AN ENGLISH ODYSSEY---PART 2

Our second day started with a visit to Beth Chatto Gardens, a so-called “informal” garden of infinite variety. The English national hobby is gardening: even the most modest homes have gardens. The climate here, with few days of excessive heat (they consider the mid-eighties a heat wave!) and lots of rain, promotes floral growth of diversity and magnitude. The roses have heads frequently as large as our chrysanthemums. Chatto Garden had wonderful rose beds as well as every floral variety you could imagine and a dazzling array of trees. They had several oaks that had to be 150-200 years old. You wander past endless beds of flowers into tree-lined groves with lakes and streams. While the women were oohing and aahing, all I could think of was how glad I am that I didn’t have to tend such a garden.

From Chatto Garden, we drove to “Constable Country”, one of the most beautiful sights in this “green and pleasant land” of England, as the poet William Blake described it in his poem “Jerusalem”. John Constable, who was born July 4, 1776 and died in 1837, was not a Yankee Doodle Dandy but one of the greatest English landscape painters of all times, famed for his pastoral scenes and, especially, for his skies filled with puffy cumulus clouds. No one ever caught the beauty of clouds with such a luminous ethereal quality. We were at an area called Flatford Mill, which Constable made famous with his painting of the mill and scenic bridge next to it. As a matter of fact, his father owned the mill and was a prosperous merchant of the time. Also nearby is Willy Lott’s cottage. Willy Lott, a farmer, is only known because of Constable’s famed painting of his cottage. A lovely walk across the bridge leads to a panoramic view of the unforgettable rural scene.

From the Constable country, we went east to the coast where a series of picturesque fishing villages dot the North Sea. We wandered through a maze of narrow country roads, many of which are one lane only and a test of our nerve and playing “chicken”. (Actually there are frequent wider spots in the road where you can pull over to make room.). Eventually, after meandering through these fishing villages, we made our way to Lowestoft, a port in Norfolk (the name of the county, and counties are more like states) where we spent the night.

Every night we stayed in Premier Inns, a relatively new chain in U.K., much appreciated by traveling men and economy-minded travelers. They are spotlessly clean and new---but also VERY BASIC. Of the five nights on the road when we stayed in them, only three had telephones in the room. No soap bars or shampoos---only a soap dispenser on the wall over the basin and in the shower. Two bath towels and two hand towels. The beds were good, and, yes, they did have TV. Decent restaurants were attached or right next to them.

The next day we made our way northwest passing through one of the larger ports in England, Great Yarmouth in the county of Norfolk. South of great Yarmouth was a broad expanse of sandy beach overlooking the North Sea where we took a long walk along the promenade above the beach and enjoyed the chance to stretch our legs. We then drove through the Norfolk Broads, a series of canals and rivers where boating is prevalent. The water is muddy and not very appealing, but the boaters enjoy it and are frequent. We did find a charming pub on one of the waterways where we enjoyed a good lunch.

We drove to Horning, a beautiful tourist spot where a “Mississippi” paddle-wheeler runs up and down the waterways frequently with loads of tourists. Nearby we went for a wonderful walk through the woods of 1/2 mile or more and ended up on a large lake where boats of all shapes and sizes were plying the waters. A large houseboat, which can sleep 6-8 people was tied up to the dock, and we struck up a conversation, and my wife even sat on the stern of the boat, talking with a charming Scot from Lockerbie (remember the terrible PanAm tragedy?) who was traveling with son and wife and their two kids. He particularly approved of my wife whose father was from Glasgow and maiden name was Scott!

More of our saga next time!