice for 4 RMBs (80c AUD), and you can find all sorts of goodies you can barbeque on the spot, such as vege & meat skewers and funny smelling sausages. Taiwan’s probably one of those “exotic” and “mystical” ideas in most Chinese minds – so anything with “Taiwan” on it seems to be selling – like “Taiwan Dumplings” and “Taiwan Steak” – except neither of those are from Taiwan (Dumplings are from northern China and traditionally most Taiwanese ppl don’t eat beef). I should probably not rave on about the restaurant which serves dog and donkey meat… The best thing definitely is the variety and the cheap price, you’ll never get bored or hungry here! Here’s a pic of piles of tobacco you can buy.

A Walk In The Park

We took a walk in Beiling Park bright and early one morning at 6am, just across the road from the apartment blocks and the street market. The park is a huge green reserve around the Qing Dynasty Tombs – usually it costs 10RMB to get in, but before 6am and after 6pm its free. Apart from the tombs, there is a huge lake area surrounded by low bushes, it not only is a pleasant place to stroll around but also spot interesting Chinese plants and animals. Here is a pic from the fabled “Squirrel Tree".

Chinese people, particularly the seniors, are well known for their early morning gatherings in parks all over China to take part in all sorts of exercises, including Tai Chi, bird choirs, kong fu, and chess - a lot of this is less intense than the exercises people do in the West, but nevertheless they all take their sport quite seriously. The most popular is a fan dance group in the main square (apparently Chairman Mao’s favourite dance). The most amusing must be the group of ppl in their bathing caps swimming in the freezing lake, right in front of a group of people fishing and constantly competing to cast sharp hooks as far into the lake as possible. Brings a whole new meaning to drift net fishing doesn't it.

Actually, correction re “not intense”. There are quite a few other weird ones, such as “weaponry” – a group throwing around big metal chains and blades around and screaming out of relief(pain?). And there was a guy who just kicks a tree non-stop. Poor tree. Eye opening.

Clam in the Sand

Watch our little friend digging itself home at the beach in Bangladesh (Cox's Bazaar, near the Myanmar boarder).

Elsewhere in Scotland...

This is a pine martin.

Dr Moreau's Other Island

Today I took a very "interesting" (call me the queen of understatements) bike trip to Texel Island (pronounced Te-ssel) in the North Sea, about one and a half hours train and ferry ride away from Amsterdam. Texel is only 25kms long and 9kms wide, and has a very dynamic geography, ranging from pristine white sand beaches, wetlands, woods, farms and you guessed it, tulip fields. What I in fact discovered was a deep dark secret hidden inside this seemingly carefree retreat for the retired and communing Dutch.

Weird Sheep
Everything was lush, open, flat (great for biking, just check out the parallel bike lanes all over the island), colourful and wholesome till I bumped into this lot here. At first in the distance they looked like pigs, but at closer examination they appeared to be sheep. But they have a body oversized and bloated like a bulldog and donkey legs. What freaked me out was that they don't "BAHH", they "CLICK", like crickets.

Could this be some sort of fucked up scientific experiment being conducted here while the rest of the nation is stoned? I mean, I grew up in New Zealand and live next to Mystery Creek of all places, I HAVE SEEN WEIRD SHEEP BREEDS, but not like this. This is making me extremely suspicious of the businesses which the locals carry on here on a self contained island with controlled ferry terminals.

Over-friendly locals
People wave to me as I bike past, as if I am a long lost friend. Even the ones doing really busy jobs like selling sausages. No body, I mean, no body not even the hippies in Amsterdam says hello to me. I believe they are all part of Dr Moreau's secret army, trying to make me let my guard down. Never underestimate Country Bumpkins.

The Secret Launch Pad
I FOUND IT! This is so it. Dr Moreau type character most likely launches secret submarines and spy ships from this unnaturally looking pier sticking out of the sand. Its covered by seagull shit and seaweed as a disguise. When no one's watching the beach most likely splits into two and his big vehicles will come rolling out. The rubbish truck over in the left transforms into satellite detectors by night. Just look at the dodgy way the rubbish man wears his bandanna. Bet hes not even bald. These changing rooms here? That's actually breathing holes for his secret planet.Dodgy Gnome Collection
Wow how cute are these? NOT!
Honestly I tell you, the owner of this garden goes around stealing gnomes from backpacker hostels all over Europe just to put them in his garden. Then it makes perfect sanctuary for the REAL gnomes posing as plastic gnomes hiding there during the day. I know cos one of them made a funny face at me while I wasnt' looking. Its that sleezy one in the right corner. If you look closely his eyes actually follow you then he reports all your activities to Dr Moreau. Don't trust any body, even if they sit in the garden just looking cute.

Random Mounds In The Wheatfield
Easy, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) hidden in hay.

And to distract myself from my worries, again
Despite being completely freaked out by the going-ons on this crazy as island, I still had a fantastic time biking around checking out the strangely charming country side and enjoyed some good local cuisine. Eg. some Dutch Almond Torte and then a bloody AMAZING salted herrings next to the fishing village. They salt it while out at sea then the fish mongrels skin them and serve it raw with fresh onions and pickles. Yumcious Dumpcious. Just don't try pash anyone. Its the current "in-food" apparently, going through some backlash against fast food and return to tradition and culturally significant staples I hear.

I AM THE HERO but THE REAL CHAMPION IS YOU
Yep, dobbing these guys in to the Terrorism Hotline when I get home, leave it to the experts I think is the best strategy. I personally can't see myself merging from those ripples in a bright orange bikini strapped with machine guns for example. I hope they confiscate all that salted and pickled herrings and give it to me as a reward. Save the free world and our way of life as we know it and get a feed as well. Bonus!!

Tea In The Sahara

Abdul my Berber friend from Casablanca told me before I left: "when you go to the desert, you will forget your name".

My camel is called Tinkerbelle and it doesn:t like to be given instructions. She thinks I,m Japanese also so I'm not gonna bother arguing with her. Despite how fascinating it is to ride on such a majestic animal, I really wish it was over as soon as possible. Its extremely unstable to be on the top of a camel hump and every time she is led up or down a sand dune i am sent wobbling around having to use my overtired bum to balance myself. Thank goodness for the carpet tented camp in a grassy patch of ground we arrived at soon after, with a Bedoiun family and their goats, chickens and cat that keeps out the scorpios. How anything could survive out here amazes me.

At sunset I sit on a 50meter high sand dune sipping tea in the Sahara listeing to Tea In The Sahara by The Police; the joke seems to have just gone a little far. My time in Moroocco seem to be one "priceless" Mastercard ad after another and I have stopped counting. I feel wacked out, amused, overwhelmed by the emptiness and isolation of this place. The sand dunes over shadow you, but once you get to the top of it you look over thousands of other never ending sand dunes and they look like a silky carpet you can swim on. The colours of the setting sun creates a mysterious aura, you hear nothing but the wind, which picks up layers of sand and it feels like the ground you stand on will almost dissappear. I proceed to dance like a child and the camels, now resting in the sand, nods at me as if to tell me to stop.

Perhpaps I am forgetting my name. In the desert you are also nothing, like the desert you are completely blank, like the desert you have infinity. I think about what its like to have your memory erased at age 27 and then finding yourself in the middle of the Sahara. I could start everything over again, and maybe I could be a better person than I am now. Maybe I could decide to be Icelandish cos I'd hate sand. Maybe I could be more likable, smarter, less obnoxious, honest, self disciplined, musical, artistic, committed, attractive... Maybe I could become the zoologist that I should have become, or that lawyer. Maybe I could have gone ahead with that arranged marriage my dad organised after losing a card game in 1984. Maybe I would decide quite independantly that I should never leave the desert and spend the rest of my life gazing across the sand dunes and up at the stars. or I could just go to the nearest town of Ourzazate and still stuck there in a concrete building.

In the evening the sand feels cold to touch. But if you slide your palms further underneath the sand down there is warm. I lie on the carpet with my companions and watch the sky turn dark from the middle to the edges. The stars appeared one by one. First it was Venus (ops correction by the French - ees not a STAAAR, ees a planét ohkay?) then the sauce pan. Its like watching cake rise, slowly at first, then they would all burst out all of a sudden. The stars in the Northern hemisphere feels foreign some times, it was odd not seeing the Southern Cross, and the Orion just tipping over the edge of the milky way instead of being in the middle. Shooting stars and satellites move across my vision, my vision is of the neverending giant abyss engulfing the other giant abyss I am lying on. Like the sky, the desert was here before anything else was and it will still be here when everything else is gone. I see eternity but I will never know it. I don't know how to describe how I feel - its overwhelming but simple at the same time, excited but relaxed, a slow kind of drift that is so comfortable, so easy, so chilled. I can't remember what its like to be in a city, or driving on a road, or typing on a computer. Or the fact that any of the above exists. My head might as well turn into sand it feels this good.

I don't want to fall asleep but I do. At night the desert is cold. Everything sinks in on the sand and it must have been about 3am when I screwed open my drink bottle for a mouth full of water. It tastes like ice and exactly what I need with a throat full of sand. I am natrually a light sleeper and often wake several times a night subconciously. When that happens and the first thing you see is a starry sky it knocks you back into subconsiousness.

5 am and the South Africans bounce up for Sunrise. I wish I didn't have to sleep and lament that the night is over so quickly. Crawling_stumbling_scrambling my way up the highest sand dune was like a fight for life itself, I didn't want to miss the sunrise but honestly i've just woken up and the legs are still sleep. When I finally made it on top it was like finishing an exam. I said something along the lines of "better than an orgasm" so go figure.

Sunrise. Your heart melts with the sun. The last time I saw that big yolk pop out of the pinkness was on The Rainbow Warrior II August 05 over the Tasman Sea. Same ball of burning flame, different horizon. Same woman, different life.