Driving North Wales in an Overboiled Potato

It was a cosy Sarkozy-sized farmhouse about halfway between Betws-y-Coed and Llanwrst in that land where consonants travel in packs and you never know whether vowels are going to speak up or just stare back expectantly, daring you to make the first squeak. Every door frame was a headbanger for us Schwarzeneggers over 5'6". The owner was a lively Welsh lady of at least 70 years who had spent a lifetime among the sheep. She shouted when she whispered, shouted when she spoke, and, fingers to ears please, SHOUTED when she shouted. It's not that Welsh sheep are harder of hearing than the other varieties, it's just that they're not very bright. Especially those that give directions at the roadside.

Late the first evening, I was sitting in the lounge watching TV when I heard something that sounded like a bit of a row, a barney, or possibly a rumble starting up in the other side of the house between the landlady and a visitor. As it reached a fever pitch I felt uncomfortable enough to start edging towards the safety of my room. Suddenly, a volcano of laughter erupted. Titters ricocheted off the ceiling. Guffaws gushed out from under the kitchen door. So it wasn't "Murder At The Dew Flock Inn" after all. It was just another neighbourly Friday-night sheep-shout. Welsh at eleven, turned up to eleven.

A house in Llanwrst needing a shave more than I do

The sun rose.

I rose.

The sheep that the landlady called "Rose" had been complaining about the sun for hours. I was sure that once I stuck my head out, Rose would start complaining about me.

There's nothing quite as invigorating early on a Welsh countryside morning as a loud breakfast. It has little of that quiet elegance found in the better English B&Bs, and fortunately none of the barely disguised impatience of the others. But it still has all the carbs, fat, and full frontal trouser stains of the royal consort's favorite way to start the day.

As I chewed, I reflected on the night before. The barkeep at the Albion in Llanwrst (Welsh name: Allion) explained to me that "shouting another round" originated with a Welsh shepherd ordering a second pancake.  Given that "It's my shout" on the Allion side of the bar seemed to correspond to "Can I have a quiet word in your ear?" on the Albion side I was inclined to believe him. At least until the great roar of laughter from both sides of the bar as I left.

Stained and sated, I set out cross country going west through Snowdonia, past the great, though indiscernible, peak itself and on to the coast and Caernarvon.

Snowdon: Totally Obscured by Cloud

Later that day, with toes up in front of the gas fire, I learned from one of the two English language TV channels in the eight channel universe of North Wales that eleven souls had become lost on a hiking trip on Mount Snowdon. Fortunately they were later found, wet, cold and, with teeth chattering, arguing about whether or not this was worse than that time when they ended up in a snowstorm on Burleigh St. Mungo. Of the other six channels, four are Welsh and two looked like they only had shows about sheep and the occasional goat. The sheep channels had little interest in the story, favouring instead the recent revelations about pork prices in Llandudno. The Welsh announcers generally seemed to be suppressing snickers when reporting the story - the hikers were from Birmingham. It might have had something to do with how Birmingham is pronounced in Welsh.

Being a rough and tough Canadian, I know how to dress for Snowdonia. I was wearing a 4 cylinder Nissan Note - a fashion choice that Top Gear calls "Not quite as thrilling as an over boiled potato". Well Jeremy, think about that next time you're freezing your veg off on top of Snowdon and I'm motoring by in my spud listening to the Ovine Hour at near-room temperature.

You may have noticed that English, like most other languages, distinguishes between things of considerable dimension that are parallel to the earth's surface and those that are perpendicular to the earth's surface. You may not have thought of it in exactly those terms, but most of us think that a ten metre pole (or a similar pole measured in feet)  is "long" when it's lying down, but "tall" when it's standing on end. However, things that are lacking in dimension such as long weekends, last orders, loose change, and Ronnie Corbett, are short no matter how you orient them.

As I found at a small cafe where I stopped to decaffeinate, recaffienate and explore the local environs, the British have gone to great lengths to take this distinction to new heights.

The parking lot of the cafe was a muster point for a trail up yet another peak. To my surprise, the length of the hiking route was given in imperial measure while the height of the route was given in metric units. Yes it was. The placard outlining the route stated that the distance was 1.7 miles and the climb was 600 metres and that since weather conditions were unpredictable, outerwear of four cylinders or greater was recommended.  I brought this miles vs. metres inconsistency to the attention of a local who informed me that the difference would be obvious to a native. Airspace is a European thing and the soil we stand on is a British thing. I was tempted to pound him with a kilo of sheep droppings and then thrash him to within an inch of his life with a metre stick.      


Caernarvon - Always just 'round the next bend

Imagine a length of yarn that kitty has wrapped around all the furniture in your living room. As long as kitty has included the tops of furniture as well as the legs, and you imagine this as the width of a back alley, you've got a reasonable representation of driving through the heart of North Wales to the coast. There are long straight stretches that you can fly along, but you'll end up paying for them by swirling down one side of a valley with your ears popping and then shortly thereafter climbing up the other to the sound of the engine begging forgiveness.

Caernarvon is a splendid place. Although restored, it hasn't been museumized. I spent at least an hour and a half wandering the castle and then a couple of hours in a cafe doing email. Then back to the farm!

That night the landlady hollered that I should go up the hill to the pub in Capel Garmon to enjoy one of her sheep. Before I could protest my marital status, my species preference, or even that it was a rental car, she recommended that I order the stew or the pie instead of the usual chops or rack. "They do it right up there!" she shouted. So, with Rose stowed safely in the barn, I made my way up to the pub through a truly mystical magical tunnel in the Welsh woods, praying that none of the local farm equipment would be coming the other way.

Without incident, I was soon safely in the wrong part of the pub. I've always been confused by that saloon bar vs. public bar thing. I thought that if you went to a public school you went in the public bar, but if you were born in a barn you went to the saloon. Apparently it's a common North American misconception that only gets worse with the conflicting definitions of "public school". And they also tell me in the UK that there's something called a saloon car. How reserved. I'm sure that's what we call a party wagon on my home continent.

However, in this case I was in the wrong side of the pub simply because the waitress only visited this side on odd-numbered days. At the suggestion of the landlord, I shuffled over to the place where the dart boards were suffering impressively accurate slings and arrows,  and where the waitress, evidently on a work term from majoring in "Applied Welsh Stoicism", took my order. I decided to check out the Shepherd's Pie, which in the UK will contain the fruit of a shepherd's labour, as opposed to the other side of the Atlantic where it will usually contain the mechanically deboned fruits of a robotic cowherd's labours.

Then came the usually inevitable but in this case unexpected query: "And what kind of potatoes would you like with that?"

You get potatoes with everything in Britain.

Lasagna and fresh veg - and what kind of potatoes would you like with that?

Greek salad with grilled chicken - and what kind of potatoes would you like with that?

Deux quails, asparagus spears, pate de fois gras - and how would Monsieur like his pommes-de-terre with that?

But potatoes with shepherd's pie?

How would you like your potatoes with your mashed potatoes? 

Mashed to match, or French Fried for a bit of that "who gives a damn" joie de vivre?

Perhaps "Oven Roast" would provide a subtle intellectual before-and-after illustration of the "Art of the Mash".

Or over-boiled befitting the four cylinder motoring enthusiast that you are.

So baby new potatoes it was. It was an excellent pie and an even more dramatic ride back to the farm through the darkening bush as the sun went down. Tomorrow - off to Llandudno to see what all the fuss is about.

A sheep pleading to be served without potatoes

Corbridge to CastleRigg via Hadrian's Wall

All along the way I'd kept one eye on the road and another on the lookout for a steam rally, any steam rally. Finally, as I arrived in Corbridge just east of Newcastle along Hadrian's wall, I spotted a poster announcing the Corbridge Steam Gala. And more importantly, it announced that today was the opening day. Equipped with locally sourced directions, a locally sourced biscuit, and a coffee from a far distant, but guaranteed equally pleasant and equally fair traded, village, I proceeded directly to the Tyndale Rugby Grounds. Miss Fortune being my guiding angel of the day, I arrived early enough to get an excellent seat in the bleachers.

"Directly" in my driving lexicon means simply that I don't "intend" to go anywhere else, although on most days, I do. On good days I always do. On some very good days I don't even reach my intended destination. On this particular Thursday morning I crossed the latest edition of the original "Cor Bridge" over the Tyne ("Cor! Tha's a bridge, 'en it?"), inspected the roundabout twice and then veered off as instructed toward the train station. A kilometre or so down the road I passed a particularly nattily dressed pensioner with driving cap and walking stick. "A pair of bicycle clips," I thought, "And he'd be ready to perambulate in any mode".

Priding myself on that thought, I drove on, somehow missing the train station that I was to look for to know that I'd already missed the laneway to the rugby pitches. This method of giving directions - "When you see this particular landmark, you've missed the one you're looking for" is a definitely a "small country" navigation technique. They don't use it in Saskatchewan, the Sahara, or, I suspect, Death Valley.

Several kilometres further along on the delightfully named road - Tinkler's Bank - I was ruminating on a visit to that esteemed establishment.

"Welcome Sir. Now just how can Tinkler's Bank help You?"

"I'd like to make a deposit."

"You understand that we only accept liquid assets."

"Well, how about this?"

"That's a rather piddling amount, but it is our favourite currency."

This reverie faded fitfully into that slightly hungover feeling of having forgotten something that only identifies itself by its absence. Then I realized that I'd seen a railway station sign on a rise some time ago, but had never seen the station itself. So I made a six-point turn (the road had narrowed considerably) and started back. A few minutes later I was momentarily distracted by signage to Tinkler's Yard and Little Tinkler's Nursery (So that's where the leaky little buggers come from) and didn't notice that I was in fact passing over the tracks, and that the entrance to the train station was a small steel staircase down from the overpass. This was definitely overstretching the term "landmark". There, now off to the right on a parallel lane, was the fellow with driving cap but with nowt to drive. So once more round the roundabout and back to that unmarked exit to the rugby pitches ("Why would you need a sign? Everyone knows where it is.") I successfully negotiated the long anticipated but seldom seen corner and went down the leafy laneway past the now reassuringly familiar sight of the gent with no bicycle clips and into the parking lot.

After soaking up the atmosphere for a few minutes, my now favorite cap and walking stick hove into view. A short time later he arrived beside me at the bleacher. As we looked out over the empty field together, he ventured, "I'd say we're a little early, wouldn't you?". The only evidence for the possibility of an event here was the notices announcing that the Car Boot Sale had been moved to another field due to the Steam Gala. Upon reflection I concluded that the dear old soul in the front office once again put the booking dates for the field on the poster as the show dates, still not cluing in to the length of time it takes to herd a pack of thirteen ton tractors, traction engines, steam powered trucks and their attendant caravans and chip wagons into public-ready formation.

I offered my new aquaintance a lift back to town. He politely declined, assuring me that he now had to find something to fill the hours he would have spent at the gala, and the two kilometer walk should just about fit the bill. I passed him again on the way out of the parking lot. As I waved, it struck me that he probably just wasn't interested in a drive down Tinkler's Bank in the wrong direction or several tours of the roundabout. I suspected that he suspected that he'd be eating lunch sooner if he walked.

Undeterred, I proceeded to the car boot sale that had been bumped from the rugby field by the missing Steam Gala but, sadly, came away empty. I was going to say that it's the same trash everywhere, but I'd never seen a large suitcase piled high with remote controls before. But then I don't go to flea markets in Canada. I could have gotten a copy of "The Goon Show Book" but we already have two copies in the house. There was a porcelain statue of an aggressively happy but frighteningly large lady in a very small bathtub with a clearly delirious scrub brush. Not having the necessary pair of wherewithals to take a picture, you'll have to imagine it for yourself.

I drove away from the Car Boot Sale towards the bridge and town, passing my chum who waved and smiled knowing he'd made the right decision. I smiled as well, knowing that if he was going this way, I too was heading in the right direction.

Vicar's Pele, Corbridge

Corbridge is a beautiful little town near one of the Roman sites and a great place to wander about. There's a splendid AngloSaxon-Norman-Medieval church - St. Andrews, which has the first "fortified vicarage" that I'd ever seen. In case you're looking at the picture and asking "Why didn't you show the side with the windows?", this IS the side with the windows.




I'd like to think that the vicar needed the extra firm support because of the "Primitive Methodists" who moved in across the street, but they arrived over 500 years later. No, the irritating neighbour that caused the vicar to found his house within a rock wasn't a Methodist, but a Scot of the Looterin' persuasion - William Wallace, who burnt and sacked Corbridge, twice. Then Robert the Bruce did it and, among others, so did David I.


Leaving Corbridge, I drove east along Hadrian's Wall, south through the Lake District, north through the West Dales, several times around the compass west of Manchester, and finally north, west, south and west into North Wales.

Found at the Roman Site of Chesters

One of the great things about going along Hadrian's wall is driving past the Roman forts. That's not to say that you should skip the forts entirely, though there is a certain amount of sameness to them. They're a bit like archaeological digs of McDonald's restaurants a few millennia on from now. They're really a lot the same - deliberately. They didn't bring in a hot new designer for each one.















Phil: Stone the crows! Three fryers! Just what do you make of that?
Mick: Could very well be a high status McDonald's.
Francis: Looks like "ritual" to me. The middle one's definitely ceremonial...

For me, seeing the remnants of the forts is really a backgrounder for history and stories encountered elsewhere. Unlike sites from later ages, it's hard work to evoke the time and life from the "floorplan" remains, but it can be quite inspiring to look over some of the views and see a landscape that's very similar to that seen by the Romans.

In any case, driving by the forts, you have an experience that is almost as unusual in Britain today as it was when the Romans set up housekeeping and road maintenance. The road is straight. Straight like an Ontario concession road. Straight like, shall we say, a Roman road. It's the B6318 and it's called the Roman Military Road. After driving down from Glasgow, and subsequently driving to London, I believe that this was not only the straightest road that I drove on in the UK, it was the only straight road I drove on in the UK.

Castlerigg Stone Circle (Click photo for more)

Castlerigg is to the north of the Lake District in the Cumbrian highlands. This Stone Circle is described in my English Heritage Guide as the most spectacularly located circle in England and it certainly seems so to me. There's only a hundred or so other circles to check out before I can commit definitively. The site was swarming with twelve year olds with measuring gear on a school outing with math teacher (orange jacket) bellowing from time to time - "Come on boys - get the job done!" I think he was enjoying it. I know the kids and I were.

When you look at a stone circle like Castlerigg it really makes you realize how great the human race is. Countless visits by aliens to earth and the most they have to show for it is a few short-lived crop circles and hazy memories of anal probes. Now those beaker people built things that still say "I was here", "I had really big biceps" and "Time for another bevvy".

Along the dales

Some places are hard to find, even hard to find out about. On the other hand, some call out to you. At least they call out to me.




Giggleswick and Wigglesworth 

I used to think the Yorkshire building society pairing of Bradford and Bingley was slightly silly with Bradford being the sober and moderating influence on irrepressible Bingley. Imagine a prudent successful financial institution called Giggleswick and Wigglesworth (they're less than five miles apart). You can't. Can you?

Having married into a gang of Brass Bandidos, I'd hoped to stop and catch part of the Saddleworth Whit Friday Band Competitions which happened on the Friday (June 5). My plan was to arrive at noon spend a few hours shakin' booty to the tunes and then hit the road to lay down with the lambs in North Wales by early evening (in the farm-stay B&B sense, not the biblical sense). Prior to checking the updated website on Thursday, I thought that the competitions started in the afternoon, after the Whit Walks in the morning. In fact, they start about 4:30pm and finish about 11:00pm. The competition sites are spread out through a rabbit warren of hilltop and valley towns in Saddleworth. Forty-five minutes of getting lost among the road diversions and parking restrictions convinced me that the only way to see any of the competition would be to book into a hotel long prior to the start of things. Must do that some time.

Sadly, it appeared that I just missed the end of the Whit Walk because of an ongoing abusive relationship I had with two roundabouts in Oldham. No matter how badly they treated me, I went back. But no matter how often I went back, neither of them would ever show me any favour. I must have spent at least 45 minutes in a town I was direly warned not to enter in the first place.

So on to Wales.

Cult of the Pepperpot

First - An admission.

At some point in the mid sixties, I'd rush home to watch Dr. Who with William Hartnell as The Doctor - that is Dr#1. I distinctly recall watching what I now know to be the very first episode - "An Unearthly Child - Why does Susan Foreman live in a Police Box in a junkyard?".

Then I left those childish things behind (Hey, it was the seventies, man).

At the beginning of the eighties, we'd sit down and watch Tom Baker (Dr#4) as Dr. Who for the wit and silliness. Of course, I also read Playboy for the interviews.

Some Baker era Doctoring from "City of the Dead" scripted by Douglas Adams:



Other than that, I've had little interest in the perpetually resurrected program. However, I clearly stand alone in this country. When it needs something to restore its manhood, England seems to close its eyes and think of the Doctor. How long it can keep this up is open to debate. I remember from the Tom Baker era that the Doctor can only regenerate 12 times. Or is it regenerate 11 times for 12 existences? I don't recall, but given that next season introduces Dr#11, they're either on or approaching thin ice.

Now you've paid your admission, let's get on with it.

Just a few weeks I was telling a friend "J." about the performance of "Enjoy" a play by Alan Bennett that I'd just seen in London, when I pulled out a bit of previously-believed-to-be-useless trivia. David Troughton, who played the male lead in "Enjoy" was the son of Patrick Troughton, the second Dr. Who. I trumped myself by recalling that I'd first seen David in "A Very Peculiar Practice" - a particularly offbeat dark comedy about life at a university. Peculiar Practice starred Peter Davison who is perhaps best known as Tristan Farnon in All Creatures Great and Small, but is also known as the fifth Dr. Who. This prompted J. to recall "I was at school with David's brother Michael (yet another actor...)." "Aha," I thought, "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon? How about Three Degrees of Dr. Who" Probably nobody in the UK is more than three degrees away from one of the (so far) 11 Dr. Whos. I mentioned this idea to J. who smiled and said "I guess so, David Tennant (Dr. Who #10) lives around the corner and is a regular at the cafe where my daughter works after school".

Finally. A contest everyone can win.

However, far sillier than Tom Baker ever was are the Daleks. I'll wager that the Daleks are the worst designed robots ever. I'll give the designers credit that they didn't just build another tin man. And given that they were introduced in episode 2 of the first season their design may have been driven by a budget limiting them to using whatever was already in the workshop or available from the cleaning staff and could be assembled with PVC glue. (Fingertips difficulty of 3.).

So, given a robot that could be neutralized by a rubber mat, a flight of steps, or a can of string cheese, you'd think they'd have been finished years ago. Ten Doctors later they are still here. Kind of like Fidel Castro. Ten US presidents later and he's still there.

So far, in less then five weeks in England, I've encountered Daleks three or possibly four times. And, to be honest, I hadn't expected to see even one until the Dr Who Museum in Land's End.

Daleks at the Shrewsbury Cartoon Festival

Daleks at Meccanuity

A Dalek in Waterstone Book Store, Lincoln

Victorian Era Steam Driven Dalek at Coalbrookdale

Police Call Box at Land's End

We didn't go in. Daleks are only fun when you come across them unexpectedly. (Besides, "tacky" is to Land's End as "wet" is to the Atlantic Ocean that it sits on.)

Why are the Daleks such darlings? Well the obvious answer is that they are silly. But I think it goes deeper than that, and I don't mean deeply silly. Daleks are genetically, developmentally and temperamentally the eternal underdogs. These are not the American style of underdogs that whip the pants off the arrogant overdog in the third period, fourth quarter, or ninth inning. Daleks appeal to that English love of the hopeless underdog that needs to be taken home, given a warm cup of tea, wrapped up in a blanket and returned to the shelter of the protected copse when they've recovered. Daleks are just overgrown mechanical hedgehogs in need of a St. Tiggywinkles hospital.

Whereas the Borg could rule the galaxy but for some singular flaw in their design, the Daleks couldn't fetch a tray of sandwiches if the floors had just been waxed.

It'll all end unhappily should James Dysan design the next aluminum (or is that aluminium?) and rubber pepperpot for the Doctor. I'm sure that when they suck, they'll suck like a black hole. When they exterminate, everything'll check in and nothing'll check out. And more than with any Borg, Cyberman, or Vogon, resistance will indeed be futile. They'll get the job done but they won't be nearly as endearing as the poor klutzes of yesteryear.

Shrop 'til you Drop - Ironbridge

Coalbrookdale, as you may not have known and I certainly didn't, was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution and as such is now a UNESCO heritage site. The painting to the right is by William Williams - makes you wonder if his patrons paid the bill twice. In 2009 it's celebrating the 300th anniversary of that blessed event when one Abraham Darby realized that iron ore and coke smelt brilliant together. This process dominated the area's industry until the discovery of rum.

In 1777, one Darby's grandsons, known as "Aye, aye, aye, Sir" to his employees, "Old Three Eyes Abe" to his friends, and Abraham Darby III to history, started work on the first iron bridge over what is now known as Ironbridge Gorge in Coalbrookdale.
The iron business is pretty much gone from Coalbrookdale but it has been replaced with a cornucopia of museums, including the Museum of Iron, a Victorian town, a tile museum, a china museum and a teddy bear museum. The last one seemed to me to be a little peripheral and somewhat opportunistic. However, I was put in my place when I read in the brochure that it has examples of early coal fired teddy bears and a rare prototype cast iron bear given to A. A. Milne. According to the insurance claim, the prototype's maiden voyage bump, bump, bump down the stairs on the back of its head did £7/4/5¹/₂d damage to the stair treads and balustrade and left Christopher Robin with a permanent limp and the inability to say "Pooh" without producing some of the same.

But the reason I went to Coalbrookdale wasn't to visit the museums, although I'd certainly like to go back and pump iron there some day (intellectually speaking). I went to see went to see a boffo show of engineering know how, enthusiasm and wit - "Meccanuity 2009". This annual Meccanno fest is held in a hands-on kids museum called Enginuity. It was a gas...



A few more pictures from the area:

Coalbrookdale and Ironbridge

Shrop 'till You Drop - Much Wenlock

Much Wenlock - so named to distinguish it from Little Wenlock. So, much ado about little.
It's a pretty little town nestled in the hills south east of Shrewsbury. All the pretty ones nestle, don't they?

"Much More Books" is in the high street. I wonder if that's Abraham Znaimer's - the uncle Moses snitched and modernized his idea from. (Thas a Canadian joke)

Shown above is the guildhall - a particularly fine building. The lower level is the market place, and upstairs is a courtroom (now a visitor center) and the council chambers. The chambers are still in use and feel like they were designed by people who wanted to make a serious impression with a double dose of gravitas, but didn't want to be seen as ostentatious. The result is a room that is peculiarly grand and cosy at the same time.

Before heading to the ruined Cluniac priory, I stopped in to a deli, and lined up at the counter. When my turn came, I got the lowdown on what was on, what was off, and what all the local terms meant. After a few minutes pleasant discussion with the counter lady, I settled on a cheese and onion soup, field mushroom salad with fresh locally made compote and , warmed multigrain bread.

"Oh, and a coffee. White." I said, completing the order and feeling as proud as if I'd just ordered a particularly challenging rijsttafel in Swahili.
"Is that to eat in or takeaway?"
"Eat in."
"Please take a seat and I'll come over and take your order".

Fortunately we didn't have to do the entire rigamorole again, but I was taught my lesson.

The Priory had an unexpected treat, as this video shows:



More of my pictures of the town and the Priory at:

Much Wenlock