Celtic-Romano Temple in Greenwich Park!

I was walking through Greenwich park the other day when I came across a sign giving directions to 'Roman Remains'. I got a bit excited about this; I like Greenwich park enough already, even without it being a centre for antiquity. So I walked, and I walked (the park is 186 acres, so a poorly directed sign can really send you walking) but no luck. I went home and looked it up on the internet. What I read intrigued me even more; various articles mentioned the "remains of a Celtic-Romano temple in Greenwich park". Wacko, I thought. So the next day I set out again to find it, and this time I did. Here it is:



Now don't let the scale fool you - this thing is actually about the size of my hand. It's a floor tile. Having been to Rome (a-hah, yes), I can honestly say the Colosseum is more thought-provoking.

The Anne Plan: Bradford-on-Avon

Last weekend, Julian and I caught a train up to Bradford-on-Avon to spend the weekend with Anne and Fred. Knowing Anne, we suspected that it would be a weekend of walking around this historic village, seeing lots of sights and enjoying the countryside. The fact that Bradford-on-Avon was flooded hardly seemed to phase the epic walker; I can distinctly remember the moment that our ‘stroll’ became an ‘adventure’. I even took a picture of it.



Okay, so the main walking path was flooded… what else could we do? Turn back? Not likely. We just kept searching for ‘higher ground’, whether that be getting bogged in flooded cow paddocks, attempting to climb up steep and slippery forests by hoisting yourself up with rotting tree branches, or sneaking through people’s private estates.



To Anne’s credit, she did get us back to our B&B safe and sound, and we did get to see some lovely places. Our idea of what makes a good walk may never be the same again.





S

Perceptual Blindness

There’s been a fair bit of research conducted into “perceptual blindness”. The studies confirm that when people are focused on a very specific thing (e.g. playing Sudoku), they often fail to notice an otherwise obvious thing (e.g. playing Sudoku is annoying to other people). These studies explain why motorists drive over cyclists, train drivers smash into cars, etc, etc. But here is perhaps a better example:

Shelley and I were driving just outside of Canterbury last week when we passed a tall fence with shiny razor wire running down its length. Now, this fence was pretty formidable, and must have been a couple of hundred metres long, so it wasn’t exactly fleeting.

“Was that a prison?” I asked Shelley once we had passed it.
“A Parisian?”
“No, a prison.”
“Oh, I’m not sure. I missed it; I thought you were talking about the man with the moustache.”

Hhhhhm.

Makes you think, doesn’t it. That Parisian was standing there the whole time and I just didn’t see him.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

When we set out on our driving holiday, we had just found out that it was the first day that there was a high likelihood of snow in London. Having never seen snow falling from the sky before, I was a little annoyed to be leaving London for the south (where snow was not expected). Needless to say I was a bit anxious about missing out on this once a year phenomenon. But all was well- as we were driving down the Motorway, little white dots bounced off our windscreen. We promptly pulled up in the nearest truck stop to run around in the tiny flecks of slush that were falling from the sky. Hopefully no one saw us.



In our three days of driving, we visited Canterbury, Sandwich (unfortunately we did not eat a sandwich in Sandwich), Deal, Dover, and Tonbridge, driving though all sorts of small country towns of only a few houses. When driving down random country roads, you never know what to expect. Chickens were a welcome surprise.



We had to stop our car, not just to take a photo, but to avoid running over the poor things. In stopping though, we allowed another car to catch up with us, and had to endure it following us painfully closely, until Julian had the brilliant idea of pulling off the road into somebody’s driveway. The driveway belonging to the car behind us.



In our travels we found a little town called Tunbridge Wells, which, apart from a minor parking crisis (we thought our car had been towed- no, we were just looking in the wrong street) was a very pretty little town with its somewhat famous ‘Pantiles’. What we weren’t expecting to find here was the best shop in the world. If you wanted something for your kitchen and it wasn’t here, I doubt very much that you would be able to find it. I reluctantly left the shop with only three items, although had I been a more frivolous person, I would have walked away with their entire cake tin range (a very small fraction of which is displayed in this window). They had two walls just for different types of colanders, 10 different types of garlic crushers, and the largest range of jelly molds I have ever seen. Consider me to be one happy customer.



S

Hair Cut

Shelley cut my hair today. After a lot of talking it up, we finally decided to bite the bullet and do it. (I'm no fool; I'm not going to pay 30 to 40 GBP for a salon-style cut, particularly when I'm a boy.) Although Shelley had never cut anyone's hair before, her confidence was verging on that of Mr-T's, which I found unsettling. You just know they're over-compensating.



As you can see it was pretty long. And considering I was due back at school the next day, this money-saver could have been construed as a bit risky. Kids can be so cruel, particularly in the east of London.



But I think it worked out fine!