Travels with Verne and Roy

The Arrow Mill, charming accommodation in Warwickshire

This is the perfect place for a summer wedding – in fact, my stepson Carl and our daughter-in-law Carrie were married here on a perfect English summer’s day in July, 2009. We (but especially Roy) have stayed here many times since then; it’s conveniently close to Roy’s mum’s home in Alcester.

We come not so much for the accommodation as for the food, though this is a lovely old historical inn with oodles of atmosphere. Casual weekday guests like us are not the hotel’s bread and butter: weddings are.

Nevertheless, proprietor Simon does a great job in the kitchen on this quiet Tuesday evening in mid-summer, ably assisted by his friendly wife, Agnes. We’ve already had an excellent lunch today at The Bell at Welford-on-Avon (where Roy had an apple crumble that I suspect he’s going to be raving about for weeks to come); but both Roy and I thoroughly enjoy our delicious shanks of lamb, slow-braised for 14 hours. Wendy, more restrained, pairs a starter of cheesy mushrooms with a lovely salad.

Roy is always good at sussing out the best room at a hotel, and then making sure he gets it on his next visit; at the Arrow Mill, it’s Room 11: a corner location, up just one flight of stairs, away from any kitchen noise and with pretty views. It has a romantic four-poster bed and a fabulous corner bath to put a smile on my face – though Roy complains he has to jump around in the shower to get wet.

We’ll be back, no doubt of that.

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The Bull Hotel at Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes

Overnight at The Bull Hotel either before or after the British Grand Prix – it’s 20 minutes from the Silverstone circuit.

People tend to sneer when you mention the “new town” of Milton Keynes, built in 1967 as one of several to relieve London congestion. But there’s more to the place than ugly concrete facades and bewilderingly endless roundabouts – it also encompasses Stony Stratford, whose Watling Street was since Roman times the main thoroughfare from London to the north, and later famous as an overnight stop for stagecoaches.

The Bull Hotel (1609) is one of a handful of old hostelries that remain, and Roy and I spent the night there after the 2016 F1 British Grand Prix. Just along the High Street is The Cock, and this is apparently the origin of the expression “cock and bull story” – it refers to the gossip and tall stories exchanged by travellers at these old inns in days of yore. You can almost hear the clatter of ghostly stage-coaches through its arched entryway into the courtyard; but it’s more likely the sound of a barrel of real ale rolling across cobbles into the adjacent Vaults pub.

One of just 12 rooms, ours overlooked the Parish Church of St Mary and St Giles. Furnishing and décor throughout this little hotel are in new condition, cosy, mainly comfortable, and in keeping with its history. Our room had a spacious bathroom with a good shower, plus a couple of welcome features such as armchairs, a safe and even a fan. This being F1 weekend, the GBP135 we paid was understandably over the odds; happily, it included a full English breakfast, served all the way through to a civilised 11am.

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Who names these beers?

Less civilised was the Bull’s kitchen closing at 6pm on a Sunday night. After a half of Wight Squirrel (lovely name!) at the Vaults, we had another of Hop Goes the Beagle (!) at The Old George Inn (www.theoldgeorge.com), a cosy 16th-century pub offering accommodation and known for its live music.

After that, dinner at the decidedly 21st-century Indian-Bangladeshi Kardamom Lounge (www.kardamomlounge.com), mainly because it was still open. Its ten-quid Sunday Gourmet deal included starter, main, side dish and bread or rice. Good service, good value and generally good and plentiful food, though the chicken vindaloo was, we agreed, so volcanically hot as to be virtually uneatable.

Gratuitous Limerick

A sign for Buckingham on the route back to Reading made me wonder aloud to Roy whether there might be a dirty limerick about that first-mentioned town. There was, yes, and the old sailor in him recalled and recited it at once. It’s far too filthy to repeat here, but I’m going to do so anyway:

There was a young man from Buckingham,

Who stood on the bridge at Uppingham,

Watching the stunts of the c***s in the punts

And the tricks of the pricks who were f***ing’em.

(Sorry.)

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British Grand Prix 2016 at Silverstone

With Lewis Hamilton on pole again, Roy’s hoping for rain during the race, to make things “more interesting than the old procession, with the two Mercedes way ahead of everyone else.” With just 10 minutes to go, it’s pouring – and is that hail? Oh, wait – the sun’s come out!

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Roy’s last British Grand Prix was about 30 years ago, he says. His cousin, Anthony (Tony) Jardine, was doing PR for Camel in those days – when cigarette brands were major sponsors of Formula One, along with JPS, Marlborough, Rothmans et al (and many of us used to smoke, remember?). Camel was sponsoring Lotus at the time, he says.

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And here Roy is again – this time with me – at the 2016 British Grand Prix. Our tickets to the fabulous Woodcote Apex hospitality suite were arranged by Roy’s daughter Wendy as her gift to him for his 65th birthday (thanks again, Wendy!), once again through Tony. (He, of course, is still very involved in F1, and motor sports in general: he races and rallies in his own right.)

Silverstone is infamous for diabolical traffic, and the usual English midsummer rain makes things worse. Having set off from the marina at Reading at the ungodly hour of 6.15am, however, we had a clear run through. From our designated Parking Area 26, it’s about a 10-minute walk to Woodcote, and we walk in just in time for coffee and breakfast. Drinks flow from 10.30am all the way through to the suite’s closure at 6pm; a buffet lunch is served from 11.30am.

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There’s plenty to keep the punters occupied at the F1 Village. Merchandise from the various teams is on sale; there’s a Giant Wheel, London Karting doing electric go-karts, Segways, a bungee trampoline and more. And I’ve been in England long enough to appreciate the fact that the weather’s mainly “dry” – actual sunshine is always hoped for, but never really expected.

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When the race ends at 3pm, there’s the Grand Prix After Party, hosted by cousin Tony – The Feeling and The Dolls will perform. We have backstage tickets! – and a room for the night booked at The Bull, at Stony Stratford. Let the games begin!

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Thames cruise from Caversham to Goring

Our Dutch barge Karanja‘s second trip, upriver again from Thames & Kennet Marina to Goring, was more eventful than our maiden voyage (see previous post) – but all good practice.

After a bit of traffic, the Karanja came up to Caversham Lock behind a hire boat under the control (understand that I use the term loosely) of two retirement-age couples: this was their first lock, they said. We were to share it with them, along with another two boats that came in behind us. That the wine was flowing freely probably didn’t help, and it was with relief that we passed the revellers before the next lock. So, two new experiences: sharing a lock with other boats, and having to sound our horn to request another boat to move to starboard when it’s about to be passed.

Goring Lock and its adjacent weir

Goring was as lovely as our marina friends had promised. We were lucky to score the last space on the 24-hour free mooring, on the right, just before Goring Lock.

Our mooring at Goring…

… and from the other side

It’s an exquisite old waterside village of flint-and-brick dwellings, complete with desirable facilities for its evidently affluent villagers. We popped into: McColl’s store (for milk); The John Barleycorn Inn (Strongbow on tap, hake goujons and herby olives in a sunny garden); The Goring Grocer (scrumptious fare straight out of their oven, including the best and fattest pork-herb-garlic sausage rolls ever); and The Miller of Mansfield, an 18th-century coach-house with an award-winning restaurant (for dinner).

The Miller at Goring

Roy in the beer garden at John Barleycorn, Goring

Our marina friends also highly recommend Italian restaurant Rossini’s, and neighbouring Moulsford’s Beetle and Wedge Boathouse, doubly immortalised in Kenneth Graham’s The Wind in the Willows and Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. We’ll have to do that next time.

And I made a new friend on the towpath – a South African called Michelle, who told me how to deal with cattle that might block your way. (There literally was a bull at a gate.) “Make yourself as big as you can,” she advised. “Hold your arms wide, move them back and forth, and go ‘Wo, wo!’ as you march forward, to show them who’s boss.” Well, I’ll know for next time. Thanks, Michelle!

Above: Charming sign in Goring’s village green; Below: Goring lockhouse

Homeward bound

Though we’d sworn to be fair-weather sailors, and it was raining quite steadily, after two nights in peaceful Goring it was time to head home to our berth at Thames & Kennet Marina.

Three hours of cruising downriver through the rain brought a few new firsts:

* Turning into the downstream current from our berth

* A brief encounter with the lock wall at Whitchurch, where we lost about six inches of paint from the “rubbing straight” – that’s what it’s for, isn’t it?

* Practising an emergency stop

* Coming up to canoeists spread across the river right where we needed to turn across the river to enter the marina

* Berthing in the marina in the face of a strong wind – not easy!

The more we cruise, the more we learn about handling a barge in various conditions. Our next trip will be downstream to Sonning, which involves negotiating the reputedly tricky Sonning Bridge.

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Maiden voyage to Pangbourne

Log: 21 June

Left Thames & Kennet Marina at 10.30am on a partly sunny morning, headed upstream for Caversham Lock – Karanja’s maiden lock, with a weir to starboard. Mapledurham Lock similarly weir to starboard. Both locks manned. Moored overnight on port bank just before Whitchurch Toll Bridge, alongside Pangbourne Meadow. Steaming time 2.75 hrs.

Happily uneventful, our maiden voyage was. After a week in the marina, we’d initially settled on Monday, 20 June as the big day – when any Sunday trippers would have departed. But it promised to pour with rain, so we postponed till Tuesday. Good move, that, as it gave me a chance to practise a bit with those dreaded ropes.

Unlike the locks on the canals we’ve visited, ones on the Thames River are manned, and very friendly and helpful the guys are, too. One at Caversham kindly pretended not to notice that I’d embarrassingly flung my entire line ashore when we came alongside at the lock approach. The second and final lock of the day, Mapledurham, has a daunting approach featuring a wide and churning weir to the right; the lock itself is classified as a deep one (with a drop of 6 feet, 9 inches), so you don’t want to be stopped too far forward in the lock chamber when the white water starts gushing in.

Our mooring at Pangbourne Meadows was beautiful, just before the graceful curve of Whitchurch Toll Bridge – which bridge (pictured below) is said to have been described as ugly by the 19th-century narrator in Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat – not to mention the dog. (Hilarious stuff that I’ve just started reading).

Jogging recce

Before we set off from T&K Marina on our maiden voyage, I’d already explored the first leg of the journey by jogging along the towpath a few miles past Caversham Bridge and back again; very like the way a dog taken for a walk and let off its leash will run backwards and forwards.

A busy old day on the Thames tow path, near Caversham Bridge.

What is this peculiar bird? (Note to self: buy a book on waterfowls.)

Graceful Whitford Toll Bridge is still privately owned – motorists pay 40p to cross, but it’s free for pedestrians.

Moored at pleasant Pangbourne Meadows, within walking distance of The Swan.

It was the same story after we’d tied up at Pangbourne Meadows. Leaving Roy to boaty pursuits, I did a recce to find The Swan, Pangbourne’s 1642 waterside pub where we planned to do drinks and dinner later. (Good thing, too, as it was only on the way back that I found the best route, guaranteed to keep him in a good mood.)

Log: 22 June

As yesterday, but in reverse. Cast off at 10.30am in drizzle, two hrs downstream back to T&K Marina. Total engine hours 5.6.

It wasn’t supposed to rain the next morning, according to the forecast. But this is England, as people keep reminding me, so we set off in drizzle, me gamely facing the elements in a violently pink waterproof garment bought ages ago in Takashimaya’ sports department for this very day. (I’ve worked out the difference between winter and summer in England, by the way – in summer, you’re expected to wear colours.)

Downstream, this time, ourselves a bit more relaxed than yesterday and our speed a bit quicker with the force of the river at our stern. Safely back at D Pontoon no. 32, it was time for lunch and a celebratory glass of wine. Here’s to us!

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Running England’s Country Lanes

In preparation, I mentally practised flattening myself against a box hedge to avoid becoming roadkill

Ah, those famously narrow and twisting English country lanes! At first, I wasn’t sure which would be more nerve-wracking – being driven pell-mell by Roy along them (and no, I don’t have the nerve to drive them myself), or running on them. Sometimes there’s room to jump out of the way of oncoming traffic, as in the picture above, but that’s not always the case. In preparation, I mentally practised flattening myself against a box hedge to avoid becoming roadkill.

So I plucked up the courage one chilly June morning and headed out from Chapel Croft B&B, set in the farmland surrounding the town of Biddulph near Stoke-on-Trent, praying that most of the morning commuters to Congleton or wherever would still be nibbling their egg soldiers and slurping their PG Tips.

This being England’s Peak District, the wind was fresh, to say the least, and the terrain challengingly hilly – a far cry from what has been my standard sweaty run in Singapore’s dead-flat East Coast Park. I passed a field full of blanketed horses – a riding school, it seemed – and several beautiful farmsteads, including one with a discreet sign boasting Charollier sheep.

In the end, I had the lanes mostly to myself. There was an uncomfortable moment when two large lorries come head to head on a bend, and I had to stop while they sorted themselves out – clearly all in a day’s work for them.

Back at the B&B, I felt I’d earned my plateful of locally smoked salmon with deep-gold “scrammled eggs” (according to the blackboard special) from landlady Lynn’s own fat and beautiful chickens.

Lane convert

Within the week, I’d braved two more sets of lanes. The first was just beyond Victoria Park, a small industrial suburb of Biddulph, where Piper Boats was putting the finishing touches to our barge, Karanja. (To “snag” the boat, we were spending a somewhat surreal weekend living on board – not afloat, but in the boatbuilder’s big car park – cooking, bathing, washing clothes and so on to test the electrical, water and other systems.)

Unexpectedly beautiful running trail, directly off semi-industrial Biddulph’s Brown Lees Road

Seems that unless you’re in London, you don’t have to go far in England to find countryside. No more than a kilometre from Piper Boats, down Brown Lees Road, I found a pedestrian and cycling track that took me a couple of miles through idyllic fields and meadows to where the houses started again; or I could turn right off the road for another leafy mile or so to another village green.

And then, a week later, we stayed for a few nights with Roy’s sister, who lives in a horsey part of the Warwickshire countryside. In the ice of winter, you can slide dangerously along the slippery lanes and it’s not much fun to be on foot. This time, though it was beautifully dry, the lushly shaggy trees and hedgerows seemed to shrink the narrow lanes still further.

Again, I had them almost to myself: even at 8am on a weekday morning, I was able to count on my fingers the number of passing cars in the course of 70 minutes. And when you walk – as I did the final stretch home to Lyndsay’s – you’re more likely to see the swooping of fat magpies, and the odd bunny-rabbit hopping across your path.

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Driving English Country Lanes

I stay safe by keeping my eyes tightly shut

English lanes – like the one above, taken from the passenger seat – terrify me. For Roy, they seemingly hold no fears. As we zip around blind corners boxed off with shaggy green hedgerows, I stay safe by keeping my eyes tightly shut, while he revels in the action of driving, punctuated by the occasional expletive as we narrowly escape collision with yet another articulated lorry.

A couple of weeks ago, we drove from Biddulph to Leek and up to Buxton, through the spectacular moorland of England’s Peak District. (We were staying in the northern England town of Stoke-on-Trent, while Piper Boats was finishing our 49-foot Dutch-style barge, Karanja. There’s only so long you can hang around watching busy craftsmen, so it was a good opportunity to see something of the area.)

Long and winding road up to the spa town of Buxton

At 1,000 feet, Buxton itself is in the High Peak district, and billed as the highest market town in the country. Solid and substantial houses and elegant late-17th-century public buildings hewn from the local grey stone recall the various heydays of the town, when the carriages of the affluent must have traversed these same lanes and roads – minus the tarmac and roadside warning signs – to take the waters at this famous spa town, second only to the southern city of Bath. (Buxton, too, was a Roman spa, and again from the Elizabethan era onwards.)

Historic Buxton Crescent and the Old Hall Hotel

It’s soon going to be possible to take Buxton’s waters again – in two or three years’ time, volunteered the construction-helmeted chappie who saw us peering through the fence at the elegant, late 18th century Crescent Hotel, currently undergoing restoration. He even whipped out his smartphone to show the photo he’d taken of the spectacular interior – probably of the old Assembly Room – before work began.

For now, you can wander through the quaint boutiques of Cavendish Arcade, enjoying the Victorian/Edwardian tiles, mouldings and an impressive if slightly gaudy glass domed roof, but especially one of the original marble-lined baths in all its Victorian glory, complete with a winch and pulley system and a wooden armchair to lower you into it. I hope the new spa retains something authentic to the place, and not just another temple to Kerstin Florian or whoever.

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How We Got Here

As luck would have it, I’m terribly prone to seasickness

Why a boat?

It’s a long story, but now that my husband is retired – and I’m doing a lot less writing and editing work – I have some time to tell it.

Three or four years ago, I gently hinted to Roy that perhaps he should find a hobby to occupy himself with after retirement. This was mostly with a view to his future happiness, but also with the idea of keeping him busy when he no longer had minions to boss around. Perhaps he could take up pottery, or macramé – or we could join a choir together once again (in preparation for the inevitable).

To my surprise and alarm, he started Googling boats. Surprise because he’d shown zero interest in boating of any sort since we met in 1992, discounting the odd cruise on a floating five-star hotel. Alarm because the boat-builder he had in mind was Nordhavn, purveyor of ocean-going, trawler-style motor yachts that start from around a million-and-a-half US dollars. (Everyone knows that there are two happy days in the life of a boat-owner – the day you buy it and the day you sell it.)

As luck would have it, I’m terribly prone to seasickness. His Nordhavn file was already a couple of inches thick with brochures, and Roy’s customised wheelhouse design almost complete, when the cruise we did on the lovely Silver Shadow from Singapore to Hong Kong proved conclusively that I was not a suitable mate with whom to cross the ocean on 40 to 120 feet of vessel. Phew!

Which boat?

I married a tenacious man, it must be said. When he came up with the idea of a canal barge – a Dutch barge, specifically – designed to ply rivers and canals, I thought: why not? It would at the very least keep him busy. Roy is a man who needs a project; and his most recent one, the gutting and redesign of our Singapore apartment, was finally complete.

If you ask Roy, he’ll tell you he’s been interested in barges ever since he was a boy growing up in in the English Midlands. He even recalls doing a detailed barge design in his early teens. (Who’d have guessed?)

And what an absorbing project it has been! To test the waters (so to speak), we hired a wide-beam barge called the Serenity for a ridiculously warm and sunny week in September 2014, and tootled up and down the Grand Union Canal between Milton Keynes and the charming old canal village of Stoke Bruerne. After some trepidation I mastered the windlass and conquered the locks, together with any doubts I may have had.

(Read more about our week on Serenity in this article, published in Expat Living Singapore in April 2014: Serenity Trip April 14)

Finding the right boat-builder (Simon Piper of Piper Boats in Stoke-on-Trent) was the next step. Debating the size (49 feet, rather than the physically daunting 75 feet that Roy was inclined to go for) and the number of bedrooms (just one, so as to maximise living space) took several visits to Piper’s offices and quite a lot of verbal stamina on my part.

I’ve always wanted a TV that disappears from view

Traditionalists might regard the Karanja with perturbation. For one thing, we dispensed with the traditional stove in the corner of the saloon. Instead, we have a concealed TV that glides up and down at the touch of a button on the remote.

Is life without a bath worth living?

For another, I have a full-size bath. What’s more, we’ve maximised the deck space by shifting the dog-box (ceiling hatch) as far aft as possible, surrounded the deck with stainless steel yacht stanchions and covered it with gorgeous flexi-teak. Perfect for my sun-lounger!

And here are a couple more great photos, courtesy of Piper Boats:

Why Karanja?

Karanja was the ship Roy remembers most fondly from his nine years with BI (The British India Steam Navigation Co.) – a passenger cargo vessel that plied the Indian Ocean with stops at Bombay, Karachi, the Seychelles, Mombasa, Dar Es Salaam, Beira, Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and Durban. A picture of the original ship now hangs in her namesake’s saloon, and the engraved silver mug that was a 21st birthday gift from his fellow officers gleams from a nearby shelf. (How long it will continue to gleam in the absence of domestic help is a question.)

The original Karanja, which Roy sailed on during the early 70s

As for her black-and-white exterior, every BI ship had a black funnel painted with two white bands, and our baby Karanja’s paintwork is a sort of homage to that.

The flags tell their own story: the one at the back is the Singapore ensign, showing that we’re registered in Singapore. The small one at the front is the house flag: fairly quirkily, Roy chose the flag of the old British East India Company, which would have been flown by Stamford Raffles as he sailed into Singapore in January 1819.

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The Arrow Mill, charming accommodation in Warwickshire

The Bull Hotel at Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes

British Grand Prix 2016 at Silverstone

Thames cruise from Caversham to Goring

Maiden voyage to Pangbourne

Running England’s Country Lanes

Driving English Country Lanes

How We Got Here