Pt3 - 22:

BRIEFLY BACK IN THE UK

The most memorable moments of the crossing from Dun Laoghaire belonged to the blob of a bloke sitting opposite me who spent the entire two hour trip stuffing Big Macs into his face. He had so many chips poking out of his mouth at one stage he was the living caricature of one of those grotesque joke masks you find in cheap showbags.

From Holyhead I took the A5 through places with unpronounceable names like Llanfair-Pwligwyngyll (Lanfair-Piggywiggle?) and Abergwyngregyn (Aber-gwin-greg-in?).  The immediate plan was to swing through Llandudno where Lewis Carroll reputedly groomed the young Alice Liddell by inventing stories about a whimsical wonderland, then swerve south through the Vale of Conwy.

Llandudno spectacularly failed to live up to its reputation as a beautiful holiday playground, but the Vale of Conwy was a pretty drive along the Conwy River through chocolate box stone villages called Gollywollywow and Llillypillywilly. I paused for Cwmni Te A Choffi Dwyfor with two spoons of 100% siwgwr pur at Betws-y-Coed then took the A470 to Blaenau-Ffestiniog, famous for being called Blaenau-Ffestiniog and surrounded by heroically ugly slag heaps reminiscent of a mine on a moon of Jupiter. From there I drove to Porthmadog where I checked in to Cefn Uchaf Farm B&B. I’d come to Porthmadog not because I can almost decipher the name or because there’s a pub on the high street called The Australian with a Koala in the fork of a gum tree on its sign, but because it’s next door to a place I remembered from the days of black and white television.

The Prisoner (1967) was a quirky British series featuring Patrick McGoohan as a spy trapped in a vaguely Orwellian/Kafkaesque world controlled by nameless warders. The setting captured my imagination as much as the story. Portmeirion is a weird confection of buildings on the Welsh coast created entirely by the pipe-chomping eccentric Clough Williams-Ellis. It’s supposed to be a replica Italian village but there are all sorts of random influences at work here that make it impossible to categorise. A collage of architectural styles, there’s even a Buddha in a belvedere. The site itself is also interesting; cut mostly into a hillside overlooking Tremadog Bay there are many levels and layers so that even though it’s quite compact a day wandering around Portmeirion makes the calves sing. Odds on you’ve seen Portmeirion without realising it, it’s featured in too many visual texts to mention – TV series, movies, music videos, interviews…

I retired to The Goat for homemade lasagne, a heap of fresh salad and a pint of something that wasn’t Guinness. There was sign on the wall, barely readable through the haze of cigarette smoke: The use of drugs on these premises carries a lifetime ban and will be reported to the police. The irony appeared to be lost on the landlord.

Welsh is a strange language, sounds to me like Italians trying to speak Japanese.

*

Day 228, with apologies to James Joyce:

Come to…where am I now? That’s right, the farmhouse outside Porthmadog…find the pillow…it’s on the floor…lie back and put it over my eyes…layout: bed facing window, basin in corner, door to my right, different every day…how many strange beds have I slept in, how many foreign rooms? Where to today? Roll over press the blue light on my watch, 7:24…every morning it’s between 7:18 and 7:27…haul my arse out and go to the basin, hot water comes on quicker here than most…didn’t even have hot water in the middle east or turkey so consider yourself lucky…only have to wait a minute. Splash face, run razor over. Footfalls to the shared bathroom, the slide of the barrel bolt, the wooden toilet seat drops loudly down. Put the jug on while I wait for the shower, start my exercises: head forward x2 back x2, 5 shoulder rolls forward centre back centre, rows x5, hip rolls x5 each direction, knee rotations x 5 each direction, achilles/calf stretches against the door frame, hamstring flexes. Jug boils, warm the pot and the thermos with a splash and cap them. On the floor knees side to side, pull knees to chest x5, 20 sit ups, roll over more leg/ham/calf stretches, ankle rolls x5, 5 cobras each time bringing hands in, 10 x pushups…that’s enough. Make tea in pot, spoon coffee into thermos…when this is over I’ll never drink instant again – ever…fill the thermos and cap it…the shower has started…pour a cuppa and sip slowly…finally get into the bathroom…shit, shower…by 8:28 I’m dried, dressed, preened and packed…downstairs for a full English and in the bullet by 9:02.

The scenery rolls past cinematically, sometimes snagging my peripheral vision with a brooding peak cut with cloud or a sweeping valley or a house covered in wine coloured ivy…I’m looking out for the A470 the A470 the A470 white on green signs roundabout rings which spoke is the A470…I’m miles out of my way before I realise I should’ve switched to the A489 after Dongellau…sounds Bavarian…cut across to join the right road for Aberystwyth. Eventually reach the Irish Sea coast, flat and featureless…stop at Aberaeron for a pie and chips at a chew and spew…the kid takes the salt in one hand and the vinegar in the other and bombs the chips then upends the pie onto the pile and wraps it all up. I go down to the little harbour, find a bench to sit and feast on the cholesterol banquet…the pie has split and leaked meat and gravy into the chips…I poke at the mess with the crappy plastic fork…paper flaps in the wind.

Back in the car, more miles more green fields more hedges more asphalt…at least the roads are an improvement on Ireland. Follow the winding yellow line on the map to Brecon. Sign into the B&B…desperate for a hot cuppa…the jug doesn’t work…I waste ages trying to jolly it into action then flop listlessly on the bed…the window overlooks the Beacons and I watch the soft spectacle of a sunset in silence. At 7 I go to The Castle for a feed…they don’t do food…what kind of pub doesn’t do food!! The publican directs me to The George; right, left, left right roundabout…I’ve already driven 270ks today…seriously can’t be arsed and order a Guinness and a bag of nuts. The condom dispenser in the gents looks like a bubble gum machine…flouro graphics featuring five fun colours and fruity flavours…”Pull Knob” it says.

The woman behind the bar takes pity on me, “There’s a beef meal left over,” she whispers…left over from what? I thought they didn’t do food, “It was for someone else but she hasn’t turned up” …so they only do food for locals? Anyway, she places it on the bar and I could kiss her…I’m grateful for these small kindnesses…

*

If that’s Wales I’ve seen it. I made a beeline for Hay-on-Wye on the England border, famous as the second-hand book capital of the universe. It’s a quaint little town full of bookshops, literally. I could easily load up the bullet with cheap reading material but what’s the point? I’ve less than three weeks left on the road and I can hardly send a box of books home.

I pushed on to Tintern Abbey. It was raining by the time I arrived, first weather since Belfast. I contented myself with a few external pans of the impressive ruins from the car window and set course for Bath. The Severn Bridge goes on forever, the river itself so wide here it feels like you’re crossing the sea. I stopped at a roadhouse, they call them Services in the UK, for a burger. There’s a bloke in a uniform sticking a thermometer into buckets of chips and filling out some kind of report. I need a home cooked meal.

I finally came to rest in Strafford on the Fosse. There were only three of us in the tiny King’s Arms – the barmaid, an older bloke and me. She’d lived in the Middle East and Northern Ireland, not everyone’s idea of paradise but we swapped stories for a while. For something completely different, the bloke pulled a neat trick with a glass of water, a tot of whisky and a tea towel. He placed the tea towel over the glass of water, made a little well and poured the whisky in. He withdrew the towel slowly and hey presto, the whisky floated on the water. “It’ll stay there for four days,” he said, poking his finger through the spirit and withdrawing it to prove the point. He took a bow and we applauded politely.

The woman at the B&B is a snob, but that’s alright; tomorrow I’ll be gone and she’ll still be a bitch.

*

Bath is a beautiful city, even in the steady drizzle that dampened the day. Another triumph of Roman plumbing, the baths harness something like 1.2 million litres of water per day from the hot springs and are as functional today as they were when they were first built the best part of twenty centuries ago. The architecture in Bath is worth the visit on its own. Mostly constructed using the honey-coloured local stone, the substantial Georgian streetscapes are a pleasure to stroll, especially The Circus.

From Bath I aimed the bullet towards the coast at Weston-super-Mare. I drove through several cloud bursts before I found myself rolling through Cheddar Gorge. England’s only actual gorge, it’s a bit basic by Aussie standards but it was a welcome diversion from the regular visual diet of rolling farmlands. A day without cheese is a day wasted in my book so I had to stop and taste the local product. It was ok I guess, but I’m spoiled for quality New Zealand cheddar back home which made comparison a bit unrealistic; it just lacked that piquancy to make the palate sing.

More miles.

I squeezed in a visit to Coleridge’s cottage at Nether Stowey where he wrote The Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan; everything in the village is a nod to the poet – The Ancient Mariner this, the Coleridge that.

I washed up for the day at a B&B in Timberscombe. On the bedside table were directions to the nearest public house, The Royal Oak: Turn left from the carpark towards Dunster. After 2 miles take a hard right at the (brown) tourism sign for Nutcombe Bottom… and so it went on in vivid detail. I appreciated the thought that went into it, not to mention Nutcombe Bottom.

*

Thick mist and heavy rain put paid to any fantasies of walking through Exmoor National Park, in fact I spent the whole day confined to the bullet except when I got out to pee. It was the first really miserable day for weeks so I couldn’t complain; it stopped me dawdling and forced me onwards. And onwards. And onwards.

And onwards, straight down the A30 to St Ives. On any other day this summer playground might have been pleasant but it was frighteningly unlovely in today’s bleak weather. I continued down Cornwall’s westernmost coast through tiny grey villages that appeared to have been gassed and a stark, rocky landscape littered with derelict tin mines. If I hadn’t mentally committed to visiting Land’s End tomorrow I’d have gone straight through to London.

In the event, Land’s End was a bit too commercialised for mine, complete with deserted “fun” park. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t the best for any speccy views either. At intervals the Longships light flashed in the grey mist a few hundred yards offshore, hammered by a heavy swell throwing white spume high into the cold air.

Back in the car I calculated I could cover the 520 odd kilometres to Chiswick by early evening.

Next week: Paris