Woodbarton House, Farringdon
The morning proved easy. I packed up, had breakfast and had an easy walk to Waterloo Station where I arrived an hour before my train’s scheduled departure. For an hour I sat on one of about three benches in the whole of Waterloo Station and conducted a bit of cultural anthropology, actually writing down notes for essays. Place of transit such as airports and train stations and, of course, Trafalgar Square provide some of the greatest sources of field data in the world.
My journey through the emerald realm of the West Country was serene, restful, and productive. The four-hour train journey enabled me to complete several essays that have been languishing for a couple of weeks. I brought the makings of a vast lunch consisting of the remaining food I had at the university in London, so was chomping much of the time, while writing. It is amazing how four hours felt like ten minutes.
I really like where I am now. In some respects it feels like my journey is just beginning. My world is now utterly different from the frenetic pace of London. I am in a grand old estate house in a tiny little village of about 500 people called Farringdon; a tranquil place from another millennium. There is absolute silence and comfortable cozy darkness outside the mullioned windows. My room is large and fitted with a couple of beds, several wingchairs, and nice antique mahogany furniture. I have a fine view out into a bucolic pastoral landscape. Parts of the beautiful parish church across the field may be 800 years old and the place is never locked up. I went and ‘collected’ it earlier in the afternoon.
Reunion with Tony and Gill was most satisfying after my solo time in the big city. Just as I wrote in my last essay, seeing a good friend on the station platform and getting a hug was really grand. The very best things in life are so simple. Tony and his wife Gillian live in the first floor of a grand Georgian-style estate house with fine gardens, about a quarter mile from my roost. Gillian made a fine English supper and brought out the very same cookie jar I had emptied six years ago. I nailed it again - reverting to undisciplined behaviors of childhood. Tony was an RAF pilot and attaché for the defense department for better than thirty years and he plied me with stories of the planes he flew for decades and of his postings in India, Australia, Ecuador, and Germany. This was really inspiring. He showed me a whole world most of us are oblivious to. Tony is also a techno-geek and is responsible for me now being wi-fi’d to the planet with a bit of plastic on the window. Tony is the one that showed me how to get land wired here seven years ago when such things were still a bit exotic.
As old world as this wonderful place is I am now decidedly hi-tech, able to connect to the web with absolute independence from land lines or hot spots. I have a little piece of plastic on the end of a wire that I can hang up on a window frame and it will allow me to tap into cell phone towers and blog and mail to my hearts content. It would seem I will be able to stay in real time communication even in remote places, even sitting on top of castle turrets.
Tomorrow we are going to the most exotic botanical garden in the world - the so-called Eden Project. Ancient clay pits have been reclaimed as botanical eco-systems under geodesic glass domes. This place has been so spectacularly successful as to have revitalized the derelict economy of Cornwall. We also plan a journey to another botanical paradise that is much like the reclaimed quarries in Victoria now known as Buchart Gardens.
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