Field Report 19:
England and Wales - August 28, 1999

By Jeff Bell

Stonehenge

Getting there at the end of a long day of riding, I was ready to be disappointed. My Lonely Planet guide warned me that Stonehenge was small, filled with tourists, and you weren't even allowed near the stones. I had been wondering all day whether the detour to the south to see it was worth it.

Coming over a rise of midwest-like tan fields, there it was. And I was glad to have come. Lots of, if not most, special moments during these travels are for the moment only. Fortunately some get stuck in memory, the place and circumstances are hard to recall—a moment on a volcano somewhere, a valley with a waterfall, a winding road in a forest. But some are destine to stick for life, often those that make tie in with something you'd thought about often.

Stonehenge does appear to be very small. And the parking lot across the road appears to be larger than the stones themselves. The 'heelstone' is backed up to a cyclone fence at the edge of the road.

But the fields surrounding the moment are enormous, and the thick grey sky that afternoon allowed the light to pass through the clouds in big beams, perfect for sparking a sense of imagination. Because imagination is what Stonehenge is all about. The big question was: why here? A riddle that just sits there.

Everything Costs Pounds

On the surface, prices in England look familiar. Movie: 7.50. Sandwich: 3.50. Coffee: 1.20. Small problem, the exchange rate is about 1.7 dollars to the pound. Clever bastards.

A Green Place

England has the most amazing, effective watering and irrigation system in the world. It's this thing called rain, and it seems to operate about 5-6 days a week. Summer is just another word here, it means rain-not-so-cold. Most every day I'd see the news on TV: mostly cloudy and some rain. And oh by the way, it is very, very hot in France, Spain, Italy...

(If a matador where to take off his wife's coat for her...forget it)

One channel would devote about 3 hours of prime time TV viewing every night to the World Championship Track & Field competition. Like the Tour de France which you could see practically any day in July in France for hours each day, this was a little treat for me. Slow paced, yeh, but this is anti-Koyaanisquatsi TV to my eyes.

Practically unobserved in the U.S. (in spite of WORLD RECORDS being set by some of our U.S. competitors. They'd interview our athletes and they would be the NICEST folks as can be.), these were the billion-in-one athletes doing stuff which I imagined I could relate to—tests of aerobic capacity using a little numbers game.

The Championships were held in Seville, Spain. And it was hot, over 90 degrees. At night. Night after night. You see this was strange, because were I was, I found it hard to believe there were places on the planet were it was warm.

Ark Across the Countryside

It all started out in London with a couple of false starts getting my act together (and enjoying that tiny little city for a couple of rotations of Earth), I got my school bus yellow mountain bike in order and pushed off into pouring rain to explore the countryside.

I figured I looked like an avant-garde saddlebagged Pony Express, but my peddle-powered beast was all milk truck when it came to handling. Weighed down by books that I didn't need, a change of clothes I would never use, I had momentum, oh yeh, I had momentum going downhill. But uphill, my knees would talk to me, they talked to me a lot. Screamed at me. I have to do a mental shift from kilometers on a road bike (France) to miles on a weighed down mtn bike. Any number over 5 on a sign suddenly seemed like a long way away.

But it was strikingly beautiful out there in the country, if you've been here (I hadn't), you know. There was the urban England you grow up with (Dickens, the Clash), and then there is the countryside which is a picturebook of beautiful land, peaceful surroundings. No modern blight, slate walls, patchworks of hedgerows, old old old buildings, streams, tons of sheep, tractors, and practically all two lane roads. The term typical English countryside is used, it's because there is a LOT of it, in no danger of extinction, and remarkably consistent in feel. A church steeple with cemetary surrounding it in every town, hold over from the days when the Church was part religion, part government. (There still are seats for Bishops in House of Lords.)

Went through a bit of the Southwest: Henley-on-the-Thames, Oxford, Windsor, the Chilterns, the Cotswolds, Bath, Chiltenham, Marlborough (U.S. marketing execs dropped the -ugh- for the cigarettes. Just another classic little country town, Marlborough, but where's the Duke?). Then south to north through Wales: Wye and Usk valleys, Brecon, Hay-on-Wye, Bwyts-y-Coed, Llanberis, Conway, Holyhead, and dozens of towns with totally un-pronounceable Welsh names.

The people were very pleasant everywhere. Helpful, happy to be living out there I think. There's that term "cousins" when explaining our relation to the Brits. My dad met a cousin of his for the first time late in life and noticed he had the same wallpaper in his home. Well, we do have different tastes in wallpaper from the Brits, but a lot of things look and feel very familiar, and there's a big sharing that we have. Take TV. They have their "Oprah" show, morning news, that just looks too similiar to ours. I saw the Osmonds being interviewed. They were big here. Very strange. The way we have copied British traditions in architecture, silverware, furnishings all over our country (even in desert states) started to take on a whole new light for me: it seems a little odd of us, but I guess when you ain't got a better idea of your own, steal.

On the road, there were a few exceptions to the friendliness. Road rage, a function of 'car pollution', seems to be a disease that afflicts England as well. There was the sprinkling of bitter old lizard-Brits who seemed to be all gripe, I would get barked at to get on the sidewalk when I was on the road, or get barked at to get on the road when I was on the sidewalk. Couldn't get away from it. Got the feeling things weren't fair here in the dear old U.K. The typical British road was two lane with a white line on the left (left is right remember) with 0-6 inches of pavement to the side. Not built for bikes.

English Again

(If you touched an electric fence on purpose..would you still call it a shock?)

Brits say 'a gain' for again. Orange is 'or ange'. Makes sense, takes too long for us. We say 'a gin' and 'ornge'. More economical. One of their legitimate examples of an American linguistic corruption is "aluminium", which we mysteriously shorten to "a-lu-mi-num".

It struck me that English itself though is a hopelessly mutation anyhow. Spelling? Pronunciation? What's the sense of "-ion" ending? Why not two letters "-un"? Why "e" on the end of words? Why double any two letters: "ff", "ss", "rr", "ee"?

The English are evidence that many people find logical behavior to be characterless. History and tradition often win out over economy. England has adopted the metric system, but all roadsigns and maps are in miles and drinks come in pints. The number system is base 10, but hours and months are base 12, days in a week are base 7, food is sold in dozens, and minutes and seconds are a mix between base 12 and base 10. Fish and chips and peas as staples? (Taste good after a long ride though.)

From the English we have inherited the grand tradition of funny names and sayings. They have cities called Bath, Lawn, Winterbourne Monkton, Highworth. Last names, oh my God, is it a giant tougue in cheek joke? Is there a Mr. Tree to compliment Mr. Bush? I saw a sign for a Mr. Sugg (Master Thatcher), a gravestone for a Mr. Pumphrey. They have biscuits here called "Flips", a bloke told me that the phone booth was an "all singing and dancing model", a beer called "Old Speckled Hen" (not a big seller in Arizona. One chap at a store pointed out that he raised hens for show, hence....).

Tales of Wales

Wales is a soggy, but beautiful bunch of countryside. One Welsh bloke, a likeable fellow with hedges for eyebrows and one front tooth, told me "what's the point in letting weather get in your way? This skin's waterproof idin it?" Couldn't argue with that. Probably told his grandchild frightening stories about days when the sky turns bright blue all day and the yellow disk comes out and tries to baked people like bread. Frightening to little kids! (They have heard about the sun but many have certainly never seen it.)

In Western Wales, they actually do speak the Welsh language. It's true. Even kids. These are names of some towns, do they look like words to you?:

FFORDD

FFERYLLFA

DYDD

DOLGELUA (pronounce this one to get a sense of the language)

The country towns were great and the people very laid back. One B&B I stayed in had low ceilings, beams all around, very comfortable, and had an uneven floor. It was built in 1630. Many people would agree with you that they considered themselves lucky, although a few would add that "the weather could be a bit depressing".

Epilogue: I've taken the ferry over to Dublin, the town where even the name suggests an extra bit of somethin..doublin'. Check out the movie: "Nights in Cabiria", F. Fellini movie, 1957. Great movie, you will clearly understand how he gained a reputation as a great director. A masterpiece.
 

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