Days 17 & 18 - Lyme Regis

Day Seventeen

The day began slowly. We stayed on the couch for a while, then managed to get ready after 10am and plod our way down to the Cobb, an artificial harbour constructed in the 19^th century.

The Cobb has stone-built piers either side of an opening that warns boats to be “DEAD SLOW”. It has been repaired and improved since Jane Austen visited this place, but a lot of it she would have found familiar. Once we descended the steep hill and negotiated some traffic, we saw it for ourselves.

It was very windy this morning, so my hair went everywhere and The Husband pointed out the sign cautioning us not to go onto highest part of the Cobb (it sloped, could get quite slippery and had no railing between pier and undulating sea).

Take a stroll into the Regency era

The view, though, was lovely so I had to get up there, however briefly – and briefly it was, as I do not like to worry The Husband (he is not a strong swimmer).

Clouds smeared the horizon, but it was still pleasant and I must have uttered the word “beautiful” at least 6 times.

Lyme Regis isn’t that different from any other English seaside town I’ve visited; however, it has its place in literary history. Much like Whitby in that respect, I suppose. Whitby was made famous by Bram Stoker; here it was Jane Austen.

I looked at some stairs on the pier and fancied that they were the ones that Louisa fell down in Persuasion. Unlikely, though, and “Granny’s Teeth” certainly didn’t qualify either – these steps had the appearance of rotted, jagged teeth worn to the gum – for they came after Jane Austen’s visit to Lyme (Regis). They were probably added because of her book.

Granny's Teeth

We walked along the beach (sand was divided from pebbles by a cement break) and then headed back up the hill towards our home, albeit on a different road than the one we’d used on our way down to the water earlier.

We passed by Pyne House, 10 Broad Street, where Jane Austen is said to have stayed. It was much smaller than I expected. But beside it was a similarly small shop boasting that it was “bigger on the inside”. That, and Pyne House’s blue door, made me exclaim, “It’s a TARDIS!”

Fancy that, Jane Austen in a TARDIS.

For lunch, we went to a pasty shop (there were three of them on the same stretch of road!). Good food – and a large hot chocolate – revived me.

In my clutches, from earlier browsing, I had fudge and gemstone jewellery. I can’t help it! They are my vices! And I like quaint shops in quaint towns. Plus, I needed that pendant to match two sets of earrings I own. And as for the earrings I bought – I do not have any that are blue goldstone! Well, I do now.

Back “home” to relax.

PS: Tesco is still closed! They looked to be dismantling the whole shop.

***

Day Eighteen

A day of relaxation. We did nothing until lunchtime, when we again sought sustenance in The Cornish Bakery. I love pasties! Oh how I will miss munching through one before attacking a frothy hot chocolate.

Most of the day has been spent watching Sailor Moon. Lol. I am really enjoying it.

Idle hands lead to relaxation

Day 16 - Maiden Castle & West Bay

Woke up at 7:17am very suddenly and with a gasp – I’d forgotten where I was and I’d been sprung from a strange dream in which ships full of zombies circulated the globe. No one took this fleet seriously, despite my warnings, and soon there were very few governments left in the world. They soon all fell. And I had to hide from the entire human race.

Our adventure began at about 9am, when we set out on narrow roads (well, mostly safe A roads, but the last stretch was hairy) to find Maiden Castle. I’d neglected to tell The Husband that it was an abandoned hillfort, not a castle of the stone variety.

“It’s just a big hill!” he exclaimed, disappointed and thoroughly unimpressed.

But to me it was pure gold. An ancient settlement! Immense defensive earthworks! Seeing the hillfort on foot doesn’t do it justice, I think – aerial photos I’d looked at earlier revealed how amazingly big it is and how much work went into this thing.

It was a bit of a hike up to the western entrance, but so worth it. We encountered confusing paths and deep ditches that were supposed to stymie attackers. Sadly, these impressive earthworks could not keep the Romans at bay. They defeated the inhabitants and moved the main settlement to where Dorchester is now (“chester”, of course, indicates that it was the site of a Roman fort).

The hillfort was covered in sheep and shit. Signs with useful information were sparse and, at this time of day, humans were sparse too. 

We traipsed up onto a “wall” (one of the many impressive ridges surrounding the enclosure, which would have been full of people) and enjoyed the epic view. Wow! You could see any army coming at you from there. We could also see a nearby burial mound.

Not just a big hill

We left, bound for West Bay and hopefully some public toilets!

A spot for the car was easy enough to find – West Bay wasn’t busy yet at 11am and we were able to make use of the parking on Station Road, on pebbles that revealed just how close we were to the beach. That and the dune at the end of the carpark!

After using the (frankly scary) toilets, we walked down to the water’s edge. The Husband stopped many times to shake stones out of his shoes, a somewhat comical sight. It was hard to slough through the stones, though they were smaller near the waves.

The Jurassic cliffs have such a different look to other parts of the country we’ve seen and they are beautiful, if scruffy looking (and they do lose chunks at times, so we were careful!).

I posed for a photo there, at the foot of the cliffs, as many others were doing. Of course, this is where Danny’s body lay in the first episode of Broadchurch.

Paging David Tennant

I had a hankering for ice cream, so I bought too many scoops (“Serious Chocolate” was the name of my choice) and beamed, licking my treat, as I explored the town I’d come to know as “Broadchurch” on the TV. While we ate fatty lunch food from a vendor (she saw me with the ice cream and laughingly asked if I was having my pudding before my tea!), I rang Mum who was very jealous as she likes Broadchurch too.

I found the show’s “police station” – just apartments in real life. How amusing. Though The Husband did say he could see how it doubled as a police station, because of the concrete stairs in front of it.

The Husband finished his own ice cream as we navigated our way “home”. We spent the afternoon watching Doctor Who and occasionally enjoyed the view we have of the bay from our rental.

I think I’m finally relaxing. :)

Day 15: AMS-LCY

Woke early again. The neighbours were a little noisy last night, but they quietened down after midnight. Breakfast was ready when we went down. Again, I availed myself of the sprinkles and bread. Then it was time to go.

We waved off the front desk’s offer to get a taxi (apparently they can make it up the street) and instead made for the taxi rank. A good choice – vans were unloading in the street, thus blocking any taxi that would have tried to go to the hotel. The drive wasn’t too bad, even in peak, and we were at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol super early.

Check in went well. Bag drop went well. Boarding passes let us into the security area. All kept going well.

Then disaster struck.

We bookended a seething queue of people, a mob that seemed to stretch into infinity. My anxiety began to gnaw at me. The pain in my shoulders and back from my heavy bag compounded the problem.

I squirmed, unhappy, miserable, unable to break out of my exponential panic. We were never going to get out! The people were pressing in around me! We merged with yet another queue, then finally we go through security. A woman gave me a pat-down, which sparked my dislike of being touched.

A whole hour had passed since we’d joined the queue. And now it was time for passport control. Ugh – none of the chip-reading gates were open, so hundreds of people from multiple outgoing flights were squished through a handful of staffed gates. We got into the fast-moving EU queue (British passports at the ready) and watched many people get turned away from the “premium” queue before they desperately joined our queue instead – I’m sure some people missed their flights!

I started having the stirrings of an anxiety attack. I must have looked awful because a security guard came over to ask if I was okay!

Finally, we made it out, with much less time to kill than usual. But I still had an hour to drink a hot chocolate and eat something sweet. I’m glad we always arrive at airports 3 hours before our international flights, even in Europe. What a disaster that could have been.

The flight to London City Airport was as packed as the Heathrow one. I couldn’t fit any of my hand luggage overhead due to too many people bringing on those bulky mini suitcases. Squished all my stuff under the seat in front of me.

Though we left late, we landed a whole minute early – which made it feel like we’d never left Schiphol, because London is one hour behind Amsterdam and the flight time is less than 60 minutes!

We escaped with our suitcases to the car rental place, where it take agggges for them to release a car to us (they had a newbie on the front desk who looked like he had no idea what he was doing). I’m glad we booked ahead – a group of men beside me, who’d only booked that morning, wanted a small car and ended up with a minibus!

The woman overseeing the newbie was concerned that we had a lot of luggage, but we wanted a small car (and managed to fit everything) to get through tiny country lanes.

After some mishaps (the GPS was stuck in French and I didn’t know where the parking brake was), we got on our way, hoping to go around the city.

Our Troll GPS had other ideas.

It started okay. But then I looked out the left window and saw the Tower of London!?! Oh shit! We got tangled in the streets of downtown London and the GPS tried to make us drive down The Mall, even though it was closed. Mayhem!

Somehow we ended up free in Hammersmith. I worried about the congestion tax, but later discovered that it’s a bank holiday, so no tax was required (and that’s why The Mall was shut!).

Whew.

We recovered in a Services on the road to Salisbury. It looked very familiar – I realised I’d been there 4 years ago on a tour to Stonehenge.

And I saw Stonehenge again.

It looks oddly small as you drive past it, though the stones are actually quite large in person. I was reminded of my trip in 2013 and smiled. I am so fond of those times Cazy and I shared together.

A huge traffic jam was outside the Neolithic monument (coming from our direction), but it was not there because people wanted to see Stonehenge. No, it was the end of a long weekend and everyone was queueing to go home.

Troll GPS returned to take us down questionable B roads. We came across families with prams and they crossly told me to slow down – I was bemused to see them in the middle of nowhere. I’d rather people didn’t cover an entire road when they’re walking in a pack, since there would have been ample room for the car if they’d kept to the sides. It wasn’t my intention to annoy folk; I had kept to the signposted speed until they appeared.

The GPS then nearly killed us on a route that took us across the A road we needed. I was honked, narrowly avoiding disaster, but how could I have seen any cars coming around that blind turn? Ugh. Driving in England is…harrowing, to say the least.

But at last we came to Lyme Regis. Yay for narrow lanes that induce heart attacks!

Having just read on the plane the bit were Jane Austen’s characters in Persuasion enter Lyme (the Regis came later), I felt like I was walking – er, driving – in the footsteps of fiction and history.

Picked up the rental keys and fumbled our way to Coram Tower, a historic building with a fucktonne of stairs. Why oh why did I rent the apartment with a view? In such an old building, no less!?

Coram Tower - starring STAIRS

A trip to Tesco revealed the bank holiday that had been chasing us from London. The shelves were a bit bare (the Tesco will be closed tomorrow in lieu of today – we were grateful!) but we managed to get what we needed, including toilet paper!

Then we settled in for the night, watching Top Gear on BBC iPlayer (this place has a TV, so we assume it has a TV licence!). The apartment is quite draughty, owing to gaps between the glass windows and the stone sills, but radiators help with that.

Not a bad place to stay.