The cathedral was nice, but as mentioned closed, but the chapel on the bridge was cool, one of very few remaining original 14th century bridge chapels and the old couple looking after it were very friendly and showed me around. The georgian house was a bit interesting but also features a terrible trap. The woman at the entrance told me that at the bottom was a "brewhouse" so I saved that until last. I slowly made my way through the basement level and saw the last door labelled "brewhouse". Heart racing with excitement that I might finally see something really cool I open the door and am greeted by a wall of leaflets and a coffee machine. Goddammit!
After that I felt justified in going to the Australian pub. They are apparently an England wide chain called "Walkabout" and about 500 times more Australian than any pub I have ever been to in Aus but they do sell VB, New and Extra Dry which was a nice adventure into local beverages for me. Their menu also includes far more Kangaroo than Aussie ones and a "real Oz pie" that involved steak, mashed potato and mushy peas with red onion... real Aussie indeed. In a last ditch effort to find sights to see I asked the bargirl what there was to do in Derby and she summed it up eloquently as "Nothing".
Killed a bit of time in the Westfield (English shopping centres are the same, funnily enough) and then walked along the river back to the bus station and bussed back to Spondon. That evening Pat took me to a fantastic fish and chip shop, so English, their meals came with mushy peas, buttered bread and a pot of tea.
Next morning I woke up, said my goodbyes to Pat and her dog Maddie and made my way to Gar's place. Public transport here is super expensive by comparison, £20 for a 3 hour coach from Derby to London (or £49 if I wanted to do it by train, and these are the cheap prices you can get by pre-booking) then £14 for a 45 minute bus to Lewknor where I met Gar and went back to her new house in Watlington which she tells me Mum found her and where I got to meet her dog Topsy.
At this point I want to take a second to paint a word picture of Topsy, half because it gives me a chance to use the phrase "word picture" legitimately and half because of how wonderful the dog is. Topsy is a 6 year old pug, rather... stout... from years living the quiet life with Gar, going on short daily walks, being fed well and also occasionally convincing Gar she hasn't already been fed. She is totally devoted to Gar and to food, I intended to take a photo but unless I was holding food she was always right at Gar's heel and not looking away. Topsy is missing 3 of her teeth on one side of her mouth so her tongue is always flopping out to one side, giving her an interesting "not all there" look and leading her to leak when she drinks and to also appear to be in a constant battle to stop her tongue actually falling out. She also makes very distinct noises. Imagine someone you know who snores really heavily. Now picture an old snorkel, its been through a lot, its a bit battered and leaks slightly, so when you use it everything is a bit damp. Topsy sounds like that snoring person if they were given this snorkel and put underwater. And then Topsy goes to sleep, and actually starts to snore... All said though, she's a really lovely dog.
In the evening I walked into Watlington town centre to, theoretically, find a pub for a pint and to watch the football (U21 world cup) but only found one place, which was the absolute classic old fashioned English pub and didn't have a TV, but fortunately did have a pint and a bartender who lived in High Wycombe, which is right near where I used to live.
The next day was very lazy, hanging around at Gar's, talking and doing my washing, the highlight being a game of Scrabble. I know that sounds really dull but Gar and I have a long history of competitive Scrabble games so it was actually awesome. Man I'm cool.
No comments:
Post a Comment