Staying with John Chant (part 1)

Saturday September 11, 2010

I'm currently camped by a river in a park in a little town called Rhayader, somewhere in the middle of Wales. It's 11:30 pm, well before my usual bedtime, yet I'm feeling quite tired so we'll see how far I get. I haven't blogged for a while, haven't found the time but I'll do some blogging now, there's so much I want to write about.
I've just put on Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, what an album! I've listened to it a hundred times but it's still great, and I'm after some familiarity since I've been experiencing so much unfamiliarity recently. The album also has some deep/philosophical ideas. I remember the first time I ever listened to Dark Side of the Moon. It wasn't an enlightening moment or anything. It was at a friend's place, the Hallett's, one Friday night before we were going to bed, Tom put the CD on; I thought it was alright, a little slow, nothing special. But albums like this take a few listens to get, the music has depth, and it grows on you and of course I love it now.
However, I imagine you wouldn't be reading this to hear me rave about Pink Floyd and I haven't come here to write about Pink Floyd either, but to document my travels.
I've covered the trip up to the point where I got to cousin John's, so I'll go from there. That was a week ago to the hour coincidentally.
I learnt quite a bit staying with John, about English people, the English countryside and of course the family tree, John is right into genealogy. Also John, if you're reading this I might quote you a few times along the way, hope you don't mind. And feel free to pass on corrections.
I got to John's place on the Friday night, woke up late Saturday morning after a great sleep. Yet all my muscles felt tired and weak. Luckily I had John to drive me around in the car, and I didn't use the bike the whole day.
So I started off with a few bowls of cereal for breakfast as usual, then a cup of tea and toast with Vegemite! Who would have thought I'd be having Vegemite on toast in England? One of Johns other cousins from Australia had left it with him (John has cousins stay with him all the time). John reckons you can get Vegemite in the supermarkets in England but I haven't seen it.
After breakfast we headed up to Ham Hill, just up from Johns place. The hill has been quarried for it's stone for centuries, since Roman times, and most of the buildings in the area are built out of it.
And I don't actually have any photos to upload because I took them with my camera, as opposed to my iPhone, and I have no means of transferring the images from my camera. I'm writing the blog from my iPhone so all the photos on it are taken with the iPhone. But since I want good quality photos as well, I've been taking the same photo with both the iPhone and my Canon Ixus 85IS camera. I can edit posts and upload photos later on though when I get the chance.
John and I went for a leisurely walk around the hill, which offers a very good view of the town. John pointed out a lot of things, ranging from the vegetation to the town history. Much of it I can't remember, except the war memorial is on top of the hill; there is a 'holy tree' in the distance which is about twice as tall as the surrounding trees and people used to have holy meetings under it; black currents are grown in the area; and you can see 'strip lynchets' (unsure of spelling), which is where they created several flat strips in the paddock so that they didn't have to plough it on a slope.
Edit: here are some photos:

John walking on Ham Hill

The view from Ham Hill

The view from Ham Hill

Strip lynchets

After Ham Hill we visited a number of other nearby villages, including Norton Sub Hamdon, Chiselborough, West Chinook, Middle Chinook, East Coker, Coker. Many of my ancestors on my mother's side, the Chants, lived in these villages and as John would mention as we drove through the villages, you can find their grave stones in the church yards. The Chants seemed to be fairly localised to these villages and didn't spread out too much, because you don't find many Chants in the grave-yards of the surrounding towns.

A common recurring snippet if conversation as John and I were driving around would go something like this:
John: "That pub there called 'The Kings Head'- Guess who the landlord is?"
Me: "ah... dunno"
John: "cousin ______ Chant"
Me: "oh right...there you go!"
Next we dropped in to Yeovil and got some lunch, then drove down to Dorchester. This is where the famous author Thomas Hardy (I hadn't heard of him but John said he was very well known) was from. He wrote about country life and many of his characters would come to a sticky end, according to John. He set his novels in that area and would simply rename the towns in his novels, so Dorchester's name was Casterbridge in his novels. And embracing the success of the author, they actually renamed part of the town 'Casterbridge'.
After this we continued down to the coastal town of Weymouth, which we crawled through due to road works. This allowed me to take a photo.

Weymouth

Weymouth

We continued down to Portland (which is where Portland stone and Portland cement comes from). We ate lunch by the castle there, and drove up the hill for a good view.

Portland

Portland

Portland

We then drove along the coast for a while.

On the road near Abbotsbury

Standing by the road near Abbotsbury.

The village which we had just passed through, at the bottom of this hill was Abbotsbury, which is famous for its swannery, I guess because swanneries aren't very common.
We stopped in a town called West Bay and went for a walk around.

West Bay, Dorset, England.

Cousin John photographed me taking a photo.

West Bay, Dorset, England.

West Bay, Dorset, England.

West Bay, Dorset, England.

West Bay, Dorset, England.

Then we drove back inland through Bridport. At one point we went through a tunnel.

A road tunnel near Bridport.

It's odd that they thought a tunnel would be cheaper than making a cutting. They probably just wanted to build one for the fun of it, and because tunnels are cooler than cuttings.
Also along the way, we turned off to take a few smaller roads. And I really do mean smaller.

Encountering another car on a narrow road in England.

I was surprised at how many narrow roads like this there are around, just wide enough for one car. There are plenty of roads like this around Stoke Sub Hamdon too that we drove on, they're all over the place actually. The question needs to be asked, what happens when you meet a car coming the other way. Well firstly both cars brake suddenly to avoid collision. Then both drivers will look at each other expectantly for a bit, with looks that say "well are you going to reverse or am I?" Every now and again the roads have a short section which is just wide enough to squeeze two cars through. John wasn't the best at reversing so he usually tried to make the other driver reverse. In this particular case though, the other driver wasn't budging so John had to reverse about 50 m so the other guy could get past.
Even the major roads are narrow by Australian standards, and as I've mentioned, generally have no shoulder. They become especially narrow through most villages, since the villages were built back when they would have just had horses and carts. And to make matters worse, most houses don't have garages so they park their cars out on the narrow road, making it effectively even narrower!
Anyway, we got back to Johns place and hung out there a while before cousin Graham and cousin Gordon arrived and we headed down to the pub (the Phelips Arms) in a village called Montacute just down the road.
We chatted and drank a few beers, Ales actually. All the beers are served in pints or half-pints. The locals tend to drink ales, as opposed to the lagers we normally drink in Australia. Ales are at cellar temperature (warmer than lagers), they're flatter and are pumped out and are said to have more flavour. Because of their differences to lagers, a lot of Australians say English beer is crap. I tried both on-tap ales and thought they were quite good.

Cousin Graham in the left of the photo, while John (centre) is ordering beers. 

I also thought one if the girls working there was very attractive, tried to get a sneaky photo of her.

A waitress in the Phelips Arms in Montacute.

Cousin John relaxing in the pub with an Ale.

We had a dinner there, I had a chicken curry for £5, which was delicious. And still being in energy debt from the previous day's ride I also finished off Graham's meal and Gordon's meal.
There was a guy playing on guitar which happened to be John's cousin Luke. John didn't think overly highly of his musical performing abilities and kept saying he needs to teach him how to write a song. Cousin Gordon, the 87 year old, slipped in a joke at one point and told John he should request the song Solo (pronounced "so-low").
"Why's that?" asked John
"So low you can't hear him"
We later headed back to Johns place and hung out there again.
I'll finish this post with some typical dialog from John, who has a very impressive knowledge of the family tree and family history:
"My cousin Peter... well your cousin Peter too... Diana Mitchell, our cousin in Cohuna... Bruce... farm to the south of Wagga. Cousin Janette Phipher in Warragul... Liz Phipher... Peta and her dad Jack, in the line of Alfred? As opposed to his older brother Richard. And also his older brother Walter... Jane married Joseph. Follow that line down and you get to professor Sylvia who writes about the place of women in the third world and stirs women to assert themselves... Cousin Erin in Coffs Harbour wants a piercing and tattoo. She's quite sporty actually, does lots of sky diving, and so does the rest of her family..." etc.

Ride Stats:
No cycling today.