I Go to Essex - So You Don't Have To

The southeast county of Essex is full of sunshine and fond of irony.


For example, when you book accommodation recommended to you by the Maldon County District website for the small town of Maldon, you would expect this Maldon B&B to be in Maldon.

Wrong-o!

The Maldon B&B that you booked through the Maldon County website's recommendations for the small town of Maldon is actually in (you guessed it) Langford.

This is called situational irony.


For an example of verbal irony, let me introduce you to an "Essex Sidewalk."

That's right! There isn't one! It's just you and the road. And the angry motorists screaming towards London like those little X-Wings from Star Wars.


Here's an Essex sidewalk at night.

Essex doesn't believe in sidewalks. They are unmanly and bad form. However, my adherence to the standards of gentlemanly conduct took a severe blow when I realized that my "Maldon" B&B was actually a thirty minute walk from Maldon and it was dark out.

I'll just let Sherlock Holmes express my feelings on this one:



But using my mobile phone as a flashlight, I eventually made it to Langford without twisting my ankle and being eaten by wolves.


I was greeted at my B&B by the traditional English greeting of "Oh. Just you then?" by the most anemic, disappointed, vampire-ish looking man in creation who took me to my room where I slowly realized I was Completely...


Surrounded...


... By graveyards.

When the zombie apocalypse strikes, this is not where I want to be.

Langford apparently consists of three living people and every dead person who ever died in Essex.

There wasn't even a restaurant or pub, so I ate the curtains.


I didn't even sleep as the church bell next to my window rang on the hour letting me know exactly how long I had before I would join the anemic man's blood-sucking retinue.


After escaping from the B&B of the Damned, I trudged back to Maldon in the sunlight and was pleasantly surprised.


Maldon is a haven for crusty old sea dogs and full of men who look like they escaped from an advertisement for Fisherman's Friend. As I was walking towards the harbour there was an old captain singing a sea chantey dressed like the little cartoon man from the fish sticks box who tipped his hat at me.


Theodore the Tugboat's scuzzier cousin, Brent.


The harbour was littered with free rowboats.


Whoever thought the sky line would be improved by adding an anachronistic bell steeple on top of this lovely Norman church deserves to by thrown out of it.


Byrhtnoth, leader of the Anglo-Saxons who lost the Battle of Maldon by being too nice. Keeping a tactical geographic advantage against raiding Vikings was simply not sporting.


WWI stained glass windows in the Maldon church.


Little old men puttering around with their motorized model boats. It took all my self-control not to run over and pinch their cheeks.



Next week on Maid's Day Off...


I head to Winchester to find this man.
Hopefully, he'll still be wearing his silly hat.

Blenny, Blenny Blenheim

A autumn jaunt through the endless grounds of Blenheim palace is quite possibly the easy way to become a socialist sympathizer (Observing Dickens-like factory waifs in the grimy streets of London coming a strong second).


However, it's all mind-bogglingly beautiful, so you quickly forget all those serious person thoughts and just start enjoying the sounds of the ducks splashing in the lake and the crunchy rustle of fallen leaves and the way the golden air falls on path.


...And the way all your sentences start to sound like something Wordsworth wrote after a quick visit to Coleridge's seedy opium cabin.


After a while, you start running out of adjectives for "fall on your knees majesty" and start overheating your digital camera's memory card.


The Lakeside Walk is probably the most pleasant way to spend a spare hour. Even if you have to spend that hour walking behind an Italian couple practicing selective cannibalism on each other's faces.


The Rose Garden is one of the most peaceful places in the parks and if you're lucky and very quiet, a cute English couple will appear and have an informative chat about the different varieties and history of roses.


There's also the least secret "Secret Garden" in history.
If I can find it, you have a problem.


It's hard not to imagine Lancelot "Capability" Brown dressed up as a used car salesmen touring around with the first Duke of Marlborough saying: "Cascades? We got cascades!"




"Very, very manly statuary that is not in the least bit homoerotic? Got that too!"


"Things for tourists to throw their loose change into? For sure."


Every corner you turn in Blenheim leads you to something gorgeous and sometimes unexpected.


Like Blenheim's first and last failed attempt at a stone canoe.

Or semi-clad people holding up fountains or waiting for Godot Oedipus.

Palace Happenings

At one o'clock in the morning last night, I was thrust into consciousness and out of doors by (I kid you not) a genuine, functioning World War II air raid siren.


Such are the perks of living at a palace where nothing can be ordinary, not even fire alarms. Instead of just using a clangy cowbell, the palace uses the antique air raid siren as a sort of extra incentive for the occupants not to fry to a crisp in their beds.


The siren in question, was used not just for the palace but for the many little villages that surround it and is placed on the roof just above my window. And now I know for sure that I wouldn't have lasted a night in the Blitz as my first reaction was "Well, okay. That's really, really loud... So fifteen more minutes."


Thankfully it was a false alarm and someone made sure that I exited the building before finally enjoying some proper heating.


Ah! The excitement of living at a palace. But it hasn't all been exciting midnight adventures outdoors and gaping at the scenery. I've also done some important resume skills building.


I can now properly fold, stack, haul and plastic wrap polar bears.


I've developed a deep, deep hatred of pheasants who climb trees and drop nuts on your head and laugh as you're walking by. I can see why the aristocracy have been shooting these bastards out of the sky for centuries. Must be very satisfying.


I've also eaten one of their comrades and he/she was delicious.


The palace is the most beautiful place in England, if I do say so myself. And I do. And so do the brochures. And the guidebooks. And the postcards that everyone I know will be receiving.


This view is apparently the most photographed view in England for reasons unbeknownst to me.


I have a charming flat in the palace which has Harry Potter ceilings!


Bonus Picture: These are the antique bells that are still in working order and function on a pulley system. The wires are run throughout the entire house so you can actually see the signal winding its way down the hallways before the staff are alerted if someone needs a cup of warm milk in the night.*

In closing:


*Whomever gets the Gosford Park reference will receive two shiny pence, hand polished by me with an official palace dust rag.

My petit bebe

Milo
2002-2007

A Benediction Encouraging Mourning (and Necromancy)
by Miss Brown

No one to catch my socks when I come home
And who will keep me warm on Christmas Eve?
Washcloths left un-ravished in the laundry room
No one who will dance before their meals

And who will hate who I hate and growl
And force replacement of dinning room carpets
And watch me and share the last of the carrots?
Only my sleek and smooth little lion

Who will walk me in the early mist mornings
When the dew covers the grass and my shoes
No one to hide with under the blankets
And pretend to understand German

No one to pine for or howl along to the opera
There is no one left who will greets us
You are gone and leave our laps empty
And our socks, black lumps, on the floor



I regret to inform of the passing of my petit bebe, Milo, who expired after a brief battle with illness and is now resting in our yard along the path where he often liked to run (and run away).

In his memory, a 24 hour truce between humans and yappy dogs is requested. Should a yappy dog try to keep you up tonight, please remember this joyful little Pomeranian who brought so much happiness and dog hair into mine and other people's lives.

VISIT BEAUTIFUL CARDIFF

Wales: Land of Mystery, Land of the Red Dragon, and Land of the Intermittent Daytime Showers.


Welsh: Language that looks like someone you owed money to, snuck up behind you and then started bashing your head against a keyboard repeatedly and then you died pressing down on the "f" and "l" keys.


Cardiff: Full of Cornish pasty shops and friendly Welsh people who all look very happy despite having to speak Welsh.


Case in point: Wales has the same "Visible street signs? Whatever for?" syndrome as England, so when the road I was supposed to be taking to my hostel came to an abrupt end, I was a bit perplexed.

I had barely started to raise my eyebrow in a hint of perturbation when a handsome young Welshman bounded up to me out of nowhere, took my hands in his and said: "Can I help you? Where are you trying to get to?"


So, I married him and we are now living in Gllafffndwr with our eighty-four, dusty faced miner children and we all eat coal and sing songs about saucepans and I'll never leave Wales again.


But before I settled down to my life of knitting jumpers and canning seaweed, I look a turn around Cardiff Bay which was beautiful if you could forget for a minute that the ocean is trying to kill you with all its might.


I couldn't. Especially not with all this "art" littering the Boardwalk to remind me how the ocean is just a glorified graveyard with seals.


There's also the architecturally stunning (if we can believe the "Cardiff is Fantastic! Come Spend Money Here!" video they were playing at the Cardiff Tourist Information Centre) Millennium Building and the Roald Dahl shiny thing which occasionally starts pouring water down the sides much to the delight of tourists posing for pictures up against it.


Cardiff is also the Welsh equivalent of Disneyland for Doctor Who fans.


Who's Inside the Doctor Who Up Close Exhibition in Cardiff Bay?

I am, that's who.

(Anyone who doesn't experience a little thrill inside every time David Tennant licks a toaster may want to skip the next part)


The Doctor Who Exhibition was well worth the ₤'s despite the fact that I wasn't allowed to stroke anything. The craggy old lady behind the counter was very clear about this and I think she'd been driven mad by the constant looping of the Doctor Who theme music so I thought it best to just take pictures and then stroke them in the comfort of my own home.


The sacred jim-jams.


The holy Converses.


Outfit of the Big Ear-ed One.


Cannot believe they made poor Martha Jones fight evil in heels.


Why the Welsh school system is superior to ours: Terra-cotta Daleks and tin foil Cybermen made by Welsh school children. I was never allowed to skip math to make Rainbow Bright figurines out of pipe cleaners.


Me crushing Captain Jack's "Oh-so-secret" Secret Tiny Elevator.


Evil 18th Century Clockwork Puppet beckons you to come to Cardiff.


*Bliss*