A Secret History

. . . . . . or Kenilworth Castle and the Right-handed Camera

As soon as we drew up to Kenilworth Castle After we drove around the town of Kenilworth for 15 minutes looking for somewhere to park our Chevy unsuitable-for-tiny-villages truck, I leapt stumbled out of the passenger seat and grabbed my camera to fight with the zip to release it from its case. The parapets of Kenilworth Castle stood out in stark relief to the azure blue sky of a perfect English summer day.

View image | gettyimages.com

Tiny specks of tourists wandered the parapets putting into perspective the enormity of the castle. If I was quick I could capture the scene. I managed to flick the lens cap off – it dangled on its safety cord – and held my camera clumsily in my left hand. I held it up to my face but daren’t even switch it on for fear of dropping it. Himself draped the neck cord over me and my hastily donned, stupid-looking Dora the Explorer hat and I tried again.

Kenilworth Castle, Keep on the left and windows of the Great Hall on the right (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With no fear of dropping the camera I might have been able to awkwardly press the shutter button but the framing was wrong and I couldn’t possibly pull on the zoom lever.  I let the camera drop on its cord, whipped my dumb hat off in disgust and himself pulled the camera off over my head. I could have asked him to be my cameraman for the day but I was so annoyed with the whole ordeal I thrust the disgraced and useless piece of equipment back in the truck.

A right-handed camera. Who knew? I certainly didn’t. I had taken for granted that it fit neatly tucked in my right 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th fingers leaving my index finger free for the zoom lever and my thumb for the shutter. It was a perfect fit in my right hand and clearly unusable in my left hand.

If you’ve just happened on my blog and haven’t heard me whining before, my right arm is in plaster.

English: Kenilworth Castle, panorama taken from the east (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On a lighter note, I was free (as free as you can be with your arm in sling) to enjoy the delights of Kenilworth Castle and its Elizabethan gardens without the pressure of recording each scene at every step.

The following information comes compliments of a mature PhD student who was holding court with a history teacher and her family at the next table in the tea room. Naturally I eavesdropped.  After a quick restorative nap I committed as much as I could remember to print.

English: Gaunt’s great hall in Kenilworth (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

He let us them know that much of the information was not available on the internet. You would need to go to the Tower of London and read and copy out documents by hand as he had done as you cannot borrow or photocopy any of these ancient documents. He also let us them know that this was privileged information that would be divulged in his dissertation. Am I about to reveal . . . ?

According to Mr. Not-Quite-Doctor, Kenilworth Castle is mentioned in the Domesday Book – a survey of much of England and parts of Wales ordered by William the Conqueror and completed in 1086.

Kenilworth Castle was the most powerful castle in the land, much more so than its neighbour Warwick Castle, at one point housing 6000 troops as compared to the 2000 troops at Warwick.

Killing pits with weight sensitive trap doors were used at entry points. Attacking troops would fall in and be at the mercy of the castle troops. Lime mixed with water was a form of torture that would cause eyeballs to burst and fatal burns. It was a political stronghold.

English: The restored Elizabethan gardens at Kenilworth Castle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I knew of Warwick Castle but had never heard of Kenilworth Castle until I picked it off the road atlas map as being the nearest garden to our campsite near Coventry. You revolutionaries in the US may not have heard of either castle.

John of Gaunt, 1^st  Duke of Lancaster, turned the medieval castle into a fortress late in the 14^th c. He was one of the most powerful men of his time owning 30 castles and land in virtually every county in England. His legitimate heirs included Kings Henry IV, Henry V, and Henry VI.

Rulers were always wary of castles as they were seats of power so according to Mr. NQD the very first Act of Parliament was to destroy Kenilworth Castle as it was a threat to the seat of government.

Part of Kenilworth Castle was destroyed by Parliamentary forces in 1649 but I can’t substantiate this as a first act of parliament and that is way past John of G’s time. In fact, the dates are completely wrong. Is this one of Mr. NQD’s secret facts or did I zone out after a dose of sunshine? If he’d known I was listening he’d have kept his voice down. If I hadn’t had a tantrum over my frustrating (albeit temporary, yes I know that) disability I would have had my phone with me and could have recorded him verbatim and could wow you with many more fascinating facts.

English: Kenilworth Castle The ruined keep behind the formal Elizabethan gardens (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have padded this post out with some Google images but none of them are as perfect as the pictures that are in my mind’s eye: the jutting ruin and every space within filled with families picnicking, children frolicking, couples courting, teens bounding, all on the green, green grass under the blue, blue sky. The fact that it was at odds with the gory, impromptu history lesson made the present day scene even more delightful. It was a lost photo opportunity. I just hate that.

Do you have any missed photo opportunities that play on your mind still?

Do you have a right-handed camera? Is there such a thing as a left-handed camera?

As pretty as a sunset . . . .

. . . . . sunrise at Long Key in the Florida Keys:

. . . . . and no I did not pop over there this morning. Photo taken December 2009. I knew, of course, that it would eventually come in handy for the WP photo challenge this week of Early Bird.

It wasn’t difficult to rouse myself for this photo op. I had the beach to myself, a lovely cup of tea and a spectacular show to watch put on by Mother Nature. The only problem was that the heat and humidity kept fogging my camera lens having just stepped out of the air-conditioned RV. Have you experienced that? It was a new one on me.

Mad Dogs and Englishmen . . .

. . . . not only go out in the midday sun but also the pouring rain so they can go out in the midday sun!

Iffy weather forecast? No problem! Erect a marquee.  In the rain. Oh. Problem. Hmmmm. Scratch head. What do we do next?

Aha! Put the canvas on the roof! Nice knees, Baz.

There was a lengthy time lapse and a lot of rain between taking the above photo and the one below. As part of the six-person erection crew to lift the half tonne structure into place there was little opportunity to take photos.

Once the heavy and slightly terrifying job of lifting the roof and inserting the supports on a windy evening was complete, photo opportunities presented themselves.

Is that a light on in the kitchen? Is dinner ready? Oh, please! Let me go in now!

After a week of foul weather, the garden party day was a perfect English summer’s day . . .

. . . . in a beautiful English garden, with five-star accommodation laid on . . .

. . . ample space for parking . . .

. . . . food, drink and entertainment . . . .

. . . . . and games for all to spectate or take part.

This particular game is rounders, a bat and ball game similar to baseball but played in England since Tudor times. That would be something like 1500 to those of you who think America invented baseball. The game played on this day had a very relaxed set of rules depending on the age  and ability of the player. There were no tears. Not even from the adults.

It was a perfect day.

Leaving Arizona, A Lament

As I sort through accumulated treasures of the last eight years ready for the removal men to box up our lives and whisk them away, I tear up now and again. I have petitioned for this move to England and yet . . . . we have been comfortable in our Arizona bubble of the good life.

My days consist of meals out, coffee with friends, swimming, shopping, yoga, reading, writing, blogging, walking amongst the desert flora, book club, watching wildlife from our balcony, writing group and wearing lightweight to barely any clothing all year round.  What’s not to like?

Unbearably hot summers are alleviated with air-conditioning or going north. Our neighbor expressed it as eight months of heaven and four months of hell. Even now when it is 105° outside we’re comfortable, until the electricity bill arrives.

Our quest for the last eight years has been to look for the perfect place to live. With family spread around the world, there is no such place for us but all other factors considered we came close to it in southern Arizona. The weather has been kind to us in our ridge top apartment as we’ve watched monsoons and dust storms sweep through the valley from the comfort of our balcony. While the rest of the country endured an insufferably long winter we put the heat on now and again and wore trousers instead of shorts.

All photos taken from our balcony. Please click to enlarge. Go on! You can’t see them properly unless you do, especially the dust storm and the pink rain!

Monsoon rain, Fountain Hills AZ

Snow on Four Peaks AZ

Sunset glow on Four Peaks AZ

Sunrise, Fountain Hills AZ

Dust storm, Fountain Hills AZ

Sunrise, Fountain Hills AZ

Sunrise Fountain, Hills AZ

Cloud formation, Fountain Hills AZ

Moon rise over Four Peaks AZ

Pink rain! at sunset, Fountain Hills AZ

A moonscape? Not with palm trees! Fountain Hills at sunrise.

The next few months, year? two years? will consist of uncertainty, insecurity and temporary accommodation tempered by the warmth of family and friends. At least I hope they will be pleased to see us.

I have made a pact with himself, the green card-toting Englishman, who apart from his views on politics and guns could be a native Arizonian.  For two or three months each winter – possibly beginning December 26^th – we will cross the English channel and head south until we reach sunshine.

Right now I am in my anxiety default position – brain freeze and inertia. I gaze at our apartment with Native American and Mexican decorating touches and my American Southwest photos adorning the walls and don’t want to touch a thing.

Our year’s hiatus from travelling, cocooned in comfortable stationary housing, has turned into two-and-a-half years of spinning our wheels.

Which way now? The UK beckons.

I need a new blog title. What do you suggest?

The Second Time Around

Like daft tourists, not seasoned travelers, we associated Santa Fe with warmth and sun, but discovered that we had strayed far enough north to be almost in ski country in late winter.

Santa Fe NM, Oldest House in the USA

Duh. Hadn’t we learned our lesson on our first circuit of the United States the year before  at the Grand Canyon where we were frozen to the ground in 5°F weather? Apparently not.

Hey! Don’t leave me down here!

The endless summer we had planned – summer in the north, high summer on the east coast, late summer and snowbird’s winter retreat in the south – never happened. Gales, sweaty heat and freezing temperatures made the circuit with us.

Southern Arizona was at least a comfortable temperature until the sun went down. A “nation” of saguaro cactus “people” with their funny arms held up in greeting had welcomed us to Tucson and given at least the impression of a hot landscape.

Saguaro National Park

Saguaro National Park

The dry air, calming buff colors, and peacefulness of the Arizona desert were most appreciated after so much lousy weather and soothed our need for warmth, but our winter sojourn had been meant to entail leisurely swimming and sunbathing, beach combing and sitting in the balmy shade of our awning for the margarita hour.

I risked a couple of “heated” swimming pools, one in Sarasota and one in Tucson. Getting into the cold water (heated means not icy) was a shock. Getting out into the cold air was agony.

Sunbathing hadn’t happened at all and our skin thanks us for that. Beachcombing on the Gulf coast was done in winter jackets while powering ahead. To stand still was to risk windburn and then hypothermia.

Only one madman in the water!

For our margarita hour, we substituted red wine “indoors.”

Neither comfortably cooped up inside nor drenched in perspiration or shivering outside was the relaxed experience we had anticipated.

Tucson in March was our first destination since leaving Washington State the previous July (picture a clockwise trip on the edge of the States from Washington all the way around to Arizona) where we could sit comfortably outside or stroll languidly in t-shirts and shorts, particularly galling as Washington had had their best summer in years after we left.

Coyotes yipping in the distance setting off the distinctive yips of several packs of their chums at 3 a.m. the night before had added a thrilling ripple of fear to the spell the desert had cast. Quite unused to this particular wildlife encounter, we exchanged notes the next morning.

“Yeah, it was me who woke you up. What are you going to do about it?”

“Did you hear the coyotes in the night?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. I went back to sleep and then wondered if I’d dreamt it.”

“They ran right under us. I could hear them pounding back and forth and panting!”

That growth on the back of our trailer is our bed-in-a-drawer, suspended about coyote height.

Camped for the night under stately and beautiful but dripping giant redwoods in Crescent City, Jimmy had googled the weather where we were headed. “Do you want to hear the forecast for Olympia?”

“Go-o-o o-o-n-n,” I groaned, expecting the worst.

“Rain today. Showers tomorrow. Scattered showers the next day. Wait. Let’s look at the 10 day forecast.” Spare me. “It’s going to rain for the next 10 days.”

The only thing worse than the predicted 10 days of rain was the thought of 10 days of rain cooped up in an RV.

We’d have permanently cold damp towels to look forward to. Clean clothes that have languished in a locker for a few days feel damp when they’re fresh on. There’s nowhere to put soggy coats. Muddy shoes end up kicking around our very small floor space just as we will be kicking around our very small floor space.

How do we cope? Badly.

How do you (would you) cope?

What Happened to Nebraska?

Instead of the balmy east coast summer we’d expected halfway through our second circumnavigation of the U.S. we’d endured gales and torrential rain from Maine to Delaware.

Maine-iancs at the seaside. We were wearing sweaters!

Delaware fishermen are all at the pub. Note the heavy sky.

After a serendipitous trip to the grocery store for dinner fixings and wine, we found ourselves marooned within half an hour of our return as rain lashed down and filled in a moat around us at the Cape Cod Seashore.

Cape Cod Bay, taken from the warmth of the car. Note the heavy sky.

The de-humidifier, my special spaghetti and meatballs and a bottle of red wine kept us from caring too much.

Summer turned to autumn while we were in England and on our return we just caught the end of the leaf show on a trip through the Smokies; only a few tenacious leaves had clung to the trees for us. The rest made a carpet of gold for our drive from Nashville to North Carolina.

The southeast coast was unbearably humid for two people used to the weather of a northerly latitude on a par with Calgary. Thanksgiving in Fort Lauderdale was uncharacteristically muggy, as were the Keys where one felt wrapped in a warm wet cloth each time we stepped from our cool trailer cocoon.

Views from our idyllic but sweaty campsite:

Evenings ‘round the campfire on Long Key, which we felt were compulsory on our sublime beach front setting, became an endurance test. Covered from head to foot and slathered with insect repellant against the sand flies, we steamed as though in a sauna in the stifling night air.

“I don’t think I can stand this!” himself exclaimed on emerging from the air conditioning in full bug-proof regalia.

“I’ve already lit the fire,” I wined.

“This is ridiculous.”

“Go back in then.”

“No. I’m here now.” The seductive flames were already leaping and I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist sitting and staring at them. Our bodies would slowly warm up, become clammy and acclimatize.

Lighting a campfire in the sultry heat of the Keys was ludicrous, but bites and sweat apart, the night sky, the low rumble of the surf and a backdrop of firelight reflected on the ocean was enchanting. Shooting stars, satellites and one sighting of the Hubble were our entertainment,

“There’s one!”

“Where?”

“There! There!” until the sand flies penetrated our defenses and we dived into the cool depths of the trailer.

From the time it took us to get from Key West to Destin on the Panhandle, the temperature plummeted and in “tropical” Florida the iguanas, torpid with the freeze were dropping out of the trees like they’d been shot. They weren’t dead. Apparently they’d come round and amble off once the weather warmed up.

Gulf coast at Destin, Florida. Looks warm. Wasn’t!

We shivered through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. Tumbleweeds hopped around our fenced in campsite all night at Amarillo, with one giant tumbleweed landing at our door in the morning. Like daft tourists we each posed next to it, shivering, for a photo.

Cadillac Ranch, Amarillo TX. Cold!

Tumbleweed, Amarillo TX, Colder!

It was at this point that we’d planned to include Nebraska in our tour and see the sandhill cranes at the Rowe Sanctuary on their migration north but atypical cold and snow kept us on a more southerly route.

We were only 500 miles away. Good decision? There was more disagreeable weather to come.

The Calm Before the Storm

Seventy days without rain in Phoenix but it’s on its way now:

The benefit was a gorgeous sunrise this morning:

The downside is that we’ve got tickets for NASCAR on Sunday. Why did it choose to rain this weekend?

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It’s Hot Hot Hot!

Put the polar vortex out of your mind for a moment and try to imagine that it is blistering hot . . . .

Has anyone out there seen this sign? If not, can you guess where it is from the title?

Where in the world would you need a handy supply of radiator water?

Is This Your Idea of Fun?

“Fun” in the snow – Christmas 2005. Enough already!

Carrying on with my rant in this post, daytime temperatures in our box are as difficult to control as nighttime temps. Heat explodes through four floor vents spaced within 12 feet. As the temperature rises we begin gasping for breath and grow pale and nauseous with heat exhaustion.

When the furnace finally cuts out, the atmospheric pressure in our ‘cabin’ drops, making my ears pop. The silence is welcome but sudden, like unplugging your teenager’s stereo. One of us will be caught in the middle of shouting a sentence as the roar abates and my tinnitus becomes apparent again in the quiet. The heat wave recedes and recedes and recedes and goose bumps make a reappearance. Then the fight ensues over the furnace remote.

The location of the thermostat remains a mystery to us so we don’t know if it is affected by the stove or where we sit pumping out bad vibes or our own hot air as we complain.

Depending on our latitude and altitude and simply the vagaries of the weather we can be alternating from day to day with heating and air conditioning and back to heating. The trailer acts like a greenhouse, warming quickly in the sun and cooling down just as quickly as a cloud comes over.

Curiously this cooling phenomenon doesn’t happen at sunset; the trailer holds an uncomfortable level of heat until 5 am when the temperature plummets and it is then impossible to get warm and get back to sleep. I’d get up and get on with the day but what can you do when your other half is snoozing happily in the same ‘room’?

The air conditioning vents are in the ceiling, less than a foot from my head sending arctic blasts down the back of my neck and ruffling my hair. Jimmy is okay. He tends to find something to do and sits in a pocket of still air between gale winds. I twist the vents away causing the flame to blow out on the stove, then twist the vents again away from the stove. As I move up and down our tiny kitchen area I get gusts from three different directions.

All I want is for the temperature to be just right and stay just right. Is that too much to ask?

I suppose the subjects of terrorism, government, airline policies and finances (mentioned here in case you are thinking, where did that come from?) can be lumped together for the purposes of this rant. Terrorist threats have prompted the government to put stricter security policies in place which will cost the airlines more to implement, justifying yet more fees on our already escalating airfares back to the UK.

We now pay to eat, to imbibe, to take a suitcase, to book a seat. Soon they will charge you to sneeze. Used to an endless supply of free wine, we tell ourselves that orange juice is so much healthier.

More importantly (than a glass of wine? Heck!) we are questioning whether we can afford to fly to the UK every spring and autumn, as we have been doing, to see our grown up children and little grandchildren. Airfares have gone up, health insurance premiums have gone up, the pound against the dollar is down, interest rates are down. I’m not sure we can live here at all if we can’t afford to see our family regularly.

Bonjour France?

Hola Espana?

Buongiorno Italy?

G’day Sydney? A third grandchild has been born in Australia.

Himself won’t live in England. Don’t get me started on that.

The view from our RV Christmas ’05. It may have a familiar look to many of you!

We’re Cracking Up

Our car is groaning and our trailer is cracking up, to say nothing of its occupants.

What has so far been a U.S. grand tour must now become a serious pursuit for a home base. Apart from getting on each others’ nerves in our mini home with no friends nearby to inflict our gripes on, things are conspiring against us – terrorism, government, airline policies, finances and weather.

Starting with the least inflammatory subject of weather, alternating humid heat and hard freezes are more than difficult to tolerate in our small living space. Both happened within the space of two weeks which came as a bit of a surprise in a winter snow bird paradise.

Everywhere we go we are of course the new kids in town and moving every three to seven days we don’t know what to expect of the weather. In a bid to find out we tune in the TV which is a game in itself. Jimmy winds the aerial up with a handle on the ceiling and tries to aim it vaguely in the same direction as others on the campsite. After a lengthy tuning process Jimmy announces glumly, “We’ve only got two channels.”

“Well that’s something. What are they?”

“One’s in Spanish and the other one is commercials.”

Himself, the holder of the remote, insists on muting the sound of commercials so I lose interest. Nothing is more mind numbing than commercials without sound, except commercials with sound, but at least you know when the program comes back on. The next time I look up it’s still commercials. “Do you know what channel it is yet?”

“Umm . . . .” He had his head in the newspaper. “We can do better than this. The picture’s not very good anyway. Turn the aerial just a little that way.” I’m sure he knows what he means when he points from a distance of six feet to a three inch handle but I don’t. “No! The other way.”

The tuning process begins again and sometimes we manage to catch some local news – the car that stalled and held up traffic in town for two hours at rush hour, little Sammy’s lost cooter, iguanas dropping out of trees like overripe fruit due to the cold weather.

Just as we start to prepare for the night with blankets and setting the furnace just high enough to keep hypothermia at bay, we realize we’ve been watching the news in a town in the next state.

By the time we locate our nearest town on the weather map Wendell Weatherman has moved on to the weekend forecast. I lay down in bed with a quilt and two blankets to hand if I get cold. There is a little fan heater I can snick on quietly in the night to keep the temperature even between blasts from the furnace.

Hot weather is more difficult to manage. Our small fan is ineffectual in humid heat and to put on the air conditioner in the middle of the night involves putting on a light, finding my glasses and the remote control, and causing a great whumph! as the fan and cooling unit kick in. Which of course is why himself hides the remote under his pillow.

The rant continues on Friday.

Kitchen, dining room, sitting room, bedroom, TV room, yoga studio all in one. How claustrophobic is that?