I was only going to post photos of Day Seven, a very good day until the very end, but holyfuck, Neko Case and Nick Cave cover "She's Not There." (Ten minutes after I post I open gmail and see SeatSix sending me this song. Thanks!)
Stopped briefly at Ironbridge, the first cast iron bridge ever built, seen in top photo. Drive through new housing and commercial developments down into a gorge with three hundred year old homes, odd. One was for sale, but no figure on the sign. Earthgirl and I talk about what it'd be like to live in England knowing we'll never live in England; we talk all the time about not living in MOCO knowing we're living in the house we're going to die in.
Stratford on Avon for lunch, charming and yadda, felt like Dollywood, but whatever, then a drive through the edge of the Cotswolds, Stopped in Broadway where Earthgirl and I sat outside a cafe and drank tea. That? was excellent.
Onto Cardiff. I need to say something about bathrooms and rooms in general in the newer hotels of the UK. This is not a complaint. They are energy efficient. You must put your room card into a dock on the wall in order to activate the electricity, the principle being if you take your card with you when you go out you turn off the lights. The showers and faucets all have buttons to turn on the hot water so that hot water is not used unless specifically requested. The toilets have two buttons, one of one, two for two, with different water flows depending. Cool.
And yes, there are video cameras everywhere. Everywhere. There were six monitoring the entrance to the hotel in Cardiff. London, where we'll be again tonight, you can't go anywhere without observation.
That's the ceiling of a room in Cardiff Castle. The tour didn't offer any other option for Cardiff other than a night trip to the Castle for 55 pounds. Sit in the hotel all evening or that. We though we'd get a long tour of the Castle across all the grounds. We got ten minutes of rushed tour of four admittedly gorgeous rooms - the ceiling of one is above. Click, yo. We were yelled at to not take photos; the guide then amended that to photos but no flashes. Hurry!
The spotlight of the visit, however, was dinner. Fifth rate Welsh dinner theater actors dressed in 19th century Welsh garb and started singing crappy Welsh folk songs. I hate that shit. The head then began audience participation. I'm gone. Gone gone gone. Out. Ten minutes later, Earthgirl too. She went out into the rain to draw and sketch, I sat in the lobby, drank a beer, wrote a first draft.
Last day, Bath, Stonehenge, Salisbury, London. Home tomorrow. Sincere yay!
