Headlines
Flying to Birmingham: never again!
Rental Car to Stratford: no worries
Boat Cottage: wow!
Phone Problems: lucky we don't make phone calls
Faggots at the Masons Arms
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Stream of Consciousness
Flying to Birmingham: never again!
Second leg of our flight to England. This time, Deb gets the window seat. So I'm in the middle, between Deb and a Muslim lady in the aisle seat. (Moslem? Could be Sikh. She seemed less than worried about total coverage of her hair by her scarf.) Anyway... as soon as I have to step over someone to get out -- I want to go to the toilet :-( Whether I want to... or not.
As soon as I have dependable internet -- I'm shifting the next window seating, out to the aisle.
I do have some internet here, on the plane. Free 10Mb, apparently. An update to yesterday's blog post failed. But an email has arrived -- from Tim :-) Must check, see what he says...
I'll post this first. The blogger app makes it very easy to update a post. (The swype keyboard makes it difficult to type the post.)
Posted this short journal entry. Exchanged an email or two with Tim and Robbie. (Bragged about email in a plane:-) Then it all stopped... Perhaps the 10 free Mb was used up... Tim did send a photo :-) (Of Misty, as I found out later.)
Some extra excitement on this plane trip! First, an announcement that if the toilet smoker was identified then he or she would be met at the airport by the police. Then, when we landed, we all had to stay seated -- while the police escorted someone off ! (Amazingly, the concept of "stay seated" was well beyond the capacity of some passengers.)
Turns out -- chatting with a passenger as we left the plane -- that it was a man starting his second bottle of whisky and getting abusive. Crew "tied him up". Using plastic ties, I suspect... An Emirates person had walked towards the trouble with a pair of cutting pliers.
It was funny for us but not so nice for the man I spoke to, he was closer, with his family.
Rental Car to Stratford: no worries
We have arrived safely at Birmingham!
Three quarters of the passengers were EU or UK people returning. We were in the "other passports" queue: shorter but slower. The usual casual questions by immigration (Border Force, or Border Something, I think). Casual, friendly questions -- looking for the suspicious hesitation in our responses... We passed, and quickly passed through.
And passed even quicker through Customs. We followed "nothing to declare" and were waved through with barely a glance.
To Hertz, to pick up our rental car. I had already "checked in" online. They only needed to see my licence and credit card. A five minute walk to the car... It's a diesel Kia. With all the modern bells & whistles. Wing mirrors that fold in when we turn off the engine. Engine that turns off while we're waiting at a stop sign. But no reversing camera. Just reversing beeps. And a "turn on the defroster" beep when outside temperature drops below four degrees C...
Asked the car man which way to get out of the car park. Followed the GPS to Boat Cottage near Stratford. Stopped on the way to ask a man at a garage, are the speed limit signs in MPH or KPH?! The speedo shows both. (It's MPH.)
Boat Cottage: wow!
Found our accommodation: Boat Cottage, Welford-on-Avon. It's brilliant!
The village, Welford is small but... The streets are so narrow that what little traffic there is, makes it seem busy. Our cottage is outside the village -- within 20m of the Avon River ! With our own little jetty! Not that we'll sit on the jetty... The temperature hovered round 10 degrees C, with occasional light showers.
The cottage is warm and cosy. Room for two. Nearest neighbours are 50m away and out of sight. Brilliant!
We settled in, then checked out the village. There are a couple of pubs and one shop. Due to my unwillingness to turn suddenly, we drove to the next village south, Long Marston. It has one even smaller shop and one pub, the Masons Arms. We bought stuff in each shop. I decided that dinner would be in the Masons Arms.
Phone Problems: lucky we don't make phone calls
We bought a sim card but... Deb's phone seems to be locked to Telstra. We couldn't open my phone. Telstra have been sending texts warning of the high cost of phone calls while roaming...
I tried various combinations of phone numbers in the area, starting with the Bell hotel. It seemed safe to try phoning a place where we were willling to book for dinner :-) Then I changed who I tried phoning, to the Masons Arms, the pub down the road in Long Marston. Finally hit the combination! So I booked a table for two, for six pm.
Blow the expense of roaming phoning! It works, we don't phone much, we'll use what we have.
Ah! the power of communications technology: anything is possible and it can be simple if you don't mind paying for it :-)
Faggots at the Masons Arms
The bar was crowded. It was just us in the dining room -- which is also the skittles room! Take up the carpet and play skittles, it's one of the regular fun nights in this pub. There's even a gully for ball return. But no skittles tonight.
Deb had steak and stilton homemade pie. Couldn't taste the stilton. I said, it's probably used instead of salt. Excellent pastry. It was cooked in a pie dish but enclosed in pastry. Most pub pies (in Australia?) have only a top pastry.
I had faggots because, why not?! Just herb floavoured meatballs (with mash and gravy and peas). From the local butcher, we were told. Wikipedia says that the meat should be offcuts and spares, mostly from a pig. Tasted very nice.
I helped Deb with some of her mash. And her pastry and gravy. Then we shared a banoffi cheesecake.
Nothing fancy. Solid pub food. Very nice.
As we drove home -- a couple of miles up the road, then through Welford -- I was glad we had not eaten in Welford. Cars chock-a-block, parked along the road! Narrow roads, no parking areas. The Masons had its own -- admittedly crowded -- parking area.
Oh, and driving to and fro: We are constantly reminded that we will be running that road, on Sunday...
9:30pm. We crashed. Into bed, that is.
An excellent day!
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