The Birmingham Sojournal - Day Five

My gracious hosts, Mark and Sue, at Weston-Super-Mare.


Today was an earlier wake-up than what had been the norm for the week. Actually, it was a scheduled wake-up, whereas up to that point it had been a wake-up-whenever week. The reason for getting up early was our planned day-trip to Weston-Super-Mare in the southwestern coastal area. One reason Mark and Sue wanted to take me there was that it’s a place I want to visit on my dream journey, retracing my father’s wartime footsteps through Europe. His unit arrived first in England, and one of their training stops was Weston. And I learned why the moment I stepped out of Mark’s Defender: Weston’s seashore is a vast, wide, long, smooth beach, and it looked to me very similar to the coast in the photos I’ve seen of the Normandy beachhead. Mark said that, though it looks very sedate, it’s very treacherous out in the far reaches of the beach at low tide because of quicksand.


Low tide at Weston-Super-Mare. Photo: DarkFarmOwl

The downer for the day was the rain. Thus far in autumnal England, the weather had been superb, perhaps even flawless. But, of course, the one day we planned to go out sightseeing is the day England got her typical English autumn weather. It didn’t matter a great deal, as we still walked along the beach parkway, and to the end of the pier, where we had some salt & vinegar chips (which is what we call french fries in the States).


Taking the rain as the English do: in stride. With Sue, Tom,
and Mia. Photo: DarkFarmOwl


Chowing on chips at the end of the Grand Pier in Weston.
I appear to be totally absorbed in my food.
Photo: DarkFarmOwl

The sky fell on us in a steady, miserable drizzle, and we were all in varying degrees of soaked. The dogs even seemed less than enthused. We walked back along the pier, stopped for a spot of tea, which Mark bought for the three of us, only to bring back a somewhat discouraging, though hilarious, account of the “help” not being very helpful when Mark, who only has two hands, needed to carry three very hot take-away cups of tea.

I’m not sure if it was today or earlier that I amused and infused Mark with the concept of “number three,” in reference to the evacuation of body waste. Where “number one” is going pee, and “number two” is taking a dump, I created a third term, “number three” when you have to do both number one and number two. I mean, come on! It’s the kind of simple math that I can do!

Tom the greyhound once again proved, at Weston, that he is the king of number two. No fewer than three times in less than an hour did he grace the beachfront pavement with the remnants of his most recent meal. I however, claim the title of king of number one. The sudden reintroduction of copious amounts of caffeinated products to my diet brought ceaseless amazement to Mark, whom Sue has described as a “camel.” But it may have something to do with his two humps, so I’m not entirely sure.

We left Weston and headed for Glastonbury. To my recollection, it was only about a half-hour drive from Weston, but I could be mistaken. Glastonbury is the location of an annual music festival, cleverly called The Glastonbury Music Festival, which, to my understanding, very closely resembles Woodstock, to include the dancing naked in the mud; the free sharing of venereal diseases; and the three-day, mushroom-induced blackouts. However, as this year’s festival had long since ended, we contented ourselves to a stroll through the town’s high street, where Sue bought a box of incense while Mark and I stood on the walk and ogled wom... er, the really cool old building across the street from the incense shop.


A Glastonbury street scene.

We walked a few doors down and through a funky corridor into a small courtyard area where we stopped for lunch at The Blue Note Cafe, a cool little earthy kind of place that harks of the endangered Heartland Cafe in Chicago. Mark and Sue, dedicated omnivores, both recommended the veggie burger from this place, so we ordered a round with chips and tea, and we dined out in the rainy courtyard under an overhang while the dogs gazed longingly at us, and two young women — Blue Note employees — sat on the stoop for a ciggy and snuggles with the dogs.

We returned to the car park at Glastonbury and, before we hit the road again, I had to make a “number 3” pit stop. There, in the car park, were several loos of the future. One walks in and shuts and locks the door; unbeknownst to the user, closing and locking the door starts a timer. Everything in the bathroom is automated. The toilet is a cold, one-piece, stainless steel cousin of your basic, standard prison cell toilet. There is a touch sensor on the wall beside the toilet for flushing...no moving parts. The wash basin is literally a hole in the wall, a stainless steel rectangular box into which you stick your hands. Supposedly soap dispenses onto your hands, after which a timer, which has been set for the average amount of time it takes for the average person to wash his average hands to average cleanliness, begins its timing sequence. After the average hand-washing time, the average hand-rinsing time commences, during which the average amount of water is dispensed. Next, the timer switches on the hand dryer, which blows warm air for the average amount of time it takes to dry the hands. All this takes place in the same little rectangle in the wall. No drippies on the floor. The drawback for me was that the soap never dispensed, so I had only rinsed hands. And dried. Fortunately, despite how slow I am, I was out of the restroom before the alarm sounded, a device designed to deter squatters from camping out in the bathrooms overnight.

Then we loaded up in the Defender again, and we headed to the town of Wells, the recent claim to fame of which is that the film Hot Fuzz — or at least parts of it — was shot there. The film history aside, Wells is an interesting little town. There’s a huge church there, which is apparently the home of a bishop, which, if I recall correctly, is very castle-like and surrounded by a real moat!

[It is my sincere hope that Mark will read these posts and provide the clarity that I lack.]


The (formerly Catholic) cathedral at Wells.


MOAT!

By this time in the day the rain had mostly stopped, though there were a few spots of fine mist in the air. We left Wells and rolled on to Cheddar Gorge, which is the birthplace of cheddar cheese. No, really. Being that it’s a gorge, it was nestled in a geographically interesting area, with what I would never have guessed, had I seen it in photos, would be found in England. The road wound back and forth through the gorge and climbed its way past craggy rock cliffs up to... a rather boring area up top, and pointing us in much the wrong direction. So we turned around and, my ears popping as we zig-zagged along our way, wound back down to the river and town.


Cheddar Gorge.


I would post more photos of me, but I have the same stupid
look on my face in all of them.
Photo: DarkFarmOwl


The dam at Cheddar.

But it was closed. Well, not the town, but everything in it...except the “licenced traditional” chippie...which didn’t give away free samples of cheddar cheese. As night fell, we decided against breaking and entering and theft, and we simply got back into the Defender, and we left. And I intentionally made that previous sentence rhyme.

Our day’s exploring done, we wound our way back through the countryside and, despite Mark’s valiant efforts to avoid it, through the city of Bristol.

Before we arrived home, we stopped once again at an “Off Licence” for some wine.

I can’t for the life of me remember what we did for dinner that evening. It was fairly late when we got in, though Mark’s estimate of our arrival around 8:15pm was spot on!

I’m pretty certain we watched some telly, and we might have even watched Children of Men this night instead of Monday night.


Tom


Mia


All photos by Tony Gasbarro, except where noted.