Dorset Dalliance

Taking a break from decorating (dining room done, living room scheduled in for Easter weekend) we spent last weekend in Dorset. We were booked in to look around some archaeological stuff with Devizes Museum on Saturday and, as we didn’t want to get up at the crack of crow-sh!t on a Saturday morning we thought we’d use the trip as an excuse to make a weekend of it (you may remember that we went to Wroughton with them in 2011).

The weather was due to be awful but it really brightened up on Friday and by the time we left work it was actually sunny. First stop was the Sixpenny Brewery at Manor Farm in Sixpenny Handley. Their ‘pub’ which doubles as the off-sales office has very restricted opening hours – closing at 6.30 on a Friday evening – would we be able to find it? Would it really be open? As we couldn’t imagine much passing trade in this area of the country so we thought the opening hours might be more erratic than those published. But we arrived in good time just before 6 and was it ever open; the farmyard was packed with cars and people coming and going all the time. I managed to squeeze into a gap next to a barn and we grabbed gloves and mufflers before tottering off to the ‘nano-bar’ - their very accurate description not ours – I think they must have used a fisheye lens for the photo on the website ‘cos it looks 3 times the size of the actual bar!

After fighting our way through the crowded bar we stood outside with our beers. It was the most gorgeous crisp and clear (and freezing) March evening – we could have done with grabbing our coats as well as the gloves and mufflers. We could hardly wipe the grins off our faces as it really was an idyllic setting (well, as idyllic as any working farmyard can be on a lovely evening with a pint in your hand). We’d come well prepared so Jon filled up our bottle basket with take-outs for sampling next weekend at home (luckily they do 6 brews and our bottle basket has six spaces) and we returned to the car (with envious men making sotto voce comments as we passed like ‘That’s what I call a shopping trip!’).

Then off down the road to our hotel, the Castleman at Chettle. A lovely country house hotel with rooms that only cost the same as the ones in the pubs in the surrounding villages. In fact our room was so big – even with the sofa at the end of the bed in front of the fireplace the room didn’t look cramped or over-stuffed - that we thought we’d been put in one of the large doubles by mistake but no, they were all like that.

The lovely panelled bar and the lounge did have cosy fires burning all the time, but it’s definitely a real country house (still owned and run by the family) rather than a sanitized corporate makeover so putting an extra layer on before going downstairs was a good idea. I do hope we find the opportunity to go back sometime because the food was great and the hospitality unfaultable.

The core of the building is possibly Tudor but most of the bits you see now were built in the 1700s or later. The staircase was great and one of the overmantels was very good. I don’t want to get too feudal or deferential about this but it is a bit amazing for us lower middle class types who were brought up, and still live, in modern boxes to have the chance to stay fleetingly in the type of houses that we usually pay the National Trust to be able to wander around for an hour on a Sunday afternoon. To be able to spend as much time as I wanted in front of the Jacobean fireplace (not as much time as I should have spent) or sitting in the Georgian lounge with plasterwork so delicate it might have been on a Wedgewood vase is very special. Someone has a good eye for 20th century art because, whilst most of the paintings looked like old family pieces, the Jessica Brown still lifes in the dining room and the small (alabaster? marble? I’m not very good on stones!) horse in the lounge were lovely (I really should have asked who’d done it).

Anyway, Saturday was a trip back to Sixpenny Handley to see farmer/archaeologist Martin Green’s museum and some of the excavations he’d undertaken on his land. The weather was beautiful when we went into the museum but, sadly, grey and blustery when we came out to start our walk around Martin’s reconstructed excavations – and there’s not much to stop the wind whipping across the Cranborne Chase! If anyone is interested there are details of a couple of things we saw, the pond barrow and the shaft at http://digitaldigging.net/cranborne-chase-archaeology/. The shaft is amazing – Martin got 13 metres down it before being stopped by the water table, but it’s been augured to be twice as deep. It can now be viewed from a bridge above and we can confirm that it’s definitely a bloody big hole…

Lunch at the Inn at Cranborne then off to the Ancient Technology Centre. We’d been to a lecture at Devizes Museum by Luke Winter just before Christmas that was brill and he was just as informative and funny showing us around the reconstructions on site. It’s an experimental archaeology centre where they try to recreate ancient buildings using ancient techniques and materials but using children to do the work. It’s fascinating; with a reconstructed Viking longhouse, Isle of Man earthhouse, Iron Age roundhouse, Roman forge and more, recreated from the archaeological evidence. Most children come to visit on a regular basis to help with the builds, but when groups of children come to stay overnight in the longhouse they have to butcher their own meat, make bread, chop vegetables and cook on the open firepit – they claim never to have lost a child, or a bit of a child, yet (but many parents must still send theirs’ along in hope…)!

If you like Time Team you may remember the Special in which they recreated a Roman water wheel based on pieces that had been excavated in London at the start of the millennium. The Museum of London donated it to the ACT so many of our group had fun trying it out!

Then back to the hotel for a beer and a soak in the bath to get the smell of wood smoke out before dinner. All-in-all a brilliant way to spend a weekend.

Devizes Museum put on a great range of lectures and events throughout the year, details of which can be found here.

Southern 100

We're recently back from a week in the Isle of Man watching the Southern 100 motorbike road races with my Dad. The weather was lovely all week – who'd have expected that? - we've come back sunburned and there was only one brief rain shower during a support race on the Wednesday evening, which caused it to be shortened to 4 laps (but the sidecar practice after it went ahead). We went over on the Sunday evening ferry from Liverpool, which was absolutely heaving with IoM residents heading back after their 4-day bank holiday weekend. We stayed at the Sefton Express airport hotel in Ballasalla – along the lines of a Travelodge but the staff were lovely, it was very handy for the racing and public transport, plus they had lots of Okells beers... well, slightly less by the time we left. Practice was Monday and Tuesday evenings with some racing also on Tues but the main racing starting on Wednesday evening and all day Thursday. So that left most of each day for sight-seeing. See lots of photos in the album over on the right =>

Monday

Monday we went to the Laxey Wheel 'cos bits of it were made in Wigan and it's also a pretty impressive mine water-pumping mechanism. As I've mentioned before, I love these ex-industrial areas because they show how quickly nature re-establishes itself once the industry stops; from a polluted wasteland 100 years ago the wheel is now set in a lovely valley and you can walk along the stream, which has trout in it once again, watching the dragonflies flit along over the waterfall. The abandoned and derelict mine buildings only seem to add to the picturesqueness of it for me as, I suppose, the ruined monastic buildings did for the Romantics 200 years ago. Or am I getting too poncey?

We had lunch in a great pub in Laxey, the Mines Tavern, which was right next to the electric tramway station (the trams go from Douglas up to the top of the Snaefell mountain). The bar is brill., not only because it stocks lots of local beers, but 'cos it looks like a tram! We also loved the café at the tram ticket office because it was so old-fashioned. After lunch we took the tram up to The Bungalow (on the TT Circuit) not realising that the motorcycle museum that had been up there was now closed. We had a wander around for an hour, looking at Joey Dunlop's statue and the fantastic view before heading back down in the tram and back to Castletown for the first evening's practice.

The hotel proved even handier for the Southern 100 circuit than we'd expected as a short-ish (mile?) walk across the fields behind the hotel (taking care not to get run over by a steam train when crossing the track!) brought us out just below Church Bends, which we'd heard was a good viewing spot. We settled down amongst the graves in Malew churchyard and waited for the practice to begin. The roads closed at 6.05pm and once the travelling marshals had checked the route was clear the session began. The Southern 100's 'Billown Circuit' is about 4 and a half miles long. The start/finish straight is on the Castletown by-pass and from there it follows a rough square going via Ballakeighan, Ballabeg and Malew.
View Southern 100 in a larger map
If I can get the map to work correctly, the rough square in blue is the circuit with the single blue line wobbling off to the right being the route we walked from the hotel to the circuit. This was my first experience of road racing because, although I've been to the TT before, the weather was too bad for racing (well, that was until they cancelled the day's session and then the sun decided to come out!). I knew that the lads got close to the wall but I was just amazed at how close you actually get to them. We were standing behind the churchyard wall at the apex of the corner and we could have patted them on the back as they went past (had they not been going at 100 mph that is, 'cos I think you'd be patting thin air as they streaked away!) and their heads were brushing the wall. There were better places to stand if you wanted to get good photos – like on the opposite side of the road in the overspill churchyard – but to get the pure atmosphere of road racing I'm not sure that the apex of Church Bends could be bettered.

Guy Martin (pictured) led the first practice sessions for the 1000s and 600s but you could see how hard Michael Dunlop was trying and you could tell he had it hooked up and was just going faster and faster; so by the end of the evening he was topping the timings sheets. Ian Lougher and local boy Conor Cummins (see his horrendous crash at the TT a couple of years ago here) were up there too. There was a short break whilst a sidecar crew were airlifted to hospital, but I understand that it wasn't too serious. There were no serious hold-ups and the roads were re-opened before the scheduled 9.40pm.

We walked back to Ballasalla town and had a couple of pints in The Whitestones (to be recommended, we went back and ate there twice later in the week).

Tuesday

At breakfast two chaps were just booking in after catching the 'plane over from Ireland with some slick tyres for one of the riders. I thought they'd have been for someone we'd never heard of but when we got chatting to them it turned out that they were for Michael Dunlop. He was using, appropriately enough, Dunlops but the tyre suppliers in the paddock were Pirelli so he'd 'phoned the chaps to ask them to collect the tyres for him and bring them over – familiar story for Dad who used to be asked to bring a new exhaust, etc, with him when he came over to support the Porters' riders for the TT. They said that the text explaining where they'd find the tyres was brilliant, along the lines of 'turn left at the blue garage, go a couple of miles up the road and after the farm turn right and at the third gate of the left you'll find two tyres behind the hedge' and there they were at 5.30 that morning touring the country roads of Antrim looking for the tyres!

We kept it local for day two and stayed quite close to Ballasalla. After a look round Castletown we drove around the circuit to see if there was anywhere else we fancied viewing from that evening, but nowhere really caught our attention. We dropped in at Rushen Abbey to look round the ruins and for some nostalgia by the older sections of our party – Dad could remember it being the place to go for cream teas and dancing when the family used to go over in the '50s and '60s. The Abbey's owners had fruit trees planted on the land and made their own famous preserves and held tea dances.

Back to Church Bends that evening, in the car this time - note the eager crowd waiting for the racing to begin... Unfortunately, the only accident of the evening happened here 15 mins before the roads were due to close, when a bike came round the corner only to find a van on his side of the road maneuvering to get through a narrow gate entrance. Luckily it was a low speed hit, although it made a heck of a noise, and he was taken to hospital complaining of arm and neck pain – fingers crossed he was OK and managed to see the rest of the week's racing. The marshals were fantastic; they swung into action directing traffic whilst the course medic treated him before the emergency services arrived. The roads opened less than 20 mins later than expected and by the end of the evening the timing was back on track.

We tried to go to The Sidings in Castletown after the practice but it was absolutely heaving – four deep at the bar – so we went back to the hotel and sampled Okells Maclir and 1907(brewed to commemorate the TT and a slightly excessive 6.1%!) and can pronounce them both excellent - but we kept trying them throughout the week, just to make sure...

Wednesday

Off to Peel today to see the castle. I was happy 'cos almost the first structure through the gate was a garderobe. So, ancient toilet fetish satisfied, I could concentrate on taking nice pictures of the castle! Seriously though, I don't think I've seen as many garderobes in one castle before, the residents were extremely well provided for. By the way, that blue stuff at the top of the photo is what the sky is supposed to look like in summer, rather than the grey we've been used to for the last 3 months...

Lovely lunch at The Creek public house – Jon's kippers (smoked less than 100 yards away) came piled up and in hindsight the side-order of chips may have been a mistake. Bushy's Oyster Stout (made with real oysters apparently) washed it down a treat. Apparently some of the riders were mackerel fishing on the harbour wall, but we didn't spot them.

In the evening we thought we'd try a different viewing spot and chose Stadium Bends at the beginning of the start/finish straight. We caught the steam train at Ronaldsway Halt, just behind the hotel, into Castletown – it stops by The Sidings pub. There are grandstands at Stadium Bends and also up by the start line, but we sat just a little bit further up from the corner. From there you can walk all the way along the start/finish straight, around the paddock, see the riders as they come in to the podium and the first corner.

It was the first proper night of racing with just a sidecar practice at the end. The closest race of the evening was Ryan Farquhar and Jamie Hamilton in the 650 class – team mates on Ryan's own bikes and they were swapping the lead throughout the race with Ryan using a 'wide elbow technique' to discourage Jamie from passing him! Farquhar won by a fraction of a second.

Those tyres of Michael Dunlop's got well-used in his races and he was dominant during the evening. He didn't always get away first but he sooner or later fought his way to the front and streaked away. He looked so relaxed during the sighting laps, arm resting on the tank, foot peddling along the pavement - on one occasion his bike actually was on the pavement! When racing he just seemed so smooth and in control. Guy Martin was second in the races he finished, but had a DNF in the 600 race. His Tyco team-mate Conor Cummins and Ian Lougher were usually dicing for third – very close racing – with Conor getting the best of it by the end. He came second in the races Guy didn't finish. You can find all the results here.

A short shower meant that the last race of the evening, the 125/400s, was shortened to 4 laps, but the sidecar practice ended the session as planned. Caught the bus back to the hotel (it stops just opposite at the airport) and sampled more of the Okells.

Thursday

A full day of racing today, so we drove over to Church Bends and staked our place at the apex of the corner again. The Irish gentlemen from the hotel were there - very happy that their man was doing so well. It was a lovely day but there was a chilly breeze - well, that's my excuse for wearing shades and a sun hat with a mac and walking socks!

Mr Dunlop started where he'd left off the previous evening and won everything he entered. Conor Cummins came second in the races that Guy Martin DNF'd. The racing was great in all the classes. To be honest some of the riders were, to paraphrase Howlin' Wolf, built for comfort rather than speed but they were all heroes as far as I was concerned - look at the photos in the album to see how close to the wall they got. This isn't circuit racing with nice big run-offs if you get it wrong (although that's dangerous enough); the thing you hit here is a house, a garden wall, a tree. Paul Shoesmith (pictured) provided some light relief by turning out in the Evel Knievel leathers that he wore at the TT - complete with tassels!

The church at Malew is lovely, with original box-pews, balcony and a very unusual banked aisle. Members of the church opened the kitchen today and did drinks, burgers, sausages, etc to raise money for the church funds. I hope they did very well. The church is well worth a visit if you're on your way back from Castletown or Ports Erin or St Mary.

After a fantastic day's racing it was off to Castletown Square in the evening for the prize-giving. Everyone received a plaque for taking part was well as those who were up there to collect cheques and silverware. It was nice to stand in the Square next to world famous and not so famous riders, all of whom seemed happy to sign autographs or shake hands with the fans. Unfortunately, all riders look the same with their helmets on so I didn't recognise most of them until Jon pointed them out! Except Conor Cummins, of course, 'cos he's ten foot tall and even though I was standing on the Smelt Monument he still blocked my view of the stage!

Michael Dunlop's clean sweep of wins and 4 new lap records, including an absolute track record, meant that for his final trip to the stage the organisers had to give him a very unglamorous large cardboard box to take all his trophies away in! Local boy Conor Cummins got the loudest cheers every time he went to the stage - as did his Dad when he collected his winner's trophy for the Junior Support Consolation Race. Guy Martin was conspicuous by his absence to collect the first 2 of his 2nd place trophies - I think he was at the back of the bar in the George Hotel and couldn't get out (well, that's my charitable interpretation anyway!) - but he made it out at the third attempt and went off with an armful of trophies.

Friday/Saturday

We started the day with a trip to the steam museum at Port Erin which is quite literally at the end of the line on the most southerly stop on the Isle of Man Steam Railway. So you get to see the trains coming in and out of the shed as well as the static ones displayed in the museum.

Then we had a trip up to Douglas to have a mooch around the shops. We didn't buy much today but bought loads when we were waiting for the ferry on Saturday! We had a nice afternoon tea at the Alpine Cafe on Regent Street and on Saturday we enjoyed our lunch at The Velvet Lobster on North Quay

We popped into the Tourist Info Office to find out where the bikes from Murray's Motorcycle Museum at the Bungalow had ended up and were told that Peter Murray now has them at a museum at his home in Santon. The lady gave us the details but suggested that we ring first because the opening times could be somewhat erratic. So, we headed back to the hotel and, as we went through Santon, we noticed that for the first time that week the museum's sign was out so we decided to pay a visit. To find it, take the A5 towards Castletown. When you see the house (pictured) seemingly in the middle of the road, the museum is through a farm gate on the left of the house. If you get to Fairy Bridge ('Hello fairies') you've gone too far. It's an amazing collection, all the more interesting because it's now just in a large two story garage - it reminded us of the Atwell-Wilson Motor Museum near us in Calne.

Mr Murray was on hand to provide teas and coffees and lots of information. Whilst we were there one of the riders from the Southern 100 and his wife were looking round (possibly Chris Palmer, but I didn't like to let on that I didn't recognise him - see my comments above about all riders looking the same...), plus a TT marshal, so I think it gets the more knowledgeable type of bike enthusiasts. There were some brilliant bits of engine on the bench with melted bits to illustrate what happens when a piston lets go, etc. We'd not meant to stay long but it was almost 2 hours later when we made our escape.

Dinner in the evening was with friends of my parents at The Garrison - again very generous portions and I had to give my side dishes away, sob.

Back home on the Saturday after a shopping trip to Douglas, thankfully the ferry was a little quieter!

It looks like the races are on Eurosport2 over the weekend of the 4th August and into next week - look out for 'Motorcycling: Southern 100' and 'Motorcycling: Billown Races' each day.

Arrivederci Roma

We're recently back from a week in the 'Eternal City' having finally managed to go away with the company that we've been trying to go to Syria with for the last year. After looking forward to a trip for so long we were a bit worried that we might be disappointed but we had a fantastic time. Our guide, Oliver, is a proper working archaeologist and was brilliant - knowledgeable, approachable, flexible.

We thought that the Ferret Holiday Curse had struck again because, as well as the Italian economy being f**ked, it snowed in Rome for the first time in over twenty years the week before we arrived! They even closed the Colosseum to visitors on health and safety grounds (yes, who knew that they have health and safety on the continent?). I'm not sure that this picture actually shows just how cold it was at 9am!

We took our own flights from Brizzle 'cos we couldn't be bothered trying to get to Gatwick - life's too short. Luckily, our flight arrived only 20 mins after the main group's did and we spotted them in the arrivals hall which meant that we were able to get a lift in the coach rather than having to find our own way to the hotel - admittedly that wouldn't have been difficult, but it was nice to meet Oliver and the rest of the group early on.

The hotel, Pace Helvezia, was really handy for the Forum and lots of other sites. We liked it but there is some criticism on Trip Advisor of its small bedrooms. Ours was at the back of the hotel, so reasonably quiet for a room in the middle of a busy city, the bedroom size was fine and the bathroom was huge. The public areas did need some updating and the bar was never open, but there are lots of other places to go, who wants to spend the evening in their hotel in Rome? The roof terrace was wonderful and I spent a very happy morning on our 'day off' reading in the sun whilst Jon hired a scooter (yes, he did, and survived!).

We had some lovely dinners, although we had to get used to all our meat arriving looking like it'd been run over, as the Romans seemed to flatten all meat for some reason. Oh, and you've got to order your veggies as a side dish. We tried Le Lanterne just over the road from the hotel and I had a fantastic minestrone at La Taverna dei Monti which was bursting with absolutely fresh vegetables and must have been at least 3 of my '5 a day'! We also liked The Glass bar and restaurant just off Piazza Venezia. But we found the drinks everywhere to be really expensive at 5+ Euros for very uninteresting lagers. We finally found the Theatre Café Bar just up the road from our hotel on the roundabout where Via 4 Novembre, Largo Magnanpolis and Via Nazionale meet. The interior has large mirrors with 'Only Bass' on, but sadly no Bass on tap, but they did have Affligem and Erdinger which were cheaper and had more flavour than the gassy local beers. The food was great too - and came with vegetables! We get a bit enthusiastic (greedy) and ordered a starter of antipasti for me and a soup for Jon (which was a proper rustic job, thickened with bread). Then I had a lovely Gateau di Patate which came with a salad and more tiny mozzarella balls than you could shake a stick at and Jon had saltimbocca with lots of roasted peppers and courgettes - which we could hardly finish.

We loved Rome - it was far less intimidating than Naples. In Naples there were streets that I definitely wouldn't have wanted to walk down without being accompanied by someone who knew it was safe, but we didn't find anywhere like that in Rome. All our preconceptions of the traffic, the car horns blaring, etc were completely over-turned, but it may have been because of the time of year we were there as other people have said it's very manic in summer. It did feel rather provincial though; no big theatre district like in London, no fancy cars. On the car front, we saw more Porsches parked in Chippenham town centre at 10.30 on a very quiet Sunday morning when we got home than we'd seen all week in Rome (i.e. two). The locals seemed to go in for large-ish family/executive saloons, especially BMWs and Merc C and E Classes - but no CLS. They often seemed to have a driver which I suppose means that the chauffeured were politicians of some sort (Rome is home to the provincial as well as national government, plus UN buildings, EU offices, etc). We saw a couple of Jag XFs but no larger Jags, Ferraris, Astons or Bentleys, like we usually see on a walk down Piccadilly in London (to be honest, like I see on my commute to work in Bath on a good morning). But, what we did see were 4 Maserati Quattroportes - or possibly just the same two, as they were all police Massers (note the blue lights on this one - there's a second photo in the album on the right) and seemed to be used to carry the more important politicians around. Jealous? Pah!

Day one
Saw us start close to the hotel with Trajan's column (there's a cast of it in the V&A in London if you can't make it to Rome) which was erected in 113AD and tells the story of his victory against the Dacians and the Imperial Forum. Crikey, it was cold! And there was still snow around but the sky was crystal clear and it was beautiful. Down the road we could see the Colosseum - honestly, you can't turn a corner without tripping over archaeology - but we were going across the road to the Forum Romana which is a fascinating jumble of political and religious buildings and monuments. Like the Arch of Titus, pictured here, which commemorates the sack of Jerusalem and depicts Roman soldiers carrying away the menorah and other sacred relics from the Temple. Then up to the Palatine Hill where Rome's elite built their palaces and on which was discovered a hut that

formed part of the earliest Bronze Age settlement. After lunch we headed to the Colosseum but, can you believe it, it was closed for two days whilst they did some assessments after the previous week's bad weather. Our tickets would still be valid later in the week, so instead we went to San Clemente. This is a lovely church run by the Irish Dominicans which contains some exquisite 12th century mosaics. BUT go downstairs and there is the 4th century church with frescos from the 4th-11th centuries. BUT below that are Roman buildings, some with foundations which pre-date the fire of Nero (64AD), the temple of Mithras and 6th century catacombs. These are about 9m below the street level and include drains and springs but Oliver said that in some areas the Roman remains go as deep as 35m. Absolutely fascinating and well worth a visit.

Day Two
We headed out of the city to Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. It was much colder (as this gentleman illustrates) with more snow on the ground and some pools actually had over an inch of ice on them! After lunch we had intended to visit the Villa d'Este (which I was really looking forward to) but unfortunately, as some of the paths are rather precipitous, it was closed due to the ice and snow. So we came back into the city and went to the Capitoline Museum.

As well as holding treasures that you'll have seen thousands of times in reproduction (like this massive statue of Constantine II), it also has a splendid view over the Forum - which was almost empty at that time of the early evening. And, like everywhere else in Rome, it has bits of ancient architecture sticking out occasionally.

Day Three
Was a walk through the Field of Mars, the Stadium of Domitian (now Piazza Navona - the buildings are where the seating would have been but the Piazza preserves the shape of the Stadium), past the column of Marcus Aurelius to the Pantheon. This visit to the Pantheon was what I was most looking forward to and after studying it and seeing pictures and plans for so long I've got to admit that I was a little over-come at standing inside it at last. It is awe-inspiring that it's still the largest unreinforced concrete dome in the world despite being built in 128AD and that the world saw nothing that even came close to it until Brunelleschi got his hands on Florence cathedral in the 1400s. With all works of art and architecture no reproduction in a book does justice to the actual thing itself: the portico is so much deeper than I imagined; the doors and portico roof are the same that were put there almost 2000 years ago; the brightness of the marble interior. One of the few ancient structures to have actually been protected by Christianity rather than destroyed by it.

Then on to the Ara Pacis and the Tomb of Augustus and finishing up at the Trevi Fountain.

Day Four
I spent the morning on the roof terrace reading whilst Jon took a scooter out - yes, that's him heading out into the Roman traffic. He actually went out beyond the city walls to do some exploring and found a quiet little café (espressos were a lot cheaper than inside the walls!). In the afternoon we made our postponed trip to the Colosseum. We got to the front of the queue with our group and found the turnstiles being erratically 'controlled' by this laptop - the password is on the post-it note sellotaped to the keyboard! Just after our group got through it seemed to give up altogether and the turnstiles jammed; there were a lot of disgruntled people in the queue!

After seeing the ice on some of the closed areas I'm not surprised that it was closed for a few days.

Day Five
Was coming home day and there was a trip to Ostia booked in on the way to the airport. The rest of the group had an entire day there but our flights were a little earlier than theirs so we had to leave about 2pm. Very kindly Oliver got the coach to take us rather than us having to get a cab. On the way to Ostia we stopped off at the fascinating but freezing Museo della Civilta Romana in EUR. Yes, it really was built without heating! The wardens were all wearing winter coats and gloves inside and kept nipping to the hot drink vending machines!. Everything here is a copy or a model but it's all great. The architecture in EUR is modernist and I loved it, although it does give you mixed feelings admiring something planned and begun by the fascists, but it was finished by Giovanni Agnelli so I guess that makes it OK!

Ostia began life as Rome's port and the most wonderful town now survives with some houses/shops extant up to three stories high. You enter the site down the Avenue of Tombs which leads to the theatre. Part way along I asked Oliver whether the bits of broken pot and tile that we were walking over were actually Roman and passed him a larger bit that I'd just found; he confirmed that it was, indeed, a sherd of 1st century Roman pot which led to everyone walking with their eyes fixed to the ground for the next few minutes! But the architecture was so good that you couldn't look down for long. After Oliver had demonstrated the acoustics in the theatre we looked round the market you can see behind it in the photo, where the shipping merchants had their shops - with mosaics on the floor outside to show the wares they imported (see the photos in the album link on the right). I couldn't really believe that these mosaics were still in the open, unprotected from the elements, it's great.

We saw a bar with a beer garden however, as it was over 1800 years old, unfortunately it was closed. But the highlight of my day (and up there with the Pantheon as experience of the week for me) came just before lunch when we reached the forum and, just along from it was a bath house and opposite that... using the water from the baths for flushing... was a public latrine. Look at it! It even had marble seats! Admittedly a bit chilly in winter and up on Hadrian's Wall you'd definitely rather risk a splinter from a wooden loo seat, but I bet it was nice and cooling in summer or if you'd eaten a dodgy botulus! It even had a marble sink. Oooo, the perfect way to end our holiday! If you've been watching Mary Beard's BBC2 series you'll have seen her sitting on the very same loo.

Basically, we loved Rome and can't wait to go back. In the meantime, I brought back a more authentic carbonara recipe than the one I put on here a couple of years ago:

6oz pasta
2 egg yolks
4oz chopped pancetta or streaky bacon
3 tablespoons cheese (parmesan, pecorino or paduano)
lots of black pepper
Cook the pasta and drain. In the pan fry the bacon in butter. When it's cooked add the pasta to the pan and stir to re-heat. Beat the cheese, pepper and eggs together. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the egg/cheese mix. Serve.

Festivities

This is where we spent Christmas, Mallory Court in Warwickshire. Dad, Jon and I arrived to afternoon tea on Christmas Eve and left the day after Boxing Day. On Christmas Eve we had a carol concert by the boys and men of St Mary's Collegiate Church in Warwick, which was lovely and included some interesting newer stuff alongside the traditional carols. We were looked after fantastically and loved it, especially the food. Given how much we over-research things, can you believe that we missed the fact that the restaurant was Michelin starred? We began to get an inkling at dinner on Chistmas Eve though! The food was wonderful, but so was the service, the hotel, everything really. I couldn't recommend it high enough - we even got a gift hamper when we arrived and a 'care pack' of water, nibbles, fruit, etc for the journey on leaving. More photos in the photo album on the right. Also managed to nip into Leamington Spa to have a quick look at the sales on Boxing Day!

We've had a nice peaceful uneventful week off work since then. I could really get used to not working for a living! The New Year began with soup making to use up a few things from the freezer and one or two things that were lurking ominously at the back of the 'fridge. I'm typing the recipe here 'cos it's actually an amalgam of several recipes and at least if it's here I'll know where to find it again!

Bacon and lentil Soup
Serves 12 (makes 6 pints) at 22p per 250ml serving (excluding the wine and parsley). Each portion is at least one of your '5 A Day'.

200g lentils (I prefer red, but you can use any)
200g bacon (I prefer to use smoked, but again...) finely chopped, with the fat cut off (leave it out of you just want a vegetarian soup)
2 carrots, peeled and chopped finely
2 medium onions, peeled and chopped finely
2 sticks celery, chopped finely
2 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
400g tin tomatoes, or 4-6 ripe fresh tomatoes (those at the back of the 'fridge that are about to turn to water...), chopped finely
1 glass red wine (optional)
1 tsp fennel seeds
Half tsp dried ground coriander
Ground black pepper (taste the soup before salting as the bacon and stock will probably make it salty enough)
Pinch Cayenne pepper
3 pints vegetable or chicken stock
2 tbs chopped parsley stirred in to serve (optional).

Put all the ingredients except the parsley in a large pan. Bring to the boil and then turn the heat down and simmer for an hour until the lentils are soft.

Allow it to cool a little and then, if you like a slightly lumpy consistency, liquidize half the soup and return it to the pan. If you like it smooth then liquidize it all. Add more stock or water if the soup is too thick. Reheat and then stir in the parsley just before serving. Can be frozen.

As it's New Year's Day I thought I'd review the goals I set this time last year http://lazyferret.blogspot.com/2011_01_01_archive.html

Goals for 2011:
1. Get more exercise
Nah, was never going to happen was it?
2. Do some track days/driving 'experiences' at local motor racing circuit
No, I must do this in 2012.
3. Cook a new recipe each month
Yes, I think I managed 12 new recipes and posted them throughout the year
4. Get a hair cut - sounds easy but I've always hated going to the hairdressers and the last time I went was Sept 2009!
Yes! And have been several times since. Shocked all my colleagues who hadn't known me with short stripey hair!
5. Worry less
Nah, was never going to happen was it?
6. Sort out a new boiler
Yes, and Michel is great and was blogged about.

I'm not sure I want to set any goals this year. We'll just see how it goes!

Happy 2012!

Vous êtes ici

We're recently back from our second trip to France this year. We spent the week in Le Mans because, after driving through the city on our way to the Circuit de la Sarthe for the 24 hours race a few times, we decided that we'd rather like to see what it looked like. And we can report that it is gorgeous!

We stayed in the Ibis Centre which was very handy for the old town and the tram. As hotel breakfasts are extortionate, we ate instead in various little cafes (for the bargain-hunters amongst you, we noticed that the Brioche Doree (Rue des Minimes, just off Rue de la Port) had a good breakfast offer - which we didn't try). The restaurants in the old town are a bit more pricey than those off the Place de la Republique - there are some nice little brasseries and pizza places around Republique - but I think that some of the best meals we had were in the old town. Some restaurants we tried were: La Chamade on Rue Doree; Les Trois Sonnettes on Rue des 3 Sonnettes; Le Nez Rouge on Grande Rue (brilliant but you may have to book). We did also have a great pizza in the Le Mans Legend cafe on Rue de la Port amongst all sorts of race memorabilia - well you've got to haven't you?!

Day one was spent in the cathedral and wandering around the old town and looking at the amazingly intact Roman walls. There's a lovely market in the square below the cathedral on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday mornings so we popped down and got ourselves some fruit. We also picked up a Le Mans City Pass for 10€ from the Tourist Information Office. This gives free entry into one of the museums plus a 24 hour public transport ticket and half price entry into lots of other museums and attractions. We decided to use our free entry to go to the museum of the 24 hour race out at the circuit 'cos it's the most expensive to get into and would also take us on a tram and a bus so we could use our public transport voucher too.

So, day two was spent at the Circuit de la Sarthe. The tram will only take you so far on non-race days (it will actually take you to the back of the circuit, but there's no way to get round to the front from there if it's a non-race day and the circuit is closed). We then took a bus which dropped us about half a mile from the circuit and we toddled off in search of cars. On the way we passed a bar that we'd last been in about 10 years ago after the 24 hour race. Then it was packed with the drunk and tired of all nations and the only food it had left was croque. Damn fine croque as I recall - although I may just have been tired and hungry at that point! I've got to say that, on that occasion, the bar didn't look like somewhere you'd normally want to spend a lot of time but today, when it wasn't packed with tired and emotional race fans, it looked very nice.

We had lunch in the cute little cafe at the circuit museum - you can see some of the exhibits from the cafe too (look over Mr H's shoulder as he downs his lunchtime pression). The museum doesn't just have Le Mans winning cars but includes a 'history of motoring' section which has everything from the earliest steam-powered road vehicles (death-traps on wheels they seemed to me) right through to Minis. Then it was into all the iconic Le Mans cars: Bentley, Lagonda, Lotus, GT40, Audi, etc, with a little Porsche exhibition to end. The tourist pass gives half-price entry to the circuit on non-race days so, as we could hear the sound of engines coming from there (someone testing perhaps?) we decided to go and have a look. What we actually found were members of the ACO's 'Passion 24 Club' taking their cars round the Bugatti circuit on a track day. There were some fascinating cars waiting to go on track: some rare French things that even Mr H had only seen in books and not seen in real life. There were also a gratifying number of British makes: Lotus, Jag, Morgan, MG, Triumph, all French-owned with only a couple of English number plates amongst them. We had a great time; going up into the grandstands; watching from the pit-wall and sticking our heads out of the gaps that they push the pit-boards through on race days. It was worth so much more than the couple of euros each that we'd paid to get in!

Then, as we were coming away from the pits, who should roll up but Vicki Butler-Henderson and a film crew to do a piece to camera before driving the new Ford Mustang round the circuit. Shown on Channel 5 on Friday 21st October 2011 and which I think you can catch online on C5's 'on demand' service. All that and I got to go on a tram as well! That's what I call a good day out.

Of course Le Mans has very strong claims on English sensibilities, and not just because of the 70,000 Brits who invade every June. Geoffrey of Anjou (Plantagenet) married Empress Matilda (daughter of and heir to Henry I of England) in Le Mans and his son Henry (who became Henry II of England) was baptised there. Following the death of Henry's son King Richard I (Cœur de Lion) his widow Berengaria retired to Le Mans. As an aside, Geoffrey of Anjou's mother was Eremburga of La Flèche - the town Chippenham is twinned with. Le Mans itself is twinned with Bolton. Yes, Bolton... What, in the name of all that is holy, possessed them to twin with Bolton? They'd obviously never visited it. However, the Bolton Food Cafe on Rue de Bolton did very nice breakfasts - no black pudding though...

As well as the amazing Roman walls by the river there is a Roman bath house (only open for orgainised visits on Tuesdays booked through the Tourist Information office so we didn't manage to get there) and remnants of Roman wall under the Plantagenet era stonework. The archaeological and history museum Carré Plantagenêt has a great view of the back of the Hotel de Ville and the surviving Plantagenet buildings incorporated into it. In one of the rooms in the museum that has Middle Ages period tombs (pictured above) there was a brilliant animation projected onto the blank walls telling the story of the Plantagenets. In French, of course, so I couldn't understand a bloody word but it was fantastic. We also visited the Musée de Tessé which is the city's fine arts museum. There are one or two little gems in there, but the absolutely bestest thing is that downstairs, as well as displaying all their Egyptian antiquities, they have full-sized reproductions of the tombs of queen Nefertari and an official called Sennefer! They were great and more museums should do things like that. I bet they're very popular for school trips 'cos the little buggers can wander through an almost real Egyptian tomb - something very few of them will ever get to experience.

The churches we visited were wonderful too. We don't get much Romanesque stuff in Britain so it's really nice to see Romanesque buildings when we go abroad. Although the stonework can seem heavy the light just poured in (mainly because most of the windows didn't have stained glass) and many of them didn't need additional electric lighting. Highlights were Notre Dame de la Couture and Notre Dame du Pre. Notre Dame du Pre was smaller but seemed more original, so it was an interesting contrast to the larger and more central Notre Dame de la Couture which seemed to have been 'mucked about with' (technical architectural term!) a bit more.

If you do make it to Le Mans we highly recommend the bar Flaceau. It's down a little street off the Grande Rue behind Le Nez Rouge. It's only open at night and you think that you're walking into someone's house - and you are, because they open it as a cocktail bar. The two rooms of the 'bar' are furnished in what for us would be Regency style, so I'm thinking 'Empire style' as it's in France? And there's a terrace which over-looks the remains of the Roman baths and the gardens people have planted within the ruins. It's utterly wonderful and we could have spent the entire week there.

So, in short, we had a brilliant time (despite thinking that someone had nicked my case on the Eurostar to Paris - ten minutes of panic that I hope never to experience again. And, if you're the complete a*sehole who moved my case and stuck it under a seat half a carriage away, I hope your arms rot and drop off. Not that I'm bitter at all...)

Food

I managed to cook several new recipes recently, as per one of my goals that I set at the beginning of the year. In February we had Goulash Soup based on a recipe which first appeared in Delia's Frugal Food back in the '70s. This is a book that I got two of for Christmas, so obviously rumours of my tightwaddery are spreading! I've loved goulash since we first ate it in a Hungarian restaurant in Ross-on-Wye almost 25 years ago, although one of my favourites was in Prague when it was served in a hollowed out loaf. Anyway, we had goulash soup a couple of times in Austria and Germany, so I thought I'd try cooking it and it was extremely good. I made a couple of changes to the above recipe: I added a carrot, I used pork rather than beef and I added a bit of celery.

March's new recipe was Jamie Oliver's Cheat's Pizza which was great. I seem to recall cooking an similar Elizabeth David pizza base (without yeast) and it came out tasting like pastry, but Jamie's version tasted like a thin pizza dough. Our toppings were ancvhovies, olives and chilli. I've got to say that I've enjoyed watching back-to-back re-runs of his Jamie's 30-Minute Meals on Sunday afternoons whilst I've been doing the ironing. I may have to invest in the book.

April's new recipe was Simon Hopkinson's version of Janssen's Temptation from Week in Week Out, but this one by Jane Grigson isn't too different.

Instead of going to Syria we went to one of our favourite hotels, Northcote Manor in Devon. This time in Jon's Dad's MX5 rather than George's Morgan - one day we'll go in our own car! The food was as wondeful as last time. And for my birthday we're off to At the Sign of the Angel in Lacock. I can't believe that we've lived 5 miles away for 22 years and have never been there yet - I hope I'm not disappointed!