I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, though. My first stop in the old country was farther south. After just enough time to grab a wedge of brie, a bag of apples, and a quick picnic in Hyde Park, I stumbled jet-laggedly into Paddington station and caught a train south to Penzance, in the extreme southwest of Cornwall.
No matter how tired or grumpy I am, I love starting journeys from underneath big old iron train sheds.
Cornwall is a special place. My aunt Maggie (from my father's side) lives there, with her partner Ev, and her son Nick, in a farmhouse overlooking the town of Newlyn, the sea, and rolling fields as far as you care to look. Like so much of the English countryside, it's picturesque to the point of absurdity. Wandering around the fields and hedges and streams there always reminds me just how deeply woven the English countryside is into the fairy-tale aesthetics of our childhood. Stone cottages and burbling brooks and bright yellow canola fields all lurk somewhere in our subconscious - for all the multiculturalism of Canada, the symbology of our upbringing is overwhelmingly English.
In any case, my attachment to the Southwest is more than aesthetic. It's home - one of four places (Kitchener, Warsaw in Poland, Cornwall, and Southwest Uganda) that could lay claim to that label in my mind, places that I've settled and just lived, rather than toured. I spent the first summer of university in Cornwall, working for the family business (a clutch of shops and one restaurant, scattered about the region). It's a home base for me, a place that, as my family finds amusing, I tend to pass through on my way to some adventure or other.
As a place to charge batteries, the farm could scarce be better. There is an ancient stone farmhouse and barn with a couple modern additions, a gaggle of gorgeous gardens, vegetables growing in one corner, sheep grazing on the fields, and chickens laying delicious fresh eggs for me to mangle my cholesterol levels with. They have a separate guest cottage that has that perfect "cottage" smell, with cool sea air and warm blankets and rustic furniture. After a great meal, cooked by my quite-skilled cousin, and a few glasses of wine, I can usually count on the best sleep of my life - and so it came. 13 hours of bliss later, life seemed a lot more sane.
The days passed by pretty blissfully down south. I made liberal use of the espresso machine recently added to my aunt's kitchen, talked about big plans and small joys and family gossip as the business bustled around us. Being a guest, I was a good excuse for my aunt, who's been in some ill health recently, to get out and about. We made our way through the countryside to beaches and villages and potteries and absurdly low-roofed pubs.
My aunt Maggie is quite a character. She broke with her stick-in-the-mud Kitchener family long ago, running off to first a costume designer in Stratford, then a potter in Cornwall, where she raised her two children amongst the kilns and workshops, scraping by on no money, living in rough village shacks until she scraped together enough money to start a store and buy a rough old farmhouse above the village of Newlyn. Cut ahead some 40 years, and that rough house has become a few acres of paradise, the stores multiplied, and my aunt, now past 70 and a grandmother, still runs the business tightly. They don't come cut from such cloth that often.
Although by now quite wealthy, I have the utmost respect for the lifestyle that they have chosen. There is no ostentation, no fancy cars or absurd clothes. What there is is quality - good food, good wine, art and craftsmanship, support for family and friends, a pace of life that makes much more sense. To my eyes, this is England writ large - at a given income level, people here simply cannot afford as much useless crap as we can in Canada, nor is there quite enough space to mangle the landscape with humvees and executive homes. It's not all quaintness and flowers by any means, but there is a distinct sense, even in the london rat race, that it is at least possible to live a little bit more sensibly then we do. The buses go everywhere, even to tiny villages. The train functions. There is usually a store within walking distance of everyone. England has its share of disgusting exurbs, but the pillaging of the countryside is far more restrained than in the open spaces of North America.
Indeed, I'm often struck by how many things in England share a form with their Canadian equivalents, but simply work better. I watch their politics quite closely, and while their electoral system and distribution of parties mirrors ours almost exactly, I've been quite enjoying watching MPs jump like rats from the sinking ship of the Labour government over the course of a week of scandals. In Canada, with party discipline making MPs into useless robots, the quality of the political discourse - and indeed, the parliamentary system itself - is much, much lower. It's nice to see a backbencher calling out his party leader on his BS, even if it is still largely a self-interested move.
In any case, I'm digressing a bit from the travel narrative here, and the sunshine is drifting in the window rather seductively, so onwards we go. After a couple days more in Cornwall, with some time to hike out between the fields and along the cliff paths that ring the coast, I hopped the train back to London and dropped in on my cousin Mark, an architect who lives with his Spanish wife Helena, and their two kids, Josh and Lucas, in a gorgeous part of West London. In the past, I've stopped in only briefly here, so it's been very nice to root myself in their home for a few days and catch up. It's a fluently bilingual household, so my Spanish comprehension is even getting some practice.
Having been in London so many times, there is still a lot I haven't seen. I tend to sink into old habits and go to the same museums all the time, troll the same markets, and wander the same neighbourhoods. This visit has been a good change - I've explored a ton of the city that I've never seen before, dropped into some more museums (all the English ones have free admission, which is a joy).
As it happens, there's a bit of a K-W convention going on here right now as well. On Thursday I took the train to Oxford to meet Stef Simmons, an old friend of mine doing her doctorate in quantum physics there. Oxford is stunningly beautiful, of course - every image you have of what a "classic" university looks like originates there. Having a friend to visit, though, makes it that much better. Her student card got us into some off-limits colleges, got us dining in Hogwarts-ish dining halls, and got us a punt (flat bottomed riverboat) for free. We spend the afternoon punting down the river (as soon as I discovered how to use a 15 foot metal pole to make a boat go) with a bottle of good wine and a load of esoteric chatter. Bliss. Hanging out with physicists was a grand old time - the scope for Schrodinger-related jokes is much bigger than I had thought. Beware.
Back in London, the Canada convention continues. Although I missed one friend due to my unfortunate loss of his phone number, my friend Danielle flew in from Canada on an art trip, with her friend Sarah. After a day of hookah cafes and hippie markets, Stef and I tracked them down and we made it an evening of pints and wandering in proper London fashion. It's a bit surreal, meeting up on the streets with people I saw in K-W not so long ago, but it's good fun. The run continues today, as I'm headed out in a couple hours to meet the lovely Kate Applin for an afternoon pint as she passes through.
All in all, a great way to start a grand adventure... but this ain't no European sojurn! Africa calls. Tonight, after a sunday roast and taking in the new Star Trek movie with my cousins, it's off to the airport for a night on a bench, before catching my 6 AM flight to Marrakesh. I land there at 8:35 tomorrow morning, after which I'll head into town, grab a hotel room and a couple strong arab coffees, and go to the train station to meet Mike Brown, coming in from Casablanca. We're planning a couple days in the town, a few more in the mountains, and a few more in Casa before he flies out. It should be a blast, and I'll try and post from there in a week or so.
Until then, here's a link to a few of my England photos - I'm taking advantage of a fast internet connection to post some now. I'll get them on Flickr soon for you non-facebookers.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2223186&id=187901051
Peace
Josh
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