Distance Walked: 11km (approx)
Woke at 5am. Surprise, surprise. Rash and itching gone but will take another antihistamine tablet just to be on the safe side. Skin a bit rough still but not nearly as bad as yesterday.
Forecast for Chipping Campden for today - light rain and a top of 14C. Tomorrow is much the same but a whole 1 degree warmer. Joy.
Had my first bad coffee of the trip. Bought a newspaper and sat in a coffee shop until the BM open since it was drizzling and didn't want to walk around in the rain. Have been pleasantly surprised by the food and drink so far. With the exception of this morning’s coffee it has all been perfectly edible/drinkable.
The BM packed again today but no sign of school groups. Perhaps Thursday is a special childrens day or some such. Saw the Assyrian exhibits and the Elgin marbles. Actually bothered to read all the signs for the marbles this time. They describe each figure on the frieze which showed a procession. Things like here the riders have bunched up, there a rider is looking over his shoulder at a commotion behind him. It was fabulous. You really got the sense of motion.
Bought myself a replica ancient Greek bracelet from the shop. The original was a solid gold band with snarling lions heads at each end, with a small gap to get your wrist through. Mine is gold plate over an elastic core. Still very beautiful.
Left the BM to head to Paddington with 1 1/2 hours to spare and needed just over an hour of that time. By the time I'd got to the Tube station, waited for a train, queued up to cash in my Oyster card, lugged my suitcase over to Paddington station proper, queued up to get more cash, then fought my way through the hordes at M&S to get some lunch I only had 20 minutes before my train was to depart.
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Well, I arrived in Chipping Campden. Not the 27 hour door-to-door marathon getting to London was but a mini-marathon in its own right. I'm so glad I can speak the local language, albeit with a funny accent.
I took the train from Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh. Just to tease the railway operator wouldn't tell you which platform your train was leaving from until about 15 minutes before the departure time. This lead to crowds of people gazing longingly at the information screens like some sort of bizarre religious rite. I should have taken a photo.
From Moreton-in-Marsh the plan was to take the local bus to Chipping Campden. A simple sounding plan. However, when I got to the station it wasn't obvious from where you caught the bus. I asked the station master but he said he wasn't a local and didn't know but did point me in the direction of the town centre. My instructions said the buses could be found outside the Corn Exchange. On a large traffic island in the middle of the town there was a large municipal looking building with a bus out front. Success I thought. However, these were just the municipal loos. Turns out the "Corn Exchange" is just one of the shops lining the high street, selling trinkets to tourists.
I managed to catch the correct bus but had to be asked to be told when we got to Chipping Campden as I had no way of telling one picturesque village from another and the English appear to be allergic to signs. The best bit of the bus journey was hurtling around the countryside in a full sized bus down narrow roads (just barely 2 cars wide) with lots of blind corners. Don't fancy doing any road walking on this trip. There are no shoulders. Saw lots of signs pointing to walking trails.
Once in Chipping Campden it should have been easy to find my B&B but that would make life too simple. My instructions said it was on Lower High Street but the allergy to signs includes street signs and my instructions lacked a village map. They did include the singularly useless piece of information that the B&B is next to Butty's. Why they thought it would be helpful to tell me that the place, whose location I don't know, is next to another place whose location is also a mystery I have no idea. If I did know the village well enough to know where this Butty's is then presumably I know it well enough to know where the B&B is too!
I wandered for a bit but didn't find the B&B. I did find the tourist information centre where I got directions and a map. Turns out the B&B was all of 100m from the bus stop but, of course, in the opposite
direction to the one I chose.
I haven't meet my hostess yet. There was no sign of any life when I got here. Instead, she had just left out the keys to the various rooms neatly labelled so you knew which one was yours. There was also a note asking when I wanted breakfast so I've left a note in return requesting it at 8am. I wonder if we'll ever meet or communicate entirely by note.
I'm not overly impressed with this B&B so far. While my room is vastly bigger than the one in London and much quieter (the London B&B was on a main street and a major bus route) it has no soap! I understand it is at the cheaper end of the range so no little bottles of various toiletries but soap is fairly fundamental. Also, while I packed little bottles of shower gel, hand lotion, body lotion and various other lotions I did not think to pack soap.
I took the train from Paddington to Moreton-in-Marsh. Just to tease the railway operator wouldn't tell you which platform your train was leaving from until about 15 minutes before the departure time. This lead to crowds of people gazing longingly at the information screens like some sort of bizarre religious rite. I should have taken a photo.
From Moreton-in-Marsh the plan was to take the local bus to Chipping Campden. A simple sounding plan. However, when I got to the station it wasn't obvious from where you caught the bus. I asked the station master but he said he wasn't a local and didn't know but did point me in the direction of the town centre. My instructions said the buses could be found outside the Corn Exchange. On a large traffic island in the middle of the town there was a large municipal looking building with a bus out front. Success I thought. However, these were just the municipal loos. Turns out the "Corn Exchange" is just one of the shops lining the high street, selling trinkets to tourists.
I managed to catch the correct bus but had to be asked to be told when we got to Chipping Campden as I had no way of telling one picturesque village from another and the English appear to be allergic to signs. The best bit of the bus journey was hurtling around the countryside in a full sized bus down narrow roads (just barely 2 cars wide) with lots of blind corners. Don't fancy doing any road walking on this trip. There are no shoulders. Saw lots of signs pointing to walking trails.
I wandered for a bit but didn't find the B&B. I did find the tourist information centre where I got directions and a map. Turns out the B&B was all of 100m from the bus stop but, of course, in the opposite
direction to the one I chose.
I haven't meet my hostess yet. There was no sign of any life when I got here. Instead, she had just left out the keys to the various rooms neatly labelled so you knew which one was yours. There was also a note asking when I wanted breakfast so I've left a note in return requesting it at 8am. I wonder if we'll ever meet or communicate entirely by note.
I'm not overly impressed with this B&B so far. While my room is vastly bigger than the one in London and much quieter (the London B&B was on a main street and a major bus route) it has no soap! I understand it is at the cheaper end of the range so no little bottles of various toiletries but soap is fairly fundamental. Also, while I packed little bottles of shower gel, hand lotion, body lotion and various other lotions I did not think to pack soap.
Had dinner at the Red Lion which was one of the recommended pubs. The beer was fine but the food just ordinary. Asked about the pie of the day and when told it was shephards pie made a joke about the amount of sheep in the area. Turns out my waiter was Welsh - the northern hemisphere equivalent of the Kiwis so he thought I was teasing him, so he teased back.
A man in the pub smiled at me and said hello, so I smiled vaguely back. Turns out he was the publican and the man who'd given me directions to this B&B. He claimed to be hurt to find he wasn't memorable with the ladies. I waved my beer glass in his direction and claimed it was my 10th pint so he shouldn't feel hurt. We had a nice chat. He's travelled a lot and likes Australia because it is so big. I said I liked here because there is so much to see close by. Just caught myself from say because it is so small.
Headed back to the B&B and asleep by 9pm.
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