I don't have an explorer's gene in my body. Why must I arrive two hours early to remove my shoes, jacket and belt, and queue up to place freezer-bagged toothpaste, watch, phone, belt and iPad in a plastic tray? Why must I buy Shane Warne eau de toilette from a catalogue and sit with knees in my eyes for ten hours eating microwaved tortellini? I could do all that in Ikea.
I loved my hols in North Wales and relished wandering about the towers of Conwy Castle, wondering how they got the arrows to fire through the slits into chain mail. Through bouncing rain, I bought six phials of sleep tincture on Llandudno pier. We explored Snowdonia National Park by steam train and ate Welsh cakes, secretly wishing they were scones, in a place beginning with several L's. It was every bit as foreign to my eyes as navigating an archipelago or dropping into a dinghy to visit a frigatebird.
Guido did get me on a cruise to the Galápagos Islands last year and I'm not ungrateful. Until you've seen a moving hill of iguanas or the mating dance of the blue-footed booby you can't honestly say you've travelled. (Off the boat, on the panga, off the panga, view the tortoises, take the photo, on the panga, off the panga, on the boat, get in your tightly-regimented group, queue up for your dinner, peer at your photos, wonder why they're all grey.)
Truly though, I preferred my recent tour to Norwich, marvelling at the number of churches on every street and spending a week's salary in a gloomily-lit clothes store that specialised in Croatian haute couture. And Brighton Pavilion — the table immaculately laid for 50 guests beneath glittering chandeliers, the vaulted kitchen held up by iron palm trees. Real cod and chips at Bardsley's fish restaurant in the Max Miller room, surrounded by his blue, hand-printed suit in a glass case, and printed innuendos. A history lesson, a shot of nostalgia and a culinary feast in one swell group.
The next week it was Kettle's Yard in Cambridge. Two hours of artistic bliss in Jim Ede's open house, sharing the foresight and quiet taste of a curator who chose to share his home and his taste long after he had passed on. A wall of Alfred Wallis, a whole body of work by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and the peace of sitting in Ede's own Fifties armchair. I went in felled from an eight-show week and came out skipping with exhilaration to bore the pants off anyone who'd half listen.
And finally, the joy of a Sunday jazz and poetry recital in the white iron-and-glass conservatory at Blenheim Palace with the chance of a preview of Ai Weiwei's iconoclastic exhibition — Churchill's bed and a pair of carved wooden handcuffs — thrown in. I mean, come on! This England. The whole UK with a "No" vote behind us, lumps falling off the Shard, and extended ceramic poppies. Where in the whole wide world and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch — from any standpoint — does Earth have anything to show more fair?
I loved my hols in North Wales and relished wandering about the towers of Conwy Castle, wondering how they got the arrows to fire through the slits into chain mail. Through bouncing rain, I bought six phials of sleep tincture on Llandudno pier. We explored Snowdonia National Park by steam train and ate Welsh cakes, secretly wishing they were scones, in a place beginning with several L's. It was every bit as foreign to my eyes as navigating an archipelago or dropping into a dinghy to visit a frigatebird.
Guido did get me on a cruise to the Galápagos Islands last year and I'm not ungrateful. Until you've seen a moving hill of iguanas or the mating dance of the blue-footed booby you can't honestly say you've travelled. (Off the boat, on the panga, off the panga, view the tortoises, take the photo, on the panga, off the panga, on the boat, get in your tightly-regimented group, queue up for your dinner, peer at your photos, wonder why they're all grey.)
Truly though, I preferred my recent tour to Norwich, marvelling at the number of churches on every street and spending a week's salary in a gloomily-lit clothes store that specialised in Croatian haute couture. And Brighton Pavilion — the table immaculately laid for 50 guests beneath glittering chandeliers, the vaulted kitchen held up by iron palm trees. Real cod and chips at Bardsley's fish restaurant in the Max Miller room, surrounded by his blue, hand-printed suit in a glass case, and printed innuendos. A history lesson, a shot of nostalgia and a culinary feast in one swell group.
The next week it was Kettle's Yard in Cambridge. Two hours of artistic bliss in Jim Ede's open house, sharing the foresight and quiet taste of a curator who chose to share his home and his taste long after he had passed on. A wall of Alfred Wallis, a whole body of work by Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and the peace of sitting in Ede's own Fifties armchair. I went in felled from an eight-show week and came out skipping with exhilaration to bore the pants off anyone who'd half listen.
And finally, the joy of a Sunday jazz and poetry recital in the white iron-and-glass conservatory at Blenheim Palace with the chance of a preview of Ai Weiwei's iconoclastic exhibition — Churchill's bed and a pair of carved wooden handcuffs — thrown in. I mean, come on! This England. The whole UK with a "No" vote behind us, lumps falling off the Shard, and extended ceramic poppies. Where in the whole wide world and Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwlllantysiliogogogoch — from any standpoint — does Earth have anything to show more fair?
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