England in August

London - Chinatown

We flew from Shannon to Bristol, happily reunited with our campervan and headed to our campsite in the Cotswolds.  This area is known for its picturesque villages, separated by hilly farmland.  England has "right to walk" laws so the public can walk through a farmer's field and there are many great walking trails. We had only one day in the area so we had to make the most of it.  As is the case in many parts of Europe, this area's charm is the result of an economic catastrophe for the people in the past - they had no money to update their residences and even the formerly rich had to give up estates. In this case, it was the collapse of the wool market.  All the towns' houses were made of the same buttery yellow stone.  In fact, even new construction was painted the same color so by the end of the day I was longing for some other, any other, color.  Even a gray or white would do.  Nope. None. 

Windows were made up of many small panes of glass (much of it looked very old) and quite a few were tilted or bowed.  There were no "must see" sights, just nice villages to stroll and enjoy little details that captured your imagination. Here are some of the standouts:

Stow-on-the-Wold 

We strolled through the town and happened onto the "oldest Inn in all of England" - The Porch House. And it did look old - the plaque indicated it was established in the year 976. The town even had the iconic red British phone booth but was updated inside.  We found the tourist information (harbored inside the library) and the woman at the counter offered a map that listed shops and very little else in the way of information. She told me you could walk to the wells but she hadn't been there herself. From other sources, I had learned that this had been the site of a Roman Fort and burial mounds from the Stone Age and Bronze Age but there apparently isn't a market for those types of sites here as we never ran across any.

http://www.go-stow.co.uk/stows-history/

We had a lunch of butternut squash and chili soup (an improbable combination I had to try but shouldn’t have) and a sausage and fried egg sandwich in the Queen's Head Pub. The pub was quaint in that it was old but well-maintained and, true to its name, had a shockingly large, pure white ceramic bust of queen Elizabeth inside the pub taking up an inordinate amount of space. The Brits do love their royal family!

Fortified, we set off in search of the wells and found them, but no further information was there about them. The map provided also noted “The Stocks” in a tiny green space town (again with no details posted) and there were a set of stocks I didn’t bother to take a picture.

Bourton-on-Water 

This town was larger and more full of tourists and had the added feature of a small stream running through the middle of it with very small bridges in a nicely landscaped park.  It has been nicknamed “The Venice of the Cotswolds” but Venice has nothing to worry about.  

We drove through Cirenchester which was much bigger, and Bibery which was small but we had run out of steam for more wandering at that point. 

Manchester 

Manchester United is Dermot’s favorite soccer team and his nephew knew a person who had season tickets and was looking to sell the seats for a game between Manchester United against Tottenham - an important game for Man U! 

We arrived at Burr’s Country Caravan site on a wet and windy day. Running along the back of the campsite was the East Lancashire Railway track and the campers would erupt into applause when the special steam engine train passed by.  

We spent a soggy day taking care of necessities like planning our next moves, making reservations, banking, and decoding the transportation system from our campsite to Manchester’s Old Trafford Stadium. 

The game started at 8:00 pm so we planned to spend the night in a Manchester hotel after the game.  Further complicating matters - Monday game day was also a “Summer Bank Holiday.”  I say this because apparently, everybody takes off on bank holidays begging the question why do they call them "bank" holidays at all?

We got an Uber to Bury, took the tram in to Manchester Piccadilly then hoofed it to the hotel noting the many rainbow-colored decorations welcoming people to the Manchester Pride Parade along the way.  Very festive!  It was a good thing because otherwise Manchester struck us as a large, dreary city.

Dermot wanted to arrive at the stadium early to soak it all in. Outside there were food trucks selling mostly fish, burgers, sausage, hot dogs and chips of course.  The food was pretty bad - just like home!  Inside the stadium they offered food and drinks at REASONABLE prices! Even half-priced drinks the hour before game-time! Not at all like home. I was so amazed I took a picture.  

Our seats were in the Stafford home supporters end behind the goal but they barely got warm because these fans stand throughout the entire game and sing, chant, clap and even berate other fans who aren't providing enough loud encouragement for the team. It was exhilarating at times, funny at times, and usually laden with profanity. Dermot’s take on the game: "It was a bad f@%¥£~# game to see because they lost three to nothing - at HOME!” 

Leaving the stadium was very orderly and calm despite 74,400 fans mostly exiting at once. The streets were thronged as we made our way to the tram station.  But people were generally courteous and much more civilized than the exodus from events in the US.  For at least the thousandth time I wished Florida had anywhere close to such a good public transportation system.

The following day we went mission shopping for jeans. We brought minimal clothing with us - I had reasoned we needed to buy clothes here so we’d stand out less as Americans. After recovering from sticker shock for US name brands like Levi’s, I finally found some but Dermot wasn’t tempted. As we passed a music store, I finally gave in to my whim to buy a tin whistle and a song book to give playing Irish music a go. I know - it would have been better to buy in Ireland. I’ll let you know how that goes if Dermot allows me to stay in the van.

Oxford

We parked at the Park and Ride, caught the bus to the city and spent the morning in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. It was light and airy and full of interesting treasures and informative displays - everything from ancient stone carvings to modern art from all over the world. 

Ready for lunch, Dermot steered us to a place that held memories for him. When Dermot came to England in the 70’s, his first job was washing windows in Oxford and he remembered that one of his stops was a pub called “The Bear” - Oxford‘s oldest pub. The pub is very small and it was chock full of display cases of ties from college students who had clipped off their ties for a free pint since the 1950’s. We then spent the afternoon in the Museum of Natural History and the Pitt Rivers Museum. 

The former was very modern and the later was much as I imagine museums from many years ago. Check out the hurdy gurdy! Our heads were spinning by the time we left!

When we got back to our camper van we spotted one of the most original camper conversions I had ever seen - a converted fire truck!

Click here for the photos.

London

We only spent two days in London - both were spent figuring out the transportation system. Actually, I love the system here, it seems safe, reaches all the the way out to our camping site during the midday and we just called an Uber driver to save us from walking along back country roads at night. We had a nice Indian meal before going to The Prince of Wales Theatre to see The Book of Mormon. It was very funny and the singing was wonderful. I had wondered if they would sound British or American and they nailed the American accent - I can’t comment on the quality of the Ugandan accent.  

The next day we visited with some of Dermot’s family members.

Some parting/random observations about England:

It has the most courteous drivers we’ve ever come across! They treat driving as a cooperative enterprise. When you put your blinker on, they actually slow down and let you in! I wish we could import that spirit to America!

We had vowed to eat healthier in England now that we had the camper and mostly we did, but at one store we found zero fresh veggies but a case full of - you guessed it: