So my blog app just managed to lose my whole post, so I have to re-write it all. Here we go again.
Sunday September 12After another great sleep and another big breakfast (including vegemite on toast), John and I headed out in the car again, this time in a northerly direction.
First we went through a town called Martock, John mentioned that there were quite a few Chants buried in the cemetery there. Then through another little town, where Cousin Elma Chant is buried. Also the church has a famous window in it.
Then through the towns...sorry, I mean villages. I kept calling these villages 'towns', when, as John informed me, they're actually villages. If they're bigger than a village, then they're a town, and if they're smaller than a village, they might just be a hamlet.
Anyway, we went through the villages of High Ham, Langport and Shapwick, amongst others, before stopping at the Shapwick nature reserve and took a pleasant nature walk.
I took some photos here of course, not as many as John did though.
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| Shapwick Nature Reserve |
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| Shapwick Nature Reserve |
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| Shapwick Nature Reserve |
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| Shapwick Nature Reserve |
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| Shapwick Nature Reserve |
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| A photo of John taking a photo. |
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| Cousin John and me. |
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| A close-up of a dragonfly taken with an iPhone. |
There were quite a few different varieties of Dragon Fly, and John spent a while getting a good photo of each one, with his 24X optical zoom lens. My iPhone camera doesn't have an optical zoom so I had to get quite close for the photo of the dragon fly above.
We walked past some bull rushes and John commented "you must get those on Australia too, those Bull Rushes, I would imagine? It's like that old joke: why did the cow slip? Because it saw the bull rush". Haha, ahh.
After this we headed off to a boot sale in Yeovil (a town near Stoke Sub Hamdon). When John first said we were heading to a boot sale I thought he meant boots as in footwear, but he actually meant a car boot sale. They seem to have these all over the place on the weekends. John explained that "yes, since the boot sale was invented it's become the Brits Sunday afternoon occupation".
They are actually like the Sunday market in my home town of Daylesford, Australia. We spent several hours looking at all the stalls; I reckon we only got around to half of them before people started packing up, because it was so big!
A typical exchange would go like this, for example when John was looking at some CD's at one of the stalls:
Woman behind the stall: "10 p each"
John: "yes thank you dear, they don't appeal, I'm afraid"
However, some CD's did appeal to John later on:
He bought two whole boxes of them, only "5 quid for the lot". Apparently they had come from a radio station, and there were so many different genres in there! Some of them would have been quite interesting to listen to. John reckoned it was worth it just for all the CD cases, regardless of whether the CD's were any good.
Towards the end of the sale you can pick up some bargains, because everyone just wants to get rid of their stuff so that they don't have to pack it up and take it home again.
"Everything 50 p" a boy at one of the stalls kept calling out.
On the way home we stopped to look at some structures called 'follies'.
There are four of these situated seemingly randomly in a paddock. One might wonder what they are, or were, for. They actually don't have a purpose, other than being ornamental. During period of hard times when there wasn't much work around, a farmer got his workforce to build these rather than to have them standing around doing nothing or having to let them go.
We drove down the A303 and stopped at a road house for a late lunch. John had the 'Olympic Breakfast', which included two fried eggs, bacon, sausages, fried mushroom, fried tomato, bread, and probably a few other things which I've forgotten. It was huge! I just had fish and chips.
At one point, looking at the condiments on the table I asked John: "What's the difference between French and English mustard?"
John: "the French ones not mustard, it's just muck"
Me: "so it doesn't taste any good then?"
John: "nothing the French make is any good... well that's a slight generalisation, they do make good cheese and wine, but I'm not really allowed to have those anyway."
It appears the English don't like the French.
That night I got an education on British TV. I was amazed at how many channels they have, and I'm just talking free-to-air ones - something like a hundred! They have channels that are exactly the same as another channel except they're delayed by an hour. So if there's a program you want to watch at 7 pm, but that time doesn't suit you, then you can watch it at 8 pm instead.
They also have channels that just play repeats of old shows. I was watching repeats of Buzzcocks, pretty funny with Bill Bailey. And of course it didn't matter for me that they were repeats, I'd never seen any. Funny quote: "I didn't tell everybody, I told one journalist!"
At one point a news bulletin came on, the presenter said "president Obama insists America is not at war with Islam", to which John retorted: "well he would, wouldn't he? Bloody terrorist himself!"
And on the topic of America, while we were flicking through channels we came across a radio station that mentioned the Greek Prime Minister. John commented that Margaret Chant, who lives in America, is the mother of the Greek prime minister. There you go. [Edit: as per John's comment below, Margaret Chant actually lives in Greece and was the daughter-in-law of one Greek Prime Minister]
John said that he has "little interest in visiting America... I don't really like them. See they're all rather insular, they think America is the greatest place in the world. Whereas I know England is."
We walked past some bull rushes and John commented "you must get those on Australia too, those Bull Rushes, I would imagine? It's like that old joke: why did the cow slip? Because it saw the bull rush". Haha, ahh.
After this we headed off to a boot sale in Yeovil (a town near Stoke Sub Hamdon). When John first said we were heading to a boot sale I thought he meant boots as in footwear, but he actually meant a car boot sale. They seem to have these all over the place on the weekends. John explained that "yes, since the boot sale was invented it's become the Brits Sunday afternoon occupation".
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| A car boot sale in Yeovil |
A typical exchange would go like this, for example when John was looking at some CD's at one of the stalls:
Woman behind the stall: "10 p each"
John: "yes thank you dear, they don't appeal, I'm afraid"
However, some CD's did appeal to John later on:
 |
| Cousin John buying a huge box of CD's. |
He bought two whole boxes of them, only "5 quid for the lot". Apparently they had come from a radio station, and there were so many different genres in there! Some of them would have been quite interesting to listen to. John reckoned it was worth it just for all the CD cases, regardless of whether the CD's were any good.
Towards the end of the sale you can pick up some bargains, because everyone just wants to get rid of their stuff so that they don't have to pack it up and take it home again.
"Everything 50 p" a boy at one of the stalls kept calling out.
On the way home we stopped to look at some structures called 'follies'.
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| A folly in Yeovil, Somerset, England. |
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| A folly in Yeovil, Somerset, England. |
We drove down the A303 and stopped at a road house for a late lunch. John had the 'Olympic Breakfast', which included two fried eggs, bacon, sausages, fried mushroom, fried tomato, bread, and probably a few other things which I've forgotten. It was huge! I just had fish and chips.
At one point, looking at the condiments on the table I asked John: "What's the difference between French and English mustard?"
John: "the French ones not mustard, it's just muck"
Me: "so it doesn't taste any good then?"
John: "nothing the French make is any good... well that's a slight generalisation, they do make good cheese and wine, but I'm not really allowed to have those anyway."
It appears the English don't like the French.
That night I got an education on British TV. I was amazed at how many channels they have, and I'm just talking free-to-air ones - something like a hundred! They have channels that are exactly the same as another channel except they're delayed by an hour. So if there's a program you want to watch at 7 pm, but that time doesn't suit you, then you can watch it at 8 pm instead.
They also have channels that just play repeats of old shows. I was watching repeats of Buzzcocks, pretty funny with Bill Bailey. And of course it didn't matter for me that they were repeats, I'd never seen any. Funny quote: "I didn't tell everybody, I told one journalist!"
At one point a news bulletin came on, the presenter said "president Obama insists America is not at war with Islam", to which John retorted: "well he would, wouldn't he? Bloody terrorist himself!"
And on the topic of America, while we were flicking through channels we came across a radio station that mentioned the Greek Prime Minister. John commented that Margaret Chant, who lives in America, is the mother of the Greek prime minister. There you go. [Edit: as per John's comment below, Margaret Chant actually lives in Greece and was the daughter-in-law of one Greek Prime Minister]
John said that he has "little interest in visiting America... I don't really like them. See they're all rather insular, they think America is the greatest place in the world. Whereas I know England is."
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| John having a nap in the living room. |
Ride stats:
No cycling today.
Margaret Chant isn't one of our relations but was daughter-in-law of one Greek Prime Minister, married to another and her son is the current chap with the task of pushing through unpopular reforms. Margaret lives in Greece and is a fighter for women's rights like our cousin Sylvia Chant who is a professor at the London School of Economics.
ReplyDeleteHave you quoted me accurately in all instances?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information and correction John!
ReplyDeleteI'm sure I haven't quoted you accurately in all instances, I'm afraid. I try to write my blog as accurately and frankly as possible, but I'm only going by memory, which of course has it's limitations.