A Canterbury tale: Part 5 - the journey home

In the corporate world, many pages of text and millions of pounds are wasted in the search for the magic bullet of efficiency. So many theories exist, and so many buzz-words are emitted from the mouths of so-called experts expounding these theories, that we seem to have got away from the simplicity at the heart of these ideas. I would suggest to anyone wishing to learn how to accomplish a task in the optimum time and with the most efficient level of effort to watch Sarah and I packing up at the end of a holiday. This recent trip was a textbook example: tasks are designated so that we don't get in each other's way, but if one person has spare capacity then they pick up any jobs with which the other person is struggling. My latest book It's Not About Synergy You Twerp, Just Get On With It is available from all disreputable book sellers.

After everything was packed away, we trundled towards the Whitstable Road, stopping only to shout our thanks to Ken and his wife who reciprocated with cheery waves.

We had decided to travel back via Sissinghurst Castle, taking the fateful decision to avoid motorways and stick to smaller, narrower roads. From the previous day's map study, I calculated a 30 minute journey from Canterbury to Sissinghurst. In the event, it took double that time to get there. As anyone who has been following this series could guess, the first stop after parking up the van was the coffee shop. Feeling in need of a sugar rush, I went for the all-butter flapjack, the description of which I am always tempted to complain about on the basis that it patently contains other ingredients as well as butter. In any case, I kept my counsel in order to avoid embarrassing my wife and we moved on to the main purpose of the visit; the gardens of Sissinghurst Castle.

Poet, author and keen gardener Vita Sackville-West and her politician husband Harold Nicolson acquired Sissinghurst in the 1930s. The house passed into the hands of the National Trust after their deaths and is now a much-visited attraction. The gardens are simply stunning; the White Garden in particular shows what can be done with a clearly envisioned theme and a little imagination. The multi-storey tower, from the top of which the intrepid explorer may view the whole estate, forms a centrepiece to the gardens. Rooms on each level may also be either entered or viewed from the stairwell, offering an insight into how the Nicolsons lived. Further research reveals that by all accounts they lived pretty wildly. Vita had a penchant for lovers of either sex and Harold was no slouch in the infidelity stakes either. Perhaps this is not surprising considering their links to the Bloomsbury Group, a Bacchanalian bunch of revellers by anyone's standards.

We wandered through the verdant grounds for a while, enjoying the clement weather and thinking what a joy it must have been to live in such wonderful surroundings; the sense of achievement that the owners must have felt when seeing their plans come to glorious fruition. The rose garden was the scene of the culmination of my Alan Bennett week: an imagined conversation between Mr B and Carol Klein from Gardeners' World involving custard creams under the agapanthus. This masterpiece of satirical mimicry left my long-suffering mono-audience less impressed than I felt it deserved, but such is the lot of the artist. Eventually, after having our picture taken by an effusively friendly Belgian tourist, our wonderfully synchronised internal body clocks told us that it was time for lunch. We caught the smoky aroma of what seemed to be a hog roast emanating from the smallholding show that was running in the grounds but baulked at paying an extra £5 each on top of the £10.80 admission fee that we had already shelled out. After a quick grumble about this additional attempt to grab our hard-earned, we headed for the restaurant for an agreeable quiche and 'Sissinghurst Leaf', i.e. lettucey stuff.

The clouds were beginning to obscure what had until that point been an uninterrupted sunny sky and we still had a lengthy journey ahead, so we strode back to the van and hit the road, initially in the wrong direction but then on through the village of Sissinghurst. This proved to be the nadir of the holiday: in the process of avoiding an oncoming Mercedes (pause for readers to say 'typical') I misjudged the space on the left-hand side of the vehicle and a wince-inducing scraping sound filled the van. I pulled over and we inspected the car that was parked at the side of the road. At first glance there seemed to be no damage but on further inspection a distinct rearrangement of the paintwork could be seen. Just as we were slipping a note under the windscreen wipers, a man poked his head out of the nearest house and enquired what had happened. It turned out that he was the owner of the vehicle. His wife quickly appeared and extravagantly thanked us for stopping, rather putting me in mind of the Eric Idle character in European Vacation who apologises for Chevy Chase's car knocking him off his bicycle. They invited us inside and I was briefly impressed that someone had built a well-stocked bar in their living room. A few seconds later it dawned on me that I was standing inside a restaurant. It turned out that the couple ran the restaurant and were in the middle of preparing for a 70th birthday party. Our little diversion must have been a huge inconvenience to them but they were nothing but courteous and understanding. After an exchange of details we were on our way, negotiating a route through the Kent and East Sussex countryside whilst giving any parked cars an extremely wide berth.

After a quick stop to visit friends in Haywards Heath we continued to Worthing where we were to return the van to my parents-in-law and transfer everything to our car for the short hop back to Chichester. Thankfully, fish and chips had been thoughtfully provided for us on our arrival in Worthing by Sarah's ever-hospitable parents. At a suitable juncture I broke the news of the prang to Sarah's father. His response was typically equable; he even said that we could borrow the van again at some point in the future.

Although some of the events of the last day were not the ideal way to end a holiday, they could not sour what was an extremely pleasant few days. I was very taken with the whole camper van experience and look forward to the next adventure. Highlights would have to be visiting the cathedral, cycling to Whitstable, the picturesque cycle ride along the Great Stour and the general experience of meeting interesting people and seeing new places. And there the tales end.

A Canterbury tale: Part 4 - Canterbury

Migraines are annoying. In fact they can be downright debilitating. Luckily, I consider myself quite lucky that mine generally fall into the former category. The one I had on Friday morning occurred at about 3 o'clock, which at least gave me the chance to sleep off the worst effects of the visual aura. Atheists desperately seeking explanations for the visions of people such as Joan of Arc claim that they can be explained away as migraine aura. Er, no. Anyway, shaking off the resulting headache, I prepared for the hike into Canterbury with Sarah.

As I might have mentioned before, the hill down to Canterbury from the camp site to the city centre is pretty steep. As I was still suffering from the mild dizziness that accompanies my migraines, the journey was a little disorienting but we arrived at the church of St. Dunstan's-without-the-Westgate ready to find out more about Thomas More's head. Let me explain; on the first night in town we had read a sign on the church that mentioned its main claim to fame: Thomas More's head could be found within the church. The erstwhile Lord Chancellor's head was apparently rescued from London Bridge, where it had been displayed in the manner customarily reserved for traitors, by his daughter and brought to the church. Keen to find out more, we went inside to be greeted by a charming and welcoming lady who described herself as a Holy Duster. She quickly disabused Sarah of the idea that we could actually see More's head but pointed to a plaque on the floor, under which the boiled head of the author of Utopia was buried.

Moving on, we found a more thinly populated city centre compared to the previous day. Perhaps this was due to the weather, which was already threatening to break out into a light drizzle, or maybe it was down to the relatively early hour. I noticed that the busker had gone, probably in A&E trying to remove an inflatable guitar, and this lent a more peaceful air to the place.

First stop was always going to be Canterbury Cathedral. Taking full advantage of my National Union of Students card to take £1 off the admission price, we entered the cathedral precincts. The entry price of £9.50 seemed a little steep until we read that it costs £18,000 a day for the maintenance of the cathedral; staggering. In any case, the view when entering the nave was worth the fee. An audible 'wow' escaped my lips to the amusement of one of the gold-sashed guides standing in the entrance. The place itself is vast, befitting the centre of the Anglican church, and a sense of reverence emanated from every corner. Descending to the crypt, the visitor comes across the place where St. Thomas-a-Becket was slain by knights in a tragic case of misunderstood royal instructions. A plaque informed us that Pope John Paul II and Archbishop Ronald Runcie had prayed together on this spot in 1982 in a spirit of ecumenical togetherness. The crypt itself held a surprise: an Anthony Gormley sculpture constructed from nails taken from the restored roof of the cathedral and suspended above the original tomb of Becket. This feature represents the human body; in the artist's words 'We are all the temporary inhabitants of a body. It is our house, instrument and medium.' 

I love cathedrals generally but this building in particular radiates beauty and majesty, and I defy anyone to leave it without feeling spiritually refreshed, although had the tourist throng been more intense then that might not have been the case.


We briefly visited the (free) Beaney House of Art and Knowledge, which combines an art gallery with a public library. There were a few interesting pieces in the building. Particularly impressive were the exhibits from the East Kent Art Society; a cut above the standard of most local art societies. Having exhausted the possibilities available without paying £4.50 for the temporary exhibition, we repaired to Number 12 restaurant for tea and blueberry muffins. Then we wandered around town for a while before eating a filling ciabatta at a place simply called Brunch. I don't know whether living in a similarly styled cathedral city made me desensitised to the charms of Canterbury or whether it was the, by now swelling, tourist hordes but I was a little underwhelmed by the city itself.

With the rain threatening to intensify we decided to visit the Canterbury Tales Experience. Although rather cheesy, it managed to stay the right side of educational and informative. The Experience consisted of a tour through several rooms containing life-size models of figures from Chaucer's great work. The visitor is provided with a handset (available in a variety of languages) through which the stories of the Knight, Miller, Wife of Bath, Priest and Pardoner are told within the appropriate backdrop. Listening to these tales, I was suddenly made aware that the Carry On films had an ancient provenance. On the way out of the final room, you inevitably emerge into the shop. An assistant was on hand to help you discover the history of your name. Sarah's exotic family surname could not be found on the computer but, after ascertaining that it was the Welsh rather than Irish Hughes that was required, a brief history of my family name appeared on the screen. As it did not conform to my created family history of heroic Celtic warriors bravely defending their homeland against the invading Saxon hordes, I spurned the opportunity of spending £20 on a printed copy.

Emerging into a light drizzle, we did a quick tour of some of the quieter streets before alighting upon Mrs Jones' Kitchen where we ordered tea and cakes. My chocolate tart was superb but the Earl Grey cake that Sarah ordered was a little disappointing apparently. Mind you, not ordering the chocolate item on the menu was a basic schoolgirl error on her part; a fact that I reminded her of in my best Alan Bennett.

There was a fantastic old bookshop just off the High Street where I spent some time trying to find research material for my book on Thomas Cromwell (fruitlessly). This was the sort of place in which I could spend all day, with it's mixture of up-to-date publications and older works on a variety of subjects. Some of the more venerable or precious works were kept behind glass near to the owner's desk.

The £8 entry fee to the Canterbury Heritage Museum was an outlay too far, so we decided to make our way home back up the massive hill via a small wine shop that we had noticed on the way in to the city. The owner was incredibly knowledgeable and the Viognier that he suggested turned out to be every bit as good as he said it would be. He gave us equally sound advice about the local brews on offer and we selected a couple of Canterbury Tale themed beers to take back for my father-in-law.

After struggling back up the hill laden with wine, beer and food we arrived back at the camp site to find an array of Morgan sports cars lined up along one side of the site. The Morgan Owners' Club were apparently holding a show in the vicinity over the weekend and some of their number, all incidentally demonstrating the strength of the grey pound, had decided to camp at Neal's Place. The throaty roar, or annoying racket depending on your point of view, of their arrival filled the camp site until all seven had assembled. The Dutch couple in the field opposite the van had moved on and been replaced with a German vehicle seemingly developed as a by-product of the space programme. A couple also arrived next to the Germans with a teenage daughter. The father appeared to regard the periods in between cigarettes as mere filling; I counted four in the first fifteen minutes. The teenage daughter seemed determined not to betray her generation by offering any kind of assistance to her parents as they laboured with the tent. Mind you they were probably similarly amused later to see the pair of us sitting down to a postprandial game of scrabble, with Pennies from Heaven crooning in the background. Although it was what is known in sporting circles as a dead rubber, by dint of my 2-0 lead in the series, it was probably the most keenly contested. Only in the later stages could I stride away to a well-deserved series whitewash, a fact over which I did not gloat at all.

It was with some sadness that we assembled the bed for the final time on this trip, but there was also a feeling of looking forward to being back home on the following evening. We planned to take in a trip to Sissinghurst as part of a leisurely journey back to Chichester via Worthing. It turned out to be an eventful day.

A Canterbury tale: Part 3 - Chartham and Chilham

Being short-sighted has its advantages when you are mildly arachnophobic. When Sarah remarked on Thursday morning that there was 'some kind of thing' on the inside of the van I was still visually unaided and could not make out the spidery monster clinging to the ceiling. The area must have been the scene of nuclear weapon testing at some point; the only explanation for the bloated arachnid grinning mockingly, in my mind anyway, from above. After putting on my glasses and asking Sarah to remove the offending creature (she was nearest to it, honestly) we set about preparing for the day's cycling expedition.

During our visit to Whitstable, a waitress in Elliot's tea room saw that we were cyclists and suggested that we try riding to her home village of Chilham via Chartham. On studying the map it was apparent that both places were easily accessible, via Canterbury, on cycle routes from our camp site. So, after the well-oiled machine that was our morning routine had been completed, we set off down National Cycle Route 1 in the opposite direction to the one that we had taken the previous day. The ride down to the Canterbury end of the Great Stour Way was all downhill and ended in a park with an outdoor gym. Then it was on to the new cycle path along the banks of the Great Stour. This route takes you along the river, passing through sheep-filled meadows and past babbling weirs. The organisers have posted thoughtful and descriptive information boards along the route to keep travellers on this shared walking and cycling route abreast of the variety of wildlife that they might encounter.

After 3 miles of perfectly flat cycling we reached Chartham with it's paper mill sitting alongside the river. We went to check out the 14th-century church, St. Mary's, and found that it was a lovely building. Sadly, and this is an all-too-common occurrence nowadays, the church door was locked. A sign informed us that visitors were allowed to enter the church between 1.30 and 3 o'clock, at which time someone would be on the premises. Moving on, we passed the village green and the building where the village pub obviously once stood before heading out into the country again en route to Chilham.

The flatness of the Great Stour Way had lulled us into complacency and this made the first of the many undulations on the route a bit of a struggle. However, we soon got into the swing of things and followed the signs for National Cycle Route 18, for it was this byway upon which we now travelled, until we came to a sign for Chilham. We descended a steep hill, waited an age at a level crossing for a train that must have only just left Charing Cross to pass, and then emerged at the busy A28 on the outskirts of Chilham.

Bill Bryson has commented that the way you enter a town, village or city colours your view of it. The screaming traffic on the A28 plus the succession of roadside car lots and dowdy garden centres that we passed gave us a somewhat disappointed first view of Chilham. I had read online that there was a very nice tea shop in the village, so the plan was that we would stop there and enjoy the fine view of the village square. We came to a sign advertising a tea room attached to an antique shop. We decided, OK I decided, that a village this size could only support one tea shop and therefore this must be it. As we pushed our bikes round the back of the shop to the tea room we couldn't help noticing that the only view was of a railway embankment (incidentally, one of the things that really sticks in my mind from 'O' level geography is the difference between an embankment and cutting on an OS map - strange). We ordered tea and, in my case, a passable but not Mary Berry-threatening cherry cake and sat at a table near to an elderly couple, the male half of which immediately engaged us in conversation. He treated us to a monologue on the subject of the Orient Express, which occasionally flashed past on the line behind us, and quizzed us about our origins without really seeming to take in the answers. This became, frankly, rather annoying after a while especially as it was prime territory for a burst of my, I like to think, near-perfect Alan Bennett, and it was a relief when he summoned his walking stick, Malcolm - I didn't ask as we only had two more days of the holiday left -  and they both waddled off.

One corner of the antiques shop did contain a hidden gem: an antiquarian bookseller. Unfortunately, time didn't really allow me to browse through the cornucopia of books about Kent and Sussex cricket, local history and an array of esoteric subjects. On emerging back onto the A28 we noticed a sign that read 'Village Centre' and followed it, eventually arriving at the foot of a steep hill with picturesque cottages on either side. We passed the village post office and church before arriving at the top of the hill in front of an imposing mansion. It turns out that there has been a castle of some sort at Chilham since 699 but the house that stands there now was built in 1616. Restoration to the current standard was completed in 2004 and now it stages events such as open garden days, equestrian events and a duathlon in the grounds, as well as being home to the Wheeler family.

Turning away from the entrance to the house, I glanced across the square to see Shelly's Tea Rooms squatting in the corner. 'Oh yes, that was what the nice one in the review was called', I remarked to raised eyebrows and head shaking. The local church, St Mary, was built in the 11th century and has superb stained glass windows and memorials to prominent local families. It was open when we visited and it was pleasant to explore it's cool interior after a rather warm cycle ride. We left the church and headed back towards Chartham, ascending and descending the contours on the route until we reached the paper mill at the start of the reassuring flatness of the Great Stour Way. We kept our eyes open for a good spot to eat our picnic and found a pond with coots scooting across the surface and a heron posing on the far bank like a prehistoric statue. Continuing on the journey, full of cheese and pickle sandwiches, we passed a tree trunk that we had noticed being attacked by a man with a hacksaw on the journey out. We had bet that he'd still be at it by nightfall but he obviously possessed the strength of ten men, or perhaps a neighbour with a chainsaw, because a stump was all that was left when we cycled past.

We arrived back at the park and turned right towards Canterbury city centre. The sheer volume of visitors struck us as we hit the High Street and oriented ourselves. By this time tiredness was taking it's toll and we flopped into a restaurant for ginger beer (lashings of it). On the way back to the bikes a group of early-teenage children were walking noisily in front of us. They stopped to talk to a busker and then one of them bashed him on the head with the inflatable guitar that advertised his pitch. As you can imagine, the busker was a trifle miffed at this affront and sent the cackling youths off with a flea in their ears before resuming 'Road to Hell' or some such musical monstrosity, at which point I was tempted by the inflatable guitar myself. The cabaret over, we cycled back up the steepest and longest hill we'd come across on the trip. Three-quarters of the way to the top, my bike chain came off. 'Oh dear', I said, or words to that effect, overcome with an urge to go into full Basil Fawlty mode. Luckily, their were no tree branches available with which to batter my bike, so I reattached the chain and continued back to the camp site for a recovery flop in a chair.

Feeling human again after showers, wine and food, we resumed the battle of the Scrabble board. Despite a late rally from my opponent, I took an unassailable 2-0 lead in the series with only the Friday match to come. The weather forecast looked poor for the following day, so we planned to do the tourist thing and visit Canterbury Cathedral and other indoor attractions that might be available to us. And so to bed.

A Canterbury tale: Part 2 - Whitstable and Herne Bay

We awoke on Wednesday, after a solid night's sleep, with the sun (and the BBC weather forecast) promising a fair day. It didn't take long to establish the morning routine, one that would serve us well over the next few days, of showers, converting the bed back into sofas and preparing breakfast.

It was then time to unleash the bikes. The Crab and Winkle Way is a 7.5 mile cycle route between Canterbury and Whitstable that follows the path of a disused railway line for most of its length. Our camp site was bang on the route so we saddled up and followed the signs for National Cycle Route 1, of which the Crab and Winkle Way is part. In no time we were cycling through the grounds of Kent University and out into the rolling Kent countryside. The route gives the cyclist a variety of landscapes to view: forest, open fields, rolling hills. We stopped for water at a small watery enclave where a sign told us that the pond formerly supplied one of the winding houses that were needed to pull the early steam engines up some of the inclines on the route. The railway was constructed in 1830 and was the earliest passenger line in England. Reading the sign alerted us to the fact that we may have a few hills to negotiate, although as it turned out the steeper inclines were reserved for the return journey.

When we reached the outskirts of Whitstable, signposts helpfully navigated us through the town to the harbour, with its seafood stalls and tangy sea air. We parked the bikes up at the top of Harbour Street and went for a wander. Whitstable is a pleasant town with a selection of craft shops, an art gallery or two as well as the Tudor Tea Rooms and Elliot's Tea Shop in Harbour Street. In my experience any establishment with Tudor or Ye Olde in its title is to be avoided, so we stopped at Elliot's for the mid-morning coffee/tea break that would become something of a ritual on this trip. Apparently, their cooked breakfasts are famous among the locals but we opted for their voluminous and tasty toasted tea cakes. Sarah then wanted to check out the establishments that we refer to as 'nicey-nicey shops'. This was my cue to go in search of bookshops. I found one that appeared to meet all of my requirements but, alas, when I stepped inside it was more of a scaled down WH Smith: a limited selection of bestsellers vying for space with toys, games and stationery.

I suppose it should be no surprise but the art gallery, featuring local artists, contained many scenes of beach huts, oyster boats and views of the Thames estuary. A more interesting sight was found in a smaller gallery set back from the beach. Here could be found a set of paintings called 'the Stupid Series'. Perhaps a bit harsh but nevertheless an interesting take on the supposedly glamorous rock star death, it contained images of the likes of Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, Sid Vicious and Ian Curtis with paraphrased extracts from their own lyrics framing the artists' faces.

Lunch on the beach set us both thinking about what was on the other side of the water. To the left lay the Isle of Sheppey and to the right of this island we could just make out Southend directly across the estuary. We both grew up in Worthing, where when we sat on the beach we knew that France lay directly to the south. Quite why this matters I can't really explain, but the idea that if we took a boat over the water we would still be in England rather than on the continent of Europe seemed to make a difference to the beach experience.

After a final stroll up and down the sea front with its gaily painted beach huts, and a brief check on the busy high street, we returned to the bikes and rode off to Herne Bay. The Oyster Bay Trail is an almost completely flat 4 mile ride along the coastline, passing yet more beach huts and affording a view of the wind farms in the ever-widening estuary. Riding into Herne Bay, we realised that here was a more traditional kiss-me-quick style seaside resort than Whitstable. The promenade was lined with amusement arcades and posters advertising crazy golf and a Led Zeppelin tribute band. We stopped at the pier, which seemed to offer nothing for the discerning visitor until we stumbled upon a tea shop set up in a beach hut. The shop had taken the vintage theme very much to heart; the assistants wore period costumes and the tea was served in delicate cups out of teapots with knitted tea cosies. Music from the 1940s was piped onto the decks of the pier in the vicinity of the shop. If you closed your eyes you could imagine being in that age when many people relied on food handouts and housing for the poor was in short supply. Can you imagine any peacetime government allowing its citizens to live under such conditions? The pier also contained the incongruous sight of a fibre-glass model of Duchamp's famous urinal work, Fountain. This sculpture was apparently installed in acknowledgement of the month that the artist spent in Herne Bay in 1913 when he visited his sister, who was studying nearby. As we gazed out to sea we became aware of loud 80s disco music getting louder. We turned to see the source of the noise: an obviously attention-starved roller blader circling the Duchamps sculpture like an extra from the frighteningly awful Wired for Sound video. It was time to head back.

We cycled the 11 miles back to the camp site, stopping only for the odd water break, and flopped into the festival chairs that my mother-in-law had thoughtfully left in the van. After showering (the shower block was adequate but basic) it was definitely wine o'clock (another ritual) and then the designated cook for the trip rustled up a delicious supper. Then it was time for the first test in the Scrabble series. Accompanied by the cassette (no CD player in the van) of the soundtrack to Dennis Potter's Pennies From Heaven, we waged lexical warfare. Quite what our Spanish and German neighbours made of the sight of two English people sitting playing scrabble in the gathering gloom to the backdrop of Down Sunnyside Lane and other hits of the era is anyone's guess. As the sun set over the orchard I took a one-nil lead in what would turn out to be a tense and exciting series.

Accepting the natural rhythms of night and day, we retreated to the van relatively early to prepare the sleeping arrangements and read our books. This time we did not have such a clear plan for the day ahead but we knew that it would involve striking out on our bikes again, this time south and west in the direction of Chartham and Chilham.

A Canterbury tale: Part 1 - Chichester to Canterbury

When Sarah announced a few weeks ago that she was taking a week's holiday in August, a plan evolved which included borrowing her parents' camper van and driving down to Hay-on-Wye via a visit to members of my family in Cardiff. So, naturally, we found ourselves loading the car last Tuesday for the first leg of a journey in completely the opposite direction; to Canterbury and the north Kent coast.

Canterbury is a city that I've long had a desire to visit, drawn by it's theological, historical, artistic and architectural attractions. The coast of Kent around Whitstable was also on my wish list. Above all, the chance to brush up my 'The Trip' inspired Alan Bennett impression on a captive audience of one was too good to miss.

First stop was Worthing, to pick up the van. After a quick demonstration of it's nifty features and creative use of storage space, followed by a quick test-drive and the all-important lunch, we were away. We stopped in Lancing to call in on my father and receive typical words of encouragement, 'You're coming back on Saturday. Hardly worth going, is it?' It was definitely time to get away.

After the initial trepidation at driving a vehicle considerably bulkier than our appropriately middle-aged Honda Jazz had worn off, the feeling of height and breadth became comforting. Cars would hang back on narrow streets, letting the old git in the camper van go for fear of losing a wing mirror.

Once on the M23, the hypnotic rhythm of motorway driving took over. We both have the tendency, which I regard as a blessing, to daydream. This means that there are periods of silence on our journeys together. Luckily, it's the kind of silence with which both parties are comfortable; even happy. Catching glimpses of road signs to places that I only know from, well, road signs lead my mind down fantastic trails leading to parallel lives and possibilities. 

After two hours of this combination of reverie, chat and occasional concentration on the road ahead we reached the camp site. The Rough Guide to Camping had waxed lyrical about the virtues of Neal's Place Farm and they were correct to do so. We were greeted by the owner, Ken, an avuncular gentleman with a generous, nay truly luxuriant, sprouting of white nasal hair and that Kentish accent that would lead one to ask 'now where is that accent from' if you met him out of context. Ken escorted us to our pitch in his little red buggy and indicated with an outstretched hand and a wave an area of land upon which it would have been possible to build a small bungalow. Camp sites tend to try to squeeze as many pitches onto their land as possible but Ken is quite happy to accept fewer customers if it means that they leave his establishment happy, having had room to spread out and relax.

Following the plugging in of electricity, the decanting of belongings into various cupboards and a quick cup of tea we discovered what the strange buzzing noise was that had been puzzling us throughout the journey: something had leant on the flush button in the toilet and emptied its, thankfully clean, contents into the waste tank. Luckily, Ken was on hand to offer advice and a small amount of his own personal supply of disinfectant. 

Feeling somewhat jaded from the journey, we decided to walk the mile or so into Canterbury in search of a decent meal and somewhere to stock up on provisions. As we descended the steep slope towards Westgate (a little touch of home there) the thought 'what goes down must come up' struck me. However, this thought was quickly dismissed at the sight of an inviting-looking Mexican restaurant called, perhaps to emphasize it's cosmopolitan credentials, Les Amis du Mexique, on the street corner opposite the Westgate itself. We walked in and were greeted by some cool music and a waitress who didn't call us guys. The food was excellent as was the wine, and, feeling refreshed and sated, we wandered off back towards the camp site after a quick call into a woefully understaffed Sainsbury Local. Well, actually there were plenty of staff but the lone assistant behind the tills was obviously suffering from some highly contagious disease. Perhaps something else would explain why the rest of the staff were, to put it frankly, arsing about at the other end of the store, but checkout-guy remained a lonely figure, methodically scanning his way through the ever-extending boa of customers. 

Anyway, we meandered back up the increasingly steep hill until eventually, just as I was expecting to bump into a team of Sherpas, the turning for the camp site hove into view. We made it back to the van and set about the surprisingly complex task of assembling the bed. This done, we retired for the night; me with William Boyd's Any Human Heart and Sarah with her book group read, Wolf Hall. The blissful silence was punctuated only by the plaintiff cries of 'who's this Charles Brandon she's on about now?' or some such enquiry as to the Byzantine workings of Mantel's cast of characters. 

Finally, it was time to sleep the sleep of very tired people indeed, for in the morning we rode for Whitstable and Herne Bay.

Waltzing O'Driscoll

The Gabba, Brisbane, 30 June 2001. The British and Irish Lions are playing Australia, the reigning world champions, in the first of a three-test series. The Lions are leading 12-3 early in the second half. A lean 22-year-old from Dublin picks a perfect line through a rapidly dissolving Australian defence. As they follow the blur of dancing boots and body swerves, followed by a majestic glide to the line, the Lions supporters in the crowd are already composing the first stanza of Waltzing O'Driscoll. Stuart Barnes, in his television commentary, is moved to say 'in Ireland they call him God: but I think he's better than that'.

Brian Gerald O'Driscoll was born on 21 January 1979: some say angels and magi were involved but I would not be so blasphemous. There is no doubt that he has been the most significant northern hemisphere rugby player of the last ten years, but as a supporter of a nation other than Ireland my relationship with his greatness has been ambivalent over the years. The heart sinks on the morning of an Ireland/Wales or Ireland/England match when '13. O'Driscoll' leaps out of the page or screen. That's one of the reasons why Lions tours are so special; they give the British or Irish rugby fan the opportunity to adopt the greats of the other home nations once every four years, when the red shirts roll into the backyard of one of the southern hemisphere rugby giants.

O'Driscoll's importance to the cause cannot be overestimated. He does things that, even in the modern game, you don't expect centre-threequarters to do. Yes, you would expect the piledriver tackles, the bursts of speed and even the hint of what the great Bill Mclaren used to call 'the will-o-the-wisp'. But it is his ability to appear from nowhere, like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn, that is most notable. Perhaps he really is supernatural. People used to say of the English World Cup-winning footballer Martin Peters that he 'ghosted' into the penalty box: O'Driscoll does the same at the fringes of the ruck (and why do rucks have fringes? A seemingly effeminate adornment for such an intensely masculine contest). An Irish forward drive culminates in a dive over from a metre out, but when the pile of green shirts peels away it does not reveal a gnarly forward lying on the ball. Rather, it is the number 13 that catches the eye; unlucky for whom? Not the great man wearing the shirt, or his team mates  that's for sure. He pops up all over the back line as if matter-transported from one part of the pitch to the next. Underpinning all of the talent and skill is the fact that, even now, at the age of thirty-two, the intense desire to win is undimmed. The manic chase to keep a ball in play that had been hacked forward against the Combined Country XV is a case in point. Even though the match was won, and O'Driscoll needed to avoid injury for the coming battles, he sprinted half the length of the pitch like an over-muscled greyhound before lunging at the ball, narrowly failing to keep it in play and equally narrowly avoiding a serious knee injury. This desire for absolute perfection marks out the sporting immortals from the merely talented.

O'Driscoll is now involved in his fourth tour with the great institution that is the Lions. The first of these was the aforementioned tour of Australia, where he came through unscathed but the Lions came up short in the series in the face of Aussie skulduggery (elbow in the face of Richard Hill). This was followed, in 2005, by the winless series in New Zealand where BoD was unceremoniously spear-tackled by Tana Umaga and Kevin Mealamu in the first test. This resulted in O'Driscoll missing the rest of the series. Then, four years ago in South Africa the Lions once more came close to winning the series. Once again injury to O'Driscoll, and his immense Welsh centre partner Jamie Roberts, had a huge bearing on the result of the series. Even so, it took a last minute penalty for the hosts to finally overcome a brave and talented Lions team in the second test.

Now, O'Driscoll's in the thick of it again. The ageing frame has been wrapped in cotton wool by the Lions management after a couple of games to ensure that he runs out with his team mates on Saturday; once again the venue will be Brisbane, albeit at the more intimidating Suncorp Stadium rather than the Gabba. Partnered this time by another Welshman, Jonathan Davies, his presence in the back division will give the Australian coaching staff extra food for thought. In contrast to his giant back-line colleague George North, who the Aussies will know is coming by watching the water sloshing about in the touchline water bottles with every pounding footstep, the men in gold (tip: when talking to Aussies say yellow; it really annoys them) will need an extra pair of eyes to keep track of O'Driscoll. Perhaps they could add a soothsayer to their coaching staff so that they can predict his movements.

Whatever the outcome of this series it will probably be O'Driscoll's swansong on the world stage: the world cup in 2015 looks beyond him; but who knows? As the three-test series approaches, one can only hope that Brian goes waltzing into the sunset with his first Lions series win tucked in the back pocket of his dancing trousers.

Hooray for (Paul) Hollywood

Around 30,000 years ago one, or some, or our ancestors found that cooking a mixture of ground cereal grains and water produced a wholesome and tasty (presumably or they'd have stopped making it) flat bread. This must surely have been an accidental discovery. I don't consider myself completely lacking in invention but if bread had never been invented and you sat me down next to a roaring fire with a handful of wheat and a bowl of water the result, after several days of procrastination, would have been; a handful of wheat, a bowl of water and a burnt out fire. Mind you, maybe that says more about me than it says about the leap of imagination required to turn the bare ingredients into bread.

Fast forward to 2012. For my birthday a friend of mine bought me Paul Hollywood's Bread and a loaf tin. Little did I know that this would be the beginning of an almost spiritual relationship with loaves, rolls and wheat-based produce of many varieties.

Mr. Hollywood first came to my attention on the great British bake-off. Looking like a cross between an oversized breeze block and the sort of male model you find in the older-but-still-trendy section of the White Stuff catalogue, he quickly established a reputation as the bad judge to the saintly Mary Berry's good judge. The camera would pan in on a quivering contestant as they awaited the pronouncement from the Silver Fox. Then two bright blue laser beams would appear to emanate from those adamantine eyes before a more refined version of the Scouse brogue delivered the verdict. The hoped for 'that's a good bake' would see a huge, visible sigh of relief escape from the contestant. However, a variety of less complimentary utterances such as 'your dough's overproved', 'it's overworked', 'they're all different sizes' and, the ultimate disgrace, 'you've got a soggy bottom' would send the victim sloping back to their station, dejected and deflated.

So, having had a cursory glance through the foreword, there I was standing over a mixing bowl with the same sapphire-tinted irises staring out at me from the cover of the Hollywood tome. His expression said 'go ahead punk, make my bread'. Reading the first chapter was the hardest part of the process. This is mainly because my brain is wired to make puns out of almost anything that I see or hear; a fact that drives my wife to distraction. Therefore resisting the temptation to attempt to come up with a bread-making top ten proved impossible. However, after 'When I Knead You', 'Pappadom Preach', and 'Roll With It' I managed to pull myself together and concentrate on the text. Goodness me, was I glad that I did.

Mixing the ingredients in the bowl is banal enough; not much different to cake making. It's when you take the rough dough from the bowl, slap it on a lightly-oiled surface and start kneading that the magic starts to happen. Somewhere in that process of compressing the parts together, stretching the dough out and repeating over and over again a sense of timelessness overtook me. I've always had a nagging sensation that my ancestors are watching everything I do, which can be a trifle embarrassing at times, but the process of kneading bread takes me right back to those pioneers of the loaf. The sense that this is an act of apparent alchemy that has been repeated for thousands of years all over the world filled me with an overwhelming feeling of spiritual comfort. Comfort is the right word because it takes me right back to that fireside, that place where our basic human instincts make us feel safe from marauders. The connection with basic human instinct is also there in the rhythm of kneading. As I've got better at it I've found that it is important to set up a rhythmical pattern to kneading. This reinforces that sense of primeval connection that I spoke of earlier. People say that it is a good way of taking out frustrations, this bashing of the dough: I don't see it that way. It's the creativity that releases the frustration not the brute force.

The next phase is even more magical: rising (or proving). Leave your dough for an hour, or two, or even three, and you will come back to a behemoth twice the size of your puny dough ball. The sheer enchantment of this discovery never wears off. Then the creative aspect is further bolstered by the shaping stage. Rolls, loaves of all shapes and sizes, flat breads, pittas, foccacia; the process of moulding the dough into something recognisably 'bread' is immensely satisfying. In a way, the baking stage is fairly mundane, yet still the golden browning of the loaf and the hunger-inducing aroma emanating from the oven hold an allure all of their own. When the finished product comes out of the oven, and not only is it edible and recognisable as what you intended it to be but it is also actually rather good, the sense of achievement is immense.

On a more prosaic level, there is comfort to be had in knowing which ingredients have gone into my bread. In an increasingly homogenised world it is also good to know that each loaf or roll that I produce is unique.

Now some cynics might say that none of this is magic; it's all science. Developing the gluten, enlivening the yeast bacteria etc. I say to them 'you have no soul'. In a world where the orthodoxy of science as the be all and end all of humanity's struggle for existence is rarely challenged we need to be able to connect with the spiritual drive that our forebears have always found within their souls. Perhaps it is somewhat hyperbolic to equate bread making with a connection to our, increasingly tenuous so it seems, grip on spiritual meaning. But, for me, sharing the wonder of turning a handful of simple ingredients into something delicious with those antecedents and their simple grainy paste is part of my own human experience for which I'm very grateful to 'old blue eyes'.