Austin to Austen - 8 March 2009

The Winchester MG Owners' Club invited neighbouring clubs to a 'season opener' Cobweb Spin Run so a few of the F/TF drivers met just out of London for a run down to join the Winchester group. It was a beautiful day for a run in a convertible but the weather forecast was for wintry showers and a possibility of snow blowing through so we kept our hard-top firmly fitted. As it turned out it was only a few brief heavy showers so while all the soft-top owners rushed out to put their tops up we smugly stayed warm and dry.

Leaving the club outing, held at IBM's country estate headquarters in Hursley, we went in to Winchester for another look at the city sights. We never imagined that in the late 60's when we were singing "Winchester Cathedral, you're bringing me down ...you stood and you watched while my baby left town." that one day we would be walking along its nave, the longest Gothic cathedral nave in Europe.

The cathedral is home to the (supposed) bones of King Canute as well as other early Wessex Kings from as far back as 600's. More modern bones in the Cathedral are those of Jane Austen whose grave makes absolutely no mention of her stature as one of the most beloved writers of English literature. Since she published anonymously during her lifetime, this is probably not surprising.


The Great Hall, built in the 1220s is all that remains of Winchester Castle. It contains the 'original' Round Table of the Knights of the Round Table with their names inscribed at their positions around the edge. Unfortunately it is a 700 year old fake but impressively big, nevertheless.

And then, I sat and I drove while my baby left town.

A Royal Flush - 7 March 2009

473 years ago Henry VIII stood on a knoll in Richmond Park waiting to spot a rocket fired from the Tower of London to tell him that Anne Boleyn had been executed. Today the spot is known as King Henry VIII's Mound and although you can't see the Tower of London and no one was firing rockets for us to pin-point it, amazingly there is a beautiful framed view of St Paul's Cathedral, 10 miles away to the east. The mound also affords a panoramic view from the northwest to southwest with Ham House and the Thames in the near foreground.

We came across this amazing view on a walk from Richmond station, across the Green and past the site of the Tudor Richmond Palace, a favoured home of Edward III, Henry VII, and Elizabeth I who all died there.

From Richmond we followed the Thames for a short distance before climbing to Richmond Park then down through Petersham and out to Ham House on the riverbank. Ham House was gifted to the Earl of Dysart by Charles I, possibly as a thankyou to the lad that had grown up with him and been his whipping boy. Because it was forbidden to strike the royal personage another lad was given an education and a privileged upbringing in return for taking the royal prince's punishments.

After a tour through a few of the rooms that were open for winter viewing we followed the river back to Richmond to catch a train home.

Marching into history - 1 March 2009

The excellent BBC weather forecast promised that the day would clear, so we bravely set off in low cloud for The Vale of the White Horse and beyond.

We explored two ‘film set’ villages – Fairford and Lechlade on Thames.

St Mary’s in Fairford is famous as the only parish church in the country still retaining a complete set of 28 medieval stained glass windows.

They are amazing, and have been carefully preserved by whitewashing to protect them during the Reformation and by removing them altogether during the Civil and Second World Wars. Just outside the town are the Ox pens and a charming mill house. We stopped in the picturesque pub for morning coffee.

Lechlade although slightly bigger, is just as scenic, and because of the Thames running alongside the town was once a prominent inland port.

Driving back through the Vale of the White Horse, we arrived at Kingston Bagpuize.

Although a stately home is it is smaller than most we have visited and feels intimate and very liveable. The garden was full of snowdrops, by far the best display we have seen this year.

Doordling around Ewell - 28 February 2009

What do Tudor monarch Henry VIII and Victorian painter Holman Hunt have in common?

The answer was in our walk; both are connected to long gone doors within walking distance of Ewell West station.

Henry’s doors were on the fabulous Nonsuch Palace pulled down, 140 years after he proudly built the most advanced palace of its time, by a mistress of Charles II. I wonder what public opinion was regarding that!

The other missing door was on one of the disused huts of the Gun Powder Mills in the Hogsmill Valley, a short walk from Nonsuch Park. This door’s claim to fame is that Holman Hunt posed his model beside it as inspiration for his famous painting of ‘The Light of the World’, now hanging in St Paul’s.

The area is peaceful, within the M25, but feeling quite rural, with a picturesque watermill, tranquil millponds, and lots of disappeared history.

Stuffed and mounted - 22 February 2009

The weather was not as brilliant as yesterday but good walking weather nevertheless. A shorter walk just outside the M25 took us along a number of ‘lanes’ which may once have seen regular traffic but were no longer used in any way other than recreational.

We have, many times, driven past the sign to the Museum of Natural History in Tring, largely the collection of Walther Rothschild. It is a truly amazing collection of stuffed birds, fish, reptiles, marsupials and mammals all in amazingly good condition and beautifully posed, mounted and displayed. With a free entry it is hard to beat for an intriguing day out.

We were disappointed not to see a kiwi in the huge bird collection but on an upper floor, in pride of place among “Walter’s favourites”, was the kiwi.

Walter had a flock of kiwi and could not bear to leave them behind when he went to Cambridge University so he took them with him. How the other residents of Magdalene College responded to said kiwi invasion is unknown.

Farthing Downs - 21 February 2009

During a recent visit to areas south of London we drove along the top of Farthing Downs and so liked what we saw that we were keen to revisit the area. A book we were given before we left NZ has 28 walks in and around London, and we had done 26 of them. One of the two remaining took in Farthing Downs and Happy Valley so with a beautiful late-winter day at hand we set off to tick off the penultimate walk in the book.

We went via Caterham, once the home of the iconic British two-seater sports car, the Caterham 7. Production has moved to Dartford but a showroom remains.

From there it was off to Farthing Downs to begin our 7-mile walk that took in the North Downs, woodlands, meadows and the village of Chaldon. The pretty little 12thC flint church is home to one of the oldest church wall paintings in England and the churchyard provided a great display of snowdrops.

Hot Water Beach - February 2009

A family wedding called us home to NZ so we boarded an Air NZ 747 and settled in for a 25-hour journey via Hong Kong. With the help of a pill we got some sleep and arrived in Auckland feeling remarkably good. After a family meal we set off for Hot Water Beach on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsular where we had rented a holiday cottage for the week.

Hot Water Beach is possibly unique in the world as geothermally heated water bubbles up through the sand

and is accessible for two hours either side of low-tide. During that period a small army of tourists gather with their spades to scoop out pools in the sand and create their own geothermally heated spa pools.

As the water seeping up through the sand is 64º C the best technique is to dig in such a way as to allow a mixture of hot and cold water into your pool and, as there are only 2 locations on the beach where the hot water surfaces, the demand for such prime spots is high and the early-birds have first pick.

It is fun to watch the unwary walking barefoot along the beach suddenly break into a hopping quick-step as they, inadvertently, find the location of the springs. It is a wonderful gathering of people from around the globe and as one of the tourists we shared our pool with observed, "Everybody here is smiling."


Nearby is Cathedral Cove, brought to the big-screen in the Chronicles of Narina:Prince Caspian as the place where the children first re-enter Narnia. The shoreline here forms one edge of NZ's first marine reserve and the water is crystal clear. We made two visits to the Cove which is only accessible on foot (30 min walk from the car park) or by sea.

All too soon a week of perfect NZ summer beach weather was over and it was back to Auckland to get the last minute wedding preparations done. On the way we made a brief stop to look at the Square Kauri. Possibly 1200 years old, it is the 15th largest Kauri tree on the Coromandel Peninsular and, although very close to the road, was spared by the loggers in a "gentleman's agreement" because of the unusual square shape of the trunk.

And then, with the wedding over, it was back on the plane for 24 hours via Los Angeles to London, and winter. In contrast to the complete lack of jet-lag effects on the outbound trip, we felt pretty ragged after the return journey.