Jersey: Cows and paracetamol

On our last day we had time for a little more sightseeing before our flight home in the afternoon. After much consultation of the maps, we decided to head to the Katherine Best jeweller. We’d seen the adverts for the place everywhere we went and on the offchance that the lady did indeed own the entire island, a visit seemed the right thing to do.

Ordinarily catching the bus from our hotel to the jeweller’s would have been a piece of cake, but it just so happened that the road was being dug up and so the bus no longer came to the end of the hotel’s road. We got directions from the hotel receptionist and headed off through the country lanes, pulling our cases behind us. We admired the beautiful Jersey cows – who stood when Suzy mooed them the instruction to do so over the hedge – and when we realised that we’d been walking far too long with no sign of the windmill in which Katherine Best was housed, Lauren got (better) directions from a lady pushing a beautiful old-fashioned pram.

Suzy and I were lagging a way behind Lauren and Dave because my legs had decided to play up and hurt like hell. I was concentrating on walking and cursing my joints when a car horn sounded behind us. I looked round and the girl I’d seen at the airport when I arrived pulled up next to me. I crossed the empty road to talk to her and her friend, whom she was taking back to the airport.

Windmill

Caroline had actually come out to look for me at the airport, but we’d already got straight into a taxi and gone. And now we’d met in the middle of nowhere thanks to us being sent down the wrong road by our hotel receptionist. I wish I’d had longer to talk to them, but before we’d had a chance to swap much more than our names all the traffic in Jersey – including a tractor for extra dramatic effect – had piled up in both directions wanting for me to get my backside out of the way. We said goodbye, making promises to connect on Facebook – and indeed Annie was waiting in my inbox when I got home.

Eventually we found Katherine Best and I knocked back a couple of painkillers and sat outside in the sunshine with Dave recovering from the walk while Lauren and Suzy perused the jewellery. The grey clouds disappeared for a while and revealed a blue, blue sky and as I looked up at the great sails of the windmill against the blue I wondered if I’d find the energy to get up and take a picture of it before the clouds came over again. Didn’t happen unfortunately, as you can see!

Jersey: Sticky locks and cheeseburgers

Lauren and Dave had walked miles across the island and we all had a rest and replenished our sugar levels while we decided where to go for dinner. As our respective energy levels returned we decided to walk across the beach to The Beach House restaurant.

It was about 3/4 of a mile across St. Auben’s Bay and Ouaisne Bay and we took it at a leisurely pace, walking through the surf and enjoying the sunshine. I took some photos as we went and Suzy did her best to help me get the horizons straight.

I also saw my first sun dog in the sky and funnily enough Dad and Mum saw one the same day on their holiday in La Rochelle. I wasn’t even 100% sure at the time that it was a sun dog. I’d read the term somewhere, but hadn’t been sure to what phenomenon it had been attached.

Just before we reached the far side of the bay I found a sweet little footprint in the sand. I put my own print next to it and Suzy put hers next to mine.

We washed the sand off our feet and headed into The Beach House restaurant and took a nice table by the window, overlooking the bay we’d just crossed.

Before we ordered I headed to the loo. The lock was very stiff when I locked it and I wondered whether it had been a good idea to shut the door. When I came to leave the bathroom I learned that, no, it had not been a good idea. The little silver knob would not turn. I grabbed some toilet paper to see if I could get a better grip. Nope. I thumped on the door. Nothing. So as I was in a disabled loo, I pulled on the emergency cord. Nothing. The pull cord didn’t work and the alarm light didn’t come on. So I went back to thumping on the door. Unfortunately the loos were down a corridor away from the main restaurant, but soon I heard a little kid’s voice and thumped on the door again. His mother called, “Are you locked in?” and when I confirmed I was she grabbed a knife and opened the door from the outside. I returned to my table and told of my adventure. Lauren said that she’d noticed I had been gone too long, but her delightful husband had warned against knocking on the door in case I was just doing a number two. He’s a doll.

When the waiter came along I told him that I’d been locked in the loo and another patron had had to rescue me. He agreed that “yeah, that lock’s really stiff, isn’t it?” I’ve since emailed the restaurant about the lock and received a very speedy response from the manager to say that he had checked the alarm himself and had asked maintenance to change the lock. I’m quite judgmental of accessible toilets. There seems to be no standardisation as far as their construction is concerned. Some have alarm cords and alarm strips that run all the way around the bottom of the wall. Others have tied the alarm cord up, I imagine because it got in someone’s way. Standing I’m about the same height as someone in a wheelchair, but I can’t ever be sure I’m going to be able to see into the mirror. I’ve been in many loos where the mirror is way up high on the wall. But then there was the loo I used at the airport when we returned from Jersey, where the mirror was fine and then I had to bend down to use the hand dryer!

But enough about toilets. The food at The Beach House was great and I had a delicious cheeseburger and chips. We watched the tide come creeping up the beach and the sun set in a blaze of orange over the horizon. When we’d eaten our fill we had a taxi called for us to take us back to the hotel. A chatty blonde lady picked us up and it turned out that she’d driven Helen and Steve to their posh hotel the evening before. We were coming to the conclusion that there were only about 3 taxi drivers on the whole island. We got home safely – though there was one point where we were nearly driven into a wall as our driver was concentrated on fishing about in her top for the back of her earring that had fallen off – and collapsed in our respective beds. It’s all that sea air that tires you out. That and kilometre of war tunnels, the million steps down to the beach and the three quarters of a mile across two sandy bays.

Jersey: Nazis and toasted cheese sandwiches

The day after the wedding, Lauren and Dave set off to walk, I don’t know, miles and Suzy and I took a taxi to the Jersey War Tunnels. Of course, Jersey being the small island it is, we ran into our breakfast neighbours in the foyer of visitors’ centre.

The war tunnels are a partially completed network of tunnels used by the occupying German forces in World War II. The tunnels were built as an ammunition store and later converted into an underground hospital complex. They were constructed by a mix of forced labourers, POWs and volunteers (who “enjoyed” far better conditions than the other labourers).

The tunnels are now home to a large exhibition about the occupation of Jersey during the war and Suzy and I took the audio tour through the hillside. Even with incomplete tunnels still visible and the odd footprint here and there in the concrete, it was still hard to fathom that the tunnels really had been used by the German soldiers during the war, that we were walking where they had once walked. The occupying force on Jersey surrendered the day after D Day, but one thing the audio tour brought to our attention was a flight of steps to be used as an escape had the tunnels been invaded. They were unbelievably steep, impossible to descend without falling and even ascending would have been tricky.

While outside the summer sun was still shining, it was only about 17ºC in the tunnels. You needed to be dressed for it and though I was my feet were cold by the end. Suzy was in shorts and flip flops however and thus felt the cold that much sooner than me.

By the time we had worked our way through the tunnels and considered the tough decisions the audio tour posed us along the way – do you flee the island or stay? Do you resist the occupation? – we were ready for lunch and were pleased to fill up on toasted cheese sandwiches and Ribena for me and a panini and a pot of tea for shivering Suzy in the sun-filled café … where we saw Helen’s brother-in-law and his family.

While we waited for a taxi to take us to our next stop John rang from back on the mainland needing to know how I put together PDFs a certain way. Our cab turned up and I clambered in talking what must have sounded like a lot of nonsense about splitting and merging and placing.

We were headed to Reg’s Garden, which was marked on all the tourist maps. As we went along a coast road near our destination I spotted Lauren and Dave and called Lauren to let her know we were all headed in the same direction. The taxi driver knew where Reg’s Garden was, but had never been there in all his years on the island and thanked us for giving him a first when he dropped us off.

Reg’s Garden is the retirement project of Reg Langlois and he has opened his garden to the public free of charge, with donation buckets at hand for charity. There is a huge pond and waterfall, hundreds of flowers and shrubs, giant tortoises, an aviary and a (slightly odd) fairy garden. At the aviary we met a few waterfowl and a chick was running about loose. There was also Tutu, a cockatiel who said “hello” to you, but only once you’d turned your back on him.

After leaving the garden we spoke again to Lauren and Dave and arranged to meet them in St. Auben’s. Suzy asked a local guy for directions and we told to continue down the road, take a left and then head under an arch and down some steps. We followed his instructions, stopping only to admire the beautiful houses and photograph ourselves in a mirror. We found the arch and just as we were passing beneath it the guy appeared behind us in his car on the road, calling, “Yes, that’s right – down there!” What lay beyond the arch was a million steep steps down the hillside to the beach. We made it down them, making a mental note to order new knees and found Lauren and Dave in a café on the beach front.

At night

A couple of nights ago I went out into the garden to photograph the moon. There was a lot of cloud around, so it would tantalisingly appear and disappear on me. I made a complete hash of putting the tripod up in the dark, but eventually got it about right and settled myself in a garden chair behind it. As the moon emerged from behind the cloud I snapped away, experimenting with settings to try and get what I could see with my own eyes.

I’d brought my mini Maglite out with me too. Though the display on the D80 lights up if you pull the on switch round beyond the on position, it still leaves the other buttons in the dark and without a torch you’re left fumbling about in the dark changing what you’ve just got perfectly set, instead of pressing the button you were actually aiming for.

I was quite content in the still darkness, watching the moon come and go and the stars start to appear in the summer night’s sky, when suddenly I heard a strange sneezy snuffle off to my right. I froze and stared wide-eyed ahead of me. Ok. I have a torch I can shine over in that direction, I thought, but I’m not sure I particularly want to, because, oh dear God, what if it’s a puma with a cold and it wants to eat me? After a little hesitation I pointed my torch in the direction of the sound and saw … a little hedgehog. Not a puma. He was making his way along the fence, noisily sniffing the ground and heading towards a puma another hedgehog in the corner of the garden.

I summoned Mum and Dad to see our nocturnal visitors and we watched them sniffing around in my dim torchlight. Not wanting to startle the creatures (the hedgehogs, not Mum and Dad) with my flash I settled for just a high ISO setting and torchlight. Sometimes you just have to enjoy something in the here and now and not worry about getting a perfect photographic record. After a while I ran back inside to grab my laptop to see if I could record their wonderfully loud snorting and snuffling. Unfortunately the laptop didn’t pick it up among all the general noise of the night, but I did get a couple of bits of video of them running about.

It occurs to me that I should have pointed them towards my vegetable patch, where I currently only have about 3 little weedy beetroot, slugs having methodically feasted on the leaves all along the row of beetroot I planted. I guess they’ll find their own way there soon enough.

The Red Arrows come to town

Every year the War & Peace Show takes place at the nearby Beltring Hop Farm. Military vehicle enthusiasts come from all the over the country to display their vehicles, attend exhibitions and see famous guests such as Dame Vera Lynn and former cast members from Dad’s Army. Even if you don’t visit the show (and of course, being local, I never have) you still get a taste of the military and wartime vehicles as suddenly all kinds of jeeps and trucks are mingled in among the ordinary traffic as they go from camp site to supermarket to stock up on food for the week.

This year the Red Arrows made their debut at the event and performed a full 20 minute display. We were able to watch them zooming around from our garden and then one aeroplane came right over our house at the end.

7 Days: Day 6 – Rainy day

I went to Tonbridge today and was accosted by a very nice Friends of the Earth man who talked to me about factory farming. He knelt down to talk to me on the wet pavement, which I found very chivalrous. He asked if it was ok to do so and I told him that he’d done absolutely the right thing. If you’re going to ask for my money for your charity, I’d much rather you did it at eye level. I had my camera in my bag, but unfortunately it didn’t occur to me to get a photo with him until I was quite a walk away from him and had already called for my lift home. So instead, here’s the puddle where I waited, reflecting the tree and the photographer just waiting for spring.

Forgetfulness and/or denial

I went shopping with Suzy today and we had a marvellously successful day, coming away with half the stock of H&M. In a funky shop called Apricot, where I found myself a long overdue new winter coat, I was perusing the clothes when a little boy appeared next to me. “Hello,” I said. He looked at me with big eyes and then returned my hello when prompted by his Mum. Indicating Suzy, who was standing next to me, he asked, “Is that your Mummy?”
“No, she’s my friend,” I said.
“Where’s your Mummy?”
“She’s at home – it’s ok,” I reassured him.

A little later I met him again in the changing room, where he stuck his head under the curtains to find Suzy an empty cubicle.

“Your Mummy’s at home?” he asked me.
“Yes, she is. How old do you think I am?”
“I don’t know.”
“Have a guess,” I said, playing for time as I tried to remember the answer myself.
“4?”
“No, higher,” I said, still somewhat unsure of my own age.

He was stumped, unable to imagine any age other than his own, and so I told him, “I’m 27″. Suzy promptly poked her head out of her cubicle and corrected me, “No, you’re not, you’re 28!”.

Damn it.