The Day Has Arrived

The passive holiday becomes the active holiday

The week that's been has been another full one. I've been all over the place, mostly north of Nottingham. On Wednesday I took a late day trip up to Sherwood Forest to see all of the Robin Hood sites. I had waited until Spring to get the full effect of the foliage. Much of it has yet to come but there was much greenery to be seen.

The part of Sherwood Forest that contains the famous Major Oak sits just north of the village of Edwinstowe, northeast of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. This is approximately eighteen miles north of Nottingham. Before civilisation spread throughout the countryside, the forest once extended right into the city. It's hard to imagine now.

I arrived in Edwinstowe and proceeded down the high street toward the forest entrance. The village is very quaint and, naturally, quite English. Passing by St. Mary's church I noticed a plaque that mentioned the legend of Robin Hood and Maid Marian being married there. The building itself dates to the Twelfth Century, the very age of the folklore couple and their outlaw friends. I wandered around the churchyard to see the scores of very old gravestones, whose epitaphs are now long gone.

At the edge of the forest there lies a cricket ground and a little kid's fair. A short walk up the trail is the visitor centre, a ring of small buildings that act as a sort of Robin Hood and Sherwood Forest museum. Being late in the day there wasn't much time to spend there, so I headed down the trail toward the Major Oak. Along the way there were several old twisted oak trees that date back several centuries. The oak grows very slowly and produces a very hard and sturdy wood, so it's no wonder these giants have stood so long.

As you come around the bend, there is a clearing and a fenced off area where the Major Oak stands. This is the tree that it is said Robin Hood and his Merry Men would hide (inside) when the Sheriff and his men came looking for them. Whether any such figure as Robin Hood existed is a subject of much dispute, but the information at the Major Oak suggests that if Robin Hood lived in the 1100s, this tree was not even an acorn in its father's branches. It is an interesting plant nonetheless. Columns and guy wires hold up the sprawling branches, preserving their position for... who knows how long.

I made my way back around the other way to the park entrance and back into Edwinstowe to catch the bus back to Nottingham. That evening I met up with Pierfausta and we went to an open mic night at a place called Junktion Seven, where Julian, a neighbour of hers was playing a few songs. Julian was an interesting character. He kept calling out to me from the stage, knowing I play music, to see if I wanted to join in. I graciously declined. So the network gets wider. It's amazing how easy it is to meet people when you've got nothing to do.

On Friday I took a quick day trip to London; partly because I wanted to suss things out for Darryl's arrival, and partly for a day out in London. The return fare for the bus was only £14, so I was able to have a pretty frugal day. I met up with Johan and Christine for lunch, who are kind enough to let us stay with them this week. I then went over to Whitechapel, which doesn't look nearly as Victorian as I expected it to. I was in search of the London Hospital, now the Royal London Hospital, where lived Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man. I knew I wouldn't get to see his bones, as they are kept in the archives, not accessible to the public, but I was hoping to see some artefacts of his. There is on display his mask with attached hat. It bears a single rectangular eyehole, as depicted in David Lynch's The Elephant Man (1980). There was also one of his kit models of a church. There was a short video on him which showed some of the areas of the hospital of significance to his story. The shop across the street from the hospital is the actual place where Dr. Frederick Treves first saw Merrick on display. Whitechapel is also the area where Jack the Ripper was the top story at that same time.

I took the Tube back west toward the Royal Albert Hall, Kensington Gardens, and Hyde Park before heading up to the British Museum for a quick buzz through. It was late in the day so a lot of the exhibits weren't open, but I did see the Rosetta Stone, and many Egyptian and Akkadian statues and carvings. While in the Egyptian room I noticed there was a boy sitting on a bench playing a Nintendo DS. I just thought it was amazing that a kid of his age was more interested in the fad of the day than sculptures that are millennia old. I would have taken a picture of the scene if I had brought my camera.

I had mentioned I had a frugal day, but it ended up biting me in the end when, rushing to get back to the bus station I ran into one little delay after another. I got there just as the bus was pulling out. He stopped at a red light and I approached the door asking him to let me in. He wouldn't. I tried and tried but he just shook his head. The light changed and he drove off, back to Nottingham, sans Mark. Fuming, I stormed into the ticket office and said I wanted the next bus, which was an hour later at 11:30pm. Of course they had to charge me £16 for the ticket. My protests were falling on deaf ears. She's heard it all before I'm sure. So I ended up getting back to Nottingham at 3:00am.

The next day, Saturday, John and Marian picked me up for a drive up into Notts and Lincolnshire. We stopped at Southwell Minster, a very large Norman cathedral that has been appended many times through the centuries. We continued on to Newark-on-Trent, where we enjoyed a nice lunch at a butcher's overlooking the open-air market square. We also stopped in at the castle ruins briefly.

We continued up the road to Lincoln, famous for its proud-sitting, very tall, Gothic cathedral. Lincoln also has a castle near the cathedral and a very medieval charm to it. The high street between the cathedral and castle is called Steep Hill, and rightly so. It joins with the town below at an exhausting angle. We were going to pay to tour the cathedral but the view from the entrance was adequate for me. Like Gloucester Cathedral, it was an open room, but the structure was much lighter, and it was lined on both sides with slender stained glass windows. A small sign mentioned that the cathedral was used in the film The Da Vinci Code, as a stand-in for Westminster Abbey.

At the castle, John and I toured around and walked along the top of the castle wall while Marian relaxed outside with their dog Penny. The view was very far-reaching. Despite the haze in the air, two counties were visible.

John and Marian dropped me back off in Nottingham. The next couple days were filled with little outings, mostly with my new Italian friends: skating, and a birthday party. This morning I head to Gatwick Airport to meet Darryl. So the real adventure begins now. Blogging will become more frequent from here, but probably a bit more brief. You can also follow along on Darryl's blog to get the full story. We'll be putting up photos and videos as well.

See you on the other side.

Cheers.