Travel: April 2004 Archives

Here are some photos from last week, from the digital camera. I've also got a couple rolls of black and white film to develop, some of which I'm very interested in seeing. Some of it I know will be boring, but that's film photography for you.

Anyway:

We stayed with the charming Paul and Jenny Sartin in Wherwell, England. Paul is one part of Dr. Faustus, which you probably have not heard of unless you're a folk music person. Paul and Jenny have three boys: James, William, and Joe. They've recently done a huge amount of construction at their house (built an addition and expanded into the attic) so the house was in a bit of chaos, but no more than we're used to.

Noel in the dining room practising the melodion

James looking at the trout in the Test River on a walk. There's a wooden walkway that crosses the river towards the commons.

The Test River

The Wherwell village commons

Hoofprints on the commons

A swan in the Test thinks we might give it a handout. Ha!

Paul has an impossibly tiny piano, which I suppose is possible if you give up a couple octaves on either end. What you can't see in this photo is that the piano is desperately out of tune.

Downtown Winchester. Paul was singing in the choir for Evensong on Palm Sunday, so we went down to listen. We had some time before service started, so we walked around town, where everything was closed.

Trolley Creche. Hee hee.

Paul Sartin

While Noel and Paul did their music workshops, I spent a lot of time tromping around in the countryside around Tockington. Here's one of the muddy footpaths I walked along outside Tockington.

Tree on the footpath

Near an old-age home: I find this road sign incredibly funny, for no good reason.

Finally, one of the women at the workshop agreed to drive me in to Bristol so I could see more than just a bunch of mud and some distant cows. Here's a cherry tree in Castle Park, Bristol

St. Peter's Church, Castle Park, Bristol

Another flowering tree in Castle Park

Fountain in Castle Park

I liked the name of this shop: Foreign Nonsense, Bristol

Does anybody know what kind of tree this is? It's in a garden in Tockington.

Cows, outside Tockington

We took a quick couple of days in Edinburgh and saw, among others, Feòrag NicBhrìde and Charlie Stross

Back in Bristol for half a day (before Paul could come pick us up during the lunch break at the workshop), we went to see Bristol Cathedral

Some pictures of the kids:

Joe Sartin

William Sartin

James and William Sartin

And of the village:

Back from a week which was simultaneously nothing like we expected it to be, and a lot of fun. Staying with a family in a foreign country -- especially one with small children -- is very different from camping on the sofas of friends or staying in nice hotels. Quite refreshing, actually, but the kids in question were not all bad and we were given authority to make them behave by the parents, which makes things much easier.

Two notes on travel as I get older: business class is my new best friend, and economy class is, well, about as horrible as it can get, except on old planes with the tight spacing on the seats, where it's unbearable. I stood half the flight to get the kinks out of my legs, and keep in mind that I'm a pretty small person and generally fit nicely into airline seats.

Also, a week in a distant time zone is just long enough to get really settled in, before you have to turn around and come back.

We're taking turns at the miniscule bath tub, then off to bed early (except that for us it's the middle of the night).