{"id":652,"date":"2012-02-22T06:26:42","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T06:26:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=652"},"modified":"2016-03-29T02:42:53","modified_gmt":"2016-03-29T02:42:53","slug":"sydney-moscow-kingham","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=652","title":{"rendered":"Sydney \/ Moscow \/ Kingham"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: x-small;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\">The images on this page are linked to the main gallery for this section<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>The week before we left.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">So apart from the interesting news that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2011\/dec\/05\/russia-election-violence-arrests-moscow\">riots had broken out<\/a> in Moscow, (what with us having an extended stop at Moscow,) in the week before we left, we\u00a0also had the added interest of Barnum our dog doing one of his usual stunts. He became quite ill. He always gets ill around holiday time, it&#8217;s a hobby of his. So we took him to the vet. It turned out to be his teeth, he had three rotten ones that needed extracting, which went some way to explain his awful foul breath. Not only were they rotting, but the bacteria produced were also affecting his heart, he&#8217;s had a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Heart_murmur\">&#8220;heart murmur&#8221;<\/a> as long as we&#8217;ve had him. So he was booked in, two days before we left, to have his teeth out. After his opp, we duly picked him up from the vet, and got the instruction that he was only to eat raw steak in chunks for the next week. this, apparently was\u00a0to stop the holes in his gums filling with stuff which could rot. He was given antibiotics and some heart meds. As he was staying with the mother in law while we were away, the feeding of steak wouldn&#8217;t be a problem, as she loves spoiling the dogs. Also the meds wouldn&#8217;t be a problem as she&#8217;s somewhat obsessed with medications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Oh, we also got a bill for $900, which wasn&#8217;t exactly what we needed, not\u00a0right before our holiday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">The day before we left, I collected our hire car from the city centre. We had found that the one way hire of a car, including gas, was cheaper than three bus tickets to the airport. The girl at the hire place, though pleasant, had a better moustache than I could ever grow. I was dead envious.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Reece, Bethy&#8217;s boyfriend came round for them to have an emotional farewell. We left them to it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">While out driving, getting last minute bits and bobs together, me and Lee-Anne pulled up at road lights, they were on yellow. The reason I didn&#8217;t shoot through on yellow was there was a cop in the outside (turning right) lane. A good three seconds after the lights turned red, a SUV shot through. The cop looked at me, I looked at the cop, we both laughed our heads off, he stuck his lights on and off he went. A couple of hundred yards down the road I gave him the &#8220;thumbs up&#8221; as he bollocked\u00a0and booked the SUV driver.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">I then went to the bank. I had informed them a week in advance that I would be extracting a fair chunk of our savings in cash, so as to take advantage of the exchange rate. They had forgotten this, and had no $100 bills in stock. <em>&#8220;Would you mind having it all in $50&#8217;s Mr Thomas?&#8221;<\/em> I ended up with a wedge thick enough to make most rappers blink with envy. I also got some <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chinese_yuan\">Chinese Yuan <\/a>to use in Shanghai. No one would change dollars for <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ruble\">Rouble<\/a> though, you can only get those in Russia for some strange reason.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">That evening we had our supper, the now traditional &#8220;leaving for the UK&#8221; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.turkishpidehouse.com.au\/\">Turkish Pide<\/a>, at Mary&#8217;s (mother in law&#8217;s) house. We gave her the meds for Barnum, and the vets list of instructions for his medications, feeding and things. She gave us our Xmas presents from her and her sister, which happened to be a generous helping of UK quids, with strict instructions to get ourselves presents with them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Saturday. 17\/12\/11<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We awoke at 3.00am as we had leave to drive to Sydney Airport at 5.00 am. I&#8217;ll happily admit I was so dazed by this early start that, while making Lee-Anne a cup of coffee, I put\u00a0 orange juice in it instead of milk. I made her another. Luckily I was awake by the time we left, as, coincidentally, a roo hoped across the road in front of us, not 200 yards away from our house. This had happened to Mary when she was driving us off on our last UK holiday. They know you know.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We had our trusty GPS with us, formerly known as Sean, henceforth it would be known as Billy, as we&#8217;d added Billy Connolly&#8217;s voice to it. The drive up, through a\u00a0 beautiful, warm,\u00a0 crystal-clear, watercolour morning, was uneventful, but did make me wonder how well I would cope with UK winter driving. Thanks to Billy we drove straight to the hire car return bays at the Airport. We then drove straight out again, as we had forgotten to top up the tank, and they were asking $2.40 a litre to refill it for us. We found a garage, topped up at $1.57 a litre, and drove back.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">The airport was packed to the gills, we found the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.qantas.com.au\/travel\/airlines\/home\/au\/en\" target=\"_blank\">Qantas<\/a> check in, we&#8217;d done our check in\u00a0 online, grabbed some magazines and waited. There were groups of girls dressed as angels and singing carols, while wondering though the place, which gave it a nice Xmassy feel.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Flight 1. <\/strong>(days and dates lose meaning here for a little while.)<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Our first flight was with Qantas, so nothing too dramatic should happen, or at least that&#8217;s what I thought. I watched a few movies and some TV shows. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1540133\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Guard&#8221;<\/a> I can highly recommend. Lee-Anne watched<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0803061\/\" target=\"_blank\"> &#8220;Red Dog,&#8221;<\/a> which made her cry. The food was good, and they served <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maltshovel.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;James Squire&#8221;<\/a> beers with the meals, so <em>&#8220;no worries!&#8221;<\/em> All was calm and normal until we got within 30 minutes of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shanghai\" target=\"_blank\">Shanghai<\/a>, then a fight broke out at the back of the cabin. Yep, a genuine bit of &#8220;up tables&#8221; kicked off,\u00a0 which was entertaining to say the least. Two Chinese guys had a &#8220;full and frank exchange of views&#8221; over where they should leave their water bottles (or that&#8217;s what we gathered.) The air-hostesses did their best to diffuse the situation, and shushed us all into sitting down. I got strict instructions off Lee-Anne not to go and &#8220;help&#8221;. Apart from that we landed in Shanghai without bother.\u00a0 Though Shanghai customs officers are a bunch of arses, sour faced bitches with the warmth and humanity of frogspawn.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We then had 6 hours wait in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shanghaiairport.com\/en\/index.jsp\" target=\"_blank\">Shanghai airport<\/a>, which, at that time of night, was to all intents and purposes, shut.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/shanghai%202.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"79\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Luckily we had a some of the left over Pide meals from Mary&#8217;s house secreted in our rucksacks. I kid you not! So in the middle of the night, in Shanghai, we had a feast of (cold) deep fried zucchini balls, which were fab. I washed mine down with a\u00a0 bottle of &#8220;Quality Mellow&#8221; (iced tea) purchased from a the only open shop. Just to round it off, I bought, and ate, a bag of &#8220;Gourmet Roast Chestnuts,&#8221; which were foul. The reason I was filling up was that I had been reliably informed by the\u00a0agency we bought our tickets off, that Aeroflot do not do vegetarian meals, and we had a 10 hour flight ahead of us.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">On the TV screens about the airport a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0069540\/\" target=\"_blank\">classic Kung Fu movie &#8220;The Deadly Duo&#8221;<\/a> was playing, and, although this was total shite, it passed the time and was good for a chuckle. The basic plot seemed to be that everybody hated these two brothers, so they spent the whole movie kicking lumps out of everyone they came into contact with. I know how they were feeling, I was feeling a bit\u00a0that way inclined myself by then.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Eventually the queue started forming for our second flight. So we joined it. Looking around at the other people I got the impression that some, most even, had been spending their roubles in the Shanghai Xmas sales, and had forgotten to check in their boxes of purchases at the luggage check in.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Second flight.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Amazingly all the Ruskies we had seen, which seemed to be mainly middle-aged male gangsters and incredibly beautiful seven foot tall gangsters molls, were not toting their luggage up the wrong aisle, this was their hand luggage! I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes, each person had more in hand luggage than\u00a0we\u00a0had as our total\u00a0luggage\u00a0for\u00a0our five week holiday. I fully expected to see people\u00a0bring live goats and boxes of chickens onto the plane. There were a few raised voices when this lot was being stowed I\u2019ll tell you. Though as the raised voices were all Russian it sounded like a\u00a0shouting contest in which people were only allowed to talk backwards.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Adding to this impression was the plane itself. It was an <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tupolev_Tu-154\" target=\"_blank\">ageing Tupolev<\/a>, it was like stepping back in time to about 1978. There was no seat back TV screens, just TVs at the ends of each aisle. The air-hostesses looked like the Russian\u00a0shot putting team from the 1956 Olympics. Oh boy, ten hours of this! Fun and games to look forward to then.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">On take off the landing gear had some difficulty retracting, and when it finally made it into the hold there was a massive\u00a0<strong>&#8220;THUD!&#8221;<\/strong> which we felt through our seats. Not exactly reassuring.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">The first incident of the flight happened when a fat guy tried reclining his seat, and ended up with his head on Bethy\u2019s lap. To be fair he did apologise profusely, in fluent Russian, and kept his seat near vertical for the rest of the trip. Then the TV \u201dentertainment\u201d fired up. I found it hard to believe that the first offering was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0099785\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cHome Alone\u201d<\/a> dubbed in Russian. &#8220;Home Alone&#8221; wasn\u2019t even funny in 1990. Luckily the tape snapped. Yes, the tape, it was on whatever the Ruskie version of VHS tape is. And it fucking snapped.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Then they showed a Russian (melo)drama about some woman who robbed the bank she was working at in order to keep her boyfriend screwing her. Or at least that\u2019s my interpretation of it, it may have been Dostoyevsky\u2019s critique of Western capitalism for all I know. It was a couple of hours\/days long, and\u00a0 featured some blonde, or at least badly dyed peroxide blonde, who spent her screen time\u00a0staring into space wistfully, while it snowed. We then had some prehistoric Tom and Jerry cartoons.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Following this\u00a0they switched the TVs off, and turned all the lights out. Nighty night kiddies!<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">I was woken buy a shot putter thrusting a red hot tin tray into my hand. It contained a fruit omelette for breakfast. I ate it, and wished I hadn\u2019t. Luckily I had some zucchini balls left so I ate those too.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><em>\u201cOoh look it\u2019s snowing,\u201d<\/em> said Bethy\u00a0pointing out of the window. <em>\u201cSnowing\u201d<\/em> is too delicate a word for what was happening outside, it was a blizzard. Then I remembered the noise the landing gear had made, shit! I didn\u2019t mention this to the two girls, though Lee-Anne definitely gave me a; <em>\u201cSo the flights were cheap then eh?\u201d<\/em> look.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">With another hollow, bone numbing, thud, the landing gear went down, much gripping of seat arms was engendered. We landed sideways, the plane turned\u00a0 left, then right, then back left, and skidded to a halt. I have never been thrown about so much on a landing, or been so glad to be on the deck. The round of applause the pilot got from all and sundry was truly heartfelt.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sheremetyevo_International_Airport\" target=\"_blank\">Moscow customs <\/a>was a doddle, no one really seemed to give a fuck. We walked miles to the new terminal F. There I bought some Vodka, a litre and a half of it, for the equivalent of $4.00 Au. I noticed that everything was priced in Roubles or Euros, and vowed to come armed with armfuls of Euro on the return trip.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Third flight<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Our next flight was on a Airbus 320, modern, clean and surprisingly half empty. This one also came without entertainment, but as it was only a four hour flight this wasn\u2019t too distressing. I read a book and caught up with a bit of sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Sunday 18\/12\/11<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We arrived in London before we left Moscow. I cannot get my head around that either. We left Moscow at 9.40 am, and arrived at Heathrow at 9.35 am, despite flying for four hours. Fortunately for us customs was virtually empty and we sailed through the checks, and gathered our luggage. I got my new Aussie passport stamped with a British entry stamp which pleased me extraordinarily, to be entering the UK as a foreign national for the first time.\u00a0 Little things etc.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">So here I was, once more back in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Blighty\" target=\"_blank\">Blighty<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We took a minibus over to the car hire place, only to find\u00a0our car wasn\u2019t ready for us. This turned out to be a very good thing. They told us we could either wait a couple of hours for our car, or we could, for a very reasonable price, upgrade to a bigger car. We took the upgrade, and got a\u00a0 very nice <a href=\"http:\/\/www.autoexpress.co.uk\/carreviews\/firstdrives\/62900\/renault_clio.html\" target=\"_blank\">Renault Clio Diesel<\/a>. This was such a blessing, as even in the bigger car, we were hard pushed to fit us and all our stuff in, a problem which increased exponentially when we hit the sales. But I get ahead of myself here. Christ only knows how we would have coped with the smaller\u00a0car, we&#8217;d have had to buy a roof rack, or more likely a trailer for it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We loaded up the car. It had its own built in GPS, but we never worked out how to use this the whole time we had it, and, as we had paid heaps to put Billy on ours, we were intent on using\u00a0him in any case. Lee-Anne tried setting\u00a0Billy for our first stopping place, K<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kingham\" target=\"_blank\">ingham.<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0He couldn\u2019t find it, and claimed it doesn\u2019t exist. It was only after a load of faffing about with it that we realised it was still\u00a0programmed\u00a0with Australia as it&#8217;s location,\u00a0 and was trying to find Kingham on the map of Australia. No wonder the poor bugger was confused. We reset it for the UK, and soon he was happily burbling directions at us in broad Scots.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We passed two crashes, which had reduced the M 25 to a crawl, the delay gave me plenty of time to adjust to British driving mode, or \u201cKamikaze mode\u201d as Lee-Anne prefers. Overhead a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Common_Buzzard\" target=\"_blank\">couple of buzzards<\/a> soared, I whopped with joy and pointed them out to the girls; <em>\u201cYou won\u2019t see many of those, catch a view of them while you can!\u201d<\/em> No points for guessing what happened next. The bloody motorway was lined with buzzards. Soaring buzzards, buzzards resting on lampposts, buzzards eating dead sheep, buzzards screwing in the hedgerows. It would seem they\u2019ve <a href=\"http:\/\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/news\/2003\/12\/1222_031222_buzzards.html\" target=\"_blank\">experienced a renaissance<\/a> since I left. Lee-Anne decided\u00a0 that they needed an eradication program to get the\u00a0numbers of them down to manageable levels.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We stopped off in the lovely town of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chipping_Norton\" target=\"_blank\">Chipping Norton <\/a>to grab ready meals from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sainsburys.co.uk\/sol\/index.jsp\" target=\"_blank\">Sainsbury&#8217;s<\/a>. I was hoping to spot Jeremy Clarkeson or David Cameron buying beers\u00a0or porn mags in there, as they are locals. No such luck though.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Eventually we found our way to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.holidaylettings.co.uk\/rentals\/chipping-norton\/153217\">Cook\u2019s Cottage<\/a> in the gloriously twee village of Kingham.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/cooks%20cottage.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"79\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We let ourselves in, lit the wood-burner, and\u00a0 ate our ready meals. I hit the Russian Vodka, it tasted like Listerine flavoured petrol. We managed to watch a bit of TV, but soon the days and days of travel caught up with us, and we crashed early.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Monday 19\/12\/11<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">As sod\u2019s law would have it we were all awake like larks at 5.30 am. Not much to do at that time of day in Kingham,\u00a0 so we watched the news on TV , lit the fire again, showered, and had some breakfast. Once it was light we decided to drive into <a href=\"http:\/\/www.visitoxfordandoxfordshire.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Oxford.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">After paying a mint to park, (eight bloody quid,) we realised we were all ravenously hungry. Not surprising really, as we\u2019d lived off cold Turkish food, Aeroflot breakfasts and chestnuts for what seemed like four days. Lee-Anne spotted a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.westcornwallpasty.co.uk\/home\/\" target=\"_blank\">pasty shop<\/a>,<em> \u201cThat\u2019ll do nicely!\u201d<\/em> Oh god a real pasty at last, not one of my homemade efforts, or the jokes they sell in Aus as pasties. Heaven. We decided to go to<a href=\"http:\/\/www.oxford-covered-market.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Oxford indoor market<\/a>, as we had fond memories of it from the last trip. Good call, the place was so Dickensian Christmassy that I nearly cried. The butchers stalls were works of art in themselves, and all had birds, hams and even whole boars hanging up outside them. Lee-Anne was entranced as the way the meats were presented, and the sawdust on the floor, evoked vivid memories of her grandfather\u2019s butchers shop. I was waiting outside a butchers when\u00a0 an oldish guy came up and started inspecting the boar carcase which was hanging there. <em>&#8220;Nice, but I couldn&#8217;t eat a whole one,&#8221;<\/em> I commented. I thought he was going to choke he laughed so hard. (It&#8217;s the way I tell them.)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/ox%20market%208.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"84\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/ox%20market%201.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"79\" height=\"120\" \/><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/ox%20market%202.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"82\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Also there was a cake shop, a cake shop which did the most fantastic handmade decorative cakes. Though the windows you could watch the girls at work making them, fantasic to watch. Also in the window was a huge cake sculpture of the <a href=\"http:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/a\/a2\/Radcliffe-camera-oxford.jpg\">&#8220;Radford Camera,&#8221; <\/a>mindblowing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Leaving the market we searched for a phone shop in order\u00a0to\u00a0buy sim cards for our phones, and a dongle for the laptop. Research on the net had lead me to believe that &#8220;3 Mobile&#8221; were our best choice. research on the net isn&#8217;t always bloody right.\u00a0The first &#8220;3 Mobile&#8221; shop we tried, the girl there was so bloody gormless and useless that we called it quits after a short while and left. We stopped at a cafe, had a coffee,\u00a0and had a think about this. Foolishly, we (I) decided to try another &#8220;3 Mobile&#8221; shop; the guy there was more use, but thought my accent was Australian. The twat. We bought sim cards for two phones, a sim card for the i-pad, and a dongle for the laptop, we also bought 15 quids worth of credit for each of them. <em>\u201c&#8221;3 Mobile&#8221; have 98% coverage in the UK,\u201d<\/em> claimed the bright boy selling them.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We drove back to Kingham, which we found to be located in the 2% of the country not covered by the\u00a0&#8220;3 Mobile&#8221; network. A guy knocked on our door wanting to read the leccy meter, but we didn\u2019t have a clue where it was hidden, so we told him to come back next week. By which time we would have left.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">I strolled up the village to check out the pubs, there was two of them, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetollgate.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">one good one<\/a> and one which looked a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thekinghamplough.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">bit too posh<\/a>. The good one was shut. Another evening of ready meals, nasty vodka, and British TV then, no sweat! Actually if you\u2019ve ever seen Aussie TV, you\u2019ll know what a\u00a0 wonderful thing British TV is, and why watching it for us was a great pleasure. We watched<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0241025\/\" target=\"_blank\"> \u201cVanity fair,\u201d<\/a> Bethy loved that, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt2074248\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cThe Bleak Old Shop of Stuff,\u201d<\/a> a wonderful Dickens parody which had me rolling on the floor. Or maybe that was just the nasty vodka?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><strong>Tuesday 20\/12\/11<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We decided to have a day in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.stratford-upon-avon.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">Stratford up Avon<\/a>, to do the cultural thing. We drove out of Kingham, keeping an eye on the mobiles. Eventually Lee-Anne found she had a phone signal, so she decided to phone her mother. Except the phone told her she had no credit, this despite having\u00a0fifteen quid&#8217;s worth\u00a0put on it the day before. Trying <a href=\"http:\/\/www.skype.com\/intl\/en\/home\" target=\"_blank\">Skype<\/a> on the phone was no good either, thus contradicting the guy who sold us the sim cards, who had reliably informed us that; <em>&#8220;Skype will be great for you to make cheap international calls&#8221;<\/em>. Not wanting to lose the luxury of actually having a signal, she decided to add credit to the phone. Much to her disgust she was told that her Aussie credit card was no good for topping up the sim, and she\u2019d have to use a UK card. One of which we didn&#8217;t have.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Eventually we arrived in Stratford. An old boy was sat in a booth at the car park, taking the parking fees. He chatted happily about Stratford with\u00a0 such knowledge and depth of information, coupled with enthusiasm to spare, to the extent that I was seriously considering not bothering going into the town and staying just to listen to him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Eventually I dragged myself away, and we made a beeline for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shakespeare.org.uk\/visit-the-houses\/shakespeares-birthplace.html\" target=\"_blank\">Shakespeare\u2019s birthplace<\/a>. \u00a0Some guys were singing carols, busking, in the main square. When I say \u2018singing carols\u201d, I mean proper singing, with four part harmonies and medieval pronunciation, they must have been choristers or something. Bethy was enraptured. Me too, truth be told.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/carol%20singers.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"83\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Shakespeare\u2019s birthplace itself isn\u2019t cheap to get into, (although the admission price includes three other houses of note,) but it was all worth every penny.\u00a0 The highlight of the tour was the costumed attendants, these gave you a brief introduction to the different areas of the house, and answered questions on Shakespeare and his life there. The first one of these was wonderful, she was dressed as a pantry maid, and was a font of all knowledge, she made the whole thing come alive.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/shakespears%203.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"83\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Having been set up to expect this level of service, later, when we were upstairs, Bethy asked the geezer doing the spiel a question about some of the ancient graffiti on the windows; <em>\u201cThat isn\u2019t graffiti,\u201d<\/em> was his terse reply.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Yes it fucking is! Tell me, is this graffiti or what?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/shakespears%205.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"79\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Mind you, later in the holiday Clarkie also tried to convince us that it isn\u2019t technically graffiti too. But he\u2019s a twat, so we ignored him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Sated on Shakespeare for a while, we decided to get some lunch. The pub opposite the birthplace, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.garrick-inn-stratford-upon-avon.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cThe Garrick\u201d<\/a> was famous. It was also heaving, (not always a good sign,)\u00a0but the menu looked good too. So we found a \u201cwait here to be seated\u201d sign, and waited. And waited. And waited. And then decided to fuck off somewhere else.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Not a hundred yards down the road, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.garrick-inn-stratford-upon-avon.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cThe Falcon\u201d<\/a> was\u00a0 empty. It was every bit as &#8220;Olde Worlde&#8221; as the Garrick,\u00a0but unburdened by customers. We got served quite quick, which was nice. We had the traditional English meal of onion rings and chips there. I also had my first proper pint in years, nectar. I found not only was my phone working, had a signal, but also it had credit on it! Whatever next? This gave me the opportunity to phone and text everyone I knew, in order to leave rude messages, and to pass on our contact number. Which I did. Except I gave them all the wrong number, transposing a 7 and a 4. This was to cause my mum no end of grief over the coming weeks, as every bugger phoned her to get the right number. Oh, the guy whose number I had given out to everyone wasn\u2019t too pleased either, apparently.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">We did the last house, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.shakespeare.org.uk\/visit-the-houses\/anne-hathaways-cottage.html\" target=\"_blank\">Anne Hathaway\u2019s cottage<\/a>, and strolled along the Avon. Swans swam serenely on the river, and squirrels played hide and seek in the trees, and it was all quite fucking wonderful.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">Driving back I found myself behind a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.maserati.com.au\/\" target=\"_blank\">Maserati<\/a>, the look of terror on Lee-Anne\u2019s face when she realised what sort of car it was was a picture; \u201c<em>Taff\u2019s in a hire car, it\u2019s brand new, and he\u2019s behind a Maserati! Time to hang on for dear life!\u201d<\/em> She needn\u2019t have bothered. What I had actually found myself behind, (on a single track road, doing 45 in a 70 limit area,) was\u00a0some ancient old boy, who was obviously\u00a0out for a spin in his pride and joy. Not really a Maserati driver then. When I eventually got to overtake him, he looked about 108 years old, and knocking on death\u2019s door, poor old sod. But at least he gets to drive a Maserati.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">That evening we dined at the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thetollgate.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"> Tollgate Inn in the village<\/a>. They served a very nice pint of &#8220;Old Buttocks&#8221; or something, and the food was first rate. I think they undercharged us for the meal, which enamoured me even more to the place. The only down point of the place was the food was served by some tasty older bird, who obviously found waitressing beneath her, and who\u2019s smile could have cleaned the glasses there. Don\u2019t marry a publican if you don\u2019t want to end up as a barmaid then love. She was compensated for a by a herd of six foot tall, blonde, &#8220;posh totty&#8221; types who paid a brief visit into the bar, necked some lethal looking cocktails and went off to ravish Mellors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/index.html\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/galleries\/Oxford%202011\/thumbs\/tollgate%20inn.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"120\" height=\"83\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The images on this page are linked to the main gallery for this section &nbsp; The week before we left. So apart from the interesting news that riots had broken out in Moscow, (what with us having an extended stop &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/?page_id=652\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2150,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-652","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/652\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fatbeetle.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}