July 31 - Day 36
"Preparing for civilisation" Day
We got to Shrewsbury in Shropshire at 6am. We walked through the silent streets of this old town, and waited in the shadow of the old city marketplace until a coffee shop opened its doors across the way.
Golden light poured through, and we staggered in. We sat for hours here in comfy armchairs, drinking cup after cup, reading our books, watching Shrewsbury wake up and get busy. Sometime in the early afternoon, we stirred ourselves to run a few errands -- I bought a pair of pants to replace my torn jeans, Joe ate about four hamburgers from McDonald's, and, to our delight, we found a family owned hardware store where I could fix my bike seat.
"Do you know where they could get a volt?"
"A bolt," I corrected the young, stiffly coiffed young man behind the counter of TK Maxx. His colleague directed us to a nearby grocery store. No bolt there. "Check at Birch's, it's just around the corner," said the man at Customer Service. How was it possible that four employees at TK Maxx didn't know about a hardware store just feet from their door?
We found Birch's with no problem. Stepping in, it reminded me of my grandfather's old toolshed -- dark and dank, smelling of kerosene ("It's probably soaked into the walls, now," Mr. Birch said later), and everything from chimney grates to live animal traps to rakes and shovels hanging all over the shop. We were greeted by Mr. Birch, a kind man dressed in a smart suit and with his gray hair slicked back. He took my bicycle seat, reached into a small drawer in a small cabinet in search of proper bolt to replace the one that, as I explained, still threatened to tear my pants. Not finding a suitable length, he proceeded to put the seat into a vice and saw away at the end of the bolt with a hack saw. We gaped in disbelief at this properly-dressed man sawing away at the bolt, but were even more surprised when he sparks flew as he sanded down the end. It was perfect! He smiled as we praised his work: "50 p," he said with a wave of the hand. We told him how rare we thought his shop must be now, and he agreed, saying that his father had opened this shop years and years ago. Sure enough, his elderly mother came out of the small office at the back of the store and greeted us. We were charmed.
Later, Joe reminded me to use the word "trousers" here, not pants. "Pants" refer to underwear.
Near the end of the day, we biked out to Bayston Hill, where we met the McKies, a lovely couple I met a few years ago while accompanying a trip of high schoolers to England. It was delightful to see them again and to spend the next few days with them!
August 1 -- Day 37
This day, we had the grand tour of Shrewsbury and the surrounding area. The McKies showed us all around and told us all about the history of this beautiful town. We visited Shrewsbury School, one of the most prestigious private schools in England; learned about architecture (many of the old black-and-white, timber Tudor houses received a Georgian facelift of brick, in order to be fashionable in the 1800s; to avoid a tax based on the number of windows in one's house, some people bricked over their windows and then painted the brick to in a trompe-oeil to make them resemble proper windows); we strolled around beautiful streets and down narrow alleys, passing St. Chad's, notable for being thoroughly round, and went into the ancient St. Mary's, whose beautiful "Jesse window" depicts Jesse's lineage; we stopped for tea and yummy tea cakes; and later, we went for a walk on Lyth Hill, and saw fields and meadows stretch out for miles and miles, until, in the distance, they were bordered by tall, dark hills. Mr. McKie pointed out Ironbridge to Joe, where the Industrial Revolution got its start.
After another cup of tea and biscuits, a delicious dinner of traditional cottage pie filled our tummies and prepared us for a tipsy trifle, our first one ever! Careful, or it might make you a trifle tipsy!
We had a fantastic time with the McKies, and were sad to leave the next morning. Hopefully, we'll make it back again soon!
I hate to write in such a rush! I will have to tell more about our stay with Victoria and her mom in Redditch, and then about our stay with Joe's sister and her family in Oxford at the next stop! Now we're about to get back on the road again and head to Harlwich, where we'll take a ferry to Hoek van Holland. On the column to the left you can see our tentative route for the rest of the trip, so you can follow along.
Cheers!
-Hilary
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2 comments:
Will I be the only one who relates your visit to a Daffy Duck cartoon? See the quote below, courtesy of IMDB.
Daffy to Porky - "Watkins, in a moment there'll be a knock at the door heralding the start of the case of the Shropshire Slasher. Answer it. My pants are caught in a nail."
"put the seat into a vice". That's "vise", dearie, unless I'm sadly mistaken as to what the fellow actually did with the thing :-)
Wonderful and fun to read about an old-fashioned hardware store and storekeeper. By coincidence, just this morning I'd read another story about a fellow in the US who found a great hardware store that had a drawer full of just the right ENGLISH bolts. Jeepers.
As for you arriving at a place at 6 in the morning... how does one ever Arrive at 6 in the morning? But it does sound lovely how you got to watch the city come to life. I do enjoy that kind of thing on the rare moments it happens that I'm anywhere interesting at the break of day.
It happened once for me while I was driving through Manhattan at 5:30 a.m. on a weekday in 1986. Really cool. Happy travels.
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