Windsor, Autumn 2001

Windsor Castle from the Thames

Jenny and I "did" Windsor on Saturday while Bob and two of his cousin's husbands went to the local pup to watch football and drink beer. This was not my first trip to Windsor. The first time I visited her was in 1979 when the girls were quite young. My best memory of the castle on that trip was while on the guided tour Joanne, who was about eight at the time, took one of the tour guides to task over the state of one of the rooms we were passing through. No matter what they had on offer today, I doubted if it could top that experience and besides the cost has gone up to eleven pounds. (!) After a brief planning session in car park, Jenny and I decided we would take the 2 hour boat tour down the Thames.

Eaton College from tour bus

We had three hours to wait so we hopped on the green and tan tour bus. The tour operater on the bus was excellent and I think I learned more about Windsor this time that I ever have before. The bus took us across the river to Eaton college which appears to be a small community rather than what I would normally consider a "school" It was founded by Henry VI in 1440 and is probably the most famous school in the world. While we were riding past the playing fields I remembered that I had read somewhere that "The victory at Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eaton." I don't remember who said it, or where I read it but it came bubbling up from some dark and murky corner of my mind.
The bus came back across the bridge heading towards Windsor proper. We passed along the edge of Windsor's great park which is just below the castle. It was established as a park in 1360 as a hunting forest.

Henry VIII Gate

The oldest part of the town is located immediately opposite Henry VIII Gate and there are several cobbled streets here, dating from the 17th century. The Old King's Head in Church Street has a plaque recording the execution warrant for Charles I in 1648. The building is said (by some) to be the place where Shakespeare wrote "The Merry Wives of Windsor". We passed the house of Nell Gwynne, favourite mistress of Charles II. Next to the Crooked House Tea Rooms you will find Queen Charlotte Street, the shortest street in Britain ande Guildhall, built by Sir Christopher Wren (architect of St Paul's Cathedral in London) in 1690. The story of the Guildhall is that the councillors did not believe that Wren's design could stay up, and insisted that the central columns be added in the interests of safety - Wren built the columns, but made them an inch short of the ceiling!

Entrance to Royal Train Station

After a very pleasant and informative ride around the town we got off on the High Street just behind the castle and wandered towards the Royal Train Station. While it still has one track and functions, sort or, it's mostly been converted into a very upmarket shopping complex. Very posh!! The entrance to it makes you feel like you are entering Diagon Alley. I must have been in dire need of food and about to collapse because the picture that I took of the entrance is a little off kilter. We had a delicious lunch in one of the resturants and then wandered around just enjoying the sights until time for our boat trip.

Sculling on the Thames at Windsor

The boat trip down the Thames was lovely but brisk, and I took about 30 pictures. This journey passes through Boveney Lock, Sutherland Grange, Willows, Oakley Court, Bray Film Studios, Queens Eyot and Monkey Island, Eton College, the Mill House, Windsor Racecourse and the Brocas Meadows. I found all those names in the brochure because I guarantee you I would have never remembered them. It was a lovely day and lots of people were either out on the river in various craft, or were lounging around on the river banks. Everyone waved at everybody else. This is such a pleasant way to spend a couple of hours but there was so much to see that it was impossible for my mind to retain more than just sketches.

Don't let their looks fool you
these birds can be very aggressive.

There are many lovely homes along the Thames and you can just imagine what one of those little gems would cost. A while back I read a book called To Say Nothing of The Dog." by Connie Willis in which the main characters take a boat trip down the Thames. I had this trip in mind the entire time I was reading it. We passed another tour boat that had obviously been chartered for a wedding reception. That was a very convivial bunch of folks. I hope that no one fell overboard. I am putting a picture of the swans on this page because I they made such a lasting impression on me. Not on this trip, but back on the 1979 trip Joanne and I were sitting on a bench eating our packed lunch at this very spot when one then hopped out of the river, marched over to us and demanded our sandwiches. Believe me these birds that look so lovely and peaceful in the water are in fact very large, vicious criminals. Naturally we gave up our lunch. We had no other choice. I didn't grudge the swan the sandwich, but I did resent the terroristic threatening part and I have never been able to gaze fondly on swans since.

Window Shopping

We did a little window shopping down the main shopping street and then got back to Paula's house about 7:30, just about the same time Bob and Steve came weaving in from the Pub. They had a wonderful time it seems drinking beer and eating curry and the team they had been rooting for won so they were a couple of happy, tipsy people.

On Sunday Paula fixed a sumptuous breakfast for everyone. She and Steve are the couple who got married on my last trip over in the church I was so impressed with. I wrote about it in my 1999 Windsor journal. I didn't get a chance to really know them at the wedding as everything was so confused, but this time we had a chance to sit down and get acquainted. They are such nice people. At noon we all left to go downtown Windsor to the Harte and Garter where we met up with other members of Bob's family for a Sunday "Carvery" which is what they call a buffet dinner that includes Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Ham and Turkey. The Harte and Garter is one of those old, old restaurants and very nice. You have to book a table at least a week in advance for the Sunday Carvery.

After lunch we all took a stroll heading down hill towards a Pub along the river that had outdoor seating. There were 11 of us and the route took us through the shopping district so it took quite a while for everyone to show up. But it was a lovely afternoon. The ladies all drank tea (just like in the novels) and the guys nursed pints and everyone just visited. Later on it got chilly and everyone moved inside until the end of yet another football (soccer) game.

While we were there a couple came in with a little boy about four years old. The dad was watching the game and the woman was chatting with the lady behind the bar and to keep the kid amused she gave him several 2 p coins and the kid entertained himself by pulling a chair up in front of the slot machine and putting the coins in the slot, and of course the machine wouldn't take them so it would dump them back out in the tray and the kid was pretending like he had won. The machine in the meantime was flashing lights and making noises and the kid was pushing buttons and I'll tell you, I have seen lots of adults playing the slots in Las Vegas who weren't having nearly as much fun as that kid was.

Link to Windsor photo's

 

Road Trip from Helensburgh, Scotland to Maidenhead, England

We left Helensburgh around 10 a.m. and headed south on the M74/A74 and then joined the M6 below Birmingham. I found the journey very interesting because I think the British countryside is so beautiful. The most notable thing was the price of gasoline. MY GOODNESS!!! We stopped at the services near Gretna and gasoline was selling for 75p, 79p and 81p per liter. With help from Bob I did a little math and figured out the price per U.S. gallon in U.S. dollars. Bob's cell phone doubles as a calculator so we used it to do the conversion. We put 33.5 liters of gas in the car @75p per liter and paid a total of 24.87 pounds. Bob was the clever one who knew that there are 4.5 liters in an imperial gallon and 3.56 liters in a US gallon. Using the 3.56 liter figure @75p and using $1.66 as the exchange rate, we came up with a whopping $4.40 per gallon. I'll tell you this figure had me gasping for breath for a mile or two. Now if anyone wants to do the math for themselves and comes out with a different answer, remember we did the math while zipping down the motor way punching numbers into a cell phone.

I have been up and down the A74/M6 so many times that I ought to have every mile of it memorized. I always enjoy the drive, and I always see something new. One of these days I am going to spend some time in the borders area of Scotland. As you near the border of England, you pass the sign for the exit to Lockerbie, the site of the Pan Am bombing. I always get a lump in my throat as we pass. The start of the Cheviot Hills are off to the left, and The Pennine Way, a lovely hiking trail is also over in that direction somewhere.

Anyone familiar with regency romance novels knows all about Gretna Green. It was the Las Vegas of it's time. Gretna Green is one of the world's most famous wedding venues, conjuring up stories of romance, scandals, and illicit trysts. For 250 years, couples have traveled to Gretna Green, where they can get married with no waiting period under Scotland's lenient marriage laws. Traditionally, in Scotland, a man and woman over the age of sixteen could be married by declaring themselves husband and wife in front of witnesses. In England, such marriages were prohibited by an Act of Parliament passed in 1745. As a result eloping couples began to flee to Scotland for their marriages. Gretna Green remains a popular place to get married today. More than 4,000 couples marry in Gretna Green annually - about 13 percent of all weddings performed in Scotland. I looked it up on the internet.

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Driving down the motorway at the speed Jenny drives is not the most exciting way to see England, unless like me you think that traveling at 90 miles an hours is exciting. Our pace was considerably slowed when we reached Manchester at rush hour. What a traffic nightmare that city is at 4 p.m. in the afternoon. But as soon as we got around the city it was back to 90 miles an hour. I had to look very quickly at the passing scenery or miss it entirely.

Once we left the M6 at High Wycomb and got onto the secondary roads this trip became much more enjoyable. This is such a pretty part of England. One of the first villages we went through was Marlow, which has a reputation as being the prettiest village of the many that are scattered along the banks of the Thames River. We crossed a lovely old suspension bridge, where they were preparing for a Regatta the next day. If I had to choose the lovliest villiage of all the ones we zipped through in that area I guess I would have to pick Marlow. When I checked out Marlow on the internet I discovered that it was the village where the Shelley's lived when they returned to England from the continent in 1817, and that most of Frankenstein was written there. I did purchase a post card which I have scanned to show a little of how lovely the village is.

After 10 very long hours we arrived at our destination. We got lost trying to find Dorney where Bob's father lives and where were supposed to stop first. I rather enjoy being lost as I get to see unexpected place. Over the next 36 hours we went so many places that all the little villages melted into one another, so that after a while my head was spinning. We passed through Eton, where the famous Eton Public School for boys is located. You could see Windsor Castle across the bridge from Eton but we avoided Windsor because of the royal wedding of Prince Edward..

The B&B I stayed in was in Maidenhead. The hotel is typical of the B&B's you's stay in if, like I was, you were traveling on the cheap.  It was, clean and not quite convenient. There was no shower, only a bath. I was instructed by the manager that you could only run the hot or the cold water, not both at the same time. I think it had something to do with water pressure. On the other hand, the bed was comfortable and the breakfast served in the morning was delicious. The first morning I shared the dining room with a group of very interesting ladies who "worked the tote at Ascot." They were the people who worked in the betting windows. Royal Ascot was going on right down the road.