BECCLES: 3 MILES

The sun turned up unexpectedly on Wednesday so I set out on John's bike with adventure in mind. Beccles, a quaint town I've seen three times from the window of a bus, is nine miles from Lowestoft, and even though I didn't say it aloud, that was where I wanted to go. My explorer's kit: two maps, one compass, one banana, two chocolate bars (thoughtfully provided by Fadia), one fully-charged camera, one bottle of water, sunscreen and a phone in case of disaster.

First glance at map occurred half an hour into journey. Second glance – five minutes after first glance. This is when the first stranger, an RAA English equivalent, approached with an offer of aid. I'd been spotted both times, nose in map, so he thought he'd better stop before he saw me for a third time, puzzled on another corner. He turned me around and said if I went right I couldn't go wrong.

The lanes here are narrow, wide enough for one car or a wandering bicycle. I saw horses first, fields of them and they looked at me as if to say, isn't it a nice day for a ride. If I don't return home, it's because I've been gaoled for horse theft. I briefly considered a career on a horse farm but that would have been the Maddy who got those riding lessons as a child.

I saw birds, emerald-necked pheasants fleeing from me, one unidentified rodent on an errand and a Peter Rabbit, activities unknown, its ears peaking over the hedge row.

I could smell the blossom trees arching above and the wild flowers growing in the ditch between road and field, mood-brightening whiffs that I wish I could pocket and take home with me. John tells me we are in the flattest part of England but my roads would dip and rise in time to the turn of my wheels. At one point, coming over a hill, I arrived at the motorway with its roaring cars, so I chose a bypass instead that took me over a farmer's bumpy field. I stopped under the lone tree with its shaded log and feasted on my banana. I checked the map, as much for appearance's sake as locating my position because by this time my internal compass had shut down. Back on the bike I kept encountering signs heralding, BECCLES 3 MILES, then half an hour later I'd see another BECCLES 3 MILES. Once I came across a BECCLES 4 MILES, horrid moment, and I began to imagine an ever-changing landscape where towns shifted at whim and cyclists roamed endlessly, lost in a rich green wonderland. All very nice but one must eventually eat.



I did find Beccles, and food, some three hours after I'd set out, so chained John's bike to a seat, cast an eye around to see if there were any potential bike thieves about, and set out to explore by foot. Beccles, though rather small, has, at least, six charity shops – one specifically for cats, which I found (childishly) funny but I'm sure the cats appreciate the effort. I bought a helmet for 2 pound. These aren't a legal requirement here, and it's a delicious feeling riding about with your head free, but my road safety education has obviously left its mark.

As much as I'd enjoyed the indirect ride to Beccles, I didn't fancy riding for another three hours so I pulled my map out again and waited for a local to approach me. This time my rescuer was a man gardening his plot. He gave me three names: Ellough, Hulvar, and Mutford. It so happened that I'd passed through all these places on my way, just not in the right order. Getting back took considerably less time but here ends Dad's dream of his daughter becoming a professional cyclist: a) I'd never complete the course because I'd get lost b) I'd want to stop and get something to eat c) I dislike hills immensely and d) probably most telling, I couldn't sit on a bike the next day.

We were having a sunny streak so at John's suggestion, and Dad's recommendation, the next afternoon I caught the bus to Southwold, a small village on the coast. We took roads so thin the bus sat snug on either side and every so often we'd clip the hedges or prune the trees and leaves would fall in through the open windows to carpet the bus floor and the inside of my handbag. Southwold is a very agreeable town, a place where the clocks tick more slowly, and if you fancied, you could dawdle across the road or stop for a chat in the middle: I've already picked out the cottage I'd like to move in to. The beach is lined with cheery-coloured huts that have bizarre names like Doris, the Goddess of the Wind.



John tells me these sell for forty thousand so I think I'll pass on the wind goddess and make do with the sun and sand.

I found a wonderful antique and collectibles shed behind the high street, but time constraints prevented me from lingering and stopped any rash purchases of tea sets or picnic hampers or 1930s ball gowns (I might have to go back).

Yesterday my adventuring continued, this time with John and Fadia. We drove past Southwold to a small village, Westleton, with a curious bookshop where you're advised to bang the tin with a stick if you want service. We wandered on to the village green and sat with other Saturday afternoon visitors, all of whom were feeding the ducks bread – and fresh bread too! Not even stale bread, Fadia exclaimed – much to the dismay of the sign that read, please don't feed ducks. There was a quartet of ducklings – mother absent – and one of them was a bit of an idiot and kept getting left behind while the others did a ring of the pond, but I couldn't help but worry about it and its missing mother and the possibility of a bird of prey swooping in for a light meal – which John tells me wouldn't be unlikely.



Briefly considered logistics of a duckling travel companion but I'm not good at sharing and I probably couldn't afford to feed it fresh bread daily like it's become accustomed to. Afterwards we went walking around Dunwich, where the coconut-smelling, yellow-flowering gorse bushes grow, and at one point, it was thought necessary to examine the map.





As I was sitting in bed last night, a sound out my window interrupted my reading and going to investigate – I had hopes one of those Farthing Wood animals was tapping on my window for a visit – I saw the sky light up and birds, or bats, fleeing into the night. A fireworks display just for me, or so it felt like as I stood nose flattened on the glass. The day's icing.

Tomorrow I go to Scotland. I travel first to London by bus, then at exactly 11.45pm I shall catch another bus that will deliver me to Dundee at 10.25am, Tuesday morning, if anyone wanted to know the particulars.

x

And Some More Photos

The rococo garden at the bishops' Summer Residenz, unknown town, out of Wurzburg



The Summer Residenz. I wish I had a Summer Residenz.



On the boat trip to unknown town



Wurzburg Fortress



Gardens at Wurzburg Residenz

More Photos!

Mum and a view of Heidelberg



Mum on the Philospher's Walk - see how steep it is? And how far behind I am?



We jump to Freiburg, perhaps our favourite town. I dragged Mum bike riding and this is where she made us have a rest.





Our lodging in Wurzburg. We had our own patio!

Wurzburg Photos

This was the house in Wurzburg I described - see, an upturned wheelbarrow! That wasn't artistic license after all.



The view from the fortress in Wurzburg. This is a church Mum and I always meant to visit and never did on acount of its position on a very high hill



Me sitting on a trough at the fortress



Mum, I bet she won't appreciate this, having coffee and cake - we were sharing that cake - in Wurzburg.



In the gardens of the Residenz

A Jane Austen Moment

I've spent the past fortnight ensconced at number 58 The Avenue, Lowestoft, the most easterly point in England. This is the place where all the winds of the earth are travelling to – my hair can attest to this so don't dare argue with me. Charles Dickens once visited here, the Germans bombed it to smithereens and it used to be a hot spot for the fish. That's all I've uncovered so far.

I've become excellent at sitting in one spot – I was rather good at this before I left home, but travelling doesn't allow one to practise this under-appreciated activity. During my sitting time I discovered Special Topics in Calamity Physics (which isn't actually about science, but is a rather intriguing murder mystery), something I think Margs read years ago but I wasn't paying attention. I'm also reading Roger Deakin's Wildwood, since Dad claims it's his favourite book (but he has many favourite books he insists I read so I wonder about his definition of this word or perhaps, like I can be with food groups, he's fickle when it comes to books). There's been a few other books on my bedside table, but none memorable enough for a mention.

I have ventured outdoors on the odd sunny occasion. The weather is unbearably unreliable. I look out the window and spot sun so go hunting for my shoes and before I've laced them it's pouring with rain. Once the sun came and stayed so I went riding down country lanes – I imagined, which shows how narcissistic I can be at times, a bird's eye view of me, a modern Jane Austen figure, cycling through thickets (have doubts about what these are but I'm sure they're in all good English stories), passing the occasional fox (I still haven't seen one; Fadia (whose house I seem to have moved into) claims she saw one the other evening, but, well – I'm the one who watched endless hours of The Animals of Farthing Wood (beloved television show, circa 1990s for those puzzled readers) surely if one was going to appear, it would appear for me. Anyway zoom back in on me cycling, wind-swept hair, setting sun in background - honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised had a Mr Knightly (ha, not so predictable, am I? You were expecting the other Mr) arrived on horseback, or motorbike , and with him, the swelling sounds of a classical theme song. Instead I encountered Postman Pat's red van, which was being used by a family with two dogs. Alas.

I also, and this may surprise some of you, have persisted with running. You may not realise that if I were given the power to remove a word from our vocabulary it would be 'run' and all its various forms, so I say, with a great deal of pride, that I ran 6 km yesterday (I did considerably less today but my toe was sore).

At one point I even went as far as London (not running, I've moved on – keep up, readers). I stayed with my aunt's friend, the very welcoming Jo and her two cats, who didn't seem so impressed by my presence and would sit watching me through the window. It was all rather disconcerting. I went to the V&A, saw a wonderful Grace Kelly exhibition – which wasn't my best decision since it gave me dress envy and led to a rather impractical summer dress purchase in the Camden Markets. I spent hours trawling the book shops in Charing Cross Road – only surfaced with two finds, which demonstrates amazing restraint on my part.

Yesterday John, the other owner of the house and whose bike I borrow – I only just fit as he's very tall – dropped Fadia and me at a car-boot sale. This was rather exciting as I imagined myself digging about and finding that bargain (the one they find on those antique TV shows) – this didn't happen, but I did get a copy of that neat little grammar book Eats, Shoots & Leaves, and a wind-up gaudy Swiss gold watch (I paid 8 pound, which John pronounced too much), but I think it looks very dashing.

I'm currently job hunting; I have my sights set on Cambridge, but I'm not sure the eye-balling is reciprocal. Next week I'm taking a jaunt to Scotland where, if the mood strikes, you might find me Loch Ness hunting.

p.s. What's a blog without a food mention? I'm living with my favourite cook in the world. Fadia's a genius in the kitchen and I'm spoiled at every meal time so I hope you're all jealous of me.

A Very Long Blog with a Happy Ending

Since I’ve neglected the blog of late, I have suspicions that this will be long.

Heidelberg

At each new city we collect six brochures (one good one in English, the other five utterly useless), three of the same map, and at least two theatre programs in German, which are puzzled over and invariably end up in the bin. This isn’t going anywhere - I’m just setting the scene.

So there we are pamphlet laden, desperately hoping that this hotel will be better than that hotel, packed on a jerking bus with hoards of school children, heading further and further way from the city.

Heidelberg Hotel is satisfactory in every way except that it lacks a kettle. It sits in a peaceful suburb where old ladies of five and eighty cycle along on old-fashioned bicycles, and the only noise is the rumble of the occasional tram as it shunts across the corner intersection to its resting spot.

That first afternoon we tram back to the Aldstadt (tram is much nicer than bus travel since it doesn’t run past any schools), and trek - yes, I do mean trek - the almost two-kilometre pedestrian boulevard, which is lined with all manner of shops, including one selling only Christmas decorations.

We have an early dinner, sharing pizza at a quaint little Italian café in a back alley still lit by sun and then trek back to the tram stop for home.

Since hockey season has started back in Oz I felt compelled to go for a run so took off down the road, looping around the green fields (we‘re practically in the country), down a path lined with blossoms that I shared with a few sheep and a weary-looking goat, and back past the old cemetery, which had more than a few evening visitors.

A large ruined schloss sits atop a hill overlooking the town and as our Heidelberg Card offered free access we went by funicular - cable car - and toured the courtyard and the German Pharmacy Museum housed in the few still-intact rooms, which had a curious assortment of bits and pieces, including the innards of odd-looking animals.

Over the river we tackled the Philosopher’s Walk, a series of steep steps that run back and forth at angles so that you walk far more than you should. We followed a red squirrel, nut clutched firmly in mouth, who was most exasperating in his refusal to hold still for photos. It must be said that more puffing and huffing and resting took place than philosophising and really the walk isn‘t at all conducive to thinking deep thoughts and should be renamed.

We went by boat to Neckersteinach, a small medieval town famous for its four castles - the ruling four brothers had a falling out so each built their own fortress. (Have doubts this would be an achievable solution in my family.) The weather was perfect for boating; the sun illuminated the small mountain villages, monasteries and castles that dotted the hillsides, even the birds were tweeting. Everything was going swimmingly well when the sun decided to depart for the day leaving behind a fast, cool wind and dull skies. We retreated inside our boat and home to our hotel, where we ate pick-me-up corn beef and mood-cheering penne pesto, and thick chocolate with tea from the travel kettle Mum had obtained.

Our last day in Heidelberg was gloriously sunny so we caught a bus up to the King’s Seat and choose trail number five to walk down the mountain through the Black Forest, which was not in fact black at all. Trail five turned out to be rather elusive and we ended up on the better-signed nine, though there was an awful lot of logging going on so five’s markers might have been in the wood piles we kept encountering. We found a suitable-sized rock for an Enid-Blyton picnic of biscuits, holey cheese, smoky ham, tomato, red apples, chocolate and tea. Somewhere, when we weren’t paying attention, trail nine swung a left so we ended up miles and miles from our destination, which meant we probably set a record for the amount of walking done in one day, and really deserve a trophy or even, say, a cash prize.

WURZBURG

Mum’s got a knack for picking accommodation close to the train station and in Wurzburg we only had to walk across the road and we had arrived. At Babel Fish hostel we had a room with its own kitchen and a balcony bigger than the room itself. One of the nicest things about our stay was that we could cook our own meals - there was a food market in the old square where we got ingredients; the Germans adore white asparagus so we got hold of some and had asparagus crepes with prosciutto, and Camembert sauce.

It took us a day to warm to Wurzburg - where all the previous towns had distinctly old quarters, here was a blend of old and new architecture, and in the main square shiny new department stores abutted antique treasures. Yet some long-dead poet once announced that were it possible to chose his birthplace he would have named Wurzburg.

We went for a walk to the large fortress across the river and by chance took a left and found ourselves on a garden path leading up the hill. It was like stepping into Peter Rabbit’s world and I could almost see Ms Potter’s animals behind the flora, more content here than in England. Narrow green hedges ran alongside and every so often there would be an opening where other hedged paths beckoned the walker astray. Daffodils bloomed a rainbow and magnolia trees arched overhead to shadow passers-by. We walked by tiny cottages with neat little garden beds, one with an upturned wheelbarrow - to the other side a path broke off and down, leading to a fountain and more paths. Silver birches stood straight and tall, and one lone squirrel nestled beneath a bush.

I think I fell in love with Wurzburg here on this path, even before I learnt, on reaching the fortress, that the entire town had been levelled in 1945 and then rebuilt - hence the odd arrangement of building styles. The fortress was grand, with high walls and a deep moat running its length - though it looked ancient it had been finished just ten years before. We were there on ANZAC day, a strange occasion as Dad had found in the paper an Australian soldier’s account of bombing this very town.

We kept making new discoveries. The splendour of the Wurzburg Residenz - the bishops' palace - where five great halls with their glorious frescoes and stucco features survived war-time fires by an innovative ceiling design. One day we took a boat ride to an unknown town. We had an hour’s wait for the return trip so ambled towards the zentrum, took a right, then a left, another left and there, behind a high wall, was the most unexpected yet marvellous sight. The bishops’ summer residenz, ignored in our guide book, with its never-ending rococo garden of statues and ponds and perfectly straight lines.

I didn’t want to leave Wurzburg because our next destination was Frankfurt and the last stop before Mum went home.

FRANKFURT

We’d slowed down by the time we reached our final port and spent our last two days poking about. I found a decent bookshop and got Scarlett Thomas‘ latest Our Tragic Universe, which oddly has some connection to what I did yesterday (which I won‘t write about in this blog, but isn‘t, as the novel‘s title suggests, tragic, nor have I, Margot - since I‘m assuming you‘ve gulped this book down, started to see strange beasts; anyway, it‘s not really important, just curious, but I‘ll tell you later). We went on another boat ride - we do like our boats - and enjoyed the warm weather that lingered late into the night. Saying goodbye to Mum was awful but we’ve had a lovely time - and now I’m in England, home of my mother tongue, so everything seems aligned once more.

LOWESTOFT

I had to take a plane and two buses - the first bus I was fifteen minutes late for as my plane’s departure had been delayed; I was so sure it would have left and I had no idea how I was going to get to the next point, but there it was in bay 13 and if I hurried, the man at the information desk told me, I’d catch it. I did and on boarding learnt the reason for its tardiness was an accident on the motorway; all I’d felt was relief at seeing the bus and then I didn’t know what to think - it’s odd to feel such a strong sense of relief when what you’re grateful for might be the cause of someone else’s downfall.

At the moment, I’m sitting on my bed at the Cotter’s house in Lowestoft where out my window I can see a grey sky of thick rain-heavy clouds. And I’m perfectly happy because there’s something about England and rain and the cold that seems just right; I'm sure I read it in a book somewhere.


p.s. It was dreadfully long, wasn’t it? Next time, I’ll condense everything and write something like: all is well, weather’s cold, went walking, sat on boat, saw Queen, run out of things to wear, pondering what to do next, think it shall be sunny tomorrow.

Love to you all.

xxxx