The Midlands

Whiling away the hours on a plane and at the airport can have its advantages - as it was there that I read in an Easyjet magazine about a place called Knowle just outside Birmingham and a National Trust house called Baddesley Clinton. So, we decided to head that way during the weekend (after a busy week at work and seeing 'Slumdog Millionaire' at the movies during the week. The film certainly made me appreciate what I have and that I was able to look after my family in a nice environment). On Thursday night I surveyed Lastminute.com to see what hotel would like to see us for the Saturday night and it was meant to be as we found a March special with a spa, sauna, swimming pool and steamroom (is there any reason they all start with 's'?) not far from Knowle. Incidentally, in the Ladies changing rooms there was a sign 'Please do not sit on the seats they are only for bags'. I was waiting for Harry to make a comment like 'did you sit on the seat reserved for you' but he didn't have the same notice in his changing room. When we arrived there were a number of conference rooms set out as a bridge tournament. I discovered we had come across the Grand Masters tournament and all through dinner I listened to conversations 6 clubs was cold, you didn't have to go to 4 spades, why did you bid that, what did you do on Board 23. I really miss that game and the fun of playing cards with friends.
Knowle is a cute little place - famous because it's pub was built before its church way back in the 1600's. It had the best bakery we have found in England, a clothes shop called Denise, the best groomed cemetery we've seen for a long time, and a helpful traffic attendant who told us we had exactly 1 hour 10 minutes before he would come back and do the street again. So, we bought some bread and goodies, some clothes, took some photos and were back just in time to head to the next little town as he turned the corner. Dorridge is just down the road and we found a park to sit and eat our sausages and bread. It was a lovely morning, a tad cold, but we hadn't realised this was dog walking country. Midlands does have well behaved dogs - they all came over to smell our sausages, didn't jump or bark just looked at us with those big brown eyes, and didn't leave when we laughed or their owners called. A number of owners dragged their reluctant labs, spaniels, alsatians and some mongrels away probably wondering about who would be silly enough to have a picnic in the cold during dog walking time.

Packwood House - is a 20th century renovated 17th century home, complete with a barn conversion it lay surrounded by a garden of Yew trees - shaped over the years by a chain saw. The garden was thought to resemble the Sermon on the Mount, but the trees at the front had grown too high so you couldn't see all the apostles (the other trees). They think some of the trees date back to the 1650's and I must admit the hedge looked like an old one that just couldn't be trained (I nicknamed it the 'caterpillar hedge'). We wandered around the daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops and wondered how we could have missed this time of the year last year - then we remembered we were in New Zealand. The house wasn't a castle which I guess was its first good point (we are a bit 'castled' out), had a friendly volunteer staff (they thought we were Aussies) and so we learnt a bit about the gentry of the times. There were some fascinating things:

• A sprung floor in the barn for dancing (yes we did jump up and down and it felt a bit spongy)
• An armada chest - so heavy with a huge locking mechanism to store jewellery in etc.
• Horse shoes were hung upside down - its only recently that this was considered bad luck (there is a story floating around that it was hung as a U because the leprechaun needed somewhere to sit) - but the farriers of the time would have hung them upside down on nails on their walls.
• And humbugs (why I wondered would they put humbugs on the floor to test for damp - silly me - not a sweet - but a test where the chemicals change colour to show damp).
• A wonderful fully hinged 'leder' (Dutch for lay person or model) who lay in a position for the painter if the real object got tired of sitting.
• Painted canvas walls
• Plunge pools outside as it wasn't healthy to bathe inside
• 1700's spinnette (it has black keys where the piano has white and vice versa)
• A huge array of clocks on all sides of the house, most requiring the sun to be able to tell the time (although one is only right twice a year and we didn't know which).
  
  

Then onto Baddesley Clinton, a medieval manor house, one of the few with a moat around it -though it was in clear need of being cleaned and didn't make a pretty sight. There were little cardboard patches around to see the impact of sunlight - most of the rooms are heavily netted spoiling the view, and hiding the stain glass windows ('don't get me started' said one of the volunteers plainly sharing her dislike of the curtains - so we didn't - though I agree with her about the nets). The most interesting thing here was finding out about Nicholas Owen, a builder who worked at night to build hiding places for Jesuit priests - Queen Elizabeth I ordered the hunting and killing of the priests and persecuted catholics. He built three priest holes in this house, but was eventually found out and tortured to reveal all the 'holes' he had built - but I don't think he did.

After picnicking we took off to one of the two sets of locks on the Grand Union Canal. We did think of taking our bikes and spending the day cycling along the canal which would have been great fun but we decided not to in the end. As there were a number of locks on the canal (originally an Act of Parliament in 1793 was required to enable it to be built) near Knowle and also further around at Hatton (opened by the Duke of Kent on 30 October 1934). They were different designs to the ones we worked when canalling with Jan and running along side the canals were some nature reserves - do you know that woodlice are also called cud worms, coffin cutters or tiggly hogs. The canal was used to transport coal to a number of factories down the line including the spices to the HP Sauce factory, tea to the Ty-phoo factory and sugar to Cadburys in Bournville. Boats paid a toll based on weight of cargo and we spent a while considering if it would have been easier to charge simply by boat.

Sunday - started off fine but deteriorated into very cold and wet conditions. We visited Rugby - where William Webb Ellis inspired the game of rugby by picking up the ball and running with it. One of the first public schools that have rugby posts in pride of place, rather than soccer nets. We wandered around, looking at the many parents waiting for games to start (had a cool little place to shelter) and through some of the old buildings before visiting the Rugby Museum (alas most of the football stuff was in the Rugby Football Museum closed on Sundays). The footpaths had a walking tour with names of rugby greats like Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson, and also a chart of all the world cup participants and winners.

Then onto the Midlands Air Museum - Harry's choice. He had a great few hours sitting in the cockpit of a vulcan (the highlight of the day) and looking at a range of aircraft some he had never seen before while I soon gave up and went and had a cup of tea. There was:

• the vulcan which was flown into the airfield, had all its explosive charges removed from the seats, stripped of fluids, and towed to its current resting place. It was in good condition considering it spends every winter outside and it could possibly be returned to flying if someone had the cash.
• the Bolton and Paul P111 was a Delta Wing demonstrator that researched the handling characteristics of the wing before building the vulcan.
• A Gannet and a Javelin - built in the UK, both RAF planes built around 1960's.

And then to Warwick - where we decided a quick visit to Warwick Castle didn't warrant the £16.95 price tag (it was too late in the day for a long visit). The very nice elderly gentleman at the Queens Hussars Museum did say that he would have had to remortgage to visit the castle. This museum was amazing, housed in the Leyminster Hospital (never a hospital but a home for returned service men and their wives). So, to end the day we wandered around one of the oldest buildings I think we have been in, skipped along sloping wooden floors and viewed some lovely architecture and some history about the Hussards.

This weekend will always be remembered because of the exceptionally nice people we met. There was the lady who lent me a £1 so that I could use a locker at the pool, the volunteer who let us in free to the Leyminster Hospital as it was close to closing time (but then talked about the building till way after closing time), the friendly Scots woman in the clothes shop that told us she came for 1 year and has stayed for 31 years, the dog owners all apologising for their dogs and chatting to us and the volunteers at Packwood who went out of their way to give us a lot of information that we could store in our memories. In the news this week:

• It has come to the notice of the press that banks charge a commission on overseas credit card transactions but don't itemise it on the statement. So, for everything you spend overseas, they give you an unfavourable exchange rate, and add up to 3.5% other fees that aren't explained.
• One of the new packages to improve the economic climate is to pay the interest of those that are unemployed for more than 13 weeks, but if your income drops you only get your interest deferred for 2 years.
• Ryan Air are thinking about making customers really 'spend a penny' on flights (no joke) and if you are travelling to Frankfurt with them just be aware that the airport they fly to is 120 kilometres away from the actual city.

Our friends had a great time in New Zealand, arrived in Wellington in the pouring rain but left the next day on the ferry to one of those days only Wellington can turn on. Can't wait to see their photos and hear their stories.