Cars and Falling Apples

It was a weekend at looking at cars and playing around with falling apples. I'll start with the last topic cos that is by far the most interesting for me. We visited Sir Isaac Newton’s home, where he grew up and spent most of his later life - Woolsthorpe Manor. It was one of those houses which had a great atmosphere and hadn't changed much since his childhood - there was graffiti on the walls where he had designed wind mills and church steeples and then there was the apple tree. It is a national treasure - over 300 years old - well part of it is anyway. In 1665 Isaac Newton watched a Flower of Kent apple fall from the tree opposite the window.  He asked himself 'Why does an apple always fall to the ground'.  His mother said that's because it always has done - but he didn't accept this answer - hence his understanding of gravitation was born. In 1820 a storm blew across the Lincolnshire countryside and this most important tree fell over. However, the owners left the trunk to lie in the ground and it sprouted some shoots and bingo we have another tree. This week a small piece of the apple tree will fly on a space shuttle Atlantis mission to the International Space Station. The Royal Society in London has entrusted the 10 centimetre chunk of tree, along with a picture of Newton,  as part of the Society’s 350th anniversary year celebrations.  Well, I can tell you we had as much fun as those guys flying through space.  We found an apple on the ground and took a photo of it falling - it took a while - shutter and apple speeds had to be carefully and skillfully synchronised but we got there after a few attempts to the amusement of others.

I got another letter from Mum this week which I always enjoy receiving.  Cheryl is doing some of the writing but each card has a little more of Mum's personal touch and it won't be long before she is doing her own writing to all those she is keeping in touch with.

And now it is time for Harry ...
We went to Donnington Park Motor Racing track in Leicestershire to see the largest collection of Grand Prix cars in the UK. There is more Formula 1 cars in one place than anywhere else on the planet!! Well it is a large collection anyway, it also has one hall that is dedicated to McLaren racing cars. I counted 36 McLarens at the museum. This is a great memorial to Bruce McLaren and for those who don't know he was a great NZ motor racing legend. I have included a few photos of McLarens over the years.

On the Sunday we started out to visit Bruntingthorpe airfield which has an aviation museum attached to it that is only open on Sundays, however we arrived to find that they also use the airfield for motor sport events and the museum was closed, so having travelled for an hour to get there we were a bit brassed off and went to Bosworth battlefield which was interesting but confusing - all that royal fighting over land.

Politicians and Bears

Mike is in a competition to see if he can get enough votes to do an ad on tv. I think he is by far the best having had a look at a few of the top scorers but I guess I am a little bit biased. At the moment he has nearly 500 votes but there are a few with many more so perhaps he won't be lucky this time. Anyway, you can see him for a while anyway on http://mitsubishiasx.com.au/mike. I am still on my vegetarian cooking experiments and the other night cooked a fried rice - pretty easy - but I took a hint out of the cook book 'if you want a hot dish leave the chilli seeds in' - half way through the meal my tongue took a long deep dive into a cup of water so I tend to think they were telling the truth. Another night we went out to a local pub for dinner with Jane and David and enjoyed sitting outside while the sun set with a cider (yes we are getting a taste for the traditional English drink). The rest of the week went by in a blur as per usual with a long trip to Swansea due to late trains - someone decided to take some cabling from the signalling system near Reading which caused a bit of disruption.  Saturday morning saw us zooming along the M4 towards London - not quite as early as we hoped - in fact quite a lot later as both of us looked at the alarm clock as though it was a thing from outer space, hit the 'off' button and turned back to that blissful state of snoozing. We got to Chartwell in time for lunch, but because there was a timed admittance to the house and no queue lunch just had to wait for a while. Chartwell is the home where Sir Winston and Lady Clementine Churchill and their family lived for a number of years. It is one of those places left just as it was when they lived there and despite the crowds felt like a comfortable family home. It's a place where Sir Winston painted, wrote, gardened, built brick walls and contemplated life. Pull up a chair, take out a book and sit in the sun and relax and sometimes look out over the Kent hills and the magnificent garden - avenues of roses, silvery leaved plans, veges. In 1946 the Churchills went through a bit of a financial rough patch and they found they could not afford to run the property.  A group of wealthy business people (presumably friends) bought the property and arranged for the family to live there until they died and then the property would become part of the National Trust estate. Great for people like us to see this era in history. The house is pretty ordinary by architectural standards but its closeness to London, view of the local region and great growing conditions (including its own water supply - no I am not talking about the good old English rain as it falls from the sky) must have been quite an attraction. And just to finish off the story of our visit to Chartwell here are some quotes which I quite like from the artist and the politician:

• I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.
• Every day you may make progress. Every step may be fruitful. Yet there will stretch out before you an ever-lengthening, ever-ascending, ever-improving path. You know you will never get to the end of the journey. But this, so far from discouraging, only adds to the joy and glory of the climb.
• I cannot pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns.

And there is a cute story to be remembered from our visit - it made me and Harry smile often during the day. I was walking over the bridge behind a Dad with his little boy that couldn't have been more than two. In front was a rather large pile of goose poo. The Dad said 'Watch the poo', and the little boy stopped and stared intently just waiting for something to happen. After a few moments Dad smiled and said 'I should have said mind the poo'. The little boy looked up and walked carefully around the pile.

Just down the road from Chartwell is Chris and Suzanne's place. We stopped at their place for a much needed cup of coffee and company and then followed Chris's directions to Ashdown Forest - the home of Winnie the Pooh. We drove by but didn't stop as it was getting late, took some photos of the little Pooh tea rooms and stopped at the nearby pub (Wagon Wheel??) for dinner (great vegetarian sausages). That night I found out that Harry had never played Pooh Sticks - deprived is all I can call him. We will go back to the forest one day and walk to the bridge so he can get lessons at the place where this great game was invented. The rules are fairly easy "It is a simple game which may be played on any bridge over running water; each player drops a stick on the upstream side of a bridge and the one whose stick first appears on the downstream side is the winner". There are even annual World Poohsticks Championships that have been held on the River Thames since 1984 but this year it was postponed as the river was flowing too fast. We'll have to go next year!!

After dinner we back tracked a little bit to Hever Castle (Anne Boleyn's childhood home). The castle looks quite large from the outside and seemed to be surrounded by a little village and over looks the lake which we did walk around a bit before finding the concert venue. The concert was in a garden and all along one wall was the largest dahlias we have ever seen - very impressive - another sign that Kentish soil must be good. We were here to listen to Tina May sing Edith Piaf's songs and enjoyed the evening musical alot even though most of the songs were in French. Tina has a pretty powerful voice, entertains with little anecdotes and her smile goes all the way to her eyes. But Piaf had a bit of a downer on life and was occasionally happy but most of the time sad. She was born in Paris and for 4 years during her preschool years she was blind from keratitis (I imagine some sort of disease I can't be bothered looking up). Money was raised (by her grandmother's prostitutes) to send her on a pilgrimage honoring some saint which ended in a miraculous healing. By 1929 she was doing street performances as an acrobat, at 17 she was pregnant, 19 had a pimp boyfriend and her life didn't really get much better once stardom came along (murdered husbands, drug addictions, car accidents).  Oh,  for the quiet life I think.  Music was good though and we enjoyed it under cover from the threatening rain and intermittently noticed a night watchman crossing the grounds dressed as an archer with a long bow (looks a bit more dangerous than the modern day baton). We took a pretty quick exit out of the car park after the show as it was a bit of a drive to the hotel (a slight under estimation as it took 2 hours to travel 2 miles on the M25 and 45 minutes of going around in circles trying to find the hotel ( and yes we did have a map).

The next day was 'Clandon' day - or to be a little bit more cryptic a day in the life of New Zealand in East England. William Onslow (now we know where Onslow College gets its name) was Governor to New Zealand for three years from 1889 (he arrived a year after my Grandmother did). He took the role because of an economic downturn and he wanted a salaried position (it was going cheap because the New Zealand government had cut allowances for the governor position and senior colonial administrators didn't want the role at such lousy pay - he was after all pretty young at the time). Times haven't really changed much have they? When he arrived typhoid fever hit town and one of Onslow's sons caught it - but survived.  There are a couple of conflicting stories about Onslow - one that he didn't like Wellington much and locals didn't really like him because he did not "have the flair or flamboyance which helped some later governors win popular support". A year later he became involved in political debates which Governor Generals shouldn't and became more unpopular.  Another story was that he was very popular toured New Zealand got to know the locals (bit of a socialite really) and his 4th child was called Huia after our now extinct little bird. Given the rest of the story and what we saw I prefer the second take better. Anyway, Clandon Park House is a fairly boring square shape built in the 18th century in rather a large Capability Brown landscape. We hadn't really come to see the house but little Hinemihi who sits under a large oak tree in the lawn in front of the house. I touched the carvings lovingly, smiled at this little meeting place and said "You are a long way from home aren't you?' - the same reaction I had when I said hello to the kea at Bristol zoo, and the Kune Kune pig in a wildlife park. Hinemihi was built and lived near Lake Tarawera. During the Mount Tarawera eruption in 1886 many locals from the Te Wairoa village sheltered under her roof and survived. She was covered in ash and surrounded by volcanic debris and sat like that for the next six years until Lord Onslow bought her for £50 and shipped her over to England - a souvenir of his trip to the colony. She initially sat beside the artificial lake at the back of the house but during World War 1 when New Zealand soldiers stayed at the house to recuperate from injuries she was taken down piece by piece, cleaned up, and reconstructed under the oak tree. Many of these soldiers are buried in the cemetery at the local church and their names are recorded in the 'register' which unfortunately we could not find. Over Hinemihi's time in England she has been used as a garden shed, boating shed, Wendy house and for parties. But then kiwis heard about her once again and they have helped the National Trust to restore her to her former glory and to be used more appropriately (she is looking a bit tired again and a further restoration is planned). Each May local kiwis come and celebrate with song and a hangi and we think we will try and go next year. One such visit was described as
“We could feel the presence of our ancestors, including those who sheltered inside Hinemihi during the eruption, as well as those who didn’t make it to safety. By touching the carvings we could hear their screams and feel their pain.”
We bought the book by Alan Gallop 'The House with the Golden Eyes' and I had trouble putting it down (goodbye housework, washing up, cooking for a couple of nights) . Here is his introduction
"The old from Te Wairoa sits alone under a giant oak tree in an English park, dreaming of home. She's perfectly happy at the end of the immaculate lawn looking across to 'the great house', having spent over 100 cold English winters, damp and foggy autumns, late springs and wet summers in Surrey. The old lady thinks her peaceful surrounds on his Lordship's estate are not that different to those at home, a distant land half a world away. There were plants and tall trees there too:harakeke - the flax on which her people were so dependent - rimu and totara trees and the fiery red pohutukawa at Christmas. Different to the sturdy oaks, ash and beech trees surrounding her now, but just as nice when they awake from their winter sleep. Visitors come and she is always glad to receive them, her arms permanently outstretched in welcome. Some are from home and have made the long journey to see her, talk to her, keep her company and confide in her. Others, lonely for home, come and sit with her to feel closer to the far-away land she calls 'Aotearoa' the land of the long white cloud which the rest of the world knows as New Zealand. New friends find her an interesting old lady with a fascinating story to tell about a night long ago when her life was nearly cut short as the ground shook and it rained fire and stones from the sky. She had opened her arms then and held her charges close to her heart until danger had passed, risking her life for their safety..."I sent the book to Mum and Cheryl so hopefully they will enjoy reading it as much as I did. Cheryl is keeping me updated on Mum's progress and I am getting an occasional letter dictated by Mum. It is so encouraging to see that she is improving so much and I can't thank my sister enough for all the time she has spent encouraging Mum.

The street name for a tree lined avenue in Guildford we drove past and couldn't resist driving down - looks expensive to live in, with a private school at one end and three storied detached houses lining each side. I couldn't find any history to the name but can only assume it is connected to the Onslows who lived near by, Hinemihi and that kiwi connection.

Pontypool

Did I mention I have bought a vegetarian cook book.  With it came a radical change in my cooking habits cos there were lots of nice easy recipes like spicy ginger and chickpeas, orka and mixed vegetables, potato pancakes.  I have decided that I won't cook with meat - that's Harry's job now.  To assist with this new hobby of mine (and friends that know me well will be shaking their heads in disbelief) we are now taking two trolleys shopping.  Harry fills his with all the normal stuff and I go wandering around the supermarket trying to find the few things on the shopping list for my next vegetarian delight.  We meet at the checkout and transfer my few goodies into Harry's pretty full trolley. Even forgetting the shopping list doesn't deter me (I am just not used to such things) as I managed to remember most of the ingredients and the one I did forget didn't seem important in the finished product anyway.
On Thursday night we went to a Quiz evening - a fund raiser for Prostrate Cancer Research.  We came last equal which was pretty disappointing as usually we make it to second to last.  We had 60 questions and managed to get less than 50% right, the good news was we did  manage to put an answer in each one which I thought was quite an achievement.  We thought we would excel in English geography considering we have been around the country and bit, but got our lowest score 1/10 - yes we knew that Leeds was further north than Halifax (which was a guess actually) , but forgot the name of the longest river in Wales and the second to highest mountain in Scotland.  Harry even failed on the Formula One question (oops failure is a bit strong) 'Which Formula One car driver owns a golf course in Devon?', and thought that Jennifer Lopez was known for her lips but was put right by the other men at the table.
The weekend was a wilderness trip into Wales - well not quite.  We climbed Sugar Loaf which as you can see from the pictures is a pretty little hill with some bracken at the bottom but a clear path to the top.  A guy at work belongs to the Welsh Search and Rescue and by the time we had finished work on Friday I was envisaging climbing a mountain peak not much smaller than Mount Cook.  Armed with plenty of food, lights, hat, jacket etc (just in case we got caught in the mist) we began our climb and stopped on the way to see the Stonechats sitting on the bracken.  They are sparrow size birds, dark with an orange beak and sound like stones rattling together on a beach.  We stopped at the top for lunch and were visited by two friendly sheep - the photos prove that British sheep have quite a different attitude to Kiwi ones - they were keen to try our melon and salami but we said 'No Way' - they even ignore the dogs.

That night we had dinner at a Pontypool pub and spent a couple of hours reading the paper, trying local cider and eating fairly average food.  But it was relaxing and put us in the mood to go back to the hotel and watch the documentary the Queen - a very good doco that combines real life footage and acting to get a reasonable impression of the social and political events of the time and how they impact on the Royal family.  This one was about how the Queen was asking Edward Heath to double her income in the 60's (up to £1million) while the miners were on strike across the country asking for more than £20 a week to feed their families.  Which was incidentally an appropriate history lesson for the next day.  After a bike ride a long an old railway path which used to transport equipment up and coal down to the valleys (all down hill going there and all up hill against the wind coming back) and a stop for lunch (there is a photo of a station - when it was in its prime and now) we went to the Big Pit -  a coal mining museum.  I was first interested because I saw that there was a brass band playing but we became a bit more interested in the museum.  We saw for the first time the shower block put in during the 1930's which meant the workers could go home clean, the mechanised equipment once the pick and shovel became almost obsolete and generally enjoyed the day.  There was a huge locker room with some stories of the miners (some who loved their jobs and remember the comradeship, while others hated it - I must admit it isn't my 'preferred occupation'). There was

• Richard 'Plodder' Dally who worked for 68 years at the coal face retiring when he was 79.  
• Bert Coombes who wrote an autobiography 'These poor hands'
• Kenvin Thomas described as an 'ordinary bloke' who 'loved his job but 'hates ice and waterfalls in the shafts when it rains'
• Ann Land the canteen lady who entered the colliery managers office to finding him working in the nude and collected telephone directories to wrap chips for the miners.

Anyway, I said to myself while climbing the hill in the museum - that job "must be the pits" and smiled as it occurred to me that perhaps the saying originated in a mine somewhere in Wales. Then it was time to return to Bristol to have tea at Chris's before another week starts.