You may need a passport for this walk.
Time to descend
Mobile Bar
Are we stopping here? Not today, but it is one of the best Wetherspoons in the country. Have you guessed where you are yet?
Are we going in here?
YES
Anyone got one of these in their garden?
Carry on walking, I’ve got to leave you now, visitors coming, hope you don’t get lost.
Do you like walks with a destination, such as lunch?
A nacation is when your neighbour, friend or relative goes off on an exotic holiday leaving you to put the bins out, feed the cat, take in parcels, water the garden and have the dog to stay. If you are lucky they might bring you back a holiday present, such as a packet of the local biscuits which taste even worse than the unknown makes from Better Bargains.
For the next three weeks I am watering next door’s garden while the family are on the other side of the Atlantic. A simple task with their designer minimalist garden, very different from mine, which I’m happy to do as Mr. Immaculate Gardener is always fixing things for me, painting my fences etc. But there was a security routine to go through since various incidents have been picked up by their multiple far reaching CCTVs . To save tramping through the house and switching the burglar alarm on and off, I just had to remember the number for the new combination lock on the side gates… and be shown burglar alarm procedure in the very unlikely event the alarm goes off accidentally.
I am used to visitors checking their phones and watching what is going on in their driveway and back garden. The days are gone when you did not know if your home was still in one piece till you came home again. My old school friend who lived in the same quiet road as me recalls her father notifying their local police station if they were going on holiday. Now you can phone your neighbour and ask them to take in the big parcel that is sitting in the rain on your doorstep.
Even as I was writing this blog an urgent WhatsApp message came from across the Atlantic. Was my virgin WI Fi working, because their CCTVs were not. Yes it was. I now had a new task so difficult he suggested I wait till after 4pm British Summer Time so they would be awake if there were any problems. I had to unlock the front door with 30 seconds to disarm the burglar alarm with the code. ‘I’m in’ I texted back. Now for the high tech part. Go to the utility room and fetch the broom. The Wi-Fi switch is behind the television set and inaccessible so lean over and switch it off with the end of the broom handle, then switch it on again, about as easy as switching switches with a bunch of bananas. But I did it and it just remained to switch the burglar alarm on again and get out of the house in 30 seconds and wait to hear if the CCTV came on again – it did.
We have had various traumatic nacation experiences in the past, like the time the hamster escaped from his rota stack cage while the patio doors were open. We had over two miserable weeks to wait till they got back from France to give them the news. I discovered years later that their son accused my son of being a hamster murderer!
Five houses ago next door had a white rabbit and what a happy bunny he was.- in summer when he romped freely in the back garden. Alas in winter he was confined to his small hutch and I was volunteered to feed him one Xmas holiday. Access involved trekking to the bottom of our garden, into the back lane and down their garden to the patio. He soon ran out of straw and his dry food looked boring so I brought him carrots and rabbit treats from the pet shop. In the middle of this spell of biting winds a fox or cat got to their council rubbish bag before the dustmen did. Their front garden was strewn with nappies and all sorts of revolting rubbish ( for people interested in the world of council rubbish collections we did not have wheelie bins there or food waste bins ) and I had to do a clean up operation. We didn’t even notice their return home as they never came and thanked us and never knew the stressful Xmas I had had!
More recently new neighbours were flying off to Greece in the school summer holidays. A dog sitter they had never met was coming down from Birmingham. As they were leaving in the early hours I was asked if I could just let the dogs out at 7am and give them their breakfast as the dog sitter was not expected till later in the morning. The dogs would be shut safely in the kitchen.
Sounded simple enough, but when I went round all the doors inside were open, the dogs were cowering on the sofa and in the large kitchen one or both of the dogs had had a serious stomach upset! I went home to get rubber gloves and serious cleaning stuff leaving the back door open. On my return the dogs refused to go in the garden… I enticed them out of the front room with their breakfasts. One dog went in the garden and the other dog ate two breakfasts… When I finally got them back indoors I had forgotten to shut the kitchen door so they raced upstairs.
Back home I relaxed with my breakfast, thinking all would be in the hands of the dog sitter soon, but I got a WhatsApp from Greece. The dog sitter had called to say she would be late, she and her little boy were stuck in holiday traffic. Could I let the dogs out again later. When I returned the dogs were hiding in the bedroom and refused to come out…. in the kitchen there was more cleaning up to do.
When I got a message to ask if the dog sitter had arrived yet I relayed the events and she soon messaged back to say her friends who had been enjoying a pub lunch by the river were now marching up the hill to come and take the dogs for a walk. When they arrived at my door so I could give them the key they thought I could come with them to the house as they had never met the dogs. The dogs still refused to come downstairs so they decided to sit downstairs and wait till the dogs calmed down. I went home and after a while they were back at my house having given up.
As we stood chatting out the front with a couple of other neighbours joining in, the dog sitter pulled up, surprised to see a welcome party. She must have been a dog whisperer as five minutes later she emerged with a happy boy and two happy dogs going off to the park.
I haven’t done any doggy tasks again, but have been messaged from Devon to check if one of the teenage daughters had left her hair straighteners on in the bedroom and to excuse the mess. Yes she had, when I eventually found them, but to be fair to the hair straighteners they were cold, so they must have had the initiative to turn themselves off.
Have you had any nacations this year?
A Traication is when you go on holiday by train so you cannot take everything but the kitchen sink. Packing has to be undertaken with great planning. I cheat by having a huge bag of stuff at the headquarters of Team H, so I only have to stuff clothes, Kindle, sandwiches and water in my rucksack, though it’s still heavy. People do get on the train with suitcases big enough for a kitchen sink and I have seen women with rucksacks big enough for a commando training exercise. My main aim is to be able to get on and off the train and negotiate the underground.
You could spend hours on line getting the best bargains by booking a specific train or a journey split into several stages on the same route. A friend naturally assumed you had to get off the train and catch a different one so she was surprised to hear on the last stage she could have stayed on the same train all the way. Goodness knows who thinks up these ideas. My off peak cardboard ticket, bought well ahead at our friendly ticket office, is an off peak return, leave on a specific date and return within a month, worrying for your hosts in case you stay with them for a whole month! If they ask what time train I want I explain I just want to turn up and get on the next train going to Waterloo and I especially want the trains to be running. The day I sauntered into the station to buy my ticket it seemed very quiet, it turned out there were no trains running due to a trackside fire further up the line. On the news that evening was film of passengers evacuated off the train and walking up the track.
Fortunately the day of my journey all was going well. The current government pledged to bring the railways back under state ownership and South West Trains were one of the first to be reclaimed last year and sport new livery as South Western Railway. If you had a Brio wooden railway when you were a child you will recall the carriages linked on by magnet. Our trains work just like that… I was waiting for the 11.22am and at 11.10 am four carriages arrived. At this point passengers either rush to get on or stand in confusion in case a different train has slipped in. A few minutes later another four carriages roll in behind and click on. So there is plenty of time to get on the train and no worry which carriage if you are going to Waterloo. But all may not be well if you have a specific ticket. There were regular/annoyingly frequent announcements…
‘If you have an evening out return or a summer special extra cheap off peak and it does Not say 11.22am, you are on the WRONG train and liable to pay another £40.
On the final stage of my journey, London Victoria to Margate, it was my turn to make sure I was on the right carriage, the rear four carriages. The advantage of a London terminus is trains end up at the buffers so what was the first carriage is the last carriage so I should be okay. After every single station would be a reminder that the train was going to split and the stations recited. After our carriage had disgorged quite a few passengers and with the moment of the great split fast approaching, a couple now had room to spread out their picnic and sat back and relaxed. Then one of them thought to lean over the aisle and ask another passenger where the train was going. When she said Margate there was panic and a gathering up of the picnic. They were right at the back of the train when they should have been at the front. The young woman said to them ‘Don’t stop, just keep going till you get to the driver’s cabin .’
My return journey from Waterloo was simple. The train arrived at the buffers with fifteen minutes to spare so we could get on and relax. All trains stop at Bournemouth and this train was going to unclick in half and carry on to two different directions. You really needed to pay attention to the announcements because even before the chopping in half there were some stations with short platforms so you had to make sure you were on the right carriage.
‘If you are getting off at Remote Halt you will need to be in the front three carriages, if you are going to Forest Dene you must be in carriages two, three and four. Passengers wishing to alight at Littledene should be in odd number carriages except one and seven. Passengers for Old Milton please make sure you are in the even number carriages except for two and six.
Have you had any interesting train journeys lately?
While others were in Norwegian fjords or on African safaris, I ventured ten minutes walk away from home for my staycation. Back at Chez Tidalscribe Cyberson Two and DIL Two were ripping out the bathroom. Not as scary as it sounds as Interiors are their business and this was their 49th bathroom.
My holiday home was a seaside let, a top floor flat with a balcony – not alas that yellow house of character with the turrets. A search revealed plenty of Air B&Bs near my house, including next door ( a converted garage ), but I thought I should enjoy a cliff top experience. I wanted a cliff top house when we moved to Bournemouth, but few were available, let alone in our price range.
I know other female bloggers go solo round the world on motorbikes or yachts so it is not very adventurous to go home for Cyberson’s home cooked meals and to collect anything you have forgotten… and to water my plants… and the garden as the heat wave had continued unabated.
What made it different from home? I was nearer my beach hut and the open top bus stopped almost outside. I could have my breakfast on the balcony and watch the world go by. At any moment, however early, there was always a dog walker on the cliff or a jogger on the pavement or a cyclist on the road. There was also traffic on the coast road, it was much noisier than my quiet little road.
There are clifftop views such as lighthouses looking over wild waves crashing on rocks and houses with back gardens on the edge of cliffs. There are still houses right on the edge in Southbourne, but lots more have long since crumbled down with the sandy cliffs, leaving only the roses and shrubs that once grew in their garden clinging to the cliffside.
However, I still had a view and at night there was the black sea straight ahead and to the west the lights of Bournemouth and Swanage and early in the morning sunrise from the bathroom window.
Inside it was clean and tidy with everything you could want if you were actually living and cooking there. The décor was white, literally, from the paint work to the bedding and towels. The only items not white were the artificial lawn on the balcony and the impossible to lift dark blue pottery mugs the size of hefty jugs. Lucky I could pop home and get my bone china tea mug. The bed was very comfortable, the sofa not so. I managed to work the television and get the WiFi so overall a good experience and I still miss the patter of tiny feet – the slip slap of the early morning joggers before the traffic got busy.
Have you been on a Staycation or had any holiday let experiences, good or bad?
I’m back home with new pictures and new blogs …sometime… In the meantime here are a few snaps celebrating the fun of train travel and trying to capture amazing buildings that my parents and grandparents would not have seen on their commute to the office in London.
Citrus?
Two Dimensional?
How would you like a balcony here?
Would you like to live or work in any of these buildings? Perhaps you do!
Who do you like to chat to when you go shopping?
Spent too long chatting? Better check the time.
Time for me to go on a traication with only my phone. Find out where next week.
Can you translate the Latin or tell the time?
Cool off on a Breezer open top bus.
But where are you going?
Are we getting off here at Boscombe Pier? No.
At Bournemouth Pier? No.
Where are we?
And who is this?
Find out later.
This way?
Or that way?
Feeling cooler?
Don’t get lost
Ah, here’s a sign post…
How did you get here?
With a long walk up the road.
And where are you?
Breezer Bus 70 dropped us off at Alum Chine Beach and we walked up Alum Chine then up to Westbourne shops. Don’t worry, there are plenty of buses home from here, or you can retrace your steps back to the beach.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cjdg1p97v0go
How soon did you guess the mystery statue?
If you are reading this I must have crawled out of the blog hole and my new computer has extended the digital hand of friendship to WordPress. Read about my Staycation soon.
In between what? Flowers don’t care what is going on in the blogging world as long as someone waters them in our ongoing heatwave.
In the meantime I’m between homes and computers so who knows what might happen!
Will I get out of the bloghole?
Will this unblog get posted? See you on the other side ….hopefully…..
It seems lots of us have a stationery addiction, we can’t resist buying notebooks and journals, then can’t bear to spoil them by writing in them, or start a journal which only lasts a few pages. Judging by the cover design, how old do you think this notebook might be? At writers’ group we wondered how many of us had written long ago and if we still had our words of wisdom. I thought I had written ‘a few bits’ but found three full notebooks. This one was started in 1972 in Perth, Western Australia when I was nineteen and the handwriting neater than I remember. On the back it says Made in Japan – how long since you saw those words on humble everyday objects? How has it survived crossing the world and moving numerous times? I’m not going to start reading it all to you, but here are two pertinent snippets.
‘Our literature lecturer commented this morning that most writers of renown started their career by keeping a personal record. As I have aspirations to be an authoress of some sort I thought this to be a good idea.’
What took those aspirations so long?
My first entry for September, 1972 turned out to be very relevant.
‘Today was one of those pleasant spring days. The sun is still friendly and hasn’t yet become that hot enemy of summer.’
In the midst of our third heatwave in England, proof indeed that I never liked very hot weather. Too hot is too hot wherever you are, though in Australia we had the advantage of latitude with the sun dropping promptly down below the horizon. We have long warm evenings. The grass on the cliff will recover, grass always does and I am thankful for our sea breezes. The sky was hazy and the sea calm yesterday so come along and cool off. No pictures of being in the sea as my phone would get wet, but I think you should come in the water.
That is a person swimming in the middle of the picture, not a shark.
Have you words of wisdom preserved from long ago?
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 