Roundabouts, Tiny Beach Hut, and Biz Hums

Canterbury cathedral

We’ve been on the road 4 weeks now and I’m at the London City Airport waiting for a flight to Frankfurt for the International book fair. I thought I’d be posting more as we travelled, but every time we got to a new place I’d end up spending any spare time shooting photos. Maybe when I’m in Germany I’ll have time to describe what we’ve seen. Meanwhile here are a few 3-dot journalistic bits:

Just finished about 1000 miles driving from Edinburgh down along mostly the east coast to London. Driving on the left side of the road is difficult enough, but the narrowness of the lanes is harrowing (being used to the wide open spaces), and the roundabouts are a nightmare…There are signs, “Guinness is good for you” and I’m with the concept; most nights two pints with dinner…Food has been extraordinary — everywhere — we’ve been able to suss out good restaurants in every village and town…There’s big surf in Ireland and surfers all along the coast there and in UK…We spent 2 nights in Lesley’s cousin’s 10×10′ beach hut on the northeast Kent coast this weekend, extraordinary since our next book is on tiny houses, and we loved it…Clouds everywhere, this is an island after all, like a big ship at sea, they’re wonderful to watch changing and drifting across the sky…I had an almost otherworldly experience at the Canterbury cathedral early one evening, more on that later…My mom is Welsh (Jones) and Lesley was born in Wembley, so we’re on ancestral home turf and sometimes a mental bell rings with what may be genetic ancestral remembrance, I’ve been here before…Rupert Murdoch has succeeded in turning the Times into a mostly sleaze-ball rag, poor writing, everything right-slanted; the Guardian is the best big London paper…From the eyes of a Western savage, the old world is v. much alive and well in Britain; people are unfailingly polite, conversations are low and muted, there are a lot more coats and ties; California it ain’t…It’s been a wonderful trip; Randomness has worked for us, we arrive in a town or village with no idea where to stay or eat and bingo, we’re in the zone…Overheard in streets of Canterburty, a guy saying to his mate, “Don’t you oy me!” Last night a cockney bus driver was saying to a newly-arrived guy from Africa (who couldn’t understand),”White and tyke the haitch-2 bus” (Wait and take the H-2 bus)…Phrase in newspaper: “blingtastic.” Columnist Jane Wheatley: “Aenas…walked into the city of Carthage and observed that ‘opus fecit,’—a phrase our teacher translated for us as “biz hums.”