Walberswick to Dunwich

Friends and Memories

I was 27 when I traded teaching jobs with Helen Martin Peters. In retrospect we know we were both in over our heads in our “foreign” classrooms, but with support from a few key friends on each continent we got through the experience much richer for it. One of my most daunting experiences was catering a tea for 200 guests for the Board of Governors and the community….tea and all British fare! Today that might be easier for me as I've practiced at home with Mary. I was also teaching cookery here, and an American instructing on Toad in the Hole, Scotch Eggs and Fairy cakes was a stretch. 

Coming back to East Anglia as a friend and visitor is a much different pace than a year of teaching abroad. I have time now to enjoy friends I made then. Email and social media have definitely allowed these friendships to grow and continue. I feel fortunate to have this time to revisit and visit places in East Anglia and to meet and visit with these special friends. That is due to the hospitality of Janice and her husband Peter. Age lends a greater appreciation for these moments in time.

So far I've visited with the charming Gwen and Gerald. Gerald is a Suffolk farmer; wheat, barley and pigs on 60 acres. He has a twinkle in his eye and just enough of the dickens to get laughs and smiles and forgiveness for small liberties. Gwen is a lovely lady recently retired, and charting her own destiny which does not include weeding but does include cycling in the Channel Islands. Good for Gwen!

My “Mighty Women” are just that. Janice, Diana, Margaret and Helen have all stayed in touch and walk and visit regularly. All smiles and inner beauty, like many of my women friends across the United States their smiles mask some of life's greatest challenges. I admire them, and I enjoyed the stories, conversations and laughs. It's always hard to have a lunch over…..the moments pass. P.S. I did miss seeing Diana’s husband Malcolm, but we keep up with politics and the Norwich Canary football on Facebook!

Last night pizza with Lady Jane. She was Janice’s college friend. I lived with Janice when I taught here. Janice has always shared her friends with me. Jane, she is an absolute hoot, so every minute is full of fun and wit. After pizza we stopped at a pub near her home. Her husband John happened to be there with his cricket friends and local men. These local East Anglia pubs are just great; stopping places for a fizzy water, juice or local libation and a fun place to visit. Jane and John were the first people I was introduced to when I arrived to teach. At that time we watched John play cricket and he was selected as the “Man of the Match”, now he's wondering how long his knees will hold up to support his continued passion for playing the game. He and Jane talked to me all evening that first night  in a crowded pub and I didn't understand one word they said in their Yorkshire accents. They now say they didn't understand me either. Smiles and nods go a long way. Now we laugh because we understand one another pretty well. We like to reminisce about our boating experience on the “Lady Nancy” on the Norwich Broads…which was a bit like Richard and Hyacinth’s experience on an episode of Keeping Up Appearances.

Today I am off to walk ten miles by the sea with Janice, Helen, Barbara (new friend) and the lovely and engaging Alyson Ballantine. Lucky me!

Cambridge Darling!

Today's thirty year throwback was a good change up. Then I tried punting on the Cam. Today we allowed a professional punter to take us down the river. Cambridge really is “all that”. The colleges from the Middle Ages in a picture perfect setting do amaze. Today each college was preparing for graduation events so most were closed to the public. However, our ride on the river gave us the breathtaking highlights and King’s College was open.

Walking East Anglia #1

Today Janice and I walked from her home in Bressingham to the village of Diss. Diss was my hometown in 1984 -1985 when I had my teacher exchange, and I love it. We visited the Corn Hall that has been refurbished as a community center, theater, museum and art gallery. I learned it was originally a medieval linen center which I didn't know before. We did our banking, some light shopping and had tea by The Mere (pond). The walk through the fields and lanes was wonderful, but East Anglia is having a heat wave which broke a 162 year record yesterday. Sigh......this Pacific Northwester likes a range of about 65 - 72. Fortunately I have two decades of experience visiting Wisconsin every few summers, so I knew I would survive.

The Suitcase Saga

Many are asking about the “not so great suitcase drama”. A minor concern, unless you are traveling abroad and would like to retain your belongings. Of course at the end of a three week trip, one will be so tired of those belongings the entire kit and caboodle could be left behind with no regrets. I had an old reliable blue Samsonite that held everything in for a decade and multiple continents. That last Spice Jet flight in India snapped that relationship. Those kind of suitcase relationships may be a thing of the past. My new airport baggage claim activity will be counting the number of suitcases held together by straps. I was worried about my suitcase zipper prematurely and I noticed the wide variety of cases held together by straps. Boy, those spinner wheels were great though!

I am a big fan of amazon.com. I was surprised about the less than 24 hour longevity of my suitcase. I think a better business would be difficult to find. I emailed them about my suitcase and I was offered the opportunity to return it and receive a refund or a replacement. The box is long gone………I may be needing another bag soon. I emailed a second time and the fate of my suitcase is sealed. I have a full refund as a gift card, and permission to discard my case as I wish. That was nice of amazon.com. Throwing away something brand new…….challenging.

While I ponder this, I have had a lovely day in my friends English garden. This was a good place for a Pacific Northwester to be on a 94 degree day. I also have to review my relationship with blogger.com....my go to travel log since 2011 when I resumed my life as a globetreker. Blogger has been "deprecated"....planned obsolescence is accelerating today. Advice?

London Calling

London 2017

Ah, London…..for each of us there are places that feel like a homecoming. England is like that for me. Whether I've gone three decades or a year between visits, it feels familiar and exciting to me at the same time. That doesn't mean it also doesn't feel foreign, which I choose to make part of the excitement. Some of the challenge is just the 21st Century, and my lack of skill with Kiosk’s. Well, I got my cash quickly at the airport ATM, but it did take me five tries to top off my Oyster card…… I was spoiled last summer having Mary as my personal assistant and tour guide.

Finding my way to the Piccadilly Line was no problem and I was quickly jostling along enjoying the sights from the train. I was eyeing my new shiny black spinner suitcase from amazon.com skeptically. It is twice as large of a suitcase as I usually take, but ten days in countryside, gifts, nine days in the city and a graduation ceremony required the acquisition of this bag. Should I stay on the train until my destination Covent Garden? Noooooooo. It's a day and a half in London and I am not going to waste my opportunity to walk the parks. 

I'd like to say I alight from the train, but there was a little heaving and lifting onto the Hyde Park platform. Practicing gratitude for the escalator instead of 100 Victorian era stairs I could be hauling my case up, I exited happily and made my first street crossing into the park….”look right, left, right”. As I crossed into the park, I felt my body audibly exhale….like the best deep yoga cleansing breathe. My opportunity to drink in the 80 degree London day and to begin letting some of my school year tension and worries go.

I was a little disoriented, looking for the park signs. Ah, the coffee kiosk. Coffee in London is not the Nescafé of the 1980’s mercifully. One flat white in hand, and the helpful directions of the barista to the Marble Arch and St. James Park and I was on my way. 

I love these parks! I am walking along looking at the fence around Buckingham Palace and wondering if The Queen and her corgi’s are in the garden on such a lovely day. As I advance I look for her in front of the palace, but no sighting today. The Queens guards always worth the look. 

I am strolling along and am pretty sure I look chic, after all I am in London. I am passing Clarence House and remembering my tea there with my American teacher friends Bobbie and Nicki, that special day we met Princess Diana….our Diana. I'm jolted out of my reminiscence with gasps of “excuse me Madam”! I turn and find that my suitcase has burst the zip, and my knickers and other personal items are scattered around St. James Park. Uh, not so chic!

These men wanted to help me put things back together, but there are some things you'd rather stuff back into your case yourself. I gave thanks and walked on, now quite sweaty and frazzled and embracing the reality of long distance travel while praying I can make my way to Covent Garden without another incident from this black swivel wheel case. Not so lucky, burst two and my iPad bouncing in the gravel…..I pause for a bit and just laugh.

I make it past Admiral Lord Nelson and Trafalgar Square with a new method of pulling my case so that I am sure even if the zipper burst that my belongings would stay intact. I make my way up the incline to Drury Lane drinking London life in. It is GOOD to be here…….

I spent a wonderful evening in Covent Garden with my friends Jan and Peter, and a sleepless night in the Travel Lodge. I am excited though, because today we are going to The Trooping of the Colour, something Janice and I did 32 years ago with her mother.  Sometimes it's good to step away and treat yourself to an occasion with a lifelong friend. I also have a new luggage strap that will do nicely for securing my baggage, and that I can also use as a yoga strap that I regretted not packing. 

Here I am! Lucky me.