Wychnor Park Timeshare: July 12th-18th

On Saturday morning we left Coventry to drive to Wychnor Park, an old stately home and estate that has been converted into a timeshare property. We were meeting Dianne & Peter for lunch at "The Boat Inn" pub in Alrewas, just a couple of miles from Wychnor because we could not move into our accommodation until 4:00 PM. Unfortunately, "The Boat Inn" was "out", because when we got there, P&D were there, but the pub had closed down! Fortunately, we had made good time on our journey from Coventry and had taken a quick detour to "Fradley Junction" which is where two canals meet (the Coventry Canal and the Trent & Mersey Canal). From looking at the map Bob thought he recognized this as a place where his dad had taken him fishing as a child. It was a very pretty spot, with lots of canal "narrow boats" (used as houseboats) moored and others meandering along the canals and negotiating the locks. Also, as luck would have it (a coincidence indeed), there was a lovely old pub called "The Swan" at the junction of the canals which was well and truly open. Consequently, we informed P&D of our find and quickly relocated ourselves to the canalside pub and had a lovely lunch, after which we enjoyed a lengthy stroll along the canal before returning and making our way to Wychnor Park where we booked into our log cabin named "Kestrel" (not part of the original 1,000 year old estate!) and unpacked and settled in before having dinner. Afterwards, we walked up to the main house and enjoyed a drink in the "members lounge" and met Michael, the "Activities Director". This was the only time during the whole week that we spent in this lounge or partook in any "group" activities. We retired to bed early.

The next morning we had breakfast in the cabin (which we would do for the next seven days), before jumping into the car to take us to the start of our first walk of our week's stay at Wychnor. We drove to Barton-Under-Needwood, only a few miles from Wychnor, parked in the village hall parking lot and commenced our walk to Dunstall via a public footpath. We walked across fields of sheep, who were utterly unconcerned about our presence and hardly looked up from chewing the grass. We also came upon another stately home that is still in use as a private residence, "Dunstall Hall" described as follows: "Dunstall Hall is an outstanding stone Grade II Listed country house near Burton upon Trent in Staffordshire. The property is of considerable stature and is set in a secluded yet prominent position with extensive views across mature parkland. Still essentially a private residence. Records show that in 1145 the Dunstall Estate was owned by the Earl of Derby". We returned to Barton at lunchtime and after having a pint at "The Middle Bell", decided it was too much like a restaurant and not enough like a pub, so we moved to "The Shoulder of Mutton", which was highly satisfactory to everyone in all categories! We all slept well on Sunday night.

On P&D's "must do" list was a visit to Lichfield Cathedral, and Monday was the day chosen to do it. An unfortunate things about Wychnor Park was that the internet connectivity was archaic with just one computer available for guests to connect to the Web, and no USB ports for memory sticks, so it wasn’t possible to post photographs or have access to Word documents that you might have written on a laptop. This meant there was no way to connect a personal laptop to the Web. Going to Litchfield was on Bob's list so that he could find somewhere that had Wi-Fi available! Lichfield is another town in the UK that is pedestrian friendly in that no cars are allowed into the very center of town where historically, the streets are so narrow. Everyone parks on the edge of the center and walks into the center of the city (only a few blocks). It is very effective and provides a very pleasant atmosphere. The center of Lichfield, where a weekly market has been held since permission to hold a market was granted to Bishop Walter Durdent, Lord of the Manor of Lichfield by King Stephen in 1153, is very historic. There is a very old church there, St Mary’s, which still has a Sunday service at its East end, but also now houses a day centre for the elderly, a tourist shop, a café; and upstairs there is the Heritage Centre. On the wall of the church are plaques commemorating martyrs burnt at the stake or "disembowled alive" in Lichfield Market Square. After Alison's lengthy description of Holy Trinity Church in Coventry, we won't bore you with more historical facts about Lichfield Cathedral, only to say that it is the only medieval cathedral in Britain with three spires and the building of this Gothic Cathedral commenced in 1195 when it replaced a Norman Cathedral built in 1085 which had replaced a Saxon church built in 700! We had a lovely walk in Lichfield before returning to "The Acorn", a pub we had spotted on our walk that had a sign that said "Free Wi-Fi" in the window! We were able to pick up and send email! You can get more information about Lichfield Cathedral at: http://lichfield-cathedral.org/history.html

On Tuesday, as long planned, our friends Peter & Wendy Crozet visited us at Wychnor. Peter and Bob worked together at Bowmaker Plant (UK Caterpillar tractor franchisee) around 1967/68 so they are also friends of more than forty years. Peter was born and lived in South Africa until he met Wendy who was on an extended working holiday in SA. When Peter learnt Bob was leaving Bowmaker to join Ford in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, he told us to look up an old university friend of his, "Saint" Sudano. This we did, and we became friends with Saint & Marian and Marian is Clare's godmother. Saint & Marian now live in Perth, Australia and they are on our "bucket list" to visit in the near future (see a future blog "Australia & New Zealand"!). P&W have already vistited S&M, so they have given us some good tips on "must sees". After a cup of coffee we started our planned walk across public footpaths across the fields to the canal at Alrewas and then along the canal to Fradley Junction and "The Swan" -- quickly written but probably a three mile walk. After lunch we walked back via a different route and got back to our log cabin five hours after we had left. We estimate that altogether we walked 7-8 miles. After more conversation we all drove to "The Shoulder of Mutton" at Barton-under-Needwood again, where we had a lovely meal and a very convivial evening before saying our farewells to Peter & Wendy, who drove home directly from the pub.

Another thing on the "must do" list was done on Wednesday, when we went to the National Arboretum. [Quote]: "The Arboretum is the home of the Armed Forces Memorial which was opened in October 2007. It is a striking and emotive memorial and is quickly assuming national significance. It gives recognition and thanks for those who have died whilst on duty or as a result of terrorist action since the Second World War and acknowledges the enduring sacrifice of those who mourn their loss". It has a similarity with the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC in that the names of the armed forces personnel who have died are listed by name in the year in which they died, with each branch of the services (Army, Navy, Air Force) being listed separately within each year. 50,000 trees have been planted to create a future woodland as a continuing memorial. There were many buses/coaches visiting the memorial and many old timers in their regimental blazers adorned with service medals visiting to show their respects to their fallen comrades. It was very moving and is moving to me as I write of it. From there we drove to Burton-Upon-Trent where we hoped to visit "The Museum of Brewing" and hoped to also vist a "brew pub" that Peter had identified from a website. We followed the "attraction" signs to the Museum, although our efforts where somewhat handicapped as it seemed as if half the roads in Burton were under repair and progress was exceedingly slow. When we did get to the visitors center, we were informed that the Museum had been closed down for two weeks. This may be somewhat related to the fact that Coors has purchased the Brewery that housed the museum - those damn Yanks! The visitors center gave us directions to the brew pub, but we were to be disappointed again as they closed at 2:30PM and we were too late. After quickly referring to the Burton tourist information map in our possession, Alison spotted "The Unicorn" at Newton Solney, a village just outside Burton, that served lunch until 3:00 PM and had free Wi-Fi. Great excitement all round! We were there by 2:45, only to be told that they only served lunch until 2:30 and the chef had already gone home. We pointed out to the bartender that besides being on the tourist map, the lunch sign outside the front of the pub said they served lunch until 3:00 - all to no avail. We ate crisps/chips for lunch, depending on whether you’re in UK/USA. We meandered through country lanes and villages on our way back to Wychnor, as we had no desire to tackle the roadworks of Burton-on-Trent again. We ate a very hearty dinner at the cabin.

Another "must do" at the beginning of the week was a trip to Alton Towers, a UK theme park with rides named "Nemesis", "Oblivion" and the like! Unfortunately, Thursday was designated to be yet another inclement weather day and in addition, when Peter had phoned to purchase tickets in advance, we were warned of large crowds of school outings to the park and the last thing we needed was for us "senior citizens" to be queueing up with a bunch of screaming children. Consequently, we decided to give the park a miss. By this time, I was already having nervous breakdown symptoms relating to not having posted to the blog for so long and desperately was looking to catch up. However, we didn't want to have Peter & Dianne sitting in a cafe or pub for three hours while we posted the blog (yes, it can take that long) so we decided to split up for the day. D&P went off to Tutbury Castle (11th Century), where Mary, Queen of Scots was imprisoned by Elizabeth I (her cousin) at least twice. Of course, while she was in prison, she continued to plot to overthrow Elizabeth, who finally had had enough and signed the warrant for Mary to be beheaded, which she subsequently was at Fotheringham Castle in 1587 - Isn't England's history nice and gruesome! (Watch "The Tudors" on Showtime). Meanwhile, we headed back to "The Acorn" at Lichfield with free Wi-Fi where we spent three-and-a-half hours working on the blog so that we could bore you all to tears. In that time, we had one beer, lunch and a cup of coffee and no one bothered us at all. At about 3:30, we got a call on our cell phone from my cousin Colin who said he was going to drive out to Wychnor to see us. He had a little bit further to drive than we did, so we beat him back to the timeshare by 5 minutes. Colin is a little bit younger than I, and reminded everyone that it was all my fault when he got into trouble as a youngster, because I was the one that decided all the naughty things we were going to do and he just followed my lead -- the memories of youth. Colin drove home (we'll see him again later) and the four of us decided that tonight was going to be our last night out, so we set off to the "George & Dragon" pub in Alrewas where we had a nice meal and a few pints. Dianne drove us back to Wychnor. I should also mention that today was the start of the British Open Golf Tournament and it started on television at 9:00 AM, so the television was on pretty much all day when we were in the cabin. If any of you watched the first few hours of play, you will understand the farcical description of the present season here as "summer!".

Friday we had the golf on during breakfast and then left to take a walk at Branston Water Park, which is not a water rides amusement park as those from the USA would expect, but a wildlife reserve, created mostly naturally from old gravel pits filling with water and then being taken over by the local government. From there we made our way once more to Barton-under-Needwood and the "Shoulder of Mutton" where we had a lunch appointment with Jonathan Slim and his wife Ann. This is where I have to relate another "power of Google" story. Most of you readers are aware of our three month trip to South Africa last year. A few weeks after we returned, we received an email from son-in-law David with another email attached. David's email said "If you actually know this person, it is really amazing". The attached email was from a Jonathan Slim who had written to David via M&D's blog "Journey to our Daughter" and said (paraphrasing) "Hi, my name is JS, I was browsing the web looking to see if there is a reunion of Marist high school in Port Elizabeth next year and I came across this blog on South Africa. I think the person who wrote the blog is Bobby Brookes who I used to work for in P.E. in the early 80s. His blog didn't have an email address but there is a link to your blog on his site and you have an email address so I am writing to you. If he is who I think he is, could you forward this email, as I would like to get in touch with him". Well of course I was who he thought I was and he did work for me at Shatterprufe in the early 80s. I had assumed that no one would be able to get to my blog unless they knew the link: bobbyandalison.blogspot.com but now realize that Google is indexing key words (such as place names - Port Elizabeth) in every blog that is posted and that, if you type the right words into a Google search, you will find "private" blogs – mind boggling even to those of us who are "computer professionals". I wrote to Jonathan and we corresponded and then when we told him we were coming to UK, discovered that he lived a few miles from the timeshare at Wychnor and regularly drove through Barton-under-Needwood on his way to the office. Jonathan now runs his own software company, specializing in baggage handling systems (had nothing to do with Heathrow Terminal 5!) and is obviously quite successful. Another nice reunion. We returned to the timeshare and the golf and were routing for Greg Norman to continue on his winning way - which he did on Friday. In the evening, I explained the object of Sudoku to Peter and we did a number of puzzles in the newspaper. According to a subsequent conversation that Dianne had with Angela, Peter has been going through all the old papers he can find around the house, and has spent his days working on Sudoku since they returned home - it is definitely a sickness! We had our final dinner at the cabin with all the leftovers of the week, after which we took our last walk from the Wychnor Church down to the canal (Trent & Mersey) and along the canal to where it merges with the Trent River for 300-400 yards before they split again. On this walk we saw Mr & Mrs Swan with six of the biggest cygnets we have ever seen. It was a fitting end to a lovely week.