REVISITS TO LEEDS AND CHATHAM

Sunday dawned late because we have gone to daylight saving.But the sun was shining and there was a lovely blue sky so we decided to take another trip across the river and visit the rest of the Chatham Dockyard. We packed a picnic (amazing what a bit of sunshine will do) and set off. At Chatham we did the 40 minute audio visual tour of the Wooden Wall shipbuilding diorama. An excellent display which went through the stages of building a Man of War in the 18th century. From the pattern floor, where the design was laid out, the saw pits where two fellows cut 8 inch planks from logs of oak, the caulkers,the carpenters - an amazing demonstration which showed how these great ships were built.

The we went into the Dockyard museum which traced the history of the yard from the days of Henry v111 right through to the Falklands conflict. This would be a wonderful history lesson for school kids, and it was filled with relics/descriptive paintings,models and everything needed to instill the importance of Englands reliance on it's navy. The Dockyards built hundreds of ships, including modern naval vessels and submarines. Sadly it was closed down late in the 20th century.

Leeds Castle we had previously visited in November last year, and as our entry tickets were valid for 12 months we took advantage of the largesse and had another look. The gardens there are superb and we started off by having our picnic with jackets and scarves tightly wrapped around!!!

A walk through the castle was enhanced by tremendous floral displays which had been created for the Spring Flower Festival. Each room had its own display prepared by various organisations, and although having been on show for nearly a week, still gave a wonderful touch.

We walked around the gardens and admired the black swan and her babes, then went to the Maze and the Falconry where a free flying display was to be held.

The African Spotted Owl (photo above) was the first participant, and he flew around the enclosure performing to his trainers wishes. He came to sit on each fence post in the post and rail enclosure, and as you can see dropped in to the post right in front of me.The episode finished when he simply refused to cooperate with his trainer any more, and sat on a ledge totally ignoring the commands/pleas of his trainer who finally had to walk across and pick him up.

The next participant was a kestrel, which when released did a very fast fly past over the crowd and then flew off to sit on the weather vane of an adjoining building. From here he simply enjoyed the view and ignored the tempting titbits being offered from afar. He finally flew of out of sight!! All quite amusing.

And so back to Langdon Hills and the enjoyment of daylight extending through to 8pm.

CHATHAM DOCKYARD

There has been a bit of a pause in blogging while we have had the computer reformatted as we were sick of waiting 15 minutes for it to boot up. Of course the data which I thouht I had backed up didn't get done because we subsequently found that the CD rom drive was cactus.Ho bloody hum! Bought an external drive to remedy that situation and then found that the Wireless network card was corrupted and spent some time sorting that out. Computers are wonderful things for using up spare time.
And all this time the rotator cuff injury that your's truly suffered from the fall in Norway back at Christmas is not responding to physio and painful nights are the result.But as they say, press on regardless and forget about golf for a few more months!

And so to Chatham Dockyards, an excellent display of the 400 year old history of this site where ships have been built and serviced over the years. We started off in the Life Boat museum which was first class. There were many actual lifeboats on display all beautifully maintained by a volunteer group of people. The record of lives saved, and lost, was a dramatic reminder of the service that these volunteer crews perform day in and day out.

Then on to a 19th century gunboat which is almost completely restored, and with a wonderful audio guide invoked the history of British Colonial power of the time.Apart from the cramped conditions in which the crews lived, there was a real sense of England exerting its authority on the colonies demonstrated. It must have been a bit awesome to see this thing arriving at a troublespot with marines on board and big cannons bristling threatenly.

The next exhibit was the last remaining Naval destroyer from WW2 the HMS Cavalier. As it is the official monument of those magnificent ships and their men, it is allowed to fly the white ensign. Again, the audio gave a great summary of the conditions and history of this ship, and it was suprising to find that the bridge, from where the ship was commanded, was in fact open to the elements. As the ship's history included escorting convoys on the run to Russia, one can only admire the men who stood or sat there in freezing conditions, totally exposed to the elements and battling gale force Artic winds.

A quick stop for lunch was a disaster. The Bridge cafe can only be described as dreadful.After half an hour waiting for our ordered tomato soup, we finally received a bowl of turgid crap with tough pieces of bread. Other suckers had ordered toasted sandwiches which arrived looking like pieces of rock served with potato chips and which, like our meal, were mostly left untouched on the plates. We actually wrote out complaints about it when we left the Dockyards and found that this was no surprise to the Manager!!I need hardly add that it is a franchise operation!

An inspection of the Ropery was the final part of our visit, and luckily we were just in time for a guided tour which was particulalry well done by a costumed "Mill Girl" who educated us into the mechanics of rope production. This included an actual
manufacture of a piece of rope.

As we walked our way to the exit we came across the resident steam train which (driven by volunteers) was pushing a large crane along the lines round the docks. The crane had decided that it did not want to stay on the tracks on a gentle bend and had gone straight ahead and naturally become derailed. The poor old volunteers were trying to jack this bloody great crane up so that they could get it back on track, but we didn't have the heart or the time, to watch their endeavours!!

The entry tickets are valid for 12 months and we intend to return soon to finish off the tour by visiting the Marine Museum.

LAVENHAM - THE TUDOR VILLAGE

A lovely morning sunshine inspired us to get in the car and take off to explore. On the cruise on the Nile we had struck up conversation with Phil and Jan (both in education). They were inveterate travellers who expressed an ambition to follow our example of stepping into the wide world and seeing as much as possible. They told us of a place called Lavenham, which they described as a "lovely old village" and which we discovered was not too far from here.And it lived up to its description.

The village was originally a significant town of timber framed houses and home to a thriving cloth industry dating back to the 16th Century. So we had to adjust our historical clock away from the "4000 years ago of Egypt" to a mere 500 years!!

IN the 17th Century the bubble of economic success had burst and Lavenham became a backwater with its inhabitants unable to afford to rebuild their houses. It was not until some three centuries later with the coming of the railway that Lavenham became relatively affluent once more.

The Guildhall of Corpus Christi dates from around 1530 is one of the finest surviving examples of timber framed buidlings in England and is substantially preserved by the National Trust.It houses a museum which shows the history of both the cloth trade and the agricultural activity of the town.

The main street is full of well maintained original buidlings including the spectacular Crooked House which is now an art gallery. A very interesting place to visit- and Carol found a butcher's shop with excellent meat!!!