Cambridge: Swords, fans and pounamu

Last game of the footy season. Dad went to watch Grimsby Town play Braintree (and win, I might add). That meant a whole day to myself and without anything important to do, I asked Dad to drop me off in Cambridge on the way so I could spend the day exploring.

Cambridge is a lovely little city - big parks, a pretty town centre and packed full of museums courtesy of Cambridge University. I began the day (or rather, afternoon, by the time I got there) at the Fitzwilliam Museum, the arts and antiquities museum. First stop this wonderful piece from the palaces at Nimrud.

Especially interesting given the pounding that Nimrud has taken from the twats calling themselves ISIS. I doubt there's a whole lot left of the palace this particular chap came from.

The Fitzwilliam, unlike some of the big museums in London, is pretty easy to navigate, although I'd recommend picking up a floor plan on your way in. There's a couple of little galleries stuck out of the way that I would have missed without it. The first of these is the Rothschild Gallery, with its collection of beautiful medieval and Renaissance art. Among my favourite pieces were this piece of Anglo-Saxon metalwork. I love this style.

Also, this amazing book of music - it's huge so that all the members of a choir could read from it at once.

The second of the Fitzwilliam's little hidden galleries is the Sasakawa Fan Gallery. I've been meaning to visit the Fan Museum in Greenwich for a while, just because it seems like such a strange thing to have a museum of, so this gallery will have to do for now. Some really beautiful old fans from the Far East, plus some rather more flouncy ones from later European courts and high society.

I'm torn on my favourite items though. I fell rather in love with the Korean pottery gallery, having not seen this style in any museum I've visited before. The colour is beautiful and the little pots shaped like squashes are lovely.

The tomboy-ish part of my brain though loved the miniature Royal Armouries they've got going on near the cafe. Who doesn't love a good sword?

The aforementioned cafe does some good lunch options, although a bit expensive. That said, I wasn't going to turn down a falafel scotch egg. Two of my favourite things combined. Yum. From the Fitzwilliam, I headed back towards the town centre to check out the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology.

There's a wonderful selection of local artefacts on the ground floor, plus a small display of Inuit items, including this beautiful little bear's head carving.

The upper two floors follow a more traditional museum pattern - big cases with relatively little information about the objects within. There's an amazing totem pole, although I neglected to take note of where it came from. Oops. There's also some great displays about the people of the South Pacific, at which point I went on my now traditional hunt for something made of pounamu. This is the super tough jade found on New Zealand's South Island that's used to make both jewellery and weapons that are a match for iron. I succeeded. I present to you a beautiful pounamu club.

Bit more substantial than my little pounamu manaia pendant!

The museum closed at 4:30pm, so I had a while to kill before Dad came back to get me. Took myself off for a wander around the city. Kings College.

St Botolph's Church. Lovely building and its churchyard looked so quiet and tranquil.

That led me into one of the city's winding back streets with these beautiful old buildings, presumably part of the University.

 

And then I spent a while sitting on a bench near Darwin College, watching the world go by. A lovely day. I need to go back - there's a whole bunch of other museums still to check out.

Been to Cambridge? Got a favourite museum? Do share!

London: The Complete Walk

I was a bit slow about getting this one written. Oops.

I visited London on 23rd April to take part in the celebrations for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. The Globe put on a big event to show off all 37 of the Bard's plays along the South Bank and my sister and I, both being fans of his work, decided to check it out. 37 plays, 37 films, 37 screens. Seems like a good way to spend a Saturday, right?

Each film was 10 minutes of new footage shot on the locations Shakespeare imagined, combined with archive footage from performances at the Globe and internationally and some even included some very old silent, black and white footage. 10 minutes per film... we reckoned even with walking time we could cover quite a few of the 37, especially since we'd gone through and made a shortlist of the ones we really wanted to see.

We arrived in London about half an hour before the event was due to start and managed to make it to the first of our planned viewings - The Taming of the Shrew in Jubilee Gardens - just after 10am, the published start time. So imagine our annoyance, having got the 6:30am train, when we found that the screen wasn't even set up, let alone showing the film. Slightly peeved but putting it down to technical issues, we moved on and caught Titus Andronicus under the Hungerford Bridge.

Brilliant. A great combination of clips, with Peter Capaldi as an excellently unhinged Titus and a great clip of the Globe production in which the Queen of the Goths, Tamora, played by Indira Varma unknowingly eats a pie containing the body parts of her murdered sons. A chorus of "ew" mingled with laughter from the audience. Just a shame we couldn't hear half of it because Hungerford Bridge is a railway bridge and every couple of minutes a train rumbled across overhead.

Anyway, seeing that the screen (Henry VI, part 2) next to Titus was also playing, we were a bit more hopeful that the following screens would also be working. Of the next 2 we passed, 1 was working and we had not interest in Romeo and Juliet. Then we caught Love's Labours Lost - pretty cool. Tempted to check out the next screen showing King John, only because the archive footage was from 1899 and is probably the earliest instance of a Shakespeare production on film.

After that though... well, it all started going wrong. We walked up as far as the Tate Modern where there were supposed to be another 4 screens. Every screen between King John at the National Theatre and the screens at the Tate Modern was out. No film. No audio. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.

That's 12 screens that weren't working. Out of 37. So we decided to grab a cuppa and wile away half an hour, during which time I tweeted at the Globe in an attempt to get an explanation for the absolute shambles. They first told me it was because of the Presidential visit and later claimed technical difficulties. I'm more inclined to go with the latter - that many screens not working isn't anything to do with security issues or the like.

Anyway, refreshed and all ranted out, we decided to see if some of the early screens were working. Nope. Buggeration. Descending back into grumpiness, we marched off down the bank and finally found a functioning screen in Gabriel's Wharf showing the wonderful A Midsummer Night's Dream. One of the more straightforward of Shakespeare's works and one of the funniest. Much laughter from the many people crowding into the bandstand.

Unfortunately, from there the chaos returned. A Midsummer Night's Dream was screen 13. From there, the next functioning screen we came across was Measure for Measure at screen 24. On the plus side, screen 25 just around the corner was showing Twelfth Night and it was brilliant, if a little drowned out at times by the rail bridge overhead. Seem to be an awful lot of rail bridges over the Thames...

From there, we had a little more success and caught a run of working screens that included Troilus & Cressida, Timon of Athens, King Lear and Macbeth. All great, although Troilus & Cressida was rather ruined by being down in a hole which made it very hard to view. Did catch the snippet from the Maori production a few years ago. Genius, that, putting a haka in Shakespeare.

After Macbeth it all went downhill yet again. No working screens from there up until the very last screen which was showing The Tempest near Tower Bridge. Another wonderful little production and awesome to see so many people enjoying Shakespeare, but such a shame more of the screens weren't working.

A little bit cold and disappointed, we headed back along the bank, passing still non-functional screens, and decided to revisit some of the missing films from that morning. Some success was had - we caught a great Othello featuring David Harewood, an interesting take on Hamlet with several actors playing the Prince of Denmark and, much to my sister's delight, an excellent Much Ado About Nothing featuring Samuel West among others. Given that Much Ado is one of my sister's favourites, I'm glad we at least caught that one.

This was followed by the excellent Toby Jones playing Falstaff in Henry IV, pt 1 although he did rather drown out the also wonderful Johnathon Pryce playing Shylock in The Merchant of Venice on the next screen. Glad to see so many screens now working and getting rather short on time, we made one last attempt on The Taming of the Shrew. We found it working, at last although as we left to catch the train back home there were still screens not playing.

In all, a lovely day, with a stroll along the Thames and a whole heap of culture thrown in for good measure. It's just such a shame that such a huge event could be so badly organised. As mentioned above, I actually Tweeted the Globe to try to find out why it was going so wrong and they produced the following response:

@ZoeDixon Hi, there's been a delay due to the presidential visit but we hope to have all screens playing as soon as possible. Thanks!

— Shakespeare's Globe (@The_Globe) April 23, 2016

They also told other users that there had been some technical issues. I'm more inclined to believe the latter, given that as I pointed out to the poor bugger manning the Globe Twitter account, they should have taken the presidential visit into account. Let's just hope that they learn from this and the next time they try anything on this scale they'll organise it better.

In the end, we managed to see 15 of the 37 films. Not bad given that when we left, around 11 screens still didn't seem to be working although I'm told all 37 were working by the end of the day.

Did you visit the complete walk? What was your favourite film? How many did you manage to see?

Fish & Chips & Dracula: A Day Out in North Yorkshire

North Yorkshire is a lovely area. Desolate, rolling moorlands come down to steep cliffs on the North Sea coast. Took a trip up there recently with my dad and sister and thought I'd share some of the pretty bits.

First up, the lovely little village of Robin Hood's Bay, on the coast between the seaside towns of Scarborough and Whitby. Quaint place - all narrow streets and old fishing cottages.

I should probably note that this trip was in March and the weather was fine but chilly so I was surprised by how many people were out on the beach.

No one seems all that sure why it's called Robin Hood's Bay. It doesn't seem to come up in any of the early Robin Hood tales, but it's had the name since at least the 1500s, so who knows!

Well worth a stop if you're driving up the coast road between Scarborough and Whitby if only to feel like you've stepped back a century or so. For those thinking of staying more than the hour we did, there's the tiny little Dinosaur & Fossil Museum, which I am informed by my dad that I have been in, many moons ago. There's also a whole host of pubs and cafes, all of which seemed pretty busy given how early in the season it was.

Getting there: 5 miles south of Whitby/15 miles north of Scarborough off the A171 coast road. Parking is at the top of the hill in the village. Be prepared for the walk to the bottom of the cliff and back - it's quite steep in places.


From there, we headed north along the coast road to Whitby in search of lunch. It being Whitby, lunch sort of had to be fish and chips. There's plenty of chip shops to choose from in the town, but for someone from Grimsby who's used to fish & chips being relatively cheap, the prices can be a bit steep. Not that most others would notice, I'm sure.


Anyhoo, we settled on Russells, which does very nice chips and then went for a wander. Whitby, like Robin Hood's Bay, has little narrow streets but doesn't have quite the same feel. It's much more touristy. Not a bad thing - there's some really nice shops around the eastern bank of the river.

For a real history kick, climb the 199 steps from the base of the cliff up to the Abbey. The Abbey's pretty important in the history of Christianity in England and I'd really recommend going in and having a look. Sometimes there's reenactment groups in, which are great fun. Vikings running around? Oh yeah.

On this occasion, we bypassed the Abbey and had fun trying to read some of the old gravestones in the churchyard next door. We especially liked the Latin inscription on this memorial, which translates as Death is Inevitable.

Which brings me almost neatly onto Whitby's other claim to fame. It features quite prominently in Bram Stoker's classic gothic novel Dracula as the port through which the eponymous vampire enters England. Whitby has embraced this and if you're in town on the right weekend you can enjoy the peoplewatching that comes with Goth Weekend.

Getting there: Whitby is easily reached from the A171. The area around the harbour can get a bit short on parking at the weekend, especially over the summer. There's more parking at the top of the cliff near the Abbey.

If you're heading south from Whitby and you've already driven the coast road, I'd recommend heading over the top of the moors on your way back. It's a beautiful scenic drive, with plenty of opportunities to stop or turn off and explore the valleys. Just don't go trespassing into Fylingdales base - don't think the Americans would be too happy about that.

Also, if you head over the moors and you're that way inclined, the North Yorkshire Moors Railway is pretty good fun and there's a really nice walk between the stations at Goathland and Grosmont.

Have you got any recommendations for places to see on the North Yorkshire coast? Why not share in the comments.

Harrogate: 5 Things to See in an Afternoon

Harrogate's a lovely little town, full of beautiful old buildings and sprawling green parks. I took a trip over there with my sister recently and here's my 5 things to check out in an afternoon (or day, your choice).

1. Cafe Culture

I say cafe culture... there's a real pavement cafe vibe around the town centre, especially around the Montpellier Quarter. Jewel in the crown of these little gems is, for me at least, Bettys Tea Room. Bettys is locally famous and having visited their York tea room several times it made sense to check out the Harrogate original.

I wasn't disappointed. Great menu with a selection of snacks and light bites in the Cafe Bar and even more selection in the more traditional Tea Room. Just be prepared to queue - Bettys is insanely popular and if you're in a hurry, opt for the Cafe Bar which is less busy.

2. Green Spaces

Harrogate seems to be full of parks. It's such a green place. The biggest of these is the Stray, an enormous stretch of parkland to the south of the town centre. For more history, head north of the centre to Valley Gardens, which is home to a number of springs from which the town got the "medicinal" waters which turned it into a thriving spa resort.

3. Shopping

I'm not really into shopping, but there are a whole load of lovely little shops in the town, along with the high street brands. I'd recommend just wandering around the centre, especially around the Montpellier Quarter. Not much else to say on that - I'm really not big on shopping.

4. Royal Pump Room Museum

This is a lovely little museum housed in, as the name suggests, the old Royal Pump Room. I'd expected this to be mostly about Harrogate's spa history, but there's a whole assortment of little exhibits including some lovely little pieces from Egypt.

It's definitely worth taking the little tour to see the old well heads. The guide will give you lots more information about the history of the town and you get to go down below modern ground level to see where the old spa wells were. Be aware - they may smell strongly of rotten eggs.

Investigating the free spring water...

5. Architecture

OK, so it's not something you can visit as such, but it really is worth taking the time to admire the architecture. I don't know a thing about this, but I really love the old buildings in the town. It's probably just one of those nostalgia type things - take out the cars and and the electricity and you can almost imagine being in the town at the height of its glory years.

So there's my 5 things to see in Harrogate. What would you recommend? Have I missed a hidden gem you think people should know about?

Lincoln: 5 Things to See in an Afternoon

I took a Saturday afternoon trip to Lincoln a while back and it got me thinking. What would I recommend to a first time visitor to Lincoln? So, here's my list of 5 things you can see in Lincoln in an afternoon. Or a day if you don't walk ridiculously quick like I do!

1. The Collection

The Collection is a free museum just off Lincoln's famous Steep Hill. It houses a permanent collection of artefacts from the city's long history from the Stone Age through to almost the present day. In addition, it often hosts special exhibitions which are worth checking out - recent ones have included Lincolnshire's Great Exhibition displaying objects from important Lincolnshire moments and associated with more well known residents such as Sir John Franklin and Matthew Flinders.

If you're short on time, I'd suggest checking out the special exhibition if there is one and then these highlights from the Collection itself. The ancient dugout canoe from Fiskerton:

The Roman Mosaic found when they were building the lift shaft.

This beautiful piece of Viking metalwork.

A facsimile copy of the famous Lutrell Psalter.

And this awesome plesiosaur fossil, which I think is the specimen described HERE. 

2. Mediaeval Bishop's Palace

Tucked away to one side of the towering cathedral, the remains of the Bishop's Palace are a quiet retreat from the busy streets outside its walls. You can wander round it in about half an hour (I know, I've done it), but it's worth taking your time. Information boards are few and far between, so you should consider picking up the audio guide as well.

Basically, just wander round and enjoy the quiet for a while.

3. Lincoln Castle

The Castle is probably the most popular attraction in the city, but it's still worth a visit. The grounds are free to enter, but I'd at least take a walk around the walls - there's some amazing views out across the city and surrounding countryside from up there.

The absolute must-see at the Castle though, if you've any interest in history at all, is the Magna Carta Vault. The Castle is home to one of just four surviving copies of this historic important document and the Vault, opened in 2015, is its new home. So go and pore over the tiny writing and don't miss the two short films either.

4. The Guildhall

Lincoln's stunning Guildhall is still used for full council meetings and houses a great collection of objects, including an assortment of ceremonial swords, trophies and weird little oddments. Guided tours run on Fridays and Saturdays and are a great way to find out more not just about the Guildhall but also about the city's history.

You can find the Guildhall on the High Street - just look out for the big stone arch (the Stonebow) over the road. There's a big old door to one side and on tour days there should be a sign outside.

5. Steep Hill

Along the High Street you can find plenty of your typical, well, high street stores. But take a walk up the hill and you can find a whole host of little independent stores. This is the area called Steep Hill. It is, in fact, a steep hill.

There's an excellent tea shop (as in a shop that sells tea, not a cafe),  some cool little cafes but my favourite has to be Goodies Sweet Shop. This is tucked into the narrow lane that joins Steep Hill to the High Street and is a brilliant little old-fashioned place.

If you want to avoid the really steep section (identified by the lovely green hand rail and a bench to rest on at the top), you can cut away from the hill onto a couple of lanes that will bring you out either side of the steep bit.

Honourable Mention: The Cathedral

I haven't been into Lincoln Cathedral for years, so I can't comment on what the tours are like nowadays. If you just want to pop in and have a look around though, I recommend looking for the following: the Lincoln Imp, remnants of the paint which used to cover most of the stonework and the little statues that got their heads shot off by Roundheads during the Civil War. If you can get someone to tell you what's wrong with the statues, even better.

What are your favourite places in Lincoln? Are there any hidden gems to seek out?

London: 'Ere, don't feed the pigeons

My sister treated me to a trip to London to see The Book of Mormon for my birthday. How lovely. She even paid for us to go first class on the train which meant my day began with a yummy croissant and a rather stewed cup of tea. Tiniest knife ever too for the spreading of the butter...

Anyways, by the time we got to London I'd managed to wake up after the 6am start. Our first stop was the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society. Caught the Piccadilly line from Kings Cross to South Kensington (pleasantly quiet at 10am) and then took a stroll up Cromwell Road to the RGS.

The exhibition (closed 5th September) was free entry, which is always lovely and the photographs were stunning. Seems to have visited from all over the world, but we had to stick our little pins in for Grimsby.

A brilliant range of subjects and places - people, animals, landscapes from all over the world. Also, these fun signs (forgive awful phone photos...)

So stunning, in fact, that I bought myself this year's book of winning images and a pack of postcards to stick to my travel door. Travel door is already getting a bit full following a couple of trips to London and Wales...

Got a bit of a surprise when the lady at the counter mentioned that I'd been to New Zealand - had one of those moments of "who are you and how the hell did you know that?!" before I realised a) that the lady was a Kiwi and b) I was, as always, wearing my manaia. Yeah... makes sense now.

Anyway, buzzing with new travel inspirations, we popped along to the Albert Memorial for a few minutes. Amused ourselves watching the other tourists trying to take selfies. Should have taken my camera, but unfortunately I only had my phone...

And then it was off in the vague direction of Leicester Square in search of the Prince of Wales Theatre. Hopped back on the Piccadilly, then onto the Bakerloo to Charing Cross to grab some lunch in Trafalgar Square. Amused as always by the tourists blithely ignoring the signs telling you not to feed the pigeons. Also the little girl who came running towards the fountains squealing that it looked like a swimming pool.

Lunch consumed, we hopped back on the Tube to Piccadilly Circus, whiled away an hour in Leicester Square playing spot the tourist (i.e. everyone) and then finally got into the theatre.

The Book of Mormon is amazing. A fun piss-take of Mormon missionaries without being cruel about it. Loads of laughs, great little story and amazing songs. Can't ask for much more. Had it stuck in my head for the rest of the day.

And then it was first class on the train back - sandwiches this time and much better tea. Om nom nom.

Awesome birthday present from my sister. Now I just need to think of something as awesome for her 25th... Ideas, anyone?

Snapshots: Flamborough Head

Took a nice little trip up to Flamborough Head at the weekend. Went for a walk along the cliff top from South Landing round to the lighthouse. Not much really to say about it, so I thought I'd just share some of the photos I took. Gloriously sunny day, mediocre photos. Woo.

I love the motion of wind through cereals. It's like the sea.

Random local history!

We parked at South Landing, which has a Pay & Display car park. You can walk down to the beach from there, where there's a little RNLI shop (well worth donating to) or follow the cliff path round to the lighthouse and, if you're feeling fit, on to North Landing where there's caves and other geological fun.

Castleton: Mines, hills and wonky roads

Took another day trip with my dad and sister last Sunday, this time to the little Peak District village of Castleton.

Well, I say Castleton. We parked out the far end of the village past the Treak Cliff Cavern and I'd recommend everyone did so - parking is fairly limited in the village itself (there's two or three car parks, at varying prices per hour) and parking on the road leading out of the village towards the famous caves is metered until you get nearly a mile out. So being the cheapskates we are, we parked up at the end of the old Mam Tor road.

Nice little spot of lunch and then we set off for a walk. The weather wasn't looking too great - black clouds kept drifting over but fortunately we missed the rain. First up we took a quick stroll up to what we think was part of the Odin Mine.

The photo above is from the little cave near the old mine workings called Odin Cave. The mine itself is down this 'ere ravine.

Supposedly the mine was worked as far back as the Roman occupation, so potentially nearly 2,000 years. Wikipedia (un)reliably informs me that the first reference to the mine was in 1280 and is the oldest documented lead mine in Derbyshire and possibly even in England. Pretty impressive. I would have liked to explore a bit down the ravine, but it was absolutely sodden - obviously the rain water just collects down there - so we gave it a miss.

Oh my, British Summer!

Odin Mine appreciated we set off up the hill along the route of the old Mam Tor road. Geology lesson ahoy, feel free to skip. The rocks of Mam Tor, the "Mother Hill", are in the region of 320 million years old. The layers at the bottom are shales, which forms in thin sheets (hence why we use it for roof tiles), overlain with sandstone. Said shales are just a little bit unstable. Just a bit...

You'll note I said we were following the route of the old Mam Tor road. The old Mam Tor road being the former A625 between Sheffield and Chapel-en-le-Frith on the other side of the Peak District National Park. Those unstable shales underlying the sandstone of the upper part of Mam Tor have caused a landslip of the hill that started at least 3,000 years ago. The road builders in their great wisdom decided to build their road straight across the landslip. Oh yeah. Look what happened to it.

This one might give you more idea of just how far the road has slipped - using my sister for scale.

Nice. So the road now goes another way around Mam Tor. Got to say though, there's so much tarmac left of the old road it makes it a nice easy walk up the hill from the Odin Mine at the bottom(ish) to the Blue John Cavern where the road used to go.

We decided against going up to the top of the Tor - black clouds flew in again and we got a few spots of rain - and instead made our way back down to the road past the Treak Cliff Cavern. If you're interested, there's an old hill fort at the top, which I'd love to have a poke around at some point. Not that I imagine you can see much of it...

Some beautiful views of the Tor (and my dad and sister) from the track we took from the Blue John Cavern down to the road.

And then just past the Treak Cliff Cavern I spotted this lovely looking crag (all the geology/geography feels).

Anyhoo... short walk back up the road to the car and then a very short drive into the village to find the loos and to raid the fudge shop we'd spotted on the way through earlier. Point to note here: there's parking at the Peak Hotel that's fairly cheap but it's only a tiny car park. I believe you can get your money back if you spend more than £10 in the pub... if the sign was right...

Anyway, nice clean facilities at the National Park visitor centre on the main road, plus a free little museum in the visitor centre itself. Worth checking out if you want to know a bit more about the history of the Peaks and whatnot.

Finally, we made a quick trip to one of the little shops and acquired some fudge. Nice, but not as good as the stuff from the Remarkables Sweet Shop in Arrowtown, New Zealand. And then, sadly, it was time to leave.

All in all, a nice little trip, but I'd have liked to have spent the whole day there. As it was, we didn't get there until after 1pm so we didn't really have time to do that much. There's some beautiful walking up there and a whole host of little places to visit. From past experience, it's worth checking out the caves - I've done the Blue John Cavern many years ago, but I'd imagine Treak Cliff, Peak and Speedwell are also interesting - and Peveril Castle, which is perched up on top of a cliff overlooking Castleton.

At least we had nice weather!