My brother has a new blog. It's supposed to be our competition. We're like Apollo Creed and he's the young upstart Rocky Balboa. Can he go the distance with Apollo at the top of his game? Will they be best friends by Rocky III? Will our blog be killed by a Russian super-blog named Drago? Time will tell.
Mike's Adventures.Here's what we've been up to:
Saturday morning. I'm lying in bed, sleeping in because I have to get up and go to work Monday through Friday. The phone rings!
Fortunately, when your bedroom is your kitchen is your living room is your study, things are never too far. It wasn't hard to get out of bed and go get the phone before we missed the call.
(On another note, it's also really easy to get up and make sure you locked the front door, since it's only a six foot journey.)
So, on the phone was our relatives, Mickey and Julia - they were renting a car and heading off to Arundel for the weekend. Did we fancy coming along? Yes we did. We vowed to be ready within the half hour and meet them at Euston Station where they were picking up their car. But we decided we would take the train home that night rather than pay for a hotel. Plus, Grace had a lot of work to do on Sunday.
Arundel is a picturesque town on a hill almost directly south of London. It's most famous thing is a giant castle which sits atop the hill and overshadows everything else. Mostly we were excited about driving through South-East England though. It's beautiful country, twisting two lane roads, manicured hills, little forests, charming villages.
So, we met my relatives and, after a little messing around with the car seat (did I mention they have a really cute baby?) we were off. I was navigator, which, along with my long legs, gave me the front passenger seat. It was about 80+ miles to Arundel, though we thought we would stop by a country estate called Petworth House. Half the trip was beautiful countryside, the open road and freedom to go where we chose (unlike going by train where you can read without getting motion sickness (well, Grace still gets motion sickness, even on trains) but you're hostage to schedules). The other half of the trip was sitting in traffic to escape London. Average speed in the city is reputed to be 11 miles per hour and, I wouldn't be surprised if we did go 11 miles (from the center to outskirts) in an hour.
Ah, but once out of London we had pretty clear sailing. I am really keen to get a car and do some driving myself when my brother comes over - I'm thinking Scotland! I asked about the rules and regulations and we're able to rent a car with our American licenses and our age. So we're good!
We hit a few snags - turns out Petworth house is closed this time of year. As is Arundel castle. Oops. We decided to just ignore these inconvenient facts and head to Petworth house as planned.
We were lucky. The house was closed but the newly renovated kitchens were open and so were the grounds. So we explored all this. The highlights, for me were threefold. First, they had this enormous spit and fireplace where you could probably slow roast while gently turning a whole cow (no pictures allowed). Second, one of the tour guides told me how people in olden days had fountains that spit water, even in the old days before there was modern plumbing. It turns out they just pumped water up to the top of a hill, with either a donkey or a river turning some big pumping wheel, and then they just let the water flow down the hill (in pipes), pick up speed, and then shoot out the mouths or whatever of the fountain's statues. That has always bothered me. The last thing, was there were all these deer hanging out on the ground. They were totally tame and didn't even mind the dogs running around which people brought to play.
Here they are relaxing in front of Petworth House.
After about two hours we hit the road again. We made it into Arundel and were awed by the castle and beautiful town but decided to push past the town and go out to the sea since the baby was finally sleeping. This was a bit of a snag too, since we got bogged down in construction traffic. Plus the seaside town, Littlehampton, was nothing to write home about. As I discussed with Mickey, "British Beach" seems like an oxymoron to me. He agreed. To us, beach means ocean, sand plus heat/sun. It's weird to have these little British towns that look like any other British town except they smell like salt water and there happens to be an ocean instead of a manicured little farm field on one side. It's certainly not warm there, not at this time of the year. But it was still nice to see and hear the ocean. And we saw some kids surfing in wetsuits.
On the way back to Arundel we started looking for the hotel, to drop the car off. It was dark by now, since it's winter and the sun sets at 4 pm (no joke). And the castle was definitely closed. But, we only surmised this all from the car, since the hotel was nowhere to be seen. Eventually I got out and asked for directions.
Turns out the Arundel Hilton should more accurately be called the "Ten Miles to Arundel Hilton." A little far to walk and find a nice pub. Plus, you would have to walk most of the way on the shoulder of the motorway (that means highway in American). Instead we went to a great nearby pub. It was a classic British pub, big, lots of thick wood and we ate pub grub.
After recharging here, Grace and I said goodbye and got dropped off at the railway station. While we didn't end up seeing much of Arundel outside the car it was great to explore the country outside of a train. Anyway, we took the train back.
A few minutes after the train left, Grace realized she left her keys at the pub. Ah well.
Happy Thanksgiving!
