March 10 – Monday

After a great weekend up in Manchester, we were back at Christine and Seb’s for another day. The plan was to pick up the rental van from M5 Leisure in Cheltenham and think about kitting it out a bit for the journey.

I was carrying some anxiety about this part of the trip mainly due to the roads and driving. Guy learned to drive in England 48 years ago approximately. He drove here for about five years before he came to Canada May 28, 1982. He has never driven in England since. I was hoping it would all come back to him and feel natural. He said he felt like he didn’t remember much about driving here and was starting fresh. Ugh! While we were with Christine, she did all the driving and Guy focused on observing how the roads worked here. I kept saying that he should drive a bit in Christine’s car but he said “nope, I’ll just get in the day we pick up the rental and make it happen.” Ugh again!!!

Christine drove us to M5 Leisure for 2pm. Sitting outside the office, waiting for us, was our shiny ruby red van that would be our home for the next months. It was better than we both imagined.

Mark at M5 Leisure spent almost an hour going over how the van works ie. heating, charging the battery, hooking up to electricity, water pump, raising the roof, putting up the awning etc.. We tried to remember most things but it has sometimes been trial by error, but we are getting the hang of how everything works now almost 10 days with the van.

We left the parking lot of the rental company cold turkey. Ugh! The distance back to Christine’s was about 5 miles and we took 16 miles to get there. That began our tour of narrow country lanes and the google map girl sending us off on interesting roads. That first 15 minutes, we got mixed up and found ourselves on a dual carriageway, an A highway. Our immersion program driving in England had officially begun. A fly on the wall might have heard “oops, oh no, shit, god, geeeeeez, oh come on!!!!”

Once safe back at Christine’s house, we breathed a sigh of relief but felt we had gotten over the first hurdle of van life, actually driving the van, and a mild confidence took hold. Even so, we had some groceries to pick up before dinner and walked to Morrisons rather than drive again that day.

Mark at M5 had said that it best we leave our big suitcases at Christines and buy plastic totes for our clothes etc. That night Christine and I whipped out to The Range and bought totes and once home, I transferred everything we brought for the trip into them, ready for loading the van the next morning.

March 11 – Tuesday -D (drive) Day

We were up early to start day 1 of our camping trip and after breakfast and coffee loaded the van. Our little Paddington mascot found its place on the dash. And we named the van itself Paddington, nickname Paddy if you like. We bid Christine goodbye and we felt a little sadness mixed with the excitement, like we were headed out for our first day of school.

Our destination this day was Bath to see the Roman Baths. Time of trip, 1 hour’ish. Guy soon became a pro out there on the 2 lane A road. We crusied along the countryside, amazed by its vast beauty. The initiation process of roundabouts was a challenge driving wise for guy and psychologically for me. I realize how important the navigator’s job is to getting to your destination safely. It takes two baby!!! I popped a lot of rescue remedy pills that day, a herbal pastille that is supposed to calm you.

We arrived in Bath and parked above the village at a Park and Ride. It’s the only way to fly. If you ride, you get the parking free. The narrow roads and twists and turns down into Bath are really no place for a car. They are actually no place for a double decker bus either!! But that is the way we travelled into beautiful Bath. What an absolutely stunning view coming down into the valley where Bath sits.

We met Guy’s old college friend in Bath. Karen drove down from Milton Keynes and spent a couple of days with us camping in Devizes, just outside of Bath. We toured the Baths the first day together and it was super fascinating.

Just a short history, the baths in Bath are thought to be originally used by the Celts as a place to worship and “the springs were dedicated to the goddess Sulis, who was locally identified with Minerva.”  (Wikipedia) Later, it was the Roman’s that assumed this area during the Roman Conquest of 43 AD – 87 AD. The Temple was erected first in 60 – 70 AD and then over the next 300 years, the baths were developed. “After the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the first decade of the 5th century, these fell into disrepair and were eventually lost due to silting up,^[16] and flooding.^[17] The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle suggests the original Roman baths were destroyed in the 6th century.^[18]” (Wikipedia)

The baths went through various modifications over the years and in 2009 were given support and grants from government bodies to develop the exhibitions about the baths and to improve access to the baths themselves.

The informative exhibition at the baths is top notch and being able to tour this historic site is beyond awesome.

That night after setting up at the campsite, we walked from our campsite to a pub very close by and had a very pleasant first evening together.

March 12 – Wednesday

We got up and had coffee then had a most excellent long walk along the canal near the campsite. At the end of the walk was a very sweet cafe where we had an early lunch and a coffee. Then we turned around and walked the hour back to the campsite.

We travelled in the afternoon down to Dorset to a village called Stour Provost where Guy and Karen’s old buddy from college lived. Brian (or Brian the Lion as he used to be known for his head of long blond hair back in the day) and his partner Josse live in an old thatched cottage on a large idyllic piece of property in the country. Brian propagates and sells his own plants and Josse is a retired seamstress and now talented garden ornament caster and painter. It seems they have a wonderful life out in the country. There garden is a work of art, beautiful and tidy and organized with the backdrop of the hills of Dorset. I can only imagine what it looks like in the middle of summer when everything is in bloom. I

Guy hadn’t seen Brian for 40 years. It was so heartwarming to watch the three friends, Brian, Guy and Karen meet again and reminisce about their younger days when they were in their late teens and early 20’s, going to horticultural college together and then travelling together on their off time. I misted over for them, when we left, wondering if they would all see each other again.

We said goodbye and made our way in the dusk back in the direction of our campsite, stopping at a pub for a quick bite beforehand. It was a good day……..

March 13 – Thursday

We convoyed with Karen down to the Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge reasonably early. Karen had to get back to Milton Keynes that day and we had a bit of a drive to Bideford. It was a cloudy and cold morning. Out on the Salisbury Plain, the wind was icy. We were all bundled up for a wintery day.

I’d been to Stonehenge with my friend Bern in the 1980’s in July. I remember we put our bikes on the train from London, got off at Salisbury and cycled up to Stonehenge. There was just a rope around the stones. I can’t remember it being busy at the site at all. I do remember Bern having trouble with her bike that day. That bike was a lemon from the outset. We later cycled in Normandy and it was problematic the whole way.

Described as a “prehistoric, megalithic structure”, Stonehenge and its surrounding are a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Stone Circle made of sarsen stone ( silicified sandstone blocks that are weather resistant) was placed between 2600 BC and 2400 BC and the smaller blue stones in the middle of the ring were placed between 2400 BC and 2200 BC. The site of the ring of stones has a much earlier history as burial grounds for the people at that time.

On this visit, I was very impressed by the interpretative center. We spent a better part of an hour learning about Stonehenge and the inhabitants of the Salisbury plain at that time. Then we had a windy and brisk walk out to the site where Stonehenge sits magically and mysteriously on the plain. It’s hard to believe the stones were placed by man without any modern mechanical devices to aid the process.

Stonehenge is a fabulous model for photos. There are so many angles and the lighting and cloud backdrop, especially that day with the unsettled weather, was changing every minute.

After an enjoyable and exhilarating few hours we had a snack at the cafe at the interpretive center and said goodbye to our friend Karen as she made her way back to Milton Keynes. Guy and I beelined to Bideford in Devon to start working our way down the west coast.