Springtime in Toronto - Day Four

 

Photo: Marriott.com.cn

We didn't have to check out of the hotel until noon, but were were ready to roll at about 9am, in anticipation of the young 'uns coming up early. It was a good plan, except that they didn't show, and were both still in bed at 9am. We dawdled about and they eventually turned up at about 1030hrs. It was pouring with rain, too, so they were instructed not to go to Tim's for breakfast.

It was busy in the hotel's lobby, lots of people were checking out, but there were also a lot of people in for the Blue Jays' afternoon game at 3pm. We ordered the car, and waited.

We'd decided to drop Emma and Charlie off at Exhibition GO Transit station so that Charlie could get a last ride on the train before we went home. They were to catch the train to Aldershot, which is right beside Highway 403 and our route home, and I knew that there was a pickup area there where we could meet them. That was all fine in theory, but for a couple of slight issues. 

The Gardiner, closed. Photo: ctvnews.ca

Firstly, the Gardiner Expressway, the highway on stilts through the downtown core, was closed for the weekend. That much I knew, but what I didn't know was that the Exhibition Centre was hosting a massive volleyball tournament for school-age children and everywhere around the Centre was gridlocked. The road to the station was closed off, and it took us an age to creep around the exhibition halls to get close enough to drop them off for the station. Every one of the Centre's parking lots was full, and with the Gardiner closed, Lakeshore Boulevard was at a standstill.

We did drop them off, although not as close to the station as we'd have liked. They missed the train they were going for, but that worked for us because it took us for ever to break free of the traffic jams caused by the Gardiner and the volleyball. Indeed, our Satnav routed us on to Queens Street West, where we'd been the day before, and we crawled slowly westwards with the trams until we got to the part where the Gardiner wasn't closed, and then onto the QEW. The QEW was slow, but we made use of the HOV lane again, and arrived at Aldershot about twenty minutes before the kids. I have to say that I'm never a comfortable user of the HOV lanes in Toronto. People drive far too fast at the best of times, and given a "go faster" lane, the speed merchants want to go even faster, this despite the 100kph limit. I'm OK driving at speed, just not all that happy about being bullied into collecting a speeding ticket. We were OK this wet Saturday because the speed was generally around 110-120kph, not fast enough to catch the attention of the cops, but on other days, 130kph seems to be the minimum in the HOV lane, and I'm not collecting a fine and demerit points because the knob ends in Toronto think the roads are race tracks.

Photo: Google Maps and urbantoronto.ca

When they did arrive at Aldershot, we hit the 403 again and made for the rest area just outside Brantford, to fill up on our last junk food of the trip. I had a Tim Hortons Turkey Bacon Club Sandwich, which I think was missing the bacon (I'd finished it before I noticed). It didn't matter because it was nice as it was, and just right for brunch.

The rest of the trip home was uneventful, thankfully, and free of the rain that plagued Toronto. Travelling west on the 401 on a Saturday was pretty easy, the truck traffic was light and there were not too many people hoping to collect Stunt Driving charges, as there often is during the week. Charlie was pretty good until we insisted on a pee stop at Dutton, and he didn't want to go, but other than that he'd been in excellent fettle for the entire trip.

Back home it was unpacking time, a horrible chore, but it has to be done. I put off firing up the washing machine, because laundry can always wait for another day.

The trip, then, was quite successful. Emma saw Dave. Charlie travelled the TTC and GO, and we grown-ups were able to see Toronto's harbourfront for the first time. I was a bit shocked as to how much everything costs in the big city, and while it wasn't that we didn't have the money, I did resent shelling out such vast sums of cash for stuff that was never going to be value for money.

I was reminded on the trip that Toronto is just a massive collection of cars and roads, with traffic lights at every corner of every block, and a long wait before it's safe for pedestrians to cross the road. With the Presto Card, fares of the TTC and Go Transit were quite reasonable, but those transit systems are quite limited, as we found out trying to get to Old Toronto. Walking's OK but the street crossings, the noise, and the pollution make it less than attractive. I suppose we could have used taxis, there were plenty about, but that would have been yet another layer of cost.

The hotel was OK, it's location was excellent, but the cost not so good. I know I sound like a grumpy old man, but when the cost of a weekend in Toronto far outstrips what you'd pay in New York (and yes, we could drive there), it kind of takes the gloss off things.

Anyway, that's us done with travelling for a while, at least until this oil crisis thing is sorted. Until then, it's back to gardening, assuming that the rain lets up.

Springtime in Toronto - Day Three

 

Photo: ubdining.com

We're getting into a routine. The young 'uns went off to Tim Hortons for breakfast goodies while we did the bathroom thing, and we were set to hit the tourist hotspots quite early.

Our first stop was the CN Tower, just a few yards away from our room, but quite a few yards further from the door of the hotel, given the walk back to the elevators from our room. Outside, as we wandered along the edge of the Rogers Centre, some Blue Jays fans were already gathering for the day's game against the Guardians, bags strategically placed by one of the entry gates to the stadium. This was before 1100hrs, and the game kicked off, or batted off, or whatever, at 1900hrs. That's some devotion. I just looked up which city the Guardians represent and it's Cleveland, Ohio, so almost a local derby.

The CN Tower security gate wasn't too busy, nor was the ticket office, and we wangled a 15% discount on the production of a Metrolinx Presto card, that is the travel ticket for the TTC and GO Transit. It still cost an arm and a leg, though, and I can't help thinking that it's a bit of a rip-off, as are most of the attractions in downtown Toronto.

The queue for the lifts meandered around a sort of an exhibition, the tower celebrates it's fiftieth anniversary this year, but it didn't take long before we were standing in the glass-sided, partially glass-floored elevator and whizzing up the tower at 10-15mph. The young woman operating the lift gave us some statistics in a curious sing-song voice as we rose, but when asked questions, she answered in a perfectly ordinary voice, so perhaps her sing-song thing helps her to remember her lines.

At the main observation deck it was fairly busy, although it wasn't too bad. It's been smartened up a fair bit since DW and I were last here, probably twenty years ago now. A lot of the windows were now floor-to-ceiling, and leaned out a bit, so by pressing myself against the glass, I could look straight down and see the sloping window of our hotel room. The views are, of course, wonderful. Across Lake Ontario to Upstate New York, all of the lake's north shore from Hamilton in the west to Oshawa in the east, and the whole elongated conurbation that is Toronto. There are a lot more high-rise condominium towers clustered around the downtown core now, and where once you could see the Scotiabank Arena (formerly the Air Canada Arena) quite clearly, now it's mostly hidden by the new buildings.

There was, of course, an overpriced snack bar up there (there's a fancy restaurant in the evenings), and there was continual piped music, which was annoying its sheer presence, but also because the people that run the Tower would think it was necessary, especially given the ambient noise created by people talking. Having sated ourselves on the view, we moved down a stage to the area where there are glass panels in the floor. I was pleased, and proud, that Emma, Charlie, and DW, were happy to be joining me on the glass, three-hundred meters up. As I've aged, I have become far more aware of heights, and standing on the main observation deck I could feel the muscles in my legs tense, quite involuntarily, as I went to the windows. Intellectually I know that it's perfectly safe, but my body's built-in systems were telling me otherwise. Curiously, standing on the glass floor didn't faze me, nor everyone else, apparently.

Something else tweaked my old-age sensibilities, and I've noticed this in other places; cell phone cameras are king. Everywhere people were posing for pictures, and sometimes taking up quite large public spaces for long periods just to get that perfect shot. I'm always minded to walk through the space they've commandeered, but DW wouldn't be happy if I did it just to make a point.

As we went back down again, we were dumped into the inevitable gift shop and snack bar, and the place to pick up your "Commemorative Photo" that we'd been obliged to pose for as we were waiting in line to go up the Tower. I don't know why they still do this (see the moan about cell phone cameras above), or why people part with large sums of money for the printed product. But, it's all about milking the tourists.

CN Tower Giftshop Photo: Dreamstime.com

From the CN Tower, we went back to the hotel to drop off some stuff, then headed out to a vegan bakery at Queen West and Brock. We walked over to the streetcar stop at Spadina and Front West and waited on the little island in the middle of the traffic. Traffic is what Toronto is all about, but I'll come back to that in another blog. The streetcar duly arrived and we rattled along to Queen West, then changed to the 501 line that goes east-west along Queen Street. We had to wait a bit because we'd just missed one, and it was a wee bit nippy stood out in the traffic. There are little wind breaks on these streetcar platforms, but no seats, so it was a chilly twelve minutes stood waiting. The 501, at least on this part of its run, didn't have a dedicated running area, but shared the road with the traffic. Given that both sides of the road were lined with parked cars, it meant that the moving traffic was running on the tracks, so there was little speed advantage as the streetcar was stuck in traffic with the cars. That said, it has to be better than a diesel powered bus; much bigger, of course, and zero direct emissions. 

Spadina and Front West - Photo: Google StreetView

It was an interesting run out to the west, away from the downtown core. Queen Street was lined with hundreds of independent shops and eating places, so many of them reflecting the local racial makeup of the area. Tibetan and Nepalese seemed to be the dominant flavours, but there was a real mix. At Brock Avenue we descended from the streetcar and walked the few yards to the bakery, the "Vegan Danish Bakery on Queen". The sign above the door looked like the design from one of those tins of Danish biscuits you can buy at Christmas.

The bakery (right) and the streetcar tracks - Photo: Google StreetView

It is a bakery, but it's also a small restaurant, with the tiniest little booths in the long, narrow shop. The array of food on offer was wonderful and I had a Breakfast Sandwich, some very good coffee, and a cherry turnover pastry. I don't think it was particularly cheap, but the food was good, and all vegan of course. With the predominance of chain coffee shops these days, it's not always easy to find good European pastries, but these were good, very good. 

Our next stop of was Little Canada, a scaled down set of models of places in Canada located in a building at Young and Dundas, back in the downtown area. As ever, we just missed a streetcar and the wait for the next one was cold again. We went past Spadina this time and carried on to University, and Osgoode Subway station. We didn't need to use the subway really, but Charlie was keen so we jumped on the U-shaped line that took us down to Union again, then back up to Dundas, or rather Toronto Metropolitan University, better known as TMU. Little Canada is situated in the same building as the subway station, so it was up one set of escalators, and down another, to get there, all without having to go outside.

Photo: TTC.ca

What can I say about Little Canada? It's a series of highly detailed models of places in Canada, the first one being Niagara Falls. It's all built around HO scale railways, but it's not about the trains, it's about recreating all the buildings, in miniature, but to the same scale as a standard train layout. The trains all move, obviously, and there are road vehicles moving about, all lit I might add, and even the water features look real (indeed, the Bay of Fundy had been recreated with actual water, the tide going in and out - the tidal reach in the real Bay is one of its features). The lights in the models were great, and the ambient lighting changed every ten minutes or so from day time to night time. Other models included Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax NS, St John's NL, Vancouver BC and Victoria BC. There was a model of the Northern Territories in a special cold room, and they're working on a Prairie model now. It was fascinating, for adults and children alike. Me being me I was keen to look into one of the control rooms where all the lights, trains and road vehicles are managed from, and I was particularly taken with the little vehicle loop where road vehicles left the model, went round a loop and then paused to build a gap between their movements as they set out on the model again. We paid around $35 for an adult ticket and I reckon that was about the best value attraction we visited. 

Little Canada's Niagara Falls and Clifton Hill

Supper was in the subterranean food court at Union station again, before we joined the massed ranks of Blue Jays fans as they headed to the Rogers Centre for their game with the Cleveland Guardians, along the slightly grandly named Skywalk, from the station. The evening was spent doing last night stuff like packing, in readiness for our departure on Saturday, which was probably best given the masses of people milling around the hotel while the Blue Jays slumped to defeat. Ah, but they play again tomorrow.

Sad Blue Jays fans - Photo: Reuters and dailymail.co.uk

Springtime in Toronto - Day Two

 A good night's sleep was had, to be sure, the blinds on the huge windows in this hotel room are quite effective. DW was up and about before me, which is unusual, but I realised why when Emma and Charlie arrived in our room at about eight-thirty, which was obviously far too early.

We despatched the young 'uns to Tim Hortons to get some breakfast while I set to with my ablutions, but they were back quickly, Charlie desperate to get to the Old Spaghetti Factory restaurant. That it wasn't open until lunch time made no difference. The thing was that Charlie had seen a video of one of his YouTube people, Catie Claessens, filming a piece from within the restaurant, and he was very keen to go as a result. Catie isn't an "influencer", but an actor who does educational videos for pre-schoolers, and she's quite talented; Charlie likes her.

The Museum of Illusions was also on the list of things to do, and as we were so early we decided to go there first. Both the Spaghetti place, and the museum, were in a part of town known Old Toronto, and its so old that it's devoid of streetcar and subway lines. We could have walked the whole way, it wasn't too far, but we opted to go down to the lake first, then jump on a streetcar for a short run to Union Station, before walking the last few blocks. The lake was nice, and we watched an aircraft land at Billy Bishop airport, about which I was far more excited than anyone else.

The streetcar ride was short, but fun as it dipped below street level and took some seriously sharp turns to get to Union. Union station is Toronto's main transit hub and is built on many levels. Up stairs, down stairs, through barriers and under signs, I guess it's OK if you know where you're going, but very confusing when you don't. DW went to go through a barrier only to find that it wasn't a barrier at all, just a fixed panel, such was the confusion. But we emerged into the busy-ness that is Front Street, eventually, and were rewarded with a great view of the imposing station building.

We set of on foot towards the museum, amid Toronto's choking traffic. Like most North American cities, Toronto is arranged on a grid, so at every block there were traffic lights and a wait to cross the street, and the traffic was just never ending. Most of my city experience recently has been in London, and while it's busy there, you don't seem to be constantly crossing major thoroughfares all the time. Mind you, Toronto doesn't have a congestion charge, and public transit is basic in comparison to London, so that may be a park of the issue. There are parking garages everywhere, too, so vehicular traffic is positively encouraged, which seems a bit behind the curve in these energy conscious days. Nothing is going to change soon, though, because the current Provincial administration is wedded to private car use above all else.

We dropped the kids at the museum and made our way across the road to St Lawrence Market, a huge brick-built edifice that houses an indoor market. We hadn't even arrived at the front door when Emma called to say that the museum couldn't offer them a ticket until 1140, so she and Charlie joined us in our exploration of the market.

What can you say about St Lawrence Market? It's full of vendors selling (mostly) food, some prepared and ready to eat, some not, and representing just about every country's cuisine you could think of. It smelled divine, too, which had me salivating from the minute we entered. The kids settled on some fresh fruit and veggie juice, and we sat in the basement area soaking up the atmosphere, watching the world moving around us. If you ever doubted that Toronto is a multi-cultural city, St Lawrence Market will put you right. When the kids went off to the museum, DW and I toured around. We might have bought lunch there, the choice was mind-boggling, but the Old Spaghetti Factory beckoned.

Picture: Google StreetView 2023

The restaurant was a short walk from the market and we arrived a little after noon. This restaurant is stuffed full of stained glass, fairground parafernalia, posters for improbable circus acts, and the like. It's a big place, but we were shepherded to the rear of the place and seated with all the other patrons, and next to a noisy group. I understand why restaurants do that, but it's frustrating to be shoe-horned into one corner when you're facing a sea of empty tables. We did ascertain from watching Catie's video on DW's phone that Charlie was sat in the exact seat that Catie had occupied, so he was mightily chuffed about that.

The food was OK, not exceptional, and in my opinion was too expensive. That said, downtown Toronto prices for anything are through the roof, so maybe it wasn't so bad given the location. The service was very good, so good in fact that the server knew instantly that the pasta noodles in the restaurant, their staple dish, were not suitable for vegan, which kind of put a damper on things. The gluten-free pasta was the substitute, but in these days of better food understanding, restaurant franchises like this surely should work to make their basic dish appealing to a wider audience; it's not hard to leave the egg out of pasta, after all. You'll guess that I was a wee bit underwhelmed by the Old Spaghetti Factory, but at least Charlie enjoyed it.

Picture: Google StreetView 2021

Then we made our way slowly back to the hotel, by way of Union Station and the Streetcars. In the middle of the day the streetcar service is a little sparse and we ended up waiting on a busy platform for the best part of twenty minutes, which wasn't great considering we could have used either of the two lines that platform served. That is a great failing of Toronto's transit in that it's built for commuters and pays little heed to people moving around during the day who haven't driven into the city. Walking back up from the harbour area, you have to go under the Gardiner Expressway, which is a multiple lane highway running high above the ground on crumbling concrete supports. There's a busy road beneath it, too, so it's noisy and smelly under there and a pain in the bum crossing the area. 

Back at the hotel, we crashed out for an hour or so, then did our grandparent duty by looking after Charlie while Emma prepped for her Dave concert later in the evening. I should point out that I have no idea who Dave is, except that he's an English rapper and very popular with young people.

Picture: Google StreetView 2012

We all accompanied Emma on the streetcar out to Exhibition Place and the concert venue. The tram was busy with other young types heading to the concert, thus proving my point about Dave being popular. I was pleased that we went on the streetcar, we could have taken the GO train, but I quite enjoyed it rattling along up to Exhibition Loop. There were many, many, more young types outside the venue, quite a few dressed in football shirts, Dave himself being a bit of a footy fan. While were there we saw the ongoing expansion work at the BMO Field, home of Toronto FC, and host to a game or two in the upcoming World Cup. I have to say that some of the high-rise seating looked more than a little rickety, so it's just as well that I decided to boycott all FIFA events this year, not that I could have afforded a ticket anyway

Having safely dropped Emma off, DW, Charlie, and I made our way to the GO station for a short ride on the GO Transit system. Exhibition Station is being rebuilt and there was a distinct lack of signage or information screens, but we found our way to the correct platform and a train heading west. Even at 1930hrs, it was busy on the train with people heading home from work, but we found a seat and Charlie sat mesmerised as the train slid out of the station. We were only going to Mimico, the next stop, but managed to get into conversation with a young woman who was heading home from work, which was nice. In London, it would have been stony silence.

Photo credit: Unknown

At Mimico, we alighted from the train, went to the station proper so Charlie could have a toilet break, and I fell into conversation with a GO employee who was telling us that it might be crazy in Toronto because the Raptors (Basketball) were playing at home. The conversation quickly moved onto the BMO Field, FIFA, and the man's dislike of all things related to the World Cup. He was of Greek extraction (he offered that information, I didn't ask), so knew a bit about footy, but his Greek volubility certainly came to the fore and I had a job getting away from him. 

We were going to head back into Union Station on the next eastbound train, and didn't have to wait too long for it to arrive, despite the fact that the GO app was showing the train as running 20 minutes late. Of course this train wasn't busy at all, so we sat upstairs on the top deck and watched Toronto approach as we moved smoothly eastwards. I thought the service was going to terminate at Union, but no, it was going on to Oshawa under the guise of the Lakeshore East line. I only mention that because there was a stack of people waiting to get on when we arrived at the station and I could work out why.

Photo: Toronto.com

At Union, at 2030hrs, it was still really busy, and as we made our way to the food court for a snack, we were dodging lots of fast moving people. Half of the food court's outlets were closed, but there was still a crush down there, especially around the old standards, Tim Hortons and McDonalds. A grease-burger and stick fries later, we were walking the "Skywalk" back to the hotel. The name Skywalk is a wee bit grand, as all it is is a (mostly) covered walkway from the Station to the CN Tower. Not that we weren't grateful of course, as it had escalators to gain height, and no roads to cross.

Back in the hotel, DW prepped Charlie for bed and had him lie first on the big couch in our room, then on the bed. He did eventually crash out and slept without a pause for the next couple of hours. Meanwhile, I was called into action, to drive over to the concert venue to pick Emma up. It wasn't very late, maybe 2230hrs, which I was grateful for. DW called down to the front desk to have someone bring our car around, and ten minutes later I was launching myself into some seriously stupid downtown traffic, given the late hour. It was mayhem around the concert venue of course, but apart from a little misunderstanding about the rendezvous point, the Dave-struck child was in the car and we were heading back to the hotel. Quite what so many people were doing driving at 2300hrs in Toronto on a Thursday evening I shall never know.

Photo: Driving.ca

Charlie was roused, carried back to his room by his tired but happy mother, and we were finally left to turn in ourselves. A long day, for sure, but everything we planned came to pass, even if it wasn't in the original order. Oh, and I had 18,500 steps on my fitness app. Can't be bad.

Springtime in Toronto - Day One

 Day one is chaos.

We have a three night, four day run up to Toronto, built around the one young woman's desire to see someone called Dave, in concert. We didn't need to do three nights, but while we're up there, we thought we'd make a trip of it, young grandson and all. We're almost ready to go, and the little one is beyond excited, his mother is stressing out, and DW has a cold to end all colds, hence the chaos.

To add insult to injury, I've just realised that the hotel, the Town Centre Marriot, is costing us $850 a night after sales and room taxes, but not the $50 a day parking. It had better be damned good hotel!

Indeed, we've been looking around at things to do and places to eat and have come to the conclusion that Toronto is not a cheap destination. If you're hankering for steak and eggs for breakfast in the hotel's restaurant, it'll set you back $40, and that's before tax and the usual, almost mandatory tip. Even an out-of-hotel restaurant wants around $30 for breakfast, which is double what we'd pay at a restaurant at home. Four of us to visit Casa Loma, a kind of stately home in downtown Toronto, is just short of $200, as is a trip the aquarium. I think we can get three of us up the CN tower for $120, but only if we go late in the day. I have no idea why Toronto needs to be so expensive, but it outstrips New York for expensiveness, and by quite some margin. It's not that we can't afford it, but it feels like a rip-off. Still, we're committed.

The journey starts in about thirty minutes, so I will pick this up when we're safely ensconced in the hotel, but I needed to get that off my chest first.

As promised, here we are, in the Marriot City Centre, Toronto. It's a modern hotel glued onto the back of the Rogers Centre, the home of the Toronto Blue Jays (Major League Baseball). Some of the rooms here have windows that look into the stadium, but those were not only sold out, but were considerably more expensive, so we're looking north, over the railway line just outside Union Station. If you like Go (commuter) trains, or UP (Airport) trains, it's brilliant.

The run up here was OK, surprisingly not too scary with the traffic. We stopped at the halfway mark at Woodstock OnRoute service centre and bought "New York Fries", just chips, but quite nice all the same. I had a rare success with Starbucks where there was no line, coffee was ordered and delivered in about thirty seconds, and with a big smile. Why can't they all be like that?

The rest of the trip into the big city was as expected. Very busy on Highway 403, then along the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), past Burlington, Missausuga, and the rest, right up to the Gardiner Expressway. The QEW had a High Occupancy Lane (HOV) so were were able to skim past the slow moving traffic in the regular lanes. The Gardiner doesn't have the HOV lane, but it was moving, and moving really right up until we left the main road and made a left onto Spadina. That was a bit sticky, but it was only a short drive up the hill to the hotel, so no real issue.

At the hotel we were met with some assistance, a nice man who whisked the car away to be parked somewhere, where I do not know. It was busy in the hotel lobby with lots of business types in suits, but the check-in went easily, although not quite with the grace of the check-in clerk at London Heathrow's Sofitel early this year.

We had two rooms, and were offered an apology that they couldn't get them closer together; Emma and Charlie were on the third floor, we were on the fourth. The elevators are operated by means of your room key and will only give access to the floor that your room's on, so being split across two floors meant that we had to exchange spare keys. 

Emma's room is standard downtown style, smallish but comfortable. Ours, albeit at the end of a very long corridor, was deemed a "Suite", because it has a sitting room. Our windows go from floor to ceiling and face west, but thankfully are equipped with electrically operated blinds, shielding us this afternoon from the setting sun.

It's an OK room, clean and perhaps a little tired, but it is comfortable. It's not worth $850 a night, but we are right in the centre of downtown Toronto, so I guess we're paying for location as much as anything. We have a couple of bottles of Spring Water, free and for nothing, but there are two bigger bottles that they want us to part with $3 should we consume one. That strikes me a quite chintzy given the cost of the room. 

Having settled, briefly, we made our way out into the downtown core to get some food. We have used a little pizza place just down the street when in the big city, and we used it again today. $15 for a small pizza isn't too bad given the location, which I guess is why we use it. The young 'uns went back to the hotel afterwards, while DW and I wandered down to the harbourfront and soaked up a few late afternoon rays as we walked the boardwalk and admired the tranquil lake. We've been to Toronto a few times, and that is the first time I have been down to the waterfront, and it was well worth the effort today.

Charlie was in bed in good time tonight, so DW and I have a peaceful evening ahead. She's still feeling very rough, so that's a good thing. We have the day mapped out tomorrow, so lets hope that the weather holds and the missus starts feeling a bit better.

Blighty Bound - A Conclusion

To conclude the blog posts for our England trip, I thought I'd just do a little summary.

We allowed far too much time for our drive up the 401 to the airport, although I wouldn't be saying that if we'd been significantly held up. 

We experienced the magic of the Valet service at Park N Fly again, so good and yet relatively well priced, at least in comparison to parking at a UK airport.

Flying from Toronto to London and back with British Airways was pretty good. Flights were on time, seats were good, as were the cabin crew. The return flight upgrade was a nice bonus, I guess that's what can happen on a Saturday during the day when the expensive seats are not in demand by businesses. BA continues to be very competitive on price, and they fly in to Heathrow's Terminal 5, the best of the bunch by a long way, if any airport terminal can be considered the best of anything. Terminal 5 is also the home of SIXT car rental, the only reasonably priced car hire company at the airport that doesn't require you to clamber aboard a minibus to get to their lot. 

This is the third time we've used SIXT, and they were as good as ever. They did a brilliant upsell job on us, doubling the cost of the rental, but the car was very nice. The people that work there are second to none, personable and attentive and worth the money in my view.

Returning the car to SIXT was also a breeze, and given that it was at the Heathrow Sofitel hotel, our bed for our last night in England, it was all wonderfully convenient. The Sofitel isn't cheap, but the rooms are comfortable (another upgrade), and it suited us to be virtually in the airport terminal ready for our morning flight.

The accommodation we'd booked for the three weeks was one of the best we've rented. A barn conversion on a farm (full of racehorses, the farm not the cottage), it was well appointed and very comfortable. The heating was oil-fired and the owners kept a fairly tight reign on it so renters don't splurge, and given that the price of heating oil doubled overnight as we arrived, we were OK with the way things were handled. It was chilly in the cottage sometimes, but there was a super wood burner, a bucket of logs, and backup electric heater, which would have been way cheaper to use than oil.

We had a list of things we wanted to do, and they were all achieved, bar perhaps visiting the town of Ashburton, but that was OK because we drove past it most days, and that counts. We had fish and chips, we had pasties (some quite exquisite), and the occasional pub meal. Offerings for the vegan were patchy, not as good as in previous visits, but still streets ahead of Ontario

We also did the family tree things we'd intended to by visiting Weston Mill Cemetery in Plymouth, as well as seeing Truro, South Brent, Appledore, Bideford, Bishops Lydeard, and Bridport. There was nothing very specific about any of it, bar eyeballing a few houses mentioned in census records, but it was something special to tread the same streets, go through the same doorways, and see the same sights, as our distant relatives did.

The extravagant car, the Volvo XC-60 Hybrid, was OK, although it did break one of my own rules in that it was a bit big for barrelling around the narrow lanes of rural Devon. I know people drive bigger vehicles around those tiny roads, but it would have been a wee bit easier with a car that was a bit narrower. Still, it was comfortable.

I didn't get out to walk as much as I should have, and I'll blame the weather and the hectic schedule. When I did get out, I was blown away by the greenness of everything. To understand that, you have to know that the interior of Canada stays stubbornly grey and brown until at least the end of March, so that vivid green (and red) in Devon was quite the shock.

Of course we achieved our primary aim, and that was to visit family. I don't write much about them, obviously, but I will say that it was wonderful to be in their company again, albeit only for a few weeks.

This is a link to some photos.

Blighty Bound - Passports

 

One of the issues around this trip has been passports.

We found out just a few weeks ago that British nationals who hold dual nationality with another country have to present a British passport, or an expensive alternative certificate, to gain entry to the country. We're dual nationals, holding both British and Canadian passports, but since Brexit we've travelled on our Canadian documents. Indeed, for last year's trip we even paid for an ETA, an advance authorisation that all Canadians and most other nationalities, require to visit the UK, even though we obviously have the right of abode in Britain.

The rules have changed to such an extent that we now have to present our British passports just to board the aircraft in Toronto.

Because we both have passports, we had all the correct documentation, although I did tweak the airline booking to show our British passport details rather than our default Canadian information for the outward flight from Toronto to London. I do that because airlines are required to log passenger manifests and passport details with the destination airport, and immigration authorities, under the Advanced Passenger Information System (APIS). This allows some measure of pre-screening, and it's a check for residency status; you are expected when you arrive, too. Because of APIS, when we arrived at Heathrow, we were able to use the automatic border gates without issue.

For the return trip, I went into the airline's online booking pages and switched our British passport details for our Canadian passport details to allow APIS to make the Canadian authorities aware of our status before we arrived home. Like at Heathrow, we used the automatic border system at Toronto without any problems.

I'm told that this change for British dual nationals just brings the UK into line with other countries. I've never travelled as a dual national without both passports, and as a dual national I've always presented a Canadian passport to enter Canada, so perhaps that correct. It makes sense, I suppose, for us to travel to London on one passport, and back to Toronto on another. If anyone keeps track of people leaving and entering a country, then dual nationals will always show up as only ever making one-way trips, but then that's a quirk of their systems.

We could actually travel to London on our Canadian passports, and just present a British passport as well when getting on the aircraft, and again when going through the UK border; you only have to prove right of abode after all. However, travelling out on one and back on the other seems to be the path of least resistance, assuming that you have the means of changing your passport details in your airline's booking system. I'd imagine that if you don't, then a phone call would probably do the trick.

The effect of the rule change is hardest for dual nationals who have let their original UK passports expire, and have never renewed. Now they are going to have to obtain and maintain both passports if they wish to travel to their country of origin. It may be bringing the UK into line with other countries, but it's still a backwards step for many Canadians who were born in Britain.

Blighy Bound - Mobiles and Cells, a tale of hand-held devices

 

Before we set off on this trip, we'd been informed that the usual CDN$18 a day charge, each, to use our Canadian phones in the UK had been subsumed into a new Travel Plan, and that for the much smaller sum of CDN$80 (+ tax) we could use our phones with our normal calling and data plan, for a full 30 days. That was all fine and dandy, and not really too different from the myriad e-SIMS you can buy for travel. As we were going need those Canadian numbers while away, we signed up immediately.

But there are times in the UK that you need a UK phone number, for things like store loyalty cards (with their attendant store discounts) and parking apps. We had toyed with buying a cheap smartphone with a Pay As You Go (PAYG) SIM or e-SIM, but a quick look in our desk drawers revealed a perfectly good, unlocked Huawei smartphone that would take a physical SIM card. I had no way of testing a SIM card in it because all our SIMs are e-SIMS, but I did a factory reset on the device and loaded up everything I thought I'd need, then packed it away for travel.

There are a number of very competitive resellers of airtime in the UK, and perhaps none so cheap as retail giant, Tesco. For GBP10, less than CDN$20, I could get a 30-day physical SIM that allowed unlimited text and calling within the UK, and 10Gb of data. Most important of all, it gave me a UK mobile number.

It was quite exciting to pop the SIM in the old phone and have it come to life again. I had to activate the GBP10 airtime, but then set about registering for the Tesco loyalty card, and downloading the app to operate it. Yes, I had a few issues doing that, but I didn't realise how poor the phone signal was in the Tesco Café, and when I went outside, suddenly all the correct e-mails and access codes appeared.

I've subsequently loaded the Sainsbury's loyalty card, the Marks and Spencer loyalty card, and four parking apps, all of which work seamlessly once they they have access to that UK phone number. All of this also seamlessly linked to my Google account and Google Pay, which to me is pure science fiction.

I have also handed the phone number out so that we can be contacted without people having to call an overseas number, which is old hat I know, but it's still a phone.

Then there was the ever so small point that where we stayed, there was no cell phone signal. The cottage's Wi-Fi covered most things, but not all, so when anyone called or texted the UK number, we couldn't receive the message. 

Now back in Canada, I wanted to keep the Tesco Mobile number active, and to make use of their cheapest calling and data plan. To do that I had to give them my UK debit card number, which I was happy to do, only their system works on the cardholder's address and my UK account is registered with my Canadian address. Unfortunately the computer (or App) said no. Applying my immense brain to the problem, I was struggling a bit, until I found an online Tesco Mobile Voucher reseller who accepted PayPal. I bought a voucher online, feeling a wee bit like it may have been a scam, but no, said voucher arrived by e-mail, I entered it into the Tesco Mobile app and Bingo! One topped up account. I had to pay a $4 service charge, but my GBP20 top up will last four months, so I'm OK with that. I could top up with a larger amount and it would still only be a $4 service charge, so maybe I'll do that next time.

To keep the number active, all I have to do is use it occasionally. Texting it from my Canadian phone occasionally will work, and won't dent the Tesco Mobile top up balance. Top bananas.

If push came to shove, though, I could always get a new SIM for our next visit, They're as cheap as chips. But if I was forced to do that then I'd have to load all those friggin' apps again. Nope, I think this will work.

Blighty Bound - The Rental Car

 

Ah yes, the Volvo. Firstly, it cost us a fortune, and I think we were both culpable in being too swiftly talked into a bigger car than the one we'd ordered. Ultimately it doesn't matter, though, because while it dented the budget, it didn't blow it up. It's a very nice car, too, but perhaps a bit of an extravagance.

The XC-60 is quite a big SUV, even though by North American standards it's officially "Mid-range". In the car parks of Devon it stands out by its height and its length, if not its width. It's very high off the ground, too, so much so that when DW swung her legs around to get out, her feet were still a few inches from the ground. Apparently, you can depress the suspension to lower it a bit, but we never did find out how to do it The silly thing is that it's certainly no bigger than our car at home, the Toyota Sienna minivan, but it certainly feels it.

The car is also a hybrid, that is it has batteries and an electric motor to drive the thing along, as well as a standard internal combustion (IC) engine. It took me a while to work out how best to use the electric power, because you could force it to use the batteries, or the IC, or let the thing decide for itself. Obviously leaving it on IC would mean that you're carrying a pile of heavy batteries around for no reason, and that uses extra fuel. You could force it to run on electric power, but its range was only about 40 miles, and give it any type of hill and that was halved almost instantly. No, the best thing was to leave it on "Auto" and see what happened. Barrelling along the motorway at 70mph was obviously what the IC was for, but get stuck in the traffic and it'd shut the IC down and roll gently on the batteries. This was a "Plug In" hybrid, so you could start the day on fully charged up batteries and for short commutes stay on batteries, but for general driving, the Auto function seemed the best way forward, especially as I had nowhere to plug the thing into.

There was a fuel (gas) usage counter and that said 35mpg, but I think that only counted the miles while under IC power because it was doing better than 35mpg when the batteries took over occasionally. Anyway, I fuelled up four times over the 2000 miles I drove, which was OK for such a heavy car.

The interior of the car was too black for my liking, but that's the modern way. The driver and passenger seat are adjustable in about a million variations, and there were four bum-warmers (seat heaters). The cameras that spring to life when you're reversing, or getting close to something in a car park, are quite impressive, and the range of goodies available though the big LED screen seems endless, although most of those couldn't possibly be safely accessed while driving. The heating controls alone had a billion variations and there's no way you can drive and sort that lot out at the same time, which is why my co-pilot did most of the screen work.

The navigation system uses Google Maps, which is hands down the best, and cheapest, system on the market; type in "Bigbury Mint" without an address and it knew just how to get you there. Even Google Maps has its limitations of course, and you have to treat it with a bit of scepticism, but overall I like it. There has to be some kind of subscription for that, though, because it uses mobile/cell phone towers for it's constant updating, and that's not free. The school buses I drove had the same system, and that definitely wasn't free.

I wasn't keen on the interior décor, it seems a bit too eclectic up front, and there are some odd limitations that we discovered. I said earlier that the switch gear doesn't seem intuitive, at least not to a non-Volvo driver, but when I tried to use the mirror heaters to dry off the water that had collected on the mirrors themselves, the heaters would not work independently of the entire defrosting system. To dry the mirrors, the interior of the car had to be blasted with hot air. That seems like an omission to me.

The ultimate question of course is, would I buy a hybrid XC-60? The short answer is no. Actually, the long answer is no as well, especially as the top of the range model in Canada retails at around CDN$95,000. But, at least I've quickly learned the limitations of hybrid cars, so maybe this has been a meaningful lesson for me; go full EV or not at all.

Blighty Bound - Day Twenty-Four, Homeward Bound

 

We actually did leave the hotel about fifteen minutes ahead of schedule, and that proved to be a good thing, given how things panned out. For a start, the walk to the Departures Hall seemed much longer when hauling all the bags than it did without, and the three lifts we had to use during the walk seemed painful. 

We needed to print our boarding cards, which was the simplest part of the process, and as the slips of paper were produced from the machine, DW noticed that we'd been upgraded again, which pleased us very much. Flying on a Saturday, flying during the day, being a BA Club member, and having bought premium economy seats, all contributed I think. 

The line up to drop the bags was glacial, though, we were in the wrong line after the upgrade of course, and time was ticking. The automated bag drops were not working, I'd guess thanks to heightened security and as if to prove my point, a large policeman with a large gun came and stood close by, followed by a dog, its handler, and another armed policeman. All the bags were duly sniffed, which I suppose is comforting, although it's unusual to see armed police in the UK.

Back in the line, the people three ahead of us were having long discussions with the agent at the desk, mobile phones were being flashed around, and they took an age to be serviced. The man in front also took an age with his one bag, because it was overweight and he needed to pay some extra money. He was a youngish man with a long black coat, and long black hair held in a beautifully coiffured pony tail. He looked like he was travelling on business, and as it turned out, he was. He put his company's gold credit card in the payment machine, but it wanted a PIN, and he didn't have one. Then he had to fish his phone out and pay using his personal card, which was on his phone. That took a few goes, too, but he got there eventually. Finally it was our turn. The agent was very chatty, which I suspect was part of the reason the line was so slow I suspect. She shredded our paper boarding cards, gave us new card versions, then gave us directions to the BA Galleria Lounge, which our upgrade gave us access to without additional cost; it looked like we could get breakfast if we could get there in time.

But first, Security.

I never have an issue with security, they do an essential job getting me to take my shoes off, but even being allowed through the "Fast Track" channel, things didn't go well. I forgot to take my belt off (metal buckle), then to take my wallet and phone out of my pockets, and when I finally remembered, I distributed all of that stuff through our three plastic trays without giving much thought to it. I didn't get stopped by the body scan for once, but when our trays came through, the one full of model trains was pushed into secondary screening. We'd thought it might be, but what I didn't realise was that I'd put my belt and passport in that tray, and hadn't realised it. I went into major panic when I couldn't find my passport, and it wasn't helped by the screening agent covering up said passport as she was checking the bag. The people doing the screening were a wee bit surprised at the contents of the bag, they said they thought to looked like parts of musical instruments when it was scanned. Probes were run through the partially unpacked bag, but of course all they found was model trains. When the bag was returned and DW found my passport and belt under the case, the panic was over, but what a faff.

It was a long schlepp over to the B Gate area, and time was evaporating. The transit trains to the distant gates are slow to arrive, which added further time, but eventually we did find the lounge, and we found breakfast, which was nice. The lounge was busy, but it was better than sitting out at the gate, not least because of the food and drink. I started to get into a state of anxiety as the departure board was showing our gate as being open, and I thought we should be heading that way. DW rightly wanted to get a drink and use the facilities, and despite the fact that the airline knew where we were, I was still thinking, stupidly, that we'd be late boarding. The open gate thing was a lie, of course, because it wasn't open at all, but we didn't have to wait long to be called to get on the aircraft, a shiny Boeing 787. For the second time in my life, I went left after getting onto the aircraft, which was more of a thrill than it should have been.

Club World, or Business Class, on this aircraft had the little individual pods, separated by a sliding screen from both the aisle, and the adjacent pod. We were in the centre of the aircraft, so no window, but the pod was a little palace. Bigger TV, seat that reclined properly, or even turned into a bed, and a host of exciting little "gizzits". (Gizzit = Give Us It, freebies). We'd been in the pods before, but I was still like a kid with a new toy. 

The flight left on time and I dined well once we were airborne, although I think DW struggled with the vegan offerings. I watched three movies, back to back, failing to fall asleep through any of them, while DW had a bit of a technology issue and had to have her entertainments system reset. It wasn't much like a flight at all, really, laid back as I was with my head on a comfy pillow with people bringing me food and drink while I watched TV. I did glance at the maps on the TV in between movies and noticed that we were coming in over the coast of Labrador, so quite far north. It wasn't until later that I saw that we were on a really northerly route and that we'd been over the southern tip of Greenland, and I'd missed it. Tsk.

We landed pretty much on time at Toronto, did the automatic arrival passport scan thing after having completed some of the formalities on the ArriveCan app the day before. Waiting for the bags to come through was a bit a pain because despite our bags being marked as Priority, two of the three were pretty much last off the aircraft. We weren't really in a hurry, but it's hot and noisy in the baggage reclaim area, not helped by people talking on their speakerphone enabled cell phones. While I waited, I completed the ParkNFly app so that the car would be ready to pick up when we arrived at the parking lot. I think it's quite magical that you can press a few buttons on your phone and automatically the car is waiting when their little shuttle bus drops you off at the lot. Talking of the bus, as we made our way out of the arrival point, people were being complete bananas. Huge, big, group hugs and kisses for people connecting and reconnecting are all very well, but not right at the point where hundreds of people with suitcase-laden carts are exiting the baggage reclaim and customs. Then there were the people who stepped in front on my suitcase-laden cart and stopped dead in front of it. That happened over and over again, although I suppose it's fair to say that airports can be scary and confusing if you're not used to them, and that could make you do daft things like trying to get run down by bag-laden carts. 

We walked away from the crowds to door B, and found our shuttle bus. The man driving had a really thick accent and said he'd come from Somalia originally. "I've been here 37 years" he said, with an accent that sounded like he arrived a week ago. That's no complaint, of course, I love the variety of accents, especially in Toronto. Indeed, our neighbours sounded like they'd just arrived from Northern Ireland, but they been in Canada for more than fifty years.

As anticipated, the car was waiting at the ParkNFly lot, so we loaded up and headed out towards the 401. I say headed, but the signage is absolutely awful in Ontario, and despite following signs for the 401, I still ended up heading for the airport again. Google came good and steered us back to the place where I'd normally have joined the highway, only the road was closed. Google came to rescue again, and we were soon bowling along to the west, happy that it was a Saturday and the traffic was relatively free-flowing.

Petrol, now gas I suppose, was going to be tight but I really didn't want to pay Highway prices when the cost is already through the roof (thanks, Donald), so we just pressed on and did the run without stopping, about two and half hours. I did the dozy thing and missed the first Chatham turn off, but as the second one suits us just as well, it was no hardship. To celebrate our return, we went straight to Craves Poutinerie for our supper, and ate chips (now fries) in the car, which was a pretty good way to end the long journey.

I will make a trip conclusion post soon, but first I must actually post these twenty-three blog entries I've written!

Blighty Bound - Day Twenty-Three, To London

We finished up the packing, re-weighed the cases, re-jigged the packing, weighed the cases again, and then had a quick run though the cottage to make sure all was as we'd found it. The cases had gained weight thanks to wash bags and dirty laundry, but we were still underweight on all of them, which was a relief.

The car loaded, we waved goodbye to Little Orchard and set off down the lanes the last time, at least for this trip. We'd not had breakfast so that we didn't dirty any clean crockery, and stopped at the Haldon service centre on the A38, just opposite the racecourse where my dad had been an occasional steward, or marshal, or something. It's not a full-on motorway service station so the prices weren't too scary, but we hit Greggs Bakery for some crumbly fare, and a drink. Then it was north along the A38 to Exeter, M5 to Bristol, and M4 to London.

I'm always banging on about the differences in driving styles between here and Canada, and this busy Friday morning highlighted them. Traffic on the motorway was moving largely below the speed limit, because it was busy, and because speed limits in the UK are rigidly enforced. Average speed cameras, fixed cameras, and Police patrols operate everywhere. I'm sure that Ontarians would say that was a hindrance to personal freedom, but the already low traffic fatalities in the UK have been dropping, and dropping further still, since the enforcement was applied. In these current times, a saving on fuel, almost twice the price in the UK as it is in Canada, is also uppermost in people's minds. Whatever the reasons, it's reasonably relaxing to drive when the road isn't being treated like a race track.

It was slow around Bristol, as anticipated, and as we headed west along the M4, we called in at Leigh Delamare Services for a P&T stop (pee and tea for the uninitiated). It's not the most inviting place, but the range of shops and eating places puts the 400 series service centres in Ontario to shame. Lunch was taken, at a price of course, then we were ready for the run into London. I set the navigation system to locate a petrol station close to the airport as I'd need to fill up before returning the car, but before leaving the service station, I noticed that the cost of petrol was fully thirty pence more per litre as it was at the Haldon service centre we stopped at earlier. Seriously, where's the justification for that?

Heathrow Airport is on the west side of the city so we didn't need to go much beyond the M25 orbital motorway before we turned off and found the petrol station. I was right, it was a thirty pence per litre difference in the price. I knew it would be wise to use the navigation system to get to Terminal 5, and so it proved as the roads around the airport are labyrinthine. When we'd located the Sofitel Hotel, the car's drop off point and our bed for the night, I was very pleased to remember how to get to the car rental drop-off area, as it required a complete circuit of the hotel and a sharp right into the parking area. Sixt has a damage camera system; you drive through a lighted tunnel that is equipped with many cameras, then you drive though another one when you arrive back, and their system compares the images. Our car was unmarked, if a little mud-caked.

Having dropped the keys at the office, all that remained was for us to stagger off to the hotel with our cases, about twenty yards away, and check-in. Before we'd got there, I had a text from Sixt to say the car was fine, and minutes later an invoice. We'd been dicked for GPB12 for a three hour late return, but it was that or another day's rental, so I was happy enough. The bill was about twice what I'd originally estimated, but we did fall into the up-selling trap when we'd arrived so that's on us.

Checking into the hotel was easy enough, and we spoke to a very nice Canadian receptionist who I hope we didn't make too homesick. The rooms at the Sofitel are not cheap, but they are well appointed, and our nice Canadian at the desk told us we'd been upgraded to a better room, at no extra cost. A slightly bigger room with a small complimentary mini-bar and a coffee maker - small things but welcome.

An hour or two of lazing around not doing much was followed by a pricey meal in one of the hotel's restaurants, and a walk around the departures hall of the airport terminal, a short walk through some long passages from the hotel. Back in the restaurant, the hotel added a "discretionary" 12.5% service charge to the bill. Discretionary in that if you didn't want to pay it had to tell them so, which is a bit chintzy. We'd have paid about that in a tip, so we left it on the bill, but it didn't stop one of the serving people lingering for another tip. I'm always happy to pay for service, but not twice.

We both crashed quite early, happy that we'd not have a journey to the airport immediately before the flight, although I did set my alarm just in case I overslept. The flight was at 1140 the next day, but that meant being at the airport at least two hours before, so getting up, washed, and finally packed, was always going to a rush. At least I'd already checked in online, so it was just about dropping our bags off when we arrived in the terminal. It's all about easing our way, and the Sofitel certainly did that.

Blighty Bound - Day Twenty-Two, The Packing

 

We'd set aside this day in our trip to both pack to leave, and to have a pause before we head home. It didn't quite work out like that thanks to family visits, but at least we were not rushing around.

Getting bags packed, with a view to accommodating all the stuff we've bought, and staying within the weight limits set by the airline, is never a fun task. We do have a bag scale that we can measure the weight with, and quite accurately, but it's all about distribution. DW is pretty good at that, thankfully, and we were done and dusted by lunchtime. The key to our great success was having three suitcases, and a decent carry-on case. The carry on was perfectly suited to the seven locomotives, six carriages, thirteen open trucks, and various other bits of model railway paraphernalia, although what airport security will make of that is anyone's guess.

When you're using self-catering accommodation, there's always a bit of tidying up to do. Being there three weeks meant that the place hadn't been formally cleaned in that time, although the owner had given us fresh sheets and towels each week. I ran the vacuum cleaner around and DW gave the porcelain a quick wipe over, just so that we could hand the place back in a similar state in which we found it. I'm certain that many guests do nothing like that, but we like to respect the places that we stay, especially when they're so nice.

Family visits completed, and very nice visits they were, we watched TV and fell into bed, knowing that although having to be out by 10am wasn't early, there was a lot of stuff to do before we could leave. It had been a very quick three weeks, we'd achieved most things we'd set out to do, but now we were concentrating on the journey home.

Blighty Bound - Day Twenty-One, Winding Down

 

We've just a couple more days to go on this trip, and today we'd been invited to lunch in Plymouth by DW's folks. We had originally planned to go into town from their house on the bus, but the weather was horrible, very cold, windy, and occasionally wet, so I opted to take everyone in the car.

It was a good call, too, because despite the traffic being heavy, and snarled up thanks to a car that had run out of fuel on a busy but narrow section of the route, I was able to get everyone dropped at the door of the restaurant while I went of and parked in a half-empty car park just down the road. Poor weather was obviously keeping people at home.

Lunch taken and it was a quiet afternoon, followed by an easy drive back to Ashburton for some well needed sleep. That said, we both had a go at using up some of the food that we'd bought, not too successfully I have to say. We've done nothing but eat, bad things mostly, so working my way through a cold pasty wasn't doing it for me. The Proper Job IPA from the St Austell Brewery slipped down well, though.

Late on we started to pack away some of the stuff we've bought while we've been here. We do it every time, buy a load of stuff then, then fret about getting it home. The baggage allowances are OK with the Premium Economy aircraft seats we buy, but there's always the question of whether or not we need to buy another case, like we've had to on two previous occasions. We did come equipped with a spare, so now we'll need to make sure that none of the bags exceed the 23Kg limit. What fun.

Tomorrow was set aside for packing, but we'll have visitors in the afternoon I think. It's not a game-changer, though, because I think we'll have plenty of time. Checkout is at 10am on Friday, so we'll need to have done 99% of the packing before then. Hey ho.

Blighty Bound - Day Twenty, Across The Moors

 

We woke to changing weather, the temperatures down and the sky quite gloomy. That's not really a complaint because this is March and we've had a week of unseasonably warm weather, which we have enjoyed, so a return to normal March is fine.

We had to be in Plymouth, but as time was not pressing, we opted to drive over the moors. I'd tried to scope out a route that wasn't all single track roads, and set off up the hill towards Hay Tor. We hadn't gone a mile before we were enveloped in thick mist and drizzle. My mum always used to call it "low cloud", and it may have been just that, but it is typical weather for the high moors in Devon. We were making for Widecombe (in-the-Moor), and it was quite other worldly as we passed sheep and ponies lurking in the mist. As we dropped down into Widecombe, we found ourselves out of the mist, but then we climbed back into it as we made for Ponsworthy. 

The roads around the eastern side of Dartmoor are narrow, hilly, and twisty. When I say narrow I mean for a lot the time they're only just wide enough for one vehicle. They're bounded by moss covered stone walls and quite often by eight-feet high hedges, so you're driving in a trench where you can't see around the corners, or over the crests of the many, often very steep, hills. The speed limit within the Dartmoor National Park is 40mph, but on these roads, 15-20mph is the best you'll do. As it happened, we didn't meet many vehicles coming towards us, and when we did it was in places where all it needed was for one of us to pause in a wider area, like a field gate, or farm entrance, and let the other through. Like most driving in the UK, it requires co-operation, and the people who drive these roads are certainly co-operative; they have to be.

Not my photo, and not my rented car, but you get the idea

The bridge across the River Webburn in Ponsworthy is only 7' 6" wide, and our car is 6' 3" wide, so it's quite a squeeze across there, and has to be taken slowly. The river is little more than a stream in the very steep sided valley, but the bridge has to be negotiated, and judging by the scrapes along the stone work, not everyone had been as careful as I was.

Climbing up the other side of the valley after Ponsworthy, the mist was as thick as ever, then we emerged from it again as we made the precipitous descent into another valley at Dartmeet. At least the bridge at Dartmeet, across the River Dart, is a bit wider, but the drop into and out of the valley is seriously steep. Dartmeet is a really popular tourist location in the summer as there is an ancient clapper bridge there, made from slabs of granite. There's also a heap of huge, smooth boulders in the fast flowing but shallow river which are great for climbing on; I know, I've done it many times. Today, though, in the mist and drizzle, Dartmeet was almost deserted.

The road towards Princetown is on a high plateau and wide enough to have a central dividing lane painted on it, so the pace was a bit quicker albeit that the mist was thicker than ever. At Two Bridges, another valley with a bridge, or in this case two bridges, we decided to take a detour and head into Tavistock. The Pannier Market was on and we thought we might have a look and see if there were any more trains to be had at Bob's stall there. We didn't really lose the mist until we were almost in Tavvy, but now we had the rain. 

The people using the car park in town were being absolute divvies, so I ignored them, paid the parking fee and walked with DW in the rain over to the market. Bob did indeed have a train a or two, so we spent some money, then we had a browse around to see what was what. It's an entrancing place, the Pannier Market, and I'd recommend it to anyone visiting Tavistock.

We also had a browse around Tavistock itself and made the trenchant observation that every second retail shop is a coffee and/or pastry shop. A sign of the times, I think.

Our next port of call was Weston Mill Cemetery in Plymouth. DW wanted to visit the little plaque in the Garden of Remembrance that honoured her grandparents. It was a bit dank, but the cemetery was wonderful. Huge, and not at all what I imagined, it is very much an "active" cemetery, with new burials taking place all the time. DW's grandparents had been cremated and their ashes spread in the garden, as had the ashes of a few other relatives including (quite unofficially) her mother. We also found a bench that had been dedicated to DW's aunt who had died a few years ago, which was a nice discovery. With all this family tree research, graveyards and cemeteries have become fascinating places. I was particularly taken with the growing trend of embedding a photograph of a grave's incumbent on the gravestone. I know that's been done for years in Eastern Europe, but it's interesting to see in the UK. I don't intend to have a gravestone, but if I did, I'd be happy with a photograph of me embedded in it.

That was it for the day, other than a grand afternoon with DW's folks, fish and chips, and a slow run home in the dark. I did make a blunder with the tomato ketchup that my MiL put out for my use when I didn't spot that it was Siracha Sauce flavour, the bottle and label looked at first glance just like regular tomato ketchup, and I do not do spicy things. I ate the chips I'd smothered in the horrible stuff and was please that at least there was no lingering afterburn. What a plonker I am.

Lunch in Plymouth tomorrow, so I shall be starving myself until then.