I Love a Wide Open Country

...and England isn't it.

Today was fairly non-eventful. I had planned for it to be my driving day- through the Moors, Hardrian's Wall, and Snowdonia- but the fog has been so thick I haven't been able to see anything. So basically I left York and drove straight down to Bath. Now I'm here and it only took 5 hours which included a few stop offs which could have been avoided had I not thought the towns would be more fun than they were...

Nevermind, I'm going to go fully tourist on Bath tomorrow; open top bus and all! When in (old school) Rome, do as... Well, tomorrow I'll let you know what they did here.


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I managed to pack a bit into today. The weather forecast was for sunshine so I decided to drive out to the Yorkshire Dales and have a look around but it was foggy the whole time so all I saw was this:

But it was a nice drive and I can imagine they'd be beautiful. I think if I grew up there I'd: a) run like a demon; b) be pretty handy on a motorbike with a shottie; and c) be bored senseless. It was nice to see though. I would think they're exactly as they were 1000 years ago, including the farming set up.

My drive through the Dales was quicker than expected so I pushed hard and managed to get back to York just after lunch and fit the Viking Museum in this afteroon. I read that this was the most popular attraction in the UK outside London and it's easy to see how. It's incredible. I have some kind of strange interest in Vikings but even if you didn't I would highly recommend this. There are 3 distinct sections, the first standing on glass overlooking an actual archaelogical dig; the second is a kind of rollercoaster ride through a makeshift Viking village as it were set up in York; and the third is a collection of artefacts found in York. It was fascinating.

http://www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/

Then tonight I ran with a guy who finished 10th in my age group in the half Ironman world championships. Given my 'make-it-up-as-I-go' training over the past month or two I have to say I was nervous about the pace we would be doing but it was great. He's a lovely guy and despite being able to destroy me 99 times out of 100 on the course we had a good run. He showed me York in the way I love, through the eyes of a local. No guidebook can do that. Mind you, no guidebook will keep my heart rate at 197 bpm for an hour either...

I've spent an hour trying to fix the formatting of the below post while some annoying Australian girl has been talking rubbish non-stop behind me and some self-admiring magician is on tv so I've lost the will... Highlight all text and you'll see the words in the white section.

Yer Woik en Poind Lend?

Last night, while sitting at the pub below my hotel in Suffolk reading the wikipedia page on the Suffolk accent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_dialect) and some old guy came up to me and barked: "Yer woik en Poind Lend?".Had I not just read "I'll" becomes "oi'll" (as in "oil") e.g. "Oi'll see yer 'amara". This also happens to other words with the 'ae' sounds in, such as "five", which becomes "foive" I would have had no idea what he was on about! In all seriousness I read that sentence 30 seconds before he approached me.

Anyway, we had a good chat about how I don't actually work at Poundland but I'm a spitting image of a guy who always serves him there. Flattering.

This morning was nicer. I got to have a look inside the church where my family seemed to have quite a presence in the mid C.19th and saw a plaque listing Jeremiah Fenton as a church warden.

After the church I drove up to York in thick fog so I couldn't tell you that the countryside was beautiful but I just imagined it was... Tomorrow I hope to drive through the Yorkshire Dales in bright blue sunshine. In reality, however, I can only promise that I'll drive through the Yorkshire Dales. We'll see about the weather.

Yer Woik en Poind Lend?

Last night, while sitting at the pub below my hotel in Suffolk reading the wikipedia page on the Suffolk accent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffolk_dialect) and some old guy came up to me and barked: "Yer woik en Poind Lend?".Had I not just read "I'll" becomes "oi'll" (as in "oil") e.g. "Oi'll see yer 'amara". This also happens to other words with the 'ae' sounds in, such as "five", which becomes "foive" I would have had no idea what he was on about! In all seriousness I read that sentence 30 seconds before he approached me.

Anyway, we had a good chat about how I don't actually work at Poundland but I'm a spitting image of a guy who always serves him there. Flattering.

This morning was nicer. I got to have a look inside the church where my family seemed to have quite a presence in the mid C.19th and saw a plaque listing Jeremiah Fenton as a church warden.

After the church I drove up to York in thick fog so I couldn't tell you that the countryside was beautiful but I just imagined it was... Tomorrow I hope to drive through the Yorkshire Dales in bright blue sunshine. In reality, however, I can only promise that I'll drive through the Yorkshire Dales. We'll see about the weather.

Saint Edmund's Day

So, my belief that I'm of Viking descendants still holds true but the good news for all of you is that I may not be of the violent crew of Vikings. Today, 20th November, is Saint Edmund's Day; the former Patron Saint of England before Edward III replaced him with Saint George. Today I went to a lecture about Norman occupation in East Anglia and the general whereabouts of Edmund the Martyr (in short: nobody knows). Despite having no clue what they were on about for most of it (and being the youngest in the audience by about 80 years) I was fascinated by the fact that many peaceful Norseman settled in East Anglia before the violent Vikings came along. In addition to rape, pillage and plunder, you can add racketeering to the resume of violent Vikings because Edmund, King of East Anglia, paid them to leave the area alone. So they went north and broke stuff instead. In fact, Vikings spent a few winters in East Anglia because they were too late to go back to Norway/ Denmark.

The rest of my day was taken up searching for old Fenton gravestones and I visited 5 different church grave yards hoping for more- it's a strange sensation searching for the death of a family member. Tomorrow I hope to meet the church warden of the church my ancestors are buried next to. After that I head up to York to find out whether my more violent Viking ancestors had any cool names like Mottull Foemangler or Helgi Hjorvardson.

Road Trip!

There is always a good reason to go on a road trip. They should make a dice with a different reason on each side and whatever it lands on, that's your excuse to your boss/ spouse/ parents/ children/ parole officer. They're all valid. Mine is to tick off the things I was too busy/ lazy/ 'it's been there for 1600 years it'll be there another few' reasoning to do. So with my last day of work yesterday and my flight out of the UK 11 days away, it's time for a road trip.

Planning something like this is can be dangerous because once you start thinking about places that would be 'nice to' see it opens a whole can of worms. I'd really like to see parts of Scotland but once I'm over that border Fort William would be nice, but Thorso is definitely my next stop. When there, however, what's to say an afternoon on Orkney is out of the question? Unfortunately I'm ruled by time. So I've reluctantly ruled out Scotland (and the resulting trips to Orkney, Shetlands, Norway, and further...) and Ireland (who knows where I could go after Iceland and Greenland!!).

I have given myself 7 days to explore as much as possible in the following loop:

London

Bury St Edmunds

Leeds (maybe)

York

North Wales

Bath

London.

There's not a lot of driving there by Australian standards but lots I want to see in each of those areas. I can also fit Hadrian's Wall in between York and North Wales, which I've wanted to see since before I came over here...

So I'm now in Bury St Edmunds where the first Fenton to reach Australia in 1858 grew up. Tonight I scoped out Samuel Jeremiah Fenton's hood and walked past his house. I'd put photos up but it was 4pm in November so obviously it was pitch black. I have no idea why he moved to Australia...

Tomorrow I'll have a look at a bit more of the town and check out surrounding towns with links to the Fentons to see what I can find.

If it requires a road trip I'll do it.

Vicco Surfers

An interesting question posed by Ali, a non-surfer: how is the distribution of pro surfers between Australian states?

For memory, there are maybe 4 pros from QLD in the top 10, 3 from NSW in the top 20 and 1 from Vicco in the top 40.

Don't bring into account the water temperature, but why is it like that?

Poor Bastard...

This is the face you make when you executed an immaculate race only to fall short of the marathon world record by 4 seconds.

Incredible effort by Wilson in 2:03:42. Guess which country dominated the men's event?

1 Wilson Kipsang KEN 2:03:42
2 Levy Matebo KEN 2:05:16
3 Albert Matebor KEN 2:05:25
4 Phillip Sanga KEN 2:06:07
5 Robert Kipron Cheruiyot KEN 2:06:29
6 Peter Kirui KEN 2:06:31
7 Chumba Dickson Kiptolo KEN 2:07:23
8 Siraj Gena ETH 2:08:31
9 Duncan Koech KEN 2:08:38
10 Henry Sugut KEN 2:08:56