My battered rust bucket of a car (bless it) has taken me many miles this August, up and down motorways,to Stansted to pick up sister J and then to Yorkshire last week to Hebden Bridge. J had a house swap with her flat in Germany which was a lovely house but the approach to it was up rough steps hewn into rock with nothing to hold on to. It was hazardous for two elderly women with dodgy ankles and knees, but the view at the top was spectacular.
We went to Haworth over the moors as I have long been a devotee of the Brontes .What a disappointment. It was all gift shops, huge car park charges and general air of tackiness, We never managed a glimpe of the parsonage or the graveyard as we could not cope with walking on the cobblestones up the steep hill (no doubt we were weakened by our experience of the steps at Hebden Bridge)
Then back to the Island for a tribal gathering for Julia`s birthday at Dimbola at Freshwater Bay. This was the home of the photographer, Julia Margaret Cameron, friend of Tennyson, and now a sort of museum. Robyn Hitchcock put on a concert of his songs and there were pictures by Charlotte Johannes and R read Julia`s poems. I went in the sea twice but had to be rescued ignominously by Bev when I couldn`t find my feet on the stony bottom. and was floundering about, perhaps my sea bathing days are over.
I came home from the Island entirely by bus (except for the ferry) It took hours and hours, all through bungalow land in Southsea, Bognor, Littlehampton and Worthing. But I read my book and did the Guardian crossword and it was entirely FREE with my bus pass! But |I do not think I will try to do Lands End to John O Groats like that as I beleive someone has done. It was very bumpy.