Portchester - the Walk

Regular readers will notice that, after a reassuringly alphabetic start (Ancaster, Bicester), we've suddenly jumped to the letter 'P' with Portchester.  When she realised the way my mind was working, BAM (Best Aussie Mate) was adamant that we wouldn't be going through the alphabet letter by letter on this one, but would pick our -chesters at random, increasing our sense of expectation, as we never really know which 'chester' will be next.  She's absolutely right, of course, and it's good to have someone to curb my incredibly predictable approach to planning! 

I must admit, I'd never heard of Portchester before we'd settled on it as our next destination.  For those of you who don't know, Portchester is in the south of Hampshire, between Portsmouth and Fareham.  Sheltering beneath the ridgeway of the Ports Down, it looks enviously across Portsmouth Harbour to the hustle and bustle of both Portsmouth and Gosport.

Nell Wycherley - the operatic belle of Barbados

Portchester was an adventure, from start to finish and we were lucky enough to stay with a wonderful lady on the Portchester Road called Nell Wycherley (nee Hall), who was born in Barbados, but has lived in Portchester since the 70's.  She has a fascinating story to tell, training as a classical singer with a well-known Italian maestro, she travelled the world before settling in England and getting married to the retailer Mr Wycherley, settling down in Portchester, where she continues to entertain and entrall local church-goers with her beautiful voice and buoyant optimism.

We were privileged enough to hear Nell sing before we set out on our walk and her love of music shone through with a vigour and passion that was incredibly captivating.  She told us stories of her days travelling around South America, the capricious humour of her maestro, the audiences that filled the concert halls, her nerves when performing onstage in New York and London, her MBE, awarded for services to opera. 

I could picture her childhood in Barbados, practising on the baby piano, with the doors open, fans whirring in the tropical heat and the polished wooden floor glistening in the sunlight.  We were sorry to rush off so quickly, but daylight hours are precious at this time of year and we wanted to push on with our walk.

Portchester Road to Portchester Castle (1.9 miles)

After spending most of the morning chatting to Nell, we ended up getting to the centre of Portchester quite late and almost in time for the 11am Remembrance service on West Street.  I never feel more like a 'foreigner' than during this time of the year, when it seems as though the whole country is organising services and wearing poppies to remember the fallen of the two World Wars.  It makes me feel distinctly 'uncomfortable', not just because I don't really have cultural reference points for Remembrance services, but also because I'm anti-war and poppy-wearing seems to somehow endorse current wars, as well as past ones.

It was a bit surreal, watching the brass band followed by lines of soldiers, navy cadets and scouts parading through the centre of Portchester and I realised that these parades happen all the time in various parts of Britain - I've just never been aware of them, as they happen in places outside multicultural London!  I guess that's the whole point of doing these -chester trips, ie. to see life in Britain from an everyday and non-touristy point of view.  Military parades and marches are just as much a part of British culture, as rustic cottages in rural Oxfordshire and cornfields in Lincolnshire.  It was also an apt start to a discernably militaristic day!

Myself and BAM were more concerned with stocking up on nuts and chocolates at the local Somerfield and before long we were making our way along Castle Street, past the quaint little cottages, every second one sporting a blue plaque, before long we'd reached the impressive sight of Portchester Castle. 

Portchester Castle

Portchester Castle is a grand building and the best-preserved example of a Roman fort in Northern Europe.  It's surprising that the Romans would choose this part of England to secure their new colony (as it's much further from the continent of Europe than, for example, Kent), but I guess the location is ideal, protected from its hinterland by the low-lying downs and sheltered from the sea, the fact that the castle has remained on this spot and was used by the Saxons and Normans is evidence enough to explain the enduring popularity of Portchester, and ultimately Portsmouth, as the centre of British Naval forces. 

You can walk inside the castle's outer bailey without paying a charge and this is also where the Norman church of St Mary's is located, a wonderful orange-roofed building in the south-western corner of the castle grounds.  We were incredibly lucky with the weather (yet again), although BAM still compares the beautiful, cloudy days of England to the endless sunshine of her native Australia!

Portchester Castle to Downend Road (2.4 miles)

From Portchester Castle we followed the Allan King's way along the northern side of Portsmouth Harbour.  This route was created as a memorial to a local man called Allan King, who was a publicity officer for the Hampshire Area Rambler's Association.  The way runs for 45 miles in total, starting at Portchester Castle and finishing at Winchester Cathedral, we did the first 10 miles (or thereabouts) of this walk. 

The view from Portchester Castle is amazing and we couldn't help but notice (in the distance) the (in)famous Spinnaker Tower of Portsmouth, which was opened in 2005.  The tower is a useful landmark for the area and reminded me a lot on the Burj al Arab in Dubai, although I've only ever seen pictures of that tower.  Just as Burj al Arab means 'Arab Sail' - the Spinnaker Tower is named after the type of sail that billows in high winds and gives the spinnaker its distinctive curved shape. 

The design was chosen by local people and it was intended to be Portsmouth's answer to the new millennium, however, it caused a lot of controversy, being completed almost six years behind schedule, it also ended up costing the local council millions more than expected and its popularity with tourists has been declining since the day it opened.  There were also problems with the external glass lift, which never really functioned properly and the building has seemingly been dogged with one crisis after another.  It's a shame really, as I think it's an eye-catching building.

Portsmouth harbour is almost lake-like in its shape, having a very narrow outlet to the sea between Old Portsmouth and the Gosport marina.  It's considered to be a Ria, which means a coastal river-valley which was flooded, probably due to rising sea levels.  I was impressed by the abundance of wildlife around the harbour, so many birds and interesting plants.  The harbour shoreline was an array of colours, which I hope my little camera has been able to do some justice to. 

Downend Road to Nelson's Monument (1.3 miles)

Eventually we turned inland, crossing the Portchester Road again, only five minutes away from the B&B where we had started the walk, we then crossed the railway line and the M27 heading up over the ridge to its highest point at Nelson's Monument.

The M27, at 25 miles long, is probably one of the shortest motorways in England.  It links Portsmouth to Southampton and, just like the Spinnaker Tower, was supposed to be part of something much greater than it actually is.  I think the original plan was to build a massive motorway all along the south coast of England, from Penzance to Dover, but (luckily) this never happened and the M27 is the only bit that was actually built. 

Going up onto the Ports Down, we passed the massive structure that is Fort Nelson.  One of five Portsdown forts (also known as the Palmerston forts) built in the 1860's, Fort Nelson is somewhat of a showpiece and has been preserved as a museum, whereas the other four forts have either been demolished or adapted for non-military use.  The location of the five forts is ideal, with views south across Portsmouth, Gosport, the Isle of Wight and Southampton - the views inland go right back to the South Downs, you can see all of the farmlands and forests in between. 

We arrived at Fort Nelson at the same time as a tour bus full of young soldiers, no doubt cramming in a bit of military history on their day off!  Again, Fort Nelson had been destined for greater things (I'm beginning to see a pattern here) being built during the era of Lord Palmerston who believed in an imminent threat from Napolean III, across the channel in France.  By the time the forts were built, the threat from Napoleon III was no longer imminent and there was a great public outcry at the waste of public funds, Palmerston's towers were popularly re-named 'Palmerston's follies'.  Determined not to have them exist only as 'follies', they were put to use during the World Wars and Fort Nelson was used as an armoury in preparation for the Normandy landings.

The forts were built in the polygonal style popular in the mid-nineteenth century, which modernised the 'star fort' design of hexagons and cannon-proof towers, by creating even more complex shapes and angles, burying half of the fort underground, so that its real size would be barely perceptible from a distance.  The design of Palmerston's forts and the fact that Fort Nelson is mostly underground has led to all kinds of conspiracy theories that the Ports Down is full of secret tunnels and atomic shelters!  I do like a bit of mystery and sitting under Nelson's Tower looking out across the Solent with the wind whistling around your ears, it's easy to let your imagination get carried away with secret military plans and hidden agendas!

Nelson's Monument to Lodge Farm (approx 3.4 miles)

Walking around the back of Fort Nelson, we continued along Allan King's way, downhill this time, zig-zagging between the roads and fields around Boarhunt village and Manor Farm.  Something that was really interesting about this part of the walk was the fact that the fields in this part of Hampshire don't have hedges.  It reminded me of France, where you can see cars driving along country lanes and it looks like they are driving through the middle of a field.  We were a little bit worried about walking along the winding roads around Boarhunt and took short-cuts through the church yard and along the edge of fields, to avoid dealing with the (surprisingly) busy traffic. 

Once through Boarhunt, we turned off along a forest path which brought us down to a bridge across the River Wallington.  We got a bit lost here, as we debated the possible difference between streams and brooks, we ended up losing the river and detoured slightly in the wrong direction before using the GPS on my iPhone to get us back on track again. 

Unlike the lovely, tidy farm that BAM was so fond of on our last walk in Oxfordshire, Lodge Farm was less impressive and we found ourselves wading through rivers of cowshit, trying to get past the farm and back to the main road.  It's not usual for public ways to go right through the middle of a farm, but it does occasionally happen, which is a great inconvenience for farmers and walkers alike.  Unfortunately for us, our arrival at Lodge Farm coincided with milking time and the Allan King way was telling us to go through a pen crowded with cows that were waiting to be milked.

I have a great fear of cows, or 'the Beasts', as my grandmother used to call them.  Whilst they are not normally aggressive, cows have been known to trample people to death and you hear stories all the time of people being attacked by cows in England.  Walking through a field of cows generally makes me feel a little bit frightened - walking through a small farmyard filled with cows is something I absolutely dread.  Luckily BAM, with her robust Australian ways managed to lead the way and I got enough of an adrenalin rush walking through that herd of cows to keep me going well into next year!  It was terrifying and I never want to be that close to a herd of cows ever again, but somehow we got through it.  BAM was more concerned with the overpowering smell of manure than with the cows themselves, which helped lighten the moment!

Lodge Farm to Southwick (1.1 miles)

Having met my greatest fear head on, I was relieved to see the road outside Lodge Farm and cross the fields leading to Southwick village.  The village itself is very pretty, most of the buildings being of the same, thatched roof style and I understand that Southwick is an unusual place, being one of the few remaining villages in England that is (almost) wholly owned by one landowner, the Southwick Estate (only the Church house doesn't belong to the estate).  The church in Southwick was very pretty, but we didn't hang around too long, as Lodge Farm had delayed us somewhat and, being 4.30 the sun was already starting to set.

Southwick to Portchester Railway Station (2.4 miles)

The last part of the walk was both exhilarating and rushed, as we were walking against the setting sun!  We tore up the ridgeway along the Crooked Walk lane - the view of the sunset over the South Downs, as we climbed the Ports Down was spectacular and I know that this time our cameras couldn't do justice to what we were seeing.  We were really surprised to see two deer bounding along a field near Offwell Farm.  As we reached the top of the ridge and the junction with Portchester Lane, the sun had set completely.

Luckily, we'd just made it onto roads with pavements before it got completely dark and the last mile or so of our walk was spent in silence, descending the hill into Portchester, forlornly eyeing the warmth of suburban sitting rooms and flickering televisions.

We celebrated our return to civilisation with a slap-up meal in the Red Lion, before jumping on the train back to London and the welcome of a familiar bed! 

Image credits

All photos were taken by myself or BAM.  Please feel free to use any of these images under the Creative Commons License with conditions of Share Alike, Non-commercial and Attribution.

Bicester - Famous Bicestrians

As I was reading about Bicester for our second -cester walk, I decided to do some research into famous people who were born in Bicester.  Britain has contributed a lot to the world in terms of the sports, sciences, politics and the arts and one can only presume that each small town in the UK will have it's own celebrities, sons and daughters who left their town or village behind and went on to greater things.  Amidst the usual plethora of sports' stars and entrepreneurs, I've chosen three famous Bicestrians, who interested me, for one reason or another.

The Muse

Being a 19th-century artist's model doesn't really guarantee you any fame these days and, compared to the overpaid supermodels of the 20th century, Maud Franklin ended her career in relative obscurity having been, for a time, the mistress and muse of the famous American painter James McNeill Whistler.  Whistler was somewhat of an eccentric character, travelling to Russia and Chile, studying art in Paris, living with Maud in Venice but ending his years in England.  By all accounts he didn't treat Maud particularly well.  She had two children by him, but he never married her, eventually ditching her for a young woman called Beatrix Godwin, the widow of his friend and architect, Edward Godwin. 

It is said that Maud was so loved by Whistler because she was the only woman who could put up with the demanding sittings his portraiture required.  After her relationship with Whistler ended, she moved to Paris and, later Cannes, where she died sometime around 1942.

The Doctor

Another interesting Bicestrian was the 19th century doctor and obstetrician, Albert Freeman Africanus King.  King owes his unusual name to his father's obsession with Africa.  The family moved from rural Oxfordshire to the USA when King was ten years old and King followed his father into the medical profession, graduating from the Columbia Medical College and the University of Pennsylvania.

King is famous for two things - being one of the physicians on hand, at the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and being one of the first doctors to suggest a connection between mosquitoes and malaria.  People thought he was joking at first, when he suggested that there might be a connection between the presence of mosquitoes and incidences of the disease and it was not until 1898 that the British Indian doctor, Ronald Ross, proved that this was indeed the case. 

The Modern Major-General

George Rose was an actor, remembered primarily for his comedic roles and his interpretation of, what must be, one of the hardest songs in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire, I am the very model of a modern Major-General.  Although he acted in quite a few movies, Rose was better known as a stage actor, both at the Old Vic in London and later in Broadway, where he first graced the boards in 1946. 

More controversial than his life, was Rose's death in 1988, in mysterious circumstances in the Dominican Republic.  Rose bought a house in the Dominican resort town Sosua in 1984, where he'd seemed very happy, with his coterie of animals and 17,000 jazz records.  Being gay and childless, Rose had taken in a 14-year old boy in 1984, who he later adopted and had intended as his heir.  What was first reported to have been a terrible car accident in May 1988, turned out to be something more sinister and Rose is believe to have been brutally beaten and killed by his adopted son and his son's real father. 

The boy claimed to have been Rose's lover and, by all accounts, was worried that Rose was going to disown him because they hadn't been getting on very well.  Rose's friends insist that his relationship with the young man was purely a father-son bond.  The case, which remains unsolved, certainly exposed the press's homophobia in their attitude towards Rose, as well as the Domincan Republic's desire to make as little fuss about Rose's death as possible, not wanting to discourage the lucrative stream of British tourists visiting the island.  It's very much a story of its time and I can't help thinking that if this had happened ten or twenty years later, Rose's killers would have got the punishment that they truly deserved.

Whether ending their days in Cannes, Pennsylvania or the Dominican Republic, these famous Bicestrians certainly led interesting lives, leaving the town of their birth far behind, in their pursuit of fame and glory, whether on the canvas, in the medical world or on stage. 

I'm going to leave you with a Youtube video, showing George Rose as the Major-General in The Pirates of Penzance. 



Credits

The images of Albert Freeman and Whistler's Arrangement in White in Black are in the public domain and (therefore) copyright free. 

The photo of Sosua, Dominican Republic was taken by flickruser Eaulive, a lighting designer from Montreal, Canada, who currently lives in DR.  Thanks Eaulive for sharing this image with us, using the Creative Commons License.  If you'd like to see more of Eaulive's photos, check out his photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/eaulive/

The photo of the sign in Bicester was taken by me. 

A lot of the information I've used came from Wikipedia.  I've also referenced an article on the death of George Rose, which was written by investigative journalist Alix Kirsta and first appeared in the Sunday Times on the 25th of May 1997.  You can see the full article at http://www.alixkirsta.com/articles/georgerose/index.htm

Bicester - the walk

When I first starting writing this blog, I thought I would do all of the research before visiting whichever -chester myself and BAM (Best Aussie Mate) had agreed upon, then finish with a final blog about the walk itself.  We're only on our second -chester and I realise that it's better to do things the other way round - ie. start with the walk and pick up ideas for further research along the way.

Although I've been living in England for almost two years (and BAM has been here a lot longer), I feel there is still so much to learn and our walk in Oxfordshire yesterday has proven to me that you can plump yourself down in any random place in England and there will be a whole lot of history, landscape and village-life to observe and absorb!

Bicester

I didn't really know what to expect with Bicester.  Enquiries from work colleagues and English friends drew blank looks or, at best, vague references to a massive shopping mall.  In my mind, Bicester was slowly becoming Stevenage or Milton Keynes!  Arriving anywhere at night is definitely disorientating and, walking along Launton Road in Bicester, through the eerily abandoned office buildings of an industrial estate and past a factory with the ominous grinding of machinery, we were beginning to wonder what God-forsaken place we'd ended up in. 

We sought refuge in the King's Arms and steeled ourselves for rural Oxfordshire on a Friday night, with cheap red wine (BAM) and a yummy Oxfordshire ale called Hobgoblin (me).  It also gave us a chance to catch up on all of our news since we last met and we talked about my Irish lessons in Hammersmith and the difficulties of Cantonese with its seven tones and rapid delivery.  The B&B we stayed in, Ava House, was really lovely and we would definitely recommend it, if this blog inspires you to venture down Bicester-way.

After a fab breakfast and a chance to stock up at the local Co-op, we wandered through the town centre.  It's funny how different things look in the daylight!  Bicester is really a charming little market town, bustling with shoppers on a Saturday morning, there was a nice feel about the place and we were impressed by some of the quaint buildings along Church Street in, what seemed like, the older part of town.  I'd also like to say a big Thank-you to the lovely woman in Vision Express who mended my glasses after the frames had (somehow!) got bent the evening before.  There was a prominent Methodist Church in Bicester and we noticed others during our walk, so it's something I'm going to look into and (perhaps) blog about later.

Bicester to Wendlebury (3.2 miles)

When we were originally talked about this trip, we'd planned to go in a completely different direction via Middleton Stoney, past Upper Heyford Airfield to Somerton then along the Oxford Canal Walk to Lower Heyford where we would catch our train back to London.  Totally on a whim, we changed our minds.  Whilst looking over the map in the King's Arms on Friday night, we decided instead to follow a cycle path south via Wendlebury, getting to Lower Heyford via the Oxfordshire Way and the south-north route on the Oxford Canal walk.  We also thought it would be apt to walk past Alchester, the site of a Roman 'vexillation camp'.  Vexillation doesn't mean, as I thought, that everyone there is angry all the time, but refers to a camp which can be set up quickly, part of a movable front line protecting the south-north movement of the Roman armies.

Leaving Bicester via King's End and the Oxford Road (A41), we passed the famous shopping mall, Bicester Village which, although we didn't have time to visit, looks very modern and a pleasant place to while away an hour or so.  Our main concerns were avoiding occasional cars coming round the sharp bends and deciding whether or not Germaine Greer had gone too far in her attempts to gain notoriety (BAM is a fellow-Melbournian and knows more about the subject than I do). 

Wendlebury didn't fail to impress and we particularly liked the 'Broken House' which added atmosphere to the village. 

Wendlebury to Oddington Grange (2.9 miles)

Wendlebury seems absolutely idyllic until you realise how close it is to the M40!  The M40 is something I'd really like to come back to in a future blog, as I think it has an interesting story to tell, being Britain's latest major motorway, it cut a controversial swath through a rural Oxfordshire unprepared for its speed and purpose.  I couldn't help being impressed by the speed of cars on the motorway, as we stood on a bridge just south of Junction 9 - it seemed so at odds with the peaceful countryside around it.

By the time we crossed the motorway, BAM had had enough of roads, so we decided to go off-piste on one of those 'rights of way' that appear as a series of red dots on Ordnance Survey maps.  The route took us through a landscape that has been utterly changed with the end of summer, the land being ripped up and the path being, at best, a conjecture.  What had started as a rainy morning in Bicester, suddenly transformed into a gloriously sunny afternoon and I couldn't help falling into a reverie about walking and how it's not all about mountains and the land but, especially in flatter landscapes like Oxfordshire, it's also about the sky and the clouds.  I've long been impressed by the landscapes of the Dutch painters, where the land appears as a sliver along the bottom and the sky dominates the painting, in all its glory.  I tried to create my own version of this in the photograph accompanying this paragraph.

As we were negotiating our way through tilled fields and along the edge of Weston Wood, we saw several pens with quails running around inside.  We also saw lots of pheasants, near Weston Park farm and, in case the farmer is reading this, BAM was very impressed with how orderly and well-kept the farm was.

Oddington Grange to Weston-on-the-Green (2 miles)

At Oddington Grange we met the Oxfordshire Way, a waymarked trail that runs for 68 miles from Henley-on-Thames in Oxfordshire to Bourton-on-the-Water in Gloucestershire.  We used the trail to cross the A34 and followed it over the fields to Weston-on-the-Green.  Weston is an idyllic Oxfordshire village, with little thatched cottages, a very solid looking 13th-century church called St Mary's and a busy Village Hall, which was hosting a horticultural show.  We had a rest on a bench outside St Mary's and were talking to some of the volunteers who worked in the church.  Village life in England fascinates me - with its Women's Institutes, marrow contests and home-made jams - it's a million miles from the world I grew up in, that's for sure!

Weston-on-the-Green to Kirtlington (2.4 miles)

We left Weston-on-the-Green following the Oxfordshire Way through a field full of sheep and with a view of parachutists towards the north of the village.  I've since learned that RAF Weston-on-the-Green is used as a parachute training site.  I get the sense that there is a tangible Army presence in the county and, I suspect, many local families have sons and daughters who are in the RAF or other military units.

It didn't take long to be in the middle of nowhere again and, at this point, we did get a bit lost, being distracted by a lovely hedgerow that took us a quarter of a mile in the wrong direction, when we should have been concentrating on going straight ahead.  When we finally got back on track again, crossing a line of trees, we came to the stunning grounds of Kirtlington Park, an 18th-century Palladian country house, the park itself having been designed by Britain's most famous landscape gardener, 'Capability Brown'. 

Kirtlington was yet another idyllic Oxfordshire village - lots of sighs and gasps from BAM this time, as she admired the layout of the village and its pretty little buildings - you certainly get an inkling of how the other half lives!  It helped that the village was basked in a glorious late-afternoon sunshine, adding a magical hue to the stone houses, apple bowers and thatched cottages. 

Kirtlington to Pigeon Lock (1 mile)

We followed the Oxfordshire Way along Mill Lane, passing a disused Quarry and on the east bank of the Oxford Canal to Pigeon Lock.  BAM is very interested in Canal boats and knows all about locks and narrow-boats - she filled me in on the standard measurement of narrow boats in Paddington dock (63 metres) and we talked to boat owners, as we met them along the tow path, BAM quizzed them about the length of their boats, as she admired their paintwork and remarked on the names their owners had given them.

Pigeon Lock to Lower Heyford (5 miles)

For the last part of our walk we turned onto the Oxford Canal walk, a long-distance path that is 82 miles from Oxford to Coventry.  As a keen walker, I've spent quite a bit of time on towpaths and it's always very pleasant walking, away from the roads and fields, life seems to slow down immensely, as the canal boats drift past, then stop at the locks, where there is usually a bench, so you can rest and have a chat with the boat owners. 

We did about 15.5 miles altogether on our Bicester-Lower Heyford walk, so (after 7 1/2 hours) I think we were both genuinely relieved to get to Lower Heyford, in the end, for a pint and a meal in the beer garden of the Bell Inn. 

Image credits

All photos were taken by me during the walk on Saturday the 12th of September 2010

Ancaster - How I made Lincolnshire Haslet!

As part of my learning experience about Ancaster, I was interested in finding a traditional Lincolnshire dish that I could cook and after some research, I decided to make a (non-traditional) Lincolnshire Haslet, which is a type of pork meat loaf, traditionally made from innards and other icky bits of the pig, with stale bread and wrapped in caul, which is a sheet of fat.

My version was non-traditional, partly because I used regular pork mince, not innards, but also because, try as I might, I couldn't get my hands on caul fat and decided to wrap the meatloaf in less traditional, but infinitely tastier Parma ham!

Ingredients

For once, I didn't follow any specific recipe, but had a look at a few versions of Lincolnshire Haslet and came up with my own.  The ingredients I used included:

1/2 kilo of Pork mince

1 onion, which I chopped up very finely, although you could also mince this in the food processor

Three slices of slightly stale white bread

Garlic puree

Sage

Parma ham, to wrap the Haslet in before bunging it in the oven

Foccacia to accompany - I didn't make this, but bought it freshly baked from Marks and Spencers

Long-grain rice with peas, as a side

Gravy made from flour, red wine and vegetable stock

Process

I started by soaking the stale white bread in water for about 45 minutes, afterwards squeezing out as much of the water as possible and mixing the bread with the onion, garlic, sage and pork mince in a bowl.

Once this is mixed together, I gently kneaded it into a loaf shape, as you can see below. 

I then wrapped the Haslet in Parma ham, as you can see from these pictures.  I oiled an oven tray, having pre-heated the oven to 170 degrees and left the Haslet in there for about 50 minutes.  I must admit, I did have a moment of panic, when I thought that the Parma slices wouldn't be as durable as Caul fat and I really didn't know whether they were going to come out burnt after 50 minutes in the oven, but it turned out that I needn't have worried about the Parma ham, everything turned out just fine.

As I was waiting for the Haslet to bake in the oven, I prepared the rice, mixing in frozen peas at the end, as I love rice and peas together, with or without the Caribbean spices! 

Making the gravy was also quite simple.  I tossed some flour in a small pot for a minute or so, then adding half a glass of red wine, mixing the wine into the flour before pouring over 400ml of vegetable stock.  I let the gravy bubble away for a while, eventually turning down the heat, when the mixture had reduced a bit. There was no gravy in the original recipes I looked at, but I thought the Haslet might be a bit dry without it. 

In general, Haslet was a really easy dish to prepare and we'll definitely be having it again.  The pork was delicious and the Parma gave a nice salty taste to the Haslet that, otherwise, would have been missing.  I think next time round I would spice it up a bit, by adding chillies or spices like cinnamon to the meatloaf! 

Image Credits:

All photos were taken by me. 

Ancaster - Isaac Newton and the great Ocean of Truth

In my quest to do some research before the Grantham-Ancaster-Sleaford walk, I decided to learn more about Isaac Newton, who was born in Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth, just a few miles south of Grantham and a stone's thrown from the ancient Roman road, known as Ermine Street.  It's amazing really that this son of an illiterate farmer from Lincolnshire, could become one of the most influential thinkers in human history. 

Early life in Woolsthorpe and Grantham

Newton was what is known as a posthumous child, meaning his father died before he was born.  The consequences for Newton were severe, in that his mother was forced to remarry and, as part of her marriage contract, to abandon the young Isaac, leaving him in the care of his grandmother.  Newton hated his mother's new husband and I have no doubt that the experiences of his childhood would go some way to explain his antagonism towards society in later life and his desire to live in a world of numbers and equations. 

Newton had a wide variety of interests throughout his life and, although we usually associate him with the sciences of physics and optics, he was also interested in subjects like Linguistics (he wished to design a common, global language that would be based on mathematical principles) and History (towards the end of his life, he spent weeks and months calculating the reigns of Kings and Pharoahs and trying to predict the end of the world.)

Cambridge and the Lucasian professorship

Newton's mother had always intended that he would go into farming and continue the familty tradition at Woolsthorpe, but Newton was so phenomenally bad at sheep rearing that money was found to send him to Cambridge, albeit in a very lowly position as sizar, ie. a kind of servant to the richer boys.  He managed to make a name for himself and did so well at Cambridge that, aged 26, he was appointed Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, currently one of the most prestigious academic titles in the world, having been held recently by people like Stephen Hawking. 

Newton was only the second person to hold this post, mathematics being a new arrival on the academic scene and somewhat derided for being the science of merchants and traders.  In the historical context of the Interregnum, the Age of Exploration and the new politics of Cromwell and the Puritans, mathematics was becoming increasingly important as a subject matter.  By all accounts, Newton was a great academic, but a poor lecturer.

Light, Space and Colour

During his time at Cambridge, Newton continued his research into the nature of light, space and colours.  He's famous for inventing the reflecting telescope, which increased the ability of astromers to explore the sun, solar system and far-away planets.  Late 17th-century Europe was a bit obsessed with space and the solar-system.  Early scientists such as Copernicus and Galileo had exploded the myths about the Earth being flat and the solar system revolving around the Earth.  Much of Newton's time was devoted to understanding the relationship of the solar system to the sun.  He was amongst the first to posit magnetic fields of attraction, that held the sun and the planets in orbit and meant that the movement of planets and comets could be predicted.  The 1690's saw an unusal number of comets pass through the Earth's atmosphere, no doubt leading to a sense of panic and a feeling that the end of the world was nigh.  Newton wasn't an astronomer, but he was able to apply mathematical principles to rationalise the orbit of celestial bodies.  One of his biggest fans was a young astronomer called Edmund Halley, well-known to us in modern times because of Halley's comet.

Alchemist or Scientist

Newton's era saw a revolution in attitudes towards the older science of Alchemy and the new sciences being explored by the newly-founded Royal Society.  Because he believed in invisible fields of attraction or magnetism, Newton was accused of being an Alchemist.  Alchemistry was starting to get a bad name, as science moved into the Age of Enlightenment.  There was a real desire among the new scientists to rid science of all quasi-religious or supernatural associations.  To his credit, Newton spent all his energy rationalising that which seemed irrational, but he still allowed for an element of magic or the unknown.  Later critics of Newton, like the poet William Blake criticised Newton for taking modern science down the road of mechanisation and away from the very obvious spirituality of the Earth.  In many ways, I think it was inevitable that Newton's rationalising would consign Alchemistry to the footnotes of modern Science, although I'm not sure that this is what Newton had intended.

Rivalries and the Royal Society

My work is all about helping teachers collaborate online, across borders and with teachers in other parts of Europe and the world, so I'm really interested in the history of global collaboration.  In many ways, the Royal Society was the very beginning of this.  Not only did the Royal Society, which was founded in 1660, seek to bring science into the realm of experiment and away from the endless theorising of previous generations, but it was also the first time an international review of scientific developments was published, mostly organised by Henry Oldenburg, a German diplomat and first Secretary of the Royal Society.  For me, it was exciting to learn about this early example of international collaboration and how, by building on and developing the ideas of their counterparts on the Continent, British scientists and mathematicians were able to leap forward and add a new element to the debates that were raging across Europe at the time.

I would love to say that Newton embraced this collaboration whole-heartedly but, in fact, the opposite was true.  Having been stung early on by the criticism of his arch-rival Robert Hooke, Newton became obsessively secretive about his work, refusing to share his research with others and refusing to listen to any criticism or questioning of his theories.  In many ways he was right!  It seems as though Newton was ahead of his time, which would explain why he found the endless questioning and doubt of his contemporaries frustrating.  Time has proved Newton correct on many points, most notably the existence of magnetic forces and also atoms, which he struggled to conceptualise or define.  His rivalry with Hooke and later with Leibniz reminds me of children squabbling over a favourite toy.  It certainly wasn't the best example of scientists collaborating.

Principia - Newton in a nutshell

What Newton is most remembered for is his publication Principia, reputedly one of the most boring books ever written.  I have an abhorrence of maths and physics, so a lot of Newton's discoveries have gone right over my head, as no doubt is the case with many of us.  Nevertheless, I'll try to summarise Newton's Laws of Motion, so apologies to the real scientists out there!

Law 1 - Everything will stay in its original place, unless compelled to move by force (especially important to know this one if you have to get a teenager to school in the morning)

Law 2 - There is a relationship between the rate of change and the force applied and this can be calculated mathematically (although I wouldn't even know where to begin)

Law 3 - probably the most famous one:  every action has an opposite and equal reaction, eg. when a horse pulls a cart, the cart (although seemingly inanimate) also pulls against the horse. 

Whew!  Back to Newton's biography.

Working-class boy makes good

I don't know whether or not it was to do with his poor upbringing, but when Newton was offered the chance to become warden of the Royal Mint, under the patronage of Charles Montagu, the first Earl of Halifax (who was boning Newton's niece), he jumped at it!  It might seem like a strange profession for one of Britain's most eminent scientists to pursue (by all accounts he was ruthless in his pursuit of counterfeiters), but it kind of makes sense, given his background in alchemistry (manipulating metals) and mathematics.  Also it made him fabulously wealthy, which he celebrated in true rags-to-riches style by decorating his new London home in a gaudy crimson and by dying intestate. 

Newton and the apple

His resounding legacy for those of us who are not scientists is, of course, the apple.  I remember as a child, reading about Newton discovering gravity by sitting under an apple tree and having an apple fall on his head.  I tried the same experiment a few times, but you have to wait an awful long time for an apple to fall - better to give it a bit of encouragement with a stick (see the First Law of Motion). 

Of course, the story of the apple didn't really happen.  Newton had a fair idea about gravity already and didn't need an apple to prove it.  However, he did have apple trees in his garden at Woolsthorpe and he did speculate about the amount of gravity it takes to bring an apple crashing to the Earth, as opposed to the Moon, which has never been drawn in by the Earth's gravity in this way.  I guess this was the birth of the Second Law of Motion and the relationship between force and rate of change.  Newton realised that the Earth's gravitational pull on the apple must be a lot stronger than its pull on the Moon and was able to calculate the difference in a way that made absolute sense to him and his mathematical buddies (I guess the rest of us just need to trust them!). 

It's no surprise really that the story of Newton and the apple caught the imagination of 18th-century Europe, when Voltaire started retelling the story, as though it had actually happened.  Of course, in Christian mythology, the apple is associated with Eve and the Garden of Eden.  It's about sharing divine knowledge and breaking the last taboos of man's dependence on God.  I guess, like Adam, Newton also tasted the apple of Eden and moved science in a direction it would never again return from. 

I want to leave you with one of Newton's most famous quotes, which sums up his assessment of his life's work.

I don't know what I may seem to the world but, as to myself, I seem

to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting

myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell

than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered

before me.

Credits:

The image of the sign at Grantham station was taken by me.

The portrait of Newton is one he commissioned in 1689 and was painted by one of London's most fashionable portrait artists, Godfrey Kneller.  This image is in the public domain and copyright-free.

The drawing of Newton with the graph is by the poet William Blake and it's an image I absolutely love.  It depicts Newton as a semi-Godlike being, rippling with muscles and animal energy.  This is also in the public domain.

The image of the statue of Newton is one I took on Grantham High Street last weekend.

Most of the information in this blog is from a book I've just read called Isaac Newton by James Gleick, the third edition published by Harper Perennial in 2004.

Ancaster - The Walk

This weekend myself and Bam (Best Aussie Mate) did our first 'chester' walk, through Ancaster in Lincolnshire.  The weather was absolutely amazing, in fact, probably way too hot to be outdoors for seven and half hours!  But we had a great walk - the first one I've ever designed all by myself and I would recommend it to anyone who is living in or visiting the area.

Grantham to Belton Park Gates (2 miles/3.2 kilometres)

We arrived in Grantham on Friday night, after work and stayed at a lovely B&B called The Red House on North Parade, run by a couple of (Thai?) ladies.  We had dinner in the restaurant of The Angel and Royal, which was a really nice place to eat and gave myself and Bam a much needed opportunity to catch up on our respective lives, not having seen each other for about two months.  Bam told me about her favourite new song, Bang Bang Bang by Mark Ronson and the Business Intl, so that became our them song for the trip!

After a hearty breakfast, we set off to St Wulfram's Church at about ten the following morning.  The volunteers at St Wulfram's are incredibly friendly and we had an interesting time exploring the crypt and the exhibition room.  St Wulfram was a 7th-century Bishop of Sens, in France and is remembered for his missionary work in Friesland.  There are only two churches dedicated to him in England, the other one being in Sussex.  Grantham ended up with one of his arms, somehow, and St Wulfram's Church sheltered this relic for many years, although his arm seems to have been mislaid sometime during the Reformation.  I guess St Wulfram was the 7th century version of a celeb!  Perhaps this isn't such a modern phenomenon after all.  The church also has the sixth highest spire in England, which is surprising, as Grantham isn't exactly famous for it's landmarks or religion. 

Grantham is famous as the birthplace of Margaret Thatcher, who lived above her father's shop in the town.  It was also the place that Isaac Newton first studied mathematics and lived above an apothecary.  It's amazing that this, most unremarkable of English towns, should produce two such influential people.  I'm going to blog more about Isaac Newton later and I'm interested in the influence that his upbringing had on his genius.  Grantham was also the first town in Britain that had women police officers on the beat, Edith Smith and Mary Allen!  I found this plaque on a bench on the High Street and it struck me as being quite ahead of its day, having a Business and Professional Women's Club in the 1950's.  Perhaps not that remarkable after all for the town that produced Britain's first (and to date, only) female Prime Minister. 

Our walk really began in the centre of Grantham, just outside the Guildhall Arts Centre (pictured), we started by walking down Avenue Road, across the Stone bridge and then left alongside the River Witham on a path which is part of the National Cycle Route 1.  At Hill Avenue we turned right onto Belton Lane and followed this all the way down to the gates of Belton Park.  It's a pleasant suburban walk, but the array of signposts related to the cycle network and circular town walks can be confusing. 




Belton Park Gates to Belton House (1.5 miles/2.4 kilometres)

Belton Park is a really amazing place and I had planned my route through it, without expectations as to what the park might be like.  Arriving at the park gates, with that sweeping view of the park and Belton House at the end of it, I was immediately transported back several centuries and could almost hear the carriages rattling up the 1.5 mile drive to the house, amidst the grazing sheep and sunburnt landscape.  Belton House has a really lovely visitors centre, with giftshops, toilets, cafes and an exhibition of carriages.  We didn't have time to go inside and visit the house, which is a National Trust property, but I bought a book about the house and its history which, hopefully, I will be able to share with you at a later date. 


Belton House to Ancaster (5 miles/8 kilometres)

Belton village itself is an amazing little place.  When you come to the fork in the village, just after the telephone box, take the road to the right, which skirts the grounds of Belmont House and takes you through Barkston Heath, via Syston Grange, along a relatively quiet country lane with surprisingly hilly bits and fantastic views over the Lincolnshire countryside.  The only part of the walk that got 'hairy' was when we finally reached the B6403, a.k.a. the High Dyke or Ermine Street, the route of the Ancient Roman road from London to the Humber.  I don't know if it's legal, but you could possibly walk along the outside of the airfield which is on Barkston Heath and has a road running parallel to the B6403 and is certainly a less treacherous option.  My abiding memory of this part of the walk was Bam telling me about Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and the novella it was based on by Daphne DuMaurier, which was more explicit in its references to the Cold War and fears of a Communist invasion.

To get off the B6403 we turned right down a country lane leading to the village of Wilsford, turning left about halfway down this lane to follow a bridleway along the top ridge of a small valley, eventually leading us to Ermine Street in Ancaster. 

Ancaster to South Rauceby (4 miles/6.4 kilometres)

Ancaster was the main focus of our walk and we stopped off on Ermine Street to have a banana and a soft drink.  I don't usually eat a lunch when I'm doing a full-day walk, but prefer to have a massive breakfast and then something substantial at dinner time.  I do however spend most of the day eating nuts and dried fruit (or Trail mix, as Bam likes to call it) and, with the high temperatures this weekend, I also drank three litres of water during the walk, which just about kept me hydrated.

The church at Ancaster is called St Martin's and it'll be interesting to see how many other casters/chesters have churches dedicated to St Martin, who is the patron saint of soldiers and an apt choice for what used to be a Roman camp.  It was also interesting to note the RAF presence around Ancaster and I find it intriguing to think that there has been a military presence in the area since Roman times!  Channel Four's Time Team visited Ancaster back in 2002 and found evidence of a Romano-celtic shrine to a God named Viridio.  This is thought to be an incorporation of Celtic animist beliefs, such as the Green Man and the Roman temple which stood on the site of today's church. 

We left Ancaster on a trail recommended by the Lincolnshire County Council, called the Ancaster to Sleaford Railway walk.  It wasn't really signposted, but I had marked the route out on our map and we improvised.  This was one of the most beautiful parts of the walk, skirting the higher end of Wilsford Warren, walking through fields abundant with wheat, passing haystacks like monuments abandoned by an extra-terrestrial life-force.  We did get a little bit lost during this part of the walk, but eventually found ourselves coming out onto Church Lane by Lodge Farm. 

It was then a short walk through some fields and sheep pens to the village of South Rauceby.

South Rauceby to Sleaford (3.5 miles/5.6 kilometres)

The last part of the walk is always the hardest, I find and we bombed along from South Rauceby to Sleaford, the evening heat beating down on our heads as we flew through chicken farms and over Bouncing Hill, along the sticky bank of the River Slea, under the railway bridge and finally getting our breathes back at King Edward Street in Sleaford, where we emerged, dazzled into the welcoming arms of civilisation.  The photo shows our route through a most beautiful cornfield outside Sleaford, almost at the end of our 16 mile (25km) journey.

I think 16 miles was quite a long day and, perhaps, next time we won't do quite as much.  Unfortunately we didn't see much of Sleaford, arriving just half an hour before our train was due to arrive, we were more concerned about getting dinner than seeing the sights of the town!  The Chilli Hut on Station Road is definitely to be recommended and, apart from the friendliness of the manager and his staff, who wanted to know all about our walk, Bam swears it's one of the best curries she's ever had (and she should know!). 

By all accounts Sleaford is an up-and-coming kind of place.  Jennifer Saunders grew up here and Emma Thompson's Dad, Eric, who did the Magic Roundabout (the English version) was a local.  I guess we've missed our chance to see what Sleaford has to offer but, you never know, fate may conspire to bring us Sleaford way again sometime!

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me on my (very basic) Canon Ixus 65.  Feel free to use the images under the Creative Commons License and don't forget to reference the source ie. this blog.