Hey to everyone, briefly we are fine, moved out of our old place now and into the new one that ended up being just a few blocks away. It took another full weekend of elbow grease to get the new place into shape, and another week until we figured out how to get hot water, and we still can’t get the fridge to do anything but freeze our food solid except in the very top corner, but we are only there until July 24 when we ship out of European rental life entirely, so we are making do fine.
Carli-Ann’s boss, Vivien and Dik took us last week for a drive in their van (we were a snug 17 wheeler! 2 bikes=4 wheels, 2 wheelchairs=8 wheels, and a van=4 with a spare wheel) along Hadrian’s wall, the 73 mile Roman wall built to control the northernmost border of the Empire roughly between Scotland and England. Then they took us back to the beginning to cycle it from a different perspective, to absorb some of the “breathless” views along the tail end of Britain’s backbone: the Pennine Mountain range. We camped out near the village of Twice Brewed (which appeared to us to be only a pub) which is next door to the village of Once Brewed (which was only a visitor centre now, as far as we could tell). The next day we arrived (part pushbike, thank God for that mighty tailwind even though it nearly flattened our tent, and part train) in New Herrington, Houghton Le Spring, Tyne and Wear, 10 miles north of Durham at Mike’s great Auntie Agnes’ door step above their butcher shop.
This is possibly our favourite bit of being in Europe is turning up at distant relative’s houses and seeing the family history from the Old World perspective! Auntie Agnes and her super-cyclist/rower son-in-law Joe showed us the neighbourhood where Mike’s grandma and her sisters grew up, the old light pole they used to play around, the ancient barn now converted into a pub, Shanky Banks, the hill so steep you have to walk your bike up, and we got to hear about Grandma Betty Germain in the eyes of her big sister! Priceless! Grandma, 86 year old Auntie Agnes is still standing on her kitchen table to hang her sheets up to dry!
Joe took us on a tour of Durham, the famous hill top Norman cathedral and its 325 step tower which he nearly leapt up in a single bound, and twirled us through the old winding streets with hidden nooks leading down to the river bank, and leaning old buildings with ancient rippling glass windows. And to get the classic view of the city, we went for a paddle down the River Wear in a wooden row boat with his friend Caroline, (they gave the rowing over to us just as the big paddleboat came around the bend and threatened to capsize us if we didn’t learn how to steer fast!). And then he took us up the bank to meet his friend who was in the process of carving out these wooden boats for us tourists and for the racing rowers like Joe. I think this is a lovely time to be touring Britain as the cherry trees were practically throwing their fruit into our hands, our hikes led us through mountain top wild blueberry patches, and the mock orange blossoms hung down to the water alongside the trailing weeping willows, just like in the children’s book illustrations we had always seen of Merry old England.
Another excursion we have slipped in alongside work in our final weeks in Scotland is to cycle up the “bonnie, bonnie banks of Loch Lomond”. It was mostly the midges that propelled us to continue cycling, doubling the planned distance: they can only be avoided by keeping a faster pace than their terrific swarms! (mosquitoes the minute size of fruit flies that fly into your eyes and nose and deny you the satisfaction of swatting one dead because they are too tiny and too numerous to be affected by flailing arms) But the midge tour of the Highland fault line did send us careening down Loch Gare and Loch Long, and around a bend to be hurled into the monstrous shadow of a docked British military battle ship, past a noisy military shooting range, and later through a colourful protesting peace camp. We are due next week for a visit up to the Orkney Islands off the northern tip of Scotland, and a jaunt in Wales soon too!
We are very pleased to have remembered that Carli-Ann’s friend from university, Suzanne, has settled herself happily in New Zealand, so it will be great to have someone to pester for advice before our flight (Oct 1) and a couch to surf after too! Today we are doing a test pack of our gear, as being permitted to fly over with only two pieces of checked luggage each, our bikes being one, that leaves everything else in our lives from the last two years and for the upcoming year to be squeezed into a single backpack, so this will be our tightest pack yet! Yikes!
We hope that by the time we leave the animated Glaswegian life behind us next month, a little of the colourful vocabulary and friendliness will have rubbed off on us. Everything’s “nae bodder” (no bother) and Mike’s already “jus takin da mickey out o’ ya” (teasing) and “skiving” whenever the opportunity arises (skipping out on duties/lazing about at work) and whipping out “fer a wee dram” (drink). Oh, these years about Europe will never be forgotten!
Cheers!
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