I visited England just before the referendum which was to see the UK population decide that they wanted to leave Europe (at least figuratively, although many would like it to be physical as well, I suspect).  Whatever your politics are or your opinion on “Brexit”, I think it is safe to say that there will be a significant price that Britain and the EU will both pay for the vote in the short term.  Whether there will be a long term benefit seems very uncertain, and that is why I did not believe the vote would be to leave.

Back to my UK visit.

I travelled with Etihad Airways, who are/are excellent.  The Middle Eastern airlines are amongst the very best to travel with.  Its just a pity that they come from such repressive counties.  I was reading about the United Arab Emirates whilst I was away, and by flying with Emirates/Etihad/Qatar, a traveller is supporting a racist, evangelical, intolerant and unforgiving hierarchy in that country, I now realise.  However Etihad gave me flights that were good.  Lying flat makes such a difference, and I probably slept six hours between Sydney and Abu Dhabi.  As part of the deal the airline provided a car to take me anywhere within a 100-miles-by-road of the arrivals hall.  The driver took me to Sheffield!  From Manchester the driver took a back route to avoid traffic which turned out very well for me. I picked up the SIM card for my ‘phone, but was without choice transferred by O₂ (the provider) to a “Big Bundle” with 1000 “free” texts and 200 min. “free” talk time – but none for overseas calls!  So the family could track me on Find My Friends, and could call me, but I couldn’t call them.  Annoying.

I had a walk around Sheffield: it has so many signs of its old industrial past in once-magnificent, or at least very imposing buildings now in a derelict condition. Gosh they trashed the environment, or at least really didn’t care or understand the damage that was done.  I started off on the “Five Weirs walk” but it turned out just to be through old polluted areas and I’d soon had enough and went elsewhere.  Steve, Christine are well.  Alarmingly for me, Steve will retire next year – how can I have friends who are old enough to retire?  We went out walking around the reservoirs above Sheffield the following couple of days.  Cold and windy but no rain.

The train over to Manchester was very crowded.  I was lucky to get a seat.  Train travel has become very popular, probably because the roads are so crowded. The authorities are repenting closed railways and even thinking about building new ones. So unlike the government in Sydney/NSW.  I arrived early enough yesterday to be able to look around central Manchester, which actually is quite impressive now.  Mainly because there are some very impressive Victorian architecture buildings.  There is also a canal which runs through the middle!  During the conference we had some lovely weather: blue sky and sunshine (in Manchester!). The long days are good also: daylight at 4am with the birds twittering outside is a mixed blessing, but daylight at 10pm is good, at least when the weather is nice.  During the conference we had an hour’s talk from Alice Roberts (the TV personality and Professor of Embryology and Anatomy in Birmingham), and from a wildlife photographer!  I like this conference innovation, and judging by the audience, lots of other people appreciated it also.  I went out to eat at “The French” restaurant with John.  Another restaurant by Simon Rogan (from l’Enclume – see entry from a couple of years ago) It was good, but seriously expensive.

John arranged for us to go on the steam-hauled Scarborough Spa Express on Thursday, pulled by a Stanier 8F.  We had a good day:  Scarborough was more interesting than I had expected. It is mostly the Brits. demonstrating how to go on holiday and lose both your sense of value and any sense of good taste.  There was a ridiculous boat made to look like a children’s pirate ship in which you could float around the harbour for a pound.  The operator would have had to pay me to be seen in it, and pay me a lot of money.  However there are also some interesting things to be seen – the castle is superb, and some of the buildings are worth a good look.

The train journey was good, traveling through beautiful countryside on a lovely day in springtime. The Vale of York is at its best at the moment. I managed to avoid fish and chips on the seafront. We ate nice salmon sandwiches and also crumbly Lancashire cheese ones, plus fresh orange and mango juice, all whilst we sat on the walls of Scarborough Castle.

We also saw Ann Bronte’s grave (she wrote The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – IMO the best Brontë novel), so it was worth going to pay tribute.

They inscribed the wrong age on her headstone!

The next day we went up to Cark and even though it absolutely poured down the next morning it couldn’t dampen my spirits: real Lake District weather.  We went for a walk around the Cartmel Peninsula. It’s a lovely area, and shows the green of England at its best.  That evening we went out to the Rogan & Co. restaurant, and it was very very good. I had a goats cheese-and-beetroot salad starter and sweetheart cabbage and roasted nuts for main course. John had pork belly as starter (what a surprise) and Goosenargh duck as main course (another surprise).

The next day we climbed Helvellyn.

Both John and I reached the summit. We chose a steep route up and a more gentle path down. Just as well, my knees couldn’t have taken a steep descent. It was a lovely day. I may even have been sunburnt in the north of England (well, OK, that’s a little of an exaggeration).

It was certainly hot work at times.

I lost my sole on the way up Helvellyn.

I lost my other sole on the way down, and by the time we had walked back to the car, the boots were beyond any thought of repair.

Off to Oxted the following day.  It was grey and rainy there. Not the heavy rain that we had up north, though.  Next day we went to Portsmouth, and it was a really good day.  We went around HMS Victory. Gosh the sailors of that age were small and had a tough life. There were lots of other interesting things to see in the Naval Dockyard: unfortunately the Mary Rose exhibition was closed, but there was HMS Warrior (the first iron-clad warship), lots of small sailing boats, other smaller ships, etc.

Portsmouth itself is just a small town, the harbour itself quite interesting, and lots of UK naval ships there. GB cannot quite get used to the fact it fundamentally is just a small nation now. They are spending billions of dollars on two (two!) aircraft carriers despite the fact that they don’t actually have any aircraft that can fly off them. Yes, that is true ….

Then I visited Dave and Pauline in Hove: they are well.  Dave is about to stop doing even the small amount of teaching and tutoring that he has been doing for Birkbeck College in order to concentrate on doing his PhD.  He wants to change direction and become an academic lawyer: he’s certainly “paid his dues” as a criminal lawyer in Brixton!  Pauline is working for another pressure group (“think tank”) in London, and both were campaigning to prevent England leaving the EU.  No-one I talked to thought it was a good idea ….

Next I went up to London to stay in a hotel called The Rookery.  It is a quaint old-style building, but clearly with the intention of being a very upmarket hotel. A very unpretentious entry – basically you just ring the bell of what looks like a normal house (for this area, which of course is not really “normal” at all, given that it is in central London). Every room has the name of a local personage. Not necessarily an eminent person, though: two of the rooms are named after Victorian era prostitutes! My room. Is named after George Peacock, but the history doesn’t say much about him.

Staying in London was so that I could visit St Bartholemew’s Cardiac Unit.  It is amazing. Three MR scanners just for cardiac work. One super-fast CT.  Bart’s effectively is just a cardiac hospital now.  Bart’s is near to StPauls Cathedral and also Smithfield Markets. It is an interesting area of London.  Lots of bars, pubs, restaurants, but very few normal shops.

Off to Cambridge the next morning with Tim Elsworth for Christ’s College Alumni Garden Party.  Cambridge has changed a lot over the years, and almost only the colleges themselves are recognizable, Tim and I decided. I knew very few people at the garden party, basically just Tim, Chris Cane and a guy called Mike Collinson, who used to cycle a lot, and once came to live in Sydney with his wife who was the Philippines’ ambassador for a while.

I then visited Amaryllis, Isobel and David, which was an excellent day out. They are well. Isobel is now at Leeds University reading Art History.  We went for a walk over the South Downs, up to an Iron-Age fort, which was very interesting. It rained on us on the way back though. Well, it is England, after all!

The final day, Mark and I went for a ride on the Bluebell Railway, partly because it is now an extension of the normal railway line through Oxted: we bought tickets at Oxted station and at East Grinstead we could essentially just walk along the platform to join the steam train going to Sheffield Park (the opposite end of the Bluebell Rly.). It was a lovely journey through the green English countryside of The Weald.