Hedge Funds To Hedgerows

It’s not the first time I’ve flown in a plane with an Arab pilot. They seem to have one thing in common. They fly like they didn’t make Top Gun and have something to prove. Calm down, cowboys! Aside from that, the flight to Amman was uneventful. Actually, one might even call it inspirational having the opportunity to watch Invictus. Very good, by the way. Arrived in Amman at about 01:00am and it was the fastest I had ever been trough any airport ever. I actually mean that. I’m not being sarcastic. It was then up at about 06:45 (ouch) to head off up to Jerash. Jerash (or Gerasa, to give it its Greco-Roman name) is an enormous archaeological site in the north of Jordan. Although there are signs of inhabitance during neolithic times, a major settlement was first established during Alexander The Great’s day. During it’s peak during its Roman phase the population rose to 20,000. The town was supported by the very fertile agricultural belt it finds itself in. There are still many buildings to wander through and with the help of your imagination, the whole, magnificent city comes back to life. Temples, collonnades, amphitheatres, hippodrome, baths, alters, shops. All there for one to stroll around. And that’s just with half of the city unearthed. The other half remains buried under modern Jerash.

Friday: Relaxed day today as I strolled around Oxford with Alasdair in the morning and then it was back to the craziness that is London (well….Kensington, to be precise!) to restock and then head down to Scott and Selina’s. Scott taught me how to make a brew and I think it’s safe to say that I’m quite an expert now. Nothing like learning from a master in his field. Just think witches, couldrons and big wooden spoons (and the scent of something along the lines of porridge) and you get the picture.

Well, I have to say today and yesterday were the first time that I’ve been warm in about three weeks! It really does feel like Summer has arrived. And I can’t think of a prettier place than Gloucestershire in Summer. Warm sun (it was just t-shirts at 8am!!!……..and actually achieved that hard earned result of a farmer’s tan by the end of the day!), the heady scent of wild flowers and pretty houses make it a very nice place indeed. Off to ride Scooby again with Jayne and then it was over to Lower Slaughter in the Cotswolds. An old favourite and so close to where I was, that I couldn’t resist a visit. In these parts you feel compelled to find big shady tree and sit there with a stack of Jane Austen novels and be transported back into an other time of big dresses, estate houses and Summer picnics with Mr Darcy. Swoon. Oh, the good and genteel folk of Gloucester! Lots of very friendly Japanese tourists too, falling over themselves to say “hello” to you. Strange. It does feel like you’ve been transported back in time with the little, organic looking stone houses that seem to have just sprouted out of the ground of their own accord. The fields at this time are picture postcard too….all full of yellow rape and little lambs.

Next it was back on the road and off to Oxford to catch up with Alasdair.

Time to put on my Mary Anning hat today and go looking for buried dinosaurs! After being told off by an old man for having the audacity to park on a public road (why do old people think they own the whole darn world?????), it was time for a quick look around Lyme Regis (a favourite also with Jane Austen and the setting for her Persuasion.

It was up early for the adventurous day I had planned. Rugged coastlines, as many ancient sites as I could squeeze in, picturesque old ghost mines tumbling into the sea and then a relaxing time at St Ives.

Tuesday: Sennen Cove is about as close to Land’s End as you can get, so It was a bit of a novelty to spend the night here. The morning had me walk just up and over the cliff to Land’s End proper. I thought it would be desolate and lonely, but I was met by a multitude of shops and even the “Dr Who Experience” What’s that all about???? However, it’s in places like this with the unforgiving coastline, that you realise how easily all those shipwrecks I mentioned earlier could have taken place. It’s a really rough environment.

Up quite early today and off for a two hour walk from Lizard Point around past Old Lizard Point. Go Figure. Did the old one get so eroded that they had to change the most southerly point?? There’s an old lifeboat house in between the two points and a lighthouse above. The cliffs are made mainly out of serpentine stone and the grey rock is still carefully and beautifully worked by local masons in the village. It was also from this point that the Spanish Armada was first seen from British shores in 1588. The origins of the name Lizard are still not known for sure. Was it the shape of the cliffs? Or, the more accepted version that it was from an old Cornish word meaning “high court”. Whichever is correct, the coastal walks here are beautiful.

Up and on the road down to the famous Lost Gardens of Heligan. Now, what I can’t understand is how you can just conveniently forget that you have 1000 acres of amazing gardens surrounding your home and have it become lost. What were you doing, Tremaynes? Counting your money? Anyway, somehow this happened and the gardens which were in their prime from the mid 1700s to the early 1900s just disappeared! The manor was built in the 1200s and was purchased by the Tremayne family in 1569. It seemed WWI proved a bit of a distraction, wounded soldiers moved in, then the American military moved in during WWII and so on and so forth. It wasn’t until 1990 that Tim Smit (yes, you’ve heard his name before….Eden Project) and John Willis rediscovered the gardens and the enormous effort to bring them back to their former glory began. And glorious they are! Rhododendrons whose seeds came from India (ENORMOUS!!), a handkerchief tree, a Jurassic maiden hair tree, artistic black tulips and other psycadellic ones, an Italian garden, flowers that look like marshmallows, a small beacon hill from the days of the armada and perfect camellias that look exactly like the the sacred flower of life, hundreds of bluebells, charcoal burning pits, the biggest veggie patch ever and a jungle area with ginormous rhubarb from Brazil. It really is all quite stunning. All quite easy to forget you have, I guess. Tut, tut, Tremayne family!