Janet Gogerty's Blog: Sandscript - Posts Tagged "england"

If Mary and Joseph had been on the internet they would have booked in advance; they would probably have also read reviews by other travellers.
The modern visitor to Bed and Breakfast establishments has some advantages, but this form of accommodation has surely been around for as long as people have felt compassion for weary travellers or seen a way to earn money or goods. In the happy days before The Reformation, monasteries offered shelter to all who knocked at their door.
B&Bs have long been popular with holidaymakers and weekenders, the endless variety suiting every pocket. Half the fun is not knowing till you get there what it will be like. One autumn we arrived in the town of Wick, near John O'Groats, to be greeted at the door by the owner with her leg in plaster. But she had made alternative arrangements and sent us to the B&B across the road, where we were welcomed by a little old lady who put us up in the back bedroom of her bungalow. It was very kind of her to take us in, as the only other guests were her relatives gathered for a family funeral. As she appeared to be on her own we wondered if it was her husband that had died.
This week we stayed in our best ever B&B, a farm on Exmoor, near the sea. The last few miles of our journey had been through thick mist on top of the moor, followed by a perilous journey down a narrow lane with high banks either side. As we jolted into the yard we were hailed by a loud voice, our host was larger than life in every way. Our accommodation was luxurious upstairs whilst downstairs we enjoyed breakfast in the conservatory overlooking rolling green fields. The door to the enormous kitchen was left wide open - a true farmhouse kitchen complete with several dogs. It was a writer's dream and I was delighted to note that the rambling old farmhouse was in many ways how I had imagined Holly Tree Farm in my novel 'Brief Encounters of the Third Kind'. Our evening meals were at the local, ancient pub, complete with open fires and the wonderful smell of woodsmoke. They also did bed and breakfast with dogs welcome to stay. The menu was as excellent as a smart restaurant, but the atmosphere relaxed, with children playing snooker and dogs curled up under most of the tables. After a meal we drank our coffee on the old sofa in front of the fire. Why fight over sun beds in a large beach holiday hotel when you could be doing this?

What does a writer take on holiday? Some might say nothing to do with writing, if it is supposed to be a holiday. Away for nearly a month, driving around the north of England and Scotland, the first essentials were clothes of every description to cater for any kind of weather. Then the other essentials, cameras to record our travels, including card readers and battery chargers, kindle, knitting and a bag of toys (electronic) to keep the rest of the party occupied while I wrote.
Fresh air, walking, seeing new cites and remote rural areas, meeting interesting people and getting inspiration for settings and characters, all important ingredients of a trip.
At a secluded cottage one can pretend to be a writer who has cut themselves off from the world. But with the right equipment an author can write anywhere.
Take a clockwork lap top and at least one memory stick with the current novel and all other writing. If wi fi is available the blog can also be kept up to date.
Always have a notebook handy for those pleasant times when the sun shines as you sit by the river with your coffee, or on the cathedral green with afternoon tea.
Take the paper manuscript of the novel in progress; if the electronics fail you can read, edit, check the plot lines…
Did I do all these things? Yes.
I downloaded photographs every day onto the lap top ready for my website and Facebook and when rain or mist descended I typed up the notes scribbled in the sunshine.
I’ve edited my novel and knitted a scarf for a family member visited on the way home.
Of course the other advantage of taking manuscripts, paper and electronic... if one should arrive home to discover the house blown up in a gas leak or flattened by a meteorite, at least the writing has been preserved.
Luckily our house was still standing when we returned.
And did the driver complain that I had taken too many bags on holiday? Yes.

You can see some pictures of places visited on my website; in the picture quiz and in Beachwriter’s Blog.

http://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter...

Lists; obsessive compulsive disorder or good organisation? Whichever is true, the CLM, compulsive list maker, goes into overdrive when a holiday is looming. At first there is one list; cases out of loft, car serviced, catch up with e-mails, pay bills and give neighbours address of destination in case house blows up.
Then the lists multiply; To Do, To Pack down to the final list by the front door: cases, coats, walking boots, buy petrol, lock back door, handbag, bleach down toilet…
For the keen gardener the lead up to a holiday is even more fraught; a dedicated gardener would not go on holiday till January. In September flowers are still blooming, tomatoes are ripe and the grass is growing. Will it be dry so the lawn stays in check, but the flowers wilt or will it rain continuously and the weeds take over?
If there is a photographer in the family the frenetic activity escalates; cameras, lenses, batteries, battery chargers, card readers and clockwork lap top, useless for Wi Fi, but handy for storing a few thousand digital images; all have to be assembled.
But this is nothing compared to the holiday preparation of an author. Packing notepads of various sizes and a few pens is not enough. I have been busy working my way through reams of scribble for my current novel. I like writing in long hand first, but I can’t actually read my writing, hence the need to quickly transfer from microscrap paper and macrosoft brain to Microsoft Word. Then edit and put on several memory sticks in case a burglar steals my computer, or worse, the whole house blows up while we are away.
In the meantime there is work to do in the ether; refreshing my website so it looks as if I have visited it recently and am not dead, blogs to write….
Back to packing…. Our collection of equipment to take is not complete without the various communication gadgets passed round the family or bought cheaply from Pete-at-work. Two Smart phones and two tablets because the lap top can’t be trusted to find the Internet and phone screens are too tiny to enjoy Facebook.
Finally clothes, September weather? Same as for an English holiday at any time of the year, take everything.
We’re only going 180 miles, away for 25 days maximum. Some staying with relatives involved, handy for laundry, shops nearby, so it’s hardly an expedition, but I need to treat it as such so that I will be prepared to enjoy getting away from it all.

Visit my website to see what's on in September; stories, pictures and all sorts. www.ccsidewriter.co.uk

We have arrived home from our 24 days away to find the house still standing and unburgled. But I could not access my Command Control Centre (computer in the bedroom); due to my insistence on unplugging everything electrical while we were away lest lightning strike the house. Strange white messages appeared on a black screen, pressing F1 was not enough and long suffering Cyberspouse had to reset the computer’s body clock and re-boot it. But I still stand by my sensible precaution as our local area did have a dramatic storm while we were away. We also have the electrician in this week leading to more switching off and rebooting. But at last I am writing.
September brought a very hot late summer especially in Kent and there was only one rainy hotel afternoon when I actually got out my notepad. The rest of the holiday was spent with family or visiting interesting places and spotting fascinating people.
So I have returned with no progress on my novel, but plenty of ideas for short stories.

Dungeness is the only desert in the United Kingdom and one of the largest areas of shingle in the world; it is now a national nature reserve. But it also has a nuclear power station and for 88 years has been the end of the line for the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, one third size steam trains which travel across the Romney marshes from Hythe.
Not as desolate as when only fishing families lived here this is still a unique and isolated spot, with fascinating shacks and stranded boat wrecks. Sitting in the station café I was just as interested to find the staff having a late lunch break on the tables next to us. It was like being in an episode of ‘Dinner Ladies’, a cosy little world where train drivers sat down with the cooks. I could imagine a jolly sitcom, with a dark edge perhaps. One of the drivers wore a South West Trains jumper, had he been demoted from mainline to miniature railway, his nerves shattered after running over a dog? http://www.rhdr.org.uk/about.html

Completely different was our Sunday out in Canterbury. The cathedral is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England, forms part of a World Heritage Site and is one of the most visited places in the country. This was obvious by the crowds thronging the city as pilgrims and visitors have since the middle ages. Cyberspouse says they get in the way of his photography, but I love photographing people, they are a part of the city as mush as the many delightful buildings. The Salvation Army band was playing by a café, several guitarists had taken up spots by the shops and on the River Stour you could relax in a punt and be rowed by young men giving floating commentaries on history.
Entry to the cathedral close is through a stone archway and just inside is the Constables’ Lodge with the sign ‘Close Constables’; on duty 24 hours a day they deal with more than lost property and first aid, monitoring CCTV, crime prevention, sorting out problem visitors and even wearing stab proof vests. This is truly a place both ancient and modern and despite the crowds of visitors, still a world of its own. The public can sit on benches in the sunshine or admire interesting old houses; but these homes are exclusive residences for the lucky people who are part of the cathedral community. There have been several absorbing documentary series about cathedrals and last year BBC television screened a year in the life of Canterbury Cathedral, but it would be more fun for a writer to place strange characters in the Cathedral Close and imagine what havoc they might cause.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04vf10f

Visit my Beachwriter's Blog to see our holiday in technicolour.
http://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapter...

Due to an accident of birth my parents were neither hill farmers nor sea fishing folk. Dad worked in an office, we lived on a main road; except when the River Thames flooded I was already several steps away from real life. ‘What is real life?’ is worthy of a blog in itself.
Suffice to say that when the Beast from the East hit Britain last week people were blasted out of their comfort zone to a greater or lesser degree. Hill farmers have to go and dig their sheep out of snow drifts and put new born lambs in the oven to warm up. Motorists used to flashing through real life in their heated cars, found themselves stranded all night in remote places, trains were halted high on railway banks. The army was called in.
Here at the bottom of the map we were still waiting for the excitement of snow. Wednesday brought biting winds. Thursday we looked out the window at 7am, saw snow and headed straight for the cliff top. If you have seen early black and white photographs of ships locked in ice, their search for the North West Passage halted for the winter, you will have marvelled at how they got those photos. Big cameras and big buttons presumably meant they did not need to take their gloves off. Using a smart phone requires bare hands and our fingers were quickly in pain. But I managed to send a photo off to Instagram. After descending to the beach and some quick shots of snow drifts against the groynes, we rushed home for hot porridge and put pictures on Facebook and websites in comfort. Our views were pretty, but there was not a lot of snow. Cyberspouse left his bicycle behind and took the bus into town to meet his friend for their weekly drink and cinema. I went to the local shops.
It snowed all afternoon, looking prettier and prettier. Cyberspouse phoned to say all the buses were suspended as they couldn’t get up the hills. Luckily he had his walking boots and set off along the seafront as darkness fell, he got some good photos and arrived home nearly two hour later. On the local Facebook Page came tales of people taking six hours to get home in their cars.
Thursday night brought freezing rain. Friday morning was a white delight, but the beautiful snow was frozen hard. We were not going to starve if we stayed home, would probably not get scurvy if we relied on baked beans and frozen peas. But with local shops so handy we’re used to daily shopping, more importantly I did not want to miss out on the snow experience and more pictures for Instagram. We planned a circular walk to the cliff top and down Grand Avenue to the Grove for coffee and shopping.
It was a foolish mission that could have ended in disaster; impossible to walk on the icy crust of snow, hanging on to garden walls was not an option as they were covered in ice. We weren’t the only ones who made it to the cliff top, just the only ones without dogs or children. It wasn’t as cold as Thursday, the sky was heavy laden, insulating us.
Our favourite Ludo Lounge was open and it was packed. With schools closed and parents unable or unwilling to go to work it was like summer holiday time, but with ice and slush. A waitress said they had received twenty eight phone calls before 9.30 am checking if they were open; people had their priorities right.
The greengrocers’ was closed, however Sainsburys’ was open with enough veg for a good stir fry. But something was wrong, there was no milk on the shelves. It hadn’t occurred to us that out in the real world milk tankers would be unable to get to farms or back to dairies, nor would delivery lorries be able to get to supermarkets or corner shops. We don’t use much milk, Cyberspouse likes everything black, we have a Tassimo coffee machine. With only enough milk left for me to have two cups of tea this was a First World Problem with a First World Solution.
We walked home on the slushy main road, less slippery, but not so pretty. By evening we could hear the steady drop of thaw, by Saturday morning melting was well under way and I was glad I hadn’t stayed in and missed Snow Day. At the shops there was still no milk. I posted ‘No Milk Today’ on the local FB page and unintentionally started a conversation that went on till Monday; from Utube clips of Herman’s Hermits singing ‘No Milk Today’ to arguments about veganism and regular updates of remote shops where people had found one carton of milk.
Sunday opened with sunshine and everyone was out on the cliff top, beach and pier.
But on Facebook today the First World Problems were still with us... ‘I sat in sunshine on the cliff top, but when I stopped at the Co-op on the way home; no milk or bread!'
For snowy pictures visit my website.
https://www.ccsidewriter.co.uk/chapte...