Greenwich

29.05.01

Alvin’s update

Greenwich is not far from Kath’s base camp. Several months ago there was a program on TV 2 about the race to fine a method of recording longitude especially at sea. An old clock maker and his son developed several apparatus that where shown in the documentary, this was all in the time museum. The main reason for Greenwich is that when recordings were taken of the stars, there needs to be a calculation done to take into account the earth rotation. In the early day this had to be done manually, and somewhere had to be 00.00.00 which was designated Greenwich. I set my watch to the exact time according to the digital printout which took about five minutes to achieve only to find it was one hour out due to daylight saving.

Kath’s daughter who is a Police Constable here in London, she arranges her days off to coincide with her Mums. They are adventurous soles and travel to many and varied places both here in the UK and the Continent. The city of Bath was in there sights this day. Colleen is a professional driver, having driven VIP’s and other snobs about the city, prior to her Police training.

I took advantage of her driving skills to learn the ropes and rules for driving in the UK.

Early starts to avoid the traffic is the best plan of attack. Taking the M4 across towards Wales from London for an hour and 30, see you at Bristol and Bath.

Not far and the country side is in a picture of spring growth. Most of the paddocks are in Wheat or Oats with isolated paddocks of Rape seed. The Foot and Mouth epidemic has cleared the stock and a paddock of cows is a rare sight.

I have only seen one big flock of sheep in the whole trip. Its late spring at present and the Rhododendrons are almost finished. The rose buds especially the Hybrid trees, my favorite Loving Memory and the Old English Roses are about two weeks from exploding into full bloom.

What a sight as we cane into Bath. There are rows and rows of White Stone houses all joined together up over the hills and in the town it self. The lush trees and green areas make the white stone stand out even more dramatically. It was so good to look at after the concrete jungle of London. We brought a ticket on an Open Deck Bus and did the complete trip of the town and surrounding countryside twice as well as hopping on and off at places of interest all day.

My haggling skills were of use as well as I managed to get Colleen and myself student passes. The driver wouldn’t wear it when I suggested Kath would qualify as an Old Age Pensioner though, so she had to pay the full price of £.

The tour through the old Roman Baths was just amazing. We must of spent 2 hours in there taking it all in. on my inbound flight from the States, I flew over Ireland and could see the city of Cardiff, Bristol and was gob smacked when I looked down on the city that I found out later to be Bath.

For those of you who have been there it is a memorable place to visit.

We took the back roads home through beautiful countryside and found a White Horse, one of many in the Somerset countryside. (Not as good as the West Coast ah)

The Lions Rugby Team are in the process of preparing to travel overseas and as part of their build up arranged for a conglomerate team, called the Barbarians to play at Twickenham. This is the centre of English rugby.

Six Kiwis where playing, Robin Brook, Ian Jones, Jonah Lomu, pat Lamb, Craig Dowd and Joellie Valderi. It was a spectacular game with the Kiwis providing five of the tries to give the Baa Baas a win. It was great to let out a roar when the crowd around us where all Poms ( surprise surprise), when Lomu and co made great plays.

Monday the 28^th May is Bank Holiday over here.

Today is the finals of the London Rugby sevens. Kath is an avid rugby fan with all the regalia including a big top hat. It takes about 30 minutes out to Twickenham utilizing the Tube twice and then a rugby express train from Waterloo Station.

I’m getting used to the process and often correct Kath as to where to under ground.

The London Underground is easy to find your way around.

This is my first time watching Rugby Sevens. A short game with a lot of action going on around the grounds to keep the crowd entertained. As you all know the Kiwis came out on top. They had the biggest crowd support, I think of the 20000 crowd that half would have been Kiwi supporters.

I’m off down the South Coast to suss a Job prospect for the next few days

I wonder what will happen next..

CU

Dick Turpin