Nearly there now. Just having a listen to TMS over a cup of tea, so one might think that the training is going well.
Vicki has narrowly avoided a wedding day black eye from a sparring glove blocking failure. Got to learn. A bloody nose was enough. She has also ducked a bruised arm from some blood doning yesterday.
A day of sorting out a few final bits and bobs will see all in order, so we're much looking forward to seeing everyone over the next few days.
See everyone soon.
Matt and Vicki
Thursday, December 06, 2012
Friday, November 09, 2012
Sherlock
When we first came to look at North Cadbury Court as a wedding venue, aside from loving it generally, being excited about getting married there and admiring the construction site, I was also intrigued by a loose connection to one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Some may know that I have long had something of an interest in all things Sherlock. The house itself is full of fabulous trinkets and pictures, and could no doubt tell many a tale of all that it had seen in the centuries gone by.
But for me, the Conan Doyle thing was a real interest. Having grown up near Southsea and then later lived in London, and stomped across Dartmoor plenty of times, I like to be on the lookout for Holmes' and Watson's trace.
As I understand the history, North Cadbury Court was bought in 1910 into the current family ownership by Sir Archibald Langman, known as Archie to his friends, the grandfather of present day owner, Archie Montgomery. Counted amongst those friends seems to have been the then Arthur Conan Doyle. The Langmans and Doyle had bonded on the ski slopes of Davos, Switzerland, a place well known to Doyle, who had been published on the merits of the skiing there in 1899. Doyle was likely put onto the region by the works of other Scottish physicians, perhaps including a certain Joseph Bell, who had recommended the quality of the air for recuperative purposes to the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson. Doyle of course would return to the region's Alps variously, including to the terminal demise of Moriaty, no less.
In any event, when in 1899 Doyle felt the call of adventure and the plight of the Boer War was impressing, he did his best to sign up with the Middlesex Imperial Yeomanry for action. Well trained by then as a Physician, but (understandably) somewhat dulled by life in Southsea, enlisting seemed the way forward. He made only a shortlist.
Happily for Doyle, family friend John Langman, later Sir John, father of Archibald, proposed to send a field hospital to South Africa. That age had seen a trend in philanthropic contribution to medical facilities in action, and John Langman, a man of very considerable stature and success, was energised to post a substantial tented hospital to the War effort. By 1900 the situation with the Boers, the Second Boer War, had become most active, and support was much needed. John's son Archibald, then a lieutenant in the Middlesex Yeomanry, was tasked to be the hospital's general manager and treasurer.
Langman turned to Doyle as a physician and an organiser, and the fit was an excellent one. Doyle spent a week at the Langman's London home with Archibald organising affairs and recruiting the necessary medical team. On the 28th February 1900 they set sail on the P&O SS Oriental from London, and via Ireland and the Cape Verde islands they made to the Cape. The sense of adventure for them both and the rest of the hospital must have been strong. We can be fairly sure that Doyle and Archie Langman became closer still on the voyage. They shared a quoits competition on deck (neither won it) and in all probability a cricket match on the island of St Vincent. (Doyle opened the batting and took 3 for 7 for the tourists). Doyle arranged and played in a concert and gave an invigorating lecture on the state of the war.
By the time they reached Cape Town on the 21 March they were put about making the Hospital's preparations together. It must have been a busy time, but there was space enough for a spot of shooting, with Doyle apparently doing the best to bag a dove. It was in part Archibald's love of the sports that a decade later saw him move west, where the country pursuits would be at hand. The two of them went together on a charitable trip to a Boer POW camp, with likely heavy hearts at what they saw. A short way up the coast in East London the two of them went ashore together to arrange the onward train, preferring to overnight in a local hotel than return to the ship.
Outside Bloemfontein they made their hospital, in the most desperate conditions. Doyle and Langman pitched hard into the effort. Enteric fever - typhoid - was killing more men than the Boers, the dosage of inoculation not yet mastered, but the basic and most fundamental qualities of humanity brightened a grim reality.
'Our hospital was no worse off than the others, and as there were many of them the general condition of the town was very bad. Coffins were out of the question, and the men were lowered in their brown blankets into shallow graves at the average rate of sixty a day. A sickening smell came from the stricken town. Once when I had ridden out to get an hour or two of change, and was at least six miles from the town, the wind changed and the smell was all around me. You could smell Bloemfontein long before you could see it. Even now if I felt that lowly death smell compounded of disease and disinfectants my heart would sink within me.' - Conan Doyle.
Doyle started penning texts for works to be sent home, both it seems for his later works on the Boer War, including his political critiques for which he was soon to be knighted, and for the detailed medical records that he considered so important.
In late June, Langman and Holmes left the hospital for a while and travelled together, to see something more of the war, and for supplies, including clean water. Their travels together took Doyle to the front line he had wanted to see, and he was greatly impressed by what he saw and experienced. Doyle had a time of real anxiety when Langman was taken prisoner by arch Boer General De Wet, but in an act of arch humanity the medical party was allowed to resupply and return to their base. A picture of their progress was later bought by Queen Victoria and remains part of the Royal Collection, recording Langman's etched determination. Doyle was much relieved to see him back, despite Langman's personal letter of spirited reassurance that had earlier been sent to Doyle.
There was more cricket and football organised by Doyle, despite his badly bruised ribs no doubt affecting his goalkeeping prowess. He had played between the sticks for Portsmouth whilst in Southsea, in an incarnation of the team that preceded the current shambles of a PFC. One might suppose that Archie Langman was keen as well, given his obvious interests in outdoor pursuits generally.
By early July 1900 Doyle was ready to return to England, and via a visit to the recently relieved Pretoria he took the Union Castle liner 'Briton' back from Cape Town to Southampton. Langman stayed on longer, but Doyle's return was adventurous and propitious. On board he shared the journey with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, an apparently inspiring editor and journalist, and sharing a first class table for dinner they were able to find the balance in each other. Robinson seems to have mediated Doyle out of a near international situation when Doyle refused to accept an apology from a Frenchman who had brazenly, albeit falsely, accused the Tommy's of firing dum dums.
The entwined paths of Doyle and Langman fade as they returned to blighty, though they are sure to have remained friends. Langman wrote warmly to Doyle to congratulate him on his 1902 knighthood. Doyle's eyes were lead westwards by now collaborator Robinson, a man well credited with introducing Doyle to the Devon legends that became perhaps his best known work, the Hound of the Baskervilles, first serialised in the Stand Magazine in 1901. One might even wonder whether it was a complete coincidence that Archie Langman's abandonment of London and his move west to North Cadbury in 1910 mirrored Doyle's own exit from the capital to the Sussex Downs. Nonetheless, it may be that they drifted apart, Doyle immersed in the success of his writing and Archibald in his new adventures in Somerset.
Langman's acquisition of North Cadbury Court saw significant works of the house itself. He is considered responsible for restoring many of the finest Elizabethan features inside and out of the fascinating manor. Whether Doyle himself visited, whether the house itself impressed upon Doyle directly may be an interesting question. Indeed, I found myself asking, did Holmes himself ever visit?
It was against this background, given the stories of Sir Archibald Langman and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the great adventures they obviously shared, as a devotee of the Sherlock Canon I found it was a short flick of the pages to, 'The Blanched Soldier', from the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Knocking on the door of 221b Baker Street in January 1903 is Mr James M Dodd, instantly deduced to be of the Imperial Yeomany, Middlesex Corps, recently returned from the Second Boer war. His friend and comrade, the son of leading baronet, with whom he had served outside Pretoria, had left separately from him. Dodd feared he had lost contact with his 'closest pal', the bravest man in the regiment. He thought his lost friend now to be installed in a wandering manor house, well out of London, inaccessible, five miles from anywhere, the circumstances mysterious. Holmes is persuaded to pay a visit to the house.
It is a great house, large and rambling, of all sorts of ages and styles, starting on a half timbered Elizabethan foundation, and ending is a different portico. Inside it is all panelling and tapestry and half-effaced old pictures, a house of shadows and mystery, with various outhouses.
There the old friends are reunited, eventually safe and well, the afflictions of that campaign found to be deep but not mortal.
Interestingly, The Blanched Soldier is one of the few Sherlock stories to be narrated by the great detective himself, rather than his usual biographer Watson. It seems that the comradeship of the Boer War, the strength of the friendships there forged and indeed the power of that great house itself were all so important as to be recanted and recorded personally by Holmes.
And so it seems that my initial intrigue had taken me closer to Sherlock than I perhaps thought likely. But it was the stories of the Langman Field Hospital that most captured my imagination. Doyle himself wrote at surprising length of his short time there, and was moved to some of his most important historical works on his return. The truly remarkable diaries of Charles John Blessen, a medical dresser with Doyle and Langman on their 1900 project, are a fascinating if tragic account. Some of the pictures and photos of the Hospital, and of Doyle at his patients bedsides are timeless. Indeed, perhaps none are more so than those that hang on the staircase of North Cadbury Court. A bit of Sherlock at our wedding.
Links
Diaries of John Blessen - http://www.kencoo.clara.net/Charles_John_Blasson_-_Boer_War_Diary.pdf
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Autobiography (with search terms) - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pvE6R9IvsXUC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=archie+langman&source=bl&ots=g3IDQ06MFh&sig=7qQA8vhVHYM0aT6Urt5xW2S6SWs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jBKZUKWEFZGChQegs4HABQ&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=archie%20langman&f=false
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Biography (with search terms) - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zxzVQEMsCWwC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=archie+langman&source=bl&ots=t5_KUot8K8&sig=Jmb8UM-A7xOx14j0_ExxAenxiCc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jBKZUKWEFZGChQegs4HABQ&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=archie%20langman&f=false
Excerpt from Christies Auction Catalogue - http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/LotDetailsPrintable.aspx?intObjectID=4290311
Background Wiki on Bertram Fletcher Robinson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Fletcher_Robinson
History of North Cadbury Court by Archie Montgomery - http://www.northcadburycourt.com/history.html
But for me, the Conan Doyle thing was a real interest. Having grown up near Southsea and then later lived in London, and stomped across Dartmoor plenty of times, I like to be on the lookout for Holmes' and Watson's trace.
As I understand the history, North Cadbury Court was bought in 1910 into the current family ownership by Sir Archibald Langman, known as Archie to his friends, the grandfather of present day owner, Archie Montgomery. Counted amongst those friends seems to have been the then Arthur Conan Doyle. The Langmans and Doyle had bonded on the ski slopes of Davos, Switzerland, a place well known to Doyle, who had been published on the merits of the skiing there in 1899. Doyle was likely put onto the region by the works of other Scottish physicians, perhaps including a certain Joseph Bell, who had recommended the quality of the air for recuperative purposes to the likes of Robert Louis Stevenson. Doyle of course would return to the region's Alps variously, including to the terminal demise of Moriaty, no less.
In any event, when in 1899 Doyle felt the call of adventure and the plight of the Boer War was impressing, he did his best to sign up with the Middlesex Imperial Yeomanry for action. Well trained by then as a Physician, but (understandably) somewhat dulled by life in Southsea, enlisting seemed the way forward. He made only a shortlist.
Happily for Doyle, family friend John Langman, later Sir John, father of Archibald, proposed to send a field hospital to South Africa. That age had seen a trend in philanthropic contribution to medical facilities in action, and John Langman, a man of very considerable stature and success, was energised to post a substantial tented hospital to the War effort. By 1900 the situation with the Boers, the Second Boer War, had become most active, and support was much needed. John's son Archibald, then a lieutenant in the Middlesex Yeomanry, was tasked to be the hospital's general manager and treasurer.
Langman turned to Doyle as a physician and an organiser, and the fit was an excellent one. Doyle spent a week at the Langman's London home with Archibald organising affairs and recruiting the necessary medical team. On the 28th February 1900 they set sail on the P&O SS Oriental from London, and via Ireland and the Cape Verde islands they made to the Cape. The sense of adventure for them both and the rest of the hospital must have been strong. We can be fairly sure that Doyle and Archie Langman became closer still on the voyage. They shared a quoits competition on deck (neither won it) and in all probability a cricket match on the island of St Vincent. (Doyle opened the batting and took 3 for 7 for the tourists). Doyle arranged and played in a concert and gave an invigorating lecture on the state of the war.
By the time they reached Cape Town on the 21 March they were put about making the Hospital's preparations together. It must have been a busy time, but there was space enough for a spot of shooting, with Doyle apparently doing the best to bag a dove. It was in part Archibald's love of the sports that a decade later saw him move west, where the country pursuits would be at hand. The two of them went together on a charitable trip to a Boer POW camp, with likely heavy hearts at what they saw. A short way up the coast in East London the two of them went ashore together to arrange the onward train, preferring to overnight in a local hotel than return to the ship.
Outside Bloemfontein they made their hospital, in the most desperate conditions. Doyle and Langman pitched hard into the effort. Enteric fever - typhoid - was killing more men than the Boers, the dosage of inoculation not yet mastered, but the basic and most fundamental qualities of humanity brightened a grim reality.
'Our hospital was no worse off than the others, and as there were many of them the general condition of the town was very bad. Coffins were out of the question, and the men were lowered in their brown blankets into shallow graves at the average rate of sixty a day. A sickening smell came from the stricken town. Once when I had ridden out to get an hour or two of change, and was at least six miles from the town, the wind changed and the smell was all around me. You could smell Bloemfontein long before you could see it. Even now if I felt that lowly death smell compounded of disease and disinfectants my heart would sink within me.' - Conan Doyle.
Doyle started penning texts for works to be sent home, both it seems for his later works on the Boer War, including his political critiques for which he was soon to be knighted, and for the detailed medical records that he considered so important.
In late June, Langman and Holmes left the hospital for a while and travelled together, to see something more of the war, and for supplies, including clean water. Their travels together took Doyle to the front line he had wanted to see, and he was greatly impressed by what he saw and experienced. Doyle had a time of real anxiety when Langman was taken prisoner by arch Boer General De Wet, but in an act of arch humanity the medical party was allowed to resupply and return to their base. A picture of their progress was later bought by Queen Victoria and remains part of the Royal Collection, recording Langman's etched determination. Doyle was much relieved to see him back, despite Langman's personal letter of spirited reassurance that had earlier been sent to Doyle.
There was more cricket and football organised by Doyle, despite his badly bruised ribs no doubt affecting his goalkeeping prowess. He had played between the sticks for Portsmouth whilst in Southsea, in an incarnation of the team that preceded the current shambles of a PFC. One might suppose that Archie Langman was keen as well, given his obvious interests in outdoor pursuits generally.
By early July 1900 Doyle was ready to return to England, and via a visit to the recently relieved Pretoria he took the Union Castle liner 'Briton' back from Cape Town to Southampton. Langman stayed on longer, but Doyle's return was adventurous and propitious. On board he shared the journey with Bertram Fletcher Robinson, an apparently inspiring editor and journalist, and sharing a first class table for dinner they were able to find the balance in each other. Robinson seems to have mediated Doyle out of a near international situation when Doyle refused to accept an apology from a Frenchman who had brazenly, albeit falsely, accused the Tommy's of firing dum dums.
The entwined paths of Doyle and Langman fade as they returned to blighty, though they are sure to have remained friends. Langman wrote warmly to Doyle to congratulate him on his 1902 knighthood. Doyle's eyes were lead westwards by now collaborator Robinson, a man well credited with introducing Doyle to the Devon legends that became perhaps his best known work, the Hound of the Baskervilles, first serialised in the Stand Magazine in 1901. One might even wonder whether it was a complete coincidence that Archie Langman's abandonment of London and his move west to North Cadbury in 1910 mirrored Doyle's own exit from the capital to the Sussex Downs. Nonetheless, it may be that they drifted apart, Doyle immersed in the success of his writing and Archibald in his new adventures in Somerset.
Langman's acquisition of North Cadbury Court saw significant works of the house itself. He is considered responsible for restoring many of the finest Elizabethan features inside and out of the fascinating manor. Whether Doyle himself visited, whether the house itself impressed upon Doyle directly may be an interesting question. Indeed, I found myself asking, did Holmes himself ever visit?
It was against this background, given the stories of Sir Archibald Langman and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the great adventures they obviously shared, as a devotee of the Sherlock Canon I found it was a short flick of the pages to, 'The Blanched Soldier', from the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.
Knocking on the door of 221b Baker Street in January 1903 is Mr James M Dodd, instantly deduced to be of the Imperial Yeomany, Middlesex Corps, recently returned from the Second Boer war. His friend and comrade, the son of leading baronet, with whom he had served outside Pretoria, had left separately from him. Dodd feared he had lost contact with his 'closest pal', the bravest man in the regiment. He thought his lost friend now to be installed in a wandering manor house, well out of London, inaccessible, five miles from anywhere, the circumstances mysterious. Holmes is persuaded to pay a visit to the house.
It is a great house, large and rambling, of all sorts of ages and styles, starting on a half timbered Elizabethan foundation, and ending is a different portico. Inside it is all panelling and tapestry and half-effaced old pictures, a house of shadows and mystery, with various outhouses.
There the old friends are reunited, eventually safe and well, the afflictions of that campaign found to be deep but not mortal.
Interestingly, The Blanched Soldier is one of the few Sherlock stories to be narrated by the great detective himself, rather than his usual biographer Watson. It seems that the comradeship of the Boer War, the strength of the friendships there forged and indeed the power of that great house itself were all so important as to be recanted and recorded personally by Holmes.
And so it seems that my initial intrigue had taken me closer to Sherlock than I perhaps thought likely. But it was the stories of the Langman Field Hospital that most captured my imagination. Doyle himself wrote at surprising length of his short time there, and was moved to some of his most important historical works on his return. The truly remarkable diaries of Charles John Blessen, a medical dresser with Doyle and Langman on their 1900 project, are a fascinating if tragic account. Some of the pictures and photos of the Hospital, and of Doyle at his patients bedsides are timeless. Indeed, perhaps none are more so than those that hang on the staircase of North Cadbury Court. A bit of Sherlock at our wedding.
Links
Diaries of John Blessen - http://www.kencoo.clara.net/Charles_John_Blasson_-_Boer_War_Diary.pdf
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Autobiography (with search terms) - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pvE6R9IvsXUC&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq=archie+langman&source=bl&ots=g3IDQ06MFh&sig=7qQA8vhVHYM0aT6Urt5xW2S6SWs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jBKZUKWEFZGChQegs4HABQ&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=archie%20langman&f=false
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Biography (with search terms) - http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=zxzVQEMsCWwC&pg=PA266&lpg=PA266&dq=archie+langman&source=bl&ots=t5_KUot8K8&sig=Jmb8UM-A7xOx14j0_ExxAenxiCc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jBKZUKWEFZGChQegs4HABQ&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=archie%20langman&f=false
Excerpt from Christies Auction Catalogue - http://www.christies.com/lotfinder/LotDetailsPrintable.aspx?intObjectID=4290311
Background Wiki on Bertram Fletcher Robinson - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bertram_Fletcher_Robinson
History of North Cadbury Court by Archie Montgomery - http://www.northcadburycourt.com/history.html
Thursday, November 08, 2012
Evening Attenders
Let's get married. This is a bit of info for anyone who is coming along to join our celebration for the Saturday evening only.
Arriving
Get to North Cadbury Court however suits. Directions in a post below. If you want to drive and leave your car overnight for collection in the morning then that's fine. There are also some local taxi numbers below. There's plenty of parking in a gravelled area to the left before the main gated entrance before you get to the driveway. The oval driveway will be being used for access.
Departing
We will have a taxi available to take people home to any local accomodation, so you don't need to book a pick up specifically. We've been asked to say that the local dairy herds will be super happy if everyone keeps the noise down on leaving.
Dress Code
As you like. This is by no means the most formal wedding there's ever been. Dancing shoes obligatory.
Food & Drink
There'll be some snacks and cheese around in the evening but nothing formal. There'll be plenty to drink.
Accomodation
If you need somewhere to stay, there's plenty of accomodation locally around. You could try:
Just let us know if you can't find what you want, we're sure to be able to help.
Dangers and Annoyances
Warning: Given Vicki's inevitable influence, there is an obvious risk of 80's hits infiltrating the evening. This does not, however, entirely remove the danger of the odd britpop singalong.
Any other queries or questions just let us know, prettygoodtime@hotmail.co.uk @prettygoodtime 07779 227261.
Arriving
Get to North Cadbury Court however suits. Directions in a post below. If you want to drive and leave your car overnight for collection in the morning then that's fine. There are also some local taxi numbers below. There's plenty of parking in a gravelled area to the left before the main gated entrance before you get to the driveway. The oval driveway will be being used for access.
Departing
We will have a taxi available to take people home to any local accomodation, so you don't need to book a pick up specifically. We've been asked to say that the local dairy herds will be super happy if everyone keeps the noise down on leaving.
Dress Code
As you like. This is by no means the most formal wedding there's ever been. Dancing shoes obligatory.
Food & Drink
There'll be some snacks and cheese around in the evening but nothing formal. There'll be plenty to drink.
Accomodation
If you need somewhere to stay, there's plenty of accomodation locally around. You could try:
Hotels:
- The George, Castle Cary, 01963 350761
- The Dolphin Hotel, Wincanton, 01963 32215
Otherwise, you might try these local pubs/hotels:
- Stags Head Inn, Yarlington
- The
- The Kings Arms, Charlton Horethorne
B & B's
- Clanville Manor, Castle Cary
- Brook Cottage,
- Cadbury Cottage,
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Self Catering Options
If anyone's looking for self catering accommodation in the area then this link might be helpful:
http://www.castle-cary.co.uk/visitors-guide/selfcatering
http://www.castle-cary.co.uk/visitors-guide/selfcatering
Where and how?
We're getting married at North Cadbury Court, North Cadbury, Near Yeovil, Somerset, BA22 7DR.
This is where it is on Google Maps. Anyone with IOS 6 will have to revert to the orienteeering instructions on the invitation.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=51.042458,-2.520614%20%282%E2%80%938%20Woolston%20Road,%20North%20Cadbury,%20BA22%207,%20England%29
http://www.southwestcoaches.co.uk/images/timetables/1%20service%20-%20sep%2012.pdf
This is where it is on Google Maps. Anyone with IOS 6 will have to revert to the orienteeering instructions on the invitation.
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&q=51.042458,-2.520614%20%282%E2%80%938%20Woolston%20Road,%20North%20Cadbury,%20BA22%207,%20England%29
If you're using a sat nav to find the venue then beware that neither the address nor postcode appears to get you very close. Of course, you might have a better sat nav than us. Otherwise if you think you're in danger of ending up in a Somerset field, try '2 Woolston Road, North Cadbury'.
Arriving by car you'll likely either come up Parish Hill from the A303 to the South or down Cary Road from Bath/Bristol to the North. Either way, turn east into Woolston Road, then first right. North Cadbury Court is past St Michaels's Church that looms into view on your right.
Or why not come by train? Castle Cary Station is closest but Yeovil or Gillingham (Dorset) might help some.
Various versions of the number 1 bus run from Castle Cary station and Castle Cary town to North Cadbury. The same bus runs to North Cadbury from Yeovil. The timetable is here:
If you want to get a taxi to the venue the try:
Castle Cary - 01963 351333
Wincanton - 01963 380007
Remember, we've got taxi's sorted to take everyone who needs back home at the end of the night whenever you want so no need to book or arrange anything.
Invitations
So the invitations have gone out (or most of them at least) and we're into the home straight. Lots of what needs to be organised is organised, some things are still to sort out, but otherwise it's all looking pretty good.
Tuesday, September 04, 2012
Wedding Bliss
Our blog is back. Originally conceived for our skip around the globe in 2006 and 2007, we thought it would be fun to make it work again for our wedding. Hopefully it will be useful to at least someone. Those old travelling shots are still all there for anyone interested in seeing more beardy pics. Or diggers.
Otherwise, we'll try and update this with bits and bobs that might make the whole thing easier for the folk kindly joining us for our celebration. Depending when you're reading this, it might even be worth checking again nearer the time to see if anything else has changed.
Otherwise, we'll try and update this with bits and bobs that might make the whole thing easier for the folk kindly joining us for our celebration. Depending when you're reading this, it might even be worth checking again nearer the time to see if anything else has changed.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
Homeward Bound
Which way next?
Our first proper beer in a long while, taken whilst waiting for a mega bus at London Victoria.
Junction of the Heathrow Spur Road from the M4. This point marked the completion of our circumnavigation of the planet. In 440 days. We arrived at this point in September 2006 from the West, and arrived back at it from the East.
Where it all began. Back at Bristol Temple Meads. My only friend, The End.
Graffiti on the Wall.
Berlin.
A digger (kind of). Perhaps the most politically sensitive digger of the trip. This one is involved in the demolision of the former GDR 'parliament' building. Should it stay or should it go now? The Communists pulled down the previous 'imperial' palace to build their monstrosity because they wanted to erase the symbols of the evil past.
More interesting. German people in really tight trousers and hiking poles whilst walking in the park. A serious business, obviously.
Vicki with a Norman Foster designed halo.Berlin
Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, Germany. In the rain. Our last stop on the road home was Berlin. In the rain. The statue on top used to face the other way and was once pinched by Napoleon.
The Jewish Memorial, Berlin. Do we get censored if we say we didn't think it was very good?
Some apartments and a car park. This picture is taken standing directly above the bunker in which Hitler topped himself. These were really plush flats in the GDR days.
Another brick in the wall, Berlin.Leipzig
Leaving Leipzig, Germany from apparently the biggest station complex in Europe. Hmmm. Leipzig saw the beginnings of the marches and demonstrations that most directly lead to the falling of the Berlin Wall. Bach also played the organ in the Catherdral here.
A big building in Leipzig, Germany. No idea what it is.
Christmas Market, Leipzig, Germany. They get through a serious amount of sausage at these places.Colditz
Colditz Castle, Saxony, Germany. Taken from our hostel window. My boyhood obsession with all things POW escape stories lead us here (a tricky journey by public transport, and not a place one might usually associate with being difficult to get to).
Inside Colditz Castle, in the Prisoners Courtyard, for anyone who used to watch the TV programme. Not sure if the car could be useful.
The 'only' entrance in and out of the prisoners courtyard, Colditz Castle. Airy Neave crawled along inside the roof space above the archway shown, popped down through the officers quarters suitably disguised and then strolled out to freedom. He later served a war crime indictement to Goering, became a tory MP before being car bombed by the IRA.
The VIP cell occupied by Giles Romily, the only VIP to escape (temporarily) from Colditz.
Colditz Castle, Saxony, Germany. Royal household turned Lunatic Asylum turned Gestapo prison turned POW camp turned 70's sado tele. The Brits planned to fly their glider off a ramp on top of the section of castle closest to us on the right, for those interested ...
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