Barry in Europe

It has been a while - I was in Dublin, with a plan to update, but the internet was so slow, every photo I tried to upload just died on the vine. I'm now in Philadelphia and the internet is very fast.

That wild sea I was watching at Manorbier? Still a bit wild when I had to cross it from Fishguard to Rosslare. The ferry heaved considerably and I was less than comfortable with the movement. In a brilliant stroke of Swedish design, the ferry was equipped with swivel chairs, nicely spaced to provide the tables with an almighty thump every time we hit a wave.

I’m afraid that reportage from Ireland is a little limited. This is not because there is nothing to see, but work has tended to get in the way of my explorations. As a fellow in the hostel in Fishguard said, its a terrible thing to do when you’re travelling. He did accept my point that the travel makes the work go easier.

When I was in Ireland twenty years ago, I found it to be completely enchanting. Mind you I was a bit closer to the ground. After flying in to Belfast and getting up to the Giant’s Causeway, I hitched the rest of the way, travelling with farmers, priests, prison warders, tradesmen, accountants, a friend from my first year at university, you name it. This time, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone hitching. I’ve had to have recourse to buses again, as the train system has not really catered to my plans. The only train running south from Rosslare was at 7:13 in the morning, and from the south to get over to the West Coast seems to involve many changes or going via Dublin whereas the buses are frequent, direct and cheap.

First stop was Waterford. What a grim place. Of everywhere I have been, this is the most savaged, or maybe it is ravaged, by the economic crisis. Two big new buildings standing completely empty, a big hole in the ground where another was planned, and many vacant buildings in the centre of town tell the story. I just got a bad feeling about the place, and found nothing I liked except for this 800 year old tower

and Scholars bookshop. And then there was the food – even a sandwich seemed to be 8 euros. I did go into a pub for lunch and hit the trifecta: surly service, bad food and expensive. The only thing good about it was that there was not much of it. I stayed in the Travelodge which is a bit south of town: after my first wander around, I wasn’t tempted to go back. Waterford made McDonalds look good - the food was plentiful and the staff cheerful.

The trip south to Cork was nice, with cool looking towns and pretty countryside. Cork itself was much better than Waterford, starting with the food – my first two meals were an extraordinarily good Moroccan lamb tagine and a wonderful spicy concoction of prawns and green beans. Plus the best coffee I’ve had in a long time, thanks to Cork Coffee Roasters. They’re the best in Ireland, at least according to the plaque leaning against the Probat sitting in the middle of the cafe. Various coffee related items adorn the wall, and the ceiling has this psychedelic floral wallpaper. I was in Cork for almost a week and this was a regular feature of my stay.

I wouldn’t say Cork had much of the spectacular about it, but it was comfortable and had a bit of a buzz, plus the various waterways were a nice feature to wander around. The University confused me, though: it seemed to be made of modern materials, but was built in an old style, including turrets.

I had another of those dilemmas while I was there, as I had a two day space for which I had no booking and couldn’t decide if I should go south to Kinsale or north to Ennis. Then I saw a poster saying Holly Golightly was coming to town and that clinched it: one night in Kinsale and back to Cork. Kinsale is a pretty harbour town just south of Cork

I was intrigued by its port - ships practically tie themselves to the flash looking Trident Hotel

This ship was loaded old school style - a crane with a bucket emptying the contents of the vessel, looked like cement, into lorries. Not exactly a container port, but for some reason I found it curiously satisfying lounging about watching the boat being unloaded.

The good people of Kinsale seem to have gone to town in terms of the colourful way in which they present their buildings

The first of these, the Spaniard's Inn, is about 400 years old, commemorating the joing of Irish and Spanish forces to fight off (unsuccessfully) the English. The people at the B & B I was staying in had commended it highly to me as a place to eat, but as no-one else there was, I didn't really feel in the mood. Besides, Kinsale is well known for its food, and has a number of acclaimed restaurants. Funny then that I shouldl end up eating fish and chips. Good ones, but, and from a proper restaurant. All in all, it was somehow well after 10 before I trudged back up the hill to the B & B.

Back in Cork, more great coffee, more fighting for space with school kids in the Cork public library, and then I checked into a real hotel, the Gresham Metropole. Nice. A few steps above the Travelodge, to be sure, and without costing the earth. I particularly enjoyed that the entire groiund floor was given over to lounging space.

In the evening, I crossed back over the river to see Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs, who are actually just one person.

Sorry it is not the best photo ever. He's from Georga, she's very English but their music is old fashioned Americana with lots of jokes in-between. Surprisingly, only about 20 people turned out, but we managed to make a bit of noise to show we were glad they had come. After the gig, I was talking with Holly, wanting to know what would make her come to New Zealand, as I reckon we could produce a better turn out - even if she played the Penguin Club. The answer: someone with the money to underwrite her trip. Hmmmm. I know someone with money and a yearning to see Holly Golightly in New Zealand.

I read the last volume of The Forsyte Saga, and it is by far my favourite, although I laughed and cried my way through them all. Some of these three novels struck a very contemporary note, such as the people writing to the Times about Iraq, or worries about the rising unemployment and runs on banks, or that Westminster Abbey might be turned into apartments, or that England would be so much more well off if it didn’t import so much pork, poultry or potatoes.

The last 200 pages, I just read in one sitting, finishing about 3 in the morning and going off to bed, to dream I got married, to a girl I have never seen. Maybe it was Dinny Charwell, the central character in the volume, a woman of “pluck” and a “brick” – the highest of accolades. Each of the three novels in the last volume sees her family go through the mill. First, her brother is accused of letting down his team leader when on an expedition in Bolivia, and basically not playing the game. That’s almost worse than the fact he killed someone, because the fellow was “only a half caste” (yes, quite a lot of racial slurring seems to be part of being English in the late 1920’s) so, when the Bolivian’s want him extradited, his success depends upon which strings can be pulled.

Then it is Dinny’s turn. She has the misfortune to fall completely in love with one Wilfred Desert. He does with her, and all, but he is a man not completely sure of himself, so he cracks when it is revealed that out in the Sudan, when given the choice of recanting his Christianity and becoming a Moslem or being shot he converted. Again – that’s not playing the game and it is “yellow”. For her long term happiness, he has to break free, but although it doesn’t break her spring, it bent it severely. I found myself with tears in my eyes when one of her dear old uncles spoke of her in this way – poor Dinny. In the final novel, sister Clare is in for a hard time. Out in Ceylon, her husband has been sexually perverse, something to do with a horsewhip, and she leaves him, meeting a nice young fellow on the way back. Of course hubby wants a divorce, since she won’t return, and within the family, divorce isn’t really playing the game.

There is a touch of the soap opera to these tumultuous times, but much more than that, Galsworthy is taking a look at the things that the English of 1928-1932 really hold as their values, and the ways in which they’ve changed. But his younger generation have such great people within it that maybe these changes won’t destroy the fabric of society. I think the other really great thing is that his characters are not portrayed as black and white (well, maybe he goes overboard with the white). Wilfred is a complex man; Clare’s husband could have been just a monster, but he’s not and another fellow, Jack Muskham who bullied Wilfred, has his good points.

There was a cute reference to Dr Johnson. I thought it was funny enough that the two gardeners were called Boswell and Johnson, but it was made even better that once Boswell had been taken on as a gardener, they had to cast about for a Johnson to complete the set.  

So, yeah, well I like was in Manorbier, like, and I caught this, like, bus, like

Nah, can't keep it up - but I had a dose of young Americans around me recently as I took a bus somewhere.

Anyway, I left Manorbier on a bus, one of the many that makes short trips all around the Pembrokeshire Coast. This one was going a relatively long distance, all the way to Haverfordwest, 18 miles. Still, it managed to take more than an hour, as it popped up side streets and waited vainly for passengers at various point. At one time, it had three passengers, but for a while it was just me, and when we got to Neyland, I seriously wanted to absent myself - this is where Brunel ran his railway to, or from. Probably to, actually, as until there was a railway, there wasn't a Neyland. It looked a pleasant place as well, on the banks of the River Cleddau. At least this day we could go over the river - I'd heard on the previous day that the wind was so high that buses weren't going over.

Haverford West was just a place to stop and catch another bus, one going 16 miles, but there was a gap of a couple of hours. I had all my bags with me, so a leisurely walk wasn't really an option but I saw a wimpy bar. A wimpy bar! A brand new one, even. I was convinced they'd disappeared, as I've not come across any, just a sign in Tenby. I had to go in, was surpised that they offered table service and had pictures of nice looking ice cream sundaes and had a full menu going, but not surprised although sad to find my food was basically crap.

At the end of my second bus ride, which had taken me through pleasantly rolling farm land, for a swoop down to the coast and then through a bit of rough, I was in St David. Here is its main street, standing about one block from the end.

There's maybe another block around the corner and two roads running off it and that's about it. Small is the word, according to wikipedia, it has 1797 occupants and yet it is a city, the UK's smallest, but still a city. The thing is, if you go to the bottom of the main street, and do a bit of a dogleg to theright and go through a gate in a high wall that stops you from seeing anything, you suddenly find this

It was a wee bit like the welsh lass saying Machynlleth - every time I saw it it was a fresh delight. I didn't stick around very long the first time, as I was still carrying my bags and had a long walk to the hostel, the longest so far under full load. I'd asked the bus driver about taxis, and was told there were none. Of course, when I got to the hostel there were signs for three different taxi companies. Ah well, at least it wasn't as warm as in Singapore.

It is right out in the country

- I can't think of any city where you can start in the centre, walk 30 minutes and spend the last 25 of them in the country. Off to the side is White Sand Bay - the weather was hovering on the verge of rain, if not raining, the whole time I was there so this is as close as I got

Most of the time, I actually spent around the hostel, there were friendly people and I could work, easily enough. A bit of a scare to have no internet at all, however.

By the time I got back into the central city to find dinner, I was a little alarmed - no convenience store, no chippy, no pizza, hardly even a pub, but three or four posh restaurants which were full. I really didn't feel like starving, and luckily I found a pub at the far end of town that did me proud.

On the Monday, the weather cleared enough to encourage me to make a dash into town, where I could explore the Cathedral properly.

It had a very nice restaurant where I was planning to spend a chunk of time relaxing, until a group of four year olds decided that it was really a football field and that football means lots of screaming. My tolerance to such things is not what it used to be so I retreated to the Bench, which was a very nice place in the centre of town - with a pervasive smell of deliciously cooked prawns.

Next to the Cathedral is the Bishop's Palace, not quite as well kept unfortunately

Despite being small with no shops, I managed to spend most of the day in St David, popping through the gate to see the Cathedral a number of times.

And then it was all over. A bus up the coast to Fishguard, a night in a pleasant hostel there with a pint and a bite to eat in the pub while some folk musicians did their thing in a corner and it was bye bye to the UK. So many things I've seen, yet so many more that I haven't. I could have spent a month covering the ground of the last few days! But it has been grand, with more to come.

After leaving Tenby, the plan was to go up the Welsh coast in small hops, but the first such hop was ridiculous: a total of 4.5 miles. I could have walked! As it was, I had to leave my digs at 10:00 in the morning and couldn't get into the new place until late afternoon. Plus, it was threatening rain. So, castle time. There are lots on the Pembrokeshire Coast, every nook or cranny seems to have one, and I think I could spend a month driving about here, but there is only one that the bus from Tenby takes you to

After a hefty breakfast in an 80 year old cafe and sending yet another consignment home, it was time to go in. Pembroke Castle is a pretty big deal: it was a stronghold for quite some time, variously for or against the French and for or against the Welsh, and the birthplace of the first Tudor King, Henry VII - his Uncle Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, was the last proper one - Henry VIII was against baronial power, and actually had Ann Boleyn take the place over. Then he had her executed. For a couple of hundred years, after some deal was done, it was left in private ownership to moulder away but then in the 18th century, romantic poets and artists got all keen on it and it was back on the map. There's been a massive restoration project, and it is looking pretty good. This is inside the wall:

and various shots as I wandered around

I was curious at the concept of a dungeon tower

The building to the right is the Great Keep, one of the earliest towers with a domed roof, built around 1200

After a quiet pint, listening to a local and a couple of guys he struck up a conversation with solve all the problems of the world, it was time to hop on the bus, and head back. Yep, I said bus - trains aren't that good for travelling up the south west coast of Wales, and it means I had to abandon my bike in Tenby. I left it locked with the key in the lock in the railway station - probably means that some morally bankrupt lowlife will get the thrill of thinking he's stolen a bike, but I couldn't think of a better distribution system.

My destination for the night was a wee place called Manorbier, which had been a big defence base. I chose to stay there simply because the blurb in the YHA book about the hostel made it sound cool. It has a Norman church



and a pretty wild looking beach

It started to rain while I was at the beach, but the wind was so strong that I was being dried off quicker than the rain could wet me.

Of course, being a nook or maybe a cranny, it has a castle

What it didn't have was any place to eat. Yes, there was a pub which had some fine ales and a menu but no-one to do anything about food. So, for the first time since leaving home, I actually had to cook for myself. The horror. The horror.

The hostel was almost deserted - a group was finishing off their meal as i returned, talking about seeing someone called Harry Potter, apparently he's in films. I wanted to shout at them that they were in Wales, the site of some real history, the Last Invasion, and that was all they could find to interest them. Maybe they knew what was on my mind, as I never saw them again.

The hostel was certainly an unusuall styled building, had been part of the defence base

It is up the coast, about a mile from town, on the Coastal Path, so I took a wee walk

Yes, this was another fit of indecision which captured me: I couldn’t decide between Whitby or Tenby, so decided upon both. I certainly made the right decision going back to Whitby for a few days, although it would have been a giggle to have been there the weekend before. Instead of steam trains, it was goth time – one of the two annual Gothic weekends, and the local paper was full of images. I feel a particular sense of loss for not seeing the Dracula Drop bungee jump or the football match in which Real Goth took on a local team. I wonder if any turned out wearing kit like this

But before Tenby, I had a wee bit of tripping about to do. First, I had a couple of nights back in York, where I was disgusted to find that among the hundreds of bikes at the station, mine had been picked upon to be stolen. It only cost £25 and was nothing special, so why it would be taken I have no idea. It would have been very helpful to me, as I had quite a trudge to the hostel, and I’d perfected the art of making the bike carry the heaviest bag. Since that was the end of that, I thought I might as well confuse someone by tying my helmet to their bike.

This time in York, I did get to see inside the Minster, but didn’t really do much else. The hostel was good to work in during the day and, in the evening, well another retired bloke had struck up a conversation with me within about a minute of getting into my room. He too had been to New Zealand, even bought a bike with big ideas about cycling the length of it, but didn’t get far – the bus was much less tiring. Poor fellow, he was made redundant, his age made it hard to get more work, then the recession cut in to make it impossible. We went off to a really nice cafe, Concerto, opposite the Minster – it had music scores in place of wallpaper and a really friendly vibe – and took a couple of pints before tackling the walk back. The next night, we didn’t even get to leave the hostel, just spent the evening in the hostel bar, with our young German room mate and a New Zealander, doing a bit of travelling before going back to her accountancy firm. I’m fairly sure she’s the first Kiwi I’ve talked to since I left home – the funny thing is, she didn’t recognise my accent. After my rant about teacakes, she probably wishes she’d stayed in her corner. Or maybe I converted another to the cause.

Now, the logical way to get from York to West Wales is to go back through Birmingham, not via the Scottish Borders. But I’d heard so much about the Settle to Carlisle railway as being the most spectacular rail journey in the UK that I had to try it out for myself. Of course, back in York railway station, I found that my bike hadn’t been stolen after all, so it could come for the ride.

We didn’t get far. After a change of trains in Leeds, a very interesting looking city, lots of very new flash buildings among the older, more sedate brick edifices, we got stopped at a station just south of Settle. A freight train had broken down ahead of us – normally that would not be a problem as there are two lines, but this one had chosen to break down on the Ribble Viaduct, where the railway was reduced to a single track, and there were problems extracting it.

So, I got to Heilliford Station before 11:00 and was there for a while. Luckily it was a nice station and had an alarmingly cheap cafe – after I’d loaded up with a quota of crisps and Mars Bars and homemade ginger cookies and a cup of tea, I had to question whether he had his pricing right.

They did put on a bus, but the only reason for going to Carlisle was to do the train trip, so I was determined to wait it out. I had a fellow to talk with, a local who turned out to be a retired Crown Court Judge (and to continue with the theme of retired gentlemen who went to New Zealand when he was young, he was another). He was just going “over the top” for a day trip, but by early afternoon he gave up. A train did come along, that would take me to Carlisle via Lancaster, and the staff on my stuck train were quite definite that I should take it. Nope, no way, I’m doing the Settle Carlisle. It was just before 4:00 that the line cleared and the next train came along which could take me.

The journey? Kind of nice but the bleak experience I’d been promised

was over pretty quickly.

Didn’t help that Carlisle was not that great. I think the best thing about it was my dinner – walking around, one place was much busier than anywhere else, so I went in despite it being a Chinese eat all you can Buffet (traditionally not very good food) and it was great. Swansea the next night wasn’t much better, lots of people there for stag and hen nights and generally getting drunk, but I’d had to stop there because of the wacky world of Waterstones. You can go into their shop and buy books, or you can order online, which saves you heaps. Then you can ask that they deliver to your local Waterstones, which they’ll do for free. Since Swansea was the only place I was passing through that had one, and I was curious to see if it is as dour a place as the guide book says (it is), and I found a cheap night in a Travelodge it all added up.

All in all, I was getting a little apprehensive, maybe I’m getting over this travel lark and won’t enjoy Tenby? I needn’t have worried – even the little train that bumbled its way between the bushes to get me from Swansea to Tenby cheered me, particularly the very proper speaking English fellow with a very long white philospher's beard who turned out to be the train driver.

And in Tenby, I had a great week. I had an apartment, which gives a bit of the view of the sea

Yep, these are all from the window of my apartment. From the outside, it was nothing, a grey concrete wall above a shop selling touristy kitsch, but inside it had all I needed, even a bath. Not having to work within the routines of a hostel or hotel or flatmates was wonderful – a week of getting up around 11:00, working through until 2:00, when I’d spend a couple of hours in a cafe for a sausage baguette (much better than it sounds) and apple pie, catch up on the internet and go for a bit of a wander.

It was nice for the fellow in the cafe to decide I was a writer, which I guess is what I am at the moment. Then it would be a few hours work in the afternoon, then dinner at a pub and another wander, before working through until about two. The changing mood of the sea was a constant entertainment

The TV mumbled away in the background, so I became heartily sick of the MP expenses row, but it was interesting to spend 10 minutes listening to what they’re debating in the House of Lords – the fact that the bacon in their restaurant is from Holland, not Britain – because British bacon is £6.59 a kilogram and the Dutch is £4.80 and “we like to give value for money”. They even tell jokes in the House of Lords” “I had this friend, he came back from Mexico, and I was worried because he didn’t seem very well, thought he might have swine flue. So, I rang the swine flu hotline but, instead of help, all I got was crackling.”

I may as well write it here – I had a particularly geekily spooky experience during this week. I got this thought in my head on the Sunday night, that if I was to buy land and build a caravan on it, like the static caravans they have here which have wheels but never go anywhere, then it wouldn’t be a building so I wouldn’t need a building permit. All sorts of images of what sort of thing I could build and it not be a building were in my mind. That kind of passed, but then a few days later I read something – at almost the precise time I was having visions of buildings that aren’t buildings, the High Court back in New Zealand was convicting a fellow for constructing non-mobile caravans in his caravan park without a building permit.

I think that I was right to be confused about whether Tenby or Whitby is better, because they both suit me so well. The town of Tenby might have a little less to enjoy than the town of Whitby, certainly has nowhere of the stature of Beckett’s, but the beach that circles around Tenby is definitely superior.

In between my doses of The Forsyte Saga, I have been reading a more contemporary novel. Over the course of nearly a fortnight, I only managed the one - Victor Pelevin's Babylon, set in Yeltsin's Russia, after a fashion. Another name for Babylon is Babel, which has certain connotations important to understanding this book. Its central character is a fellow often simply called Baby, who is an adertising copywriter who spends most of his money on drugs, and he takes some wild trips as a result, imagining himself in a ziggurat communing with its priest or having a long argument with his ex-boss, only to find it was a fence post. The middle class is somewhat different to Addison & Steel's, or even Galsworthy's - here, they're thugs in armour plated cars with heavy automatic weapons and have bodyguards.

Towards the centre of the book is this sort of funny episode, although it was incredibly dull to actually read, like a lot of critical theory. Baby has himself an ouija board, and wants the spirit of Che Guevara, which he gets. But Che gives him a multi page account of marketing theory, based on the premise that we don't watch TV, we are controlled by it. And TV certainly has a huge role in this novel. I'm tempted to say just how huge, because I did enjoy the premise, but I have been warned off by the Guardian review: Baby is "initiated into a huge politico-cultural conspiracy - but it is so delightfully realised that to reveal it would be an act of gibbering critical sabotage".

Even though I booked months ago, space in the Whitby was a bit patchy – if I could have had a week or two clear to stay, I probably would have. As it was, I couldn’t even stay all of the long weekend, and had to take a night in Scarborough. I know, life really can be terrible at times.

The hostel is a couple of miles north of town, in a peaceful spot

I’d only been in my room a minute, maybe two, and I found myself in a fairly intense discussion with a retired school teacher, who had a lot to say about the state of the country, essentially that the Great has gone out of Great Britain. While I’d noticed some of the things he was talking about, at least I was able to reassure him that there were still, as Ian Dury might have said, reasons to be cheerful, by launching into some of the great things I’ve seen here. He was in New Zealand when he was young, even planned to move there but then met the lady that proved to be his wife, and that was it.

To go back to town for dinner, I decided to promenade along the North Beach Promenade

There’s not much left of Scarborough Castle

As I rounded the point, I had this weird experience, it sounded like there were about 50 8 year old kids chattering in front of me (having spent some time in hostels, I know exactly what that sounds like) but I couldn’t see how that would be, then spotted the culprits

I quite liked my wee wander along the waterfront

Behind me wasn’t so hot, classic English resort


but I still like the look of this hotel

Nice mural

Dinner was a great carvery, where I was once again struck with indecision: pork or turkey? Which is which? Have both, dammit. The man doing the carving was a bit of a grump (“Is that young bloke in the kitchen a foreigner?” “No.” “Well, he’s f*ng stupid anyway”) but generous with the food.

In the morning, I was saved from yet again having to walk into town to catch the bus, as my talkative friend dropped me off. Instead of going straight back to Whitby, I hopped off at Robin Hood Bay

This was a truly charming wee spot, as was its town, which basically had a single street

and then a bunch of alleys only accessible on foot