I’ll be speaking Tuesday April 13 at 7 pm at the George Hail Library in Warren, RI, on paranormal writing.   http://www.georgehail.org/

I’ll also be the speaker at the 25th Mid-Michigan Retreat From Reality April 16-18.  http://midmichiganrwa.org/retreat.html

I was asked that question a few months ago by an editor.  She went on to say that England has lords and ladies while Scotland has men in kilts.  My answer:  Wales has dragons.  Here’s one of my favorites.  It’s actually set in a roundabout (rotary for New Englanders, traffic circle for the rest of the US) in Carmarthen, Wales.

In my hometown of Salem, New York, July 4th has been celebrated the same way for years and years — a parade and then the firemen’s carnival that ends after dark with fireworks.  The small town of under 1000 people swells to twice its size and more as bands, firetrucks, livestock, and floats come down Main Street to enthusiastic applause.  It’s a special tradition that never grows old.

Here are some photos from the parade:

And the day ends with:

Somehow this failed to appear, so let’s try again (and be nice and don’t mention now how the lessons are out of order!)

If you haven’t already “dropped” from all those castles and gardens and tramping through the countryside, then it’s time to shop.

Shopping malls as we know them in the US – set away from the old-style business district of a town – don’t really exist in the UK.  The shopping malls in the UK are in the city centre.  They usually keep the same hours as the shops on the streets around them, so they close earlier than their US counterparts.  These city centre shopping malls often have a parking garage attached for the ease of their customers.  You’ll find all the standard shops in the mall – clothing, shoes, books, music.  Just remember that European sizes are different from the US.  Shoes are easy if you’re wearing sneakers (oops, trainers) because the corresponding sizes are listed inside.  When our luggage was delayed on one trip and we had a clothes allowance from the airline, we stopped at a city centre mall in Leicester.  I stuck with small, medium, and large…but even those can be different from US sizes.  So try on anything before you buy.  Again remember that the UK system of credit cards is chip and pin, so you may need to walk the clerk through swiping your card.  This is not a problem in big cities, but the smaller the town, the more likely you are to run into a clerk who doesn’t know/remember how to use a swipe card.

Smaller towns have high streets.  Bigger cities have them as well, but the shopping may have moved with time toward the malls or pedestrian promenades.  More than 90% of the time, the high street is called “High Street.”  You’ll hear references to this in “high street fashion” or “high street prices”.  What those mean is retail as compared to used or discount.  On High Street, you’ll find everything from clothes to fruit to the butcher to a travel agency.  You may see familiar names such as Staples…where we’ve gone to get tape for the boxes we brought to ship things home.  We will bring an empty suitcase or a knocked-down box (and tape!) if we’ve got extra luggage allowance.  Also you’ll see T*K* Maxx, the British version of TJ Maxx here in the US.

And you’ll find charity shops.  Charity shops are a great venue for finding deals.  The charity shops usually are open Monday-Saturday, but not Sundays.  Each charity shop raises money for a particular charity from Oxfam for world hunger to Scopes for cerebral palsy.  Some shops are well arranged.  Others look like someone’s attic exploded.  Some are single rooms while others go through room after room or up/down stairs.  If you’re looking for used books, bric-a-brac (we decorated our pub out of charity shops), framed pictures…go to a charity shop.  To find them, use Google maps.  Type in the search box the town you’re visiting and the words “charity shop”.  It will bring up a list of shops and their location on the map, and you’re set to go off and shop.  Keep your eye peeled for special charity sales events that might be going on in the area where you are traveling.  Also for specialty shops such as Oxfam Bookstores and Oxfam Furniture stores.  Just be aware that used books in Oxfam Bookstores are more expensive than in most charity shops…but the choice is soooooooo much wider.

Antique shops dot the British countryside, especially near tourist areas.  As always, shop with a careful eye and feel free to negotiate the price.  Even a moment of hesitation can get you a few pounds off on an item.  Let the owner know what you’re interested in, and s/he may have something that’s not displayed that’s exactly what you’re looking for.  Antique sales are held in many communities.  These are big events – often under a marquee (tent) – with an admission fee and lots and lots of dealers.  If you’ve seen “Bargain Hunt” on BBCAmerica, you know what these shows look like.

Markets are a great way to spend a morning.  Market towns were established in the middle ages, and they’re still around today.  The DK Eyewitness Books list market days and times, or you can look online.  When we last went to North Yorkshire, I typed in “north yorkshire market days”, and up popped this link:  http://www.northyorkshire.org/market_days.php  Market day means the main street or the town centre plaza is closed to traffic, and vendors set up their wares on tables and/or in booths.  You can find everything from food (including take-away food – food to go) to toothbrushes to antiques.  Wandering among the booths is great fun.  Definitely feel free to bargain, and be ready to walk away if you don’t like the price.  Some of the big cities – like Norwich – have markets every day and permanent booths.  Other towns – like Hexham in Northumberland – have a market day with lots of vendors, but also a daily farmer’s market.  Pickering in North Yorkshire has a market day once a week, and at the same time has an indoor market for antiques, books, and collectibles every day.  These indoor markets are fairly prevalent throughout England and Wales.

Auctions for all of us who have seen “Cash in the Attic” have great appeal.  Just be certain that you know all the costs involved, including what the buyers’ premium will be.  This is a percentage added onto the price you pay.  Also know how to buy at an auction – don’t get carried away on the excitement.  If you’ve never been to an in-person auction before, go to watch the first time.

Boot sales are great fun.  Think of a community yard sale in a field on the outskirts of town, and you’ve got a boot sale.  The boot sale is named for the boot (trunk) of a car.  However, most people will have their wares spread out on tables or on blankets.  Boot sales are weekend events from early spring to late fall, and you’ll see LOTS of signs for any upcoming one.  Some boot sales have a charge for parking or admission.  When you go to a boot sale, bring your negotiating skills, especially if you’re interested in multiple items from a seller.  Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?  They say no!  And we’re writers – we’re used to hearing the word “no” and persevering.

What do you do if you find something you just love…but it won’t fit in your suitcase?  Have the seller (assuming you’re buying it in a shop) ship it back to the US for you.  Make sure you arrange for insurance as well because items can easily be broken on the trip.  It won’t be cheap, but it may be worth it to you.  See below with used books for another suggestion.

If you’re interested in used/OOP research books, charity shops and boot sales are your best bet.  However, if you’re *really* interested in used books, you want to visit a book town.  The biggest and first is Hay-on-Wye on the Wales/England border (there is another in Wigtown in southern Scotland, but I’ve never been there, so I can’t say how good it is – check out http://www.booktown.net/ ).  Dozens of shops await you in Hay.  I usually give myself a day and a half to visit Hay…and I don’t try to get to all the shops.  I have my favorites including the Hay-on-Wye Bookshop, Addyman’s, and Richard Booth’s.  Some shops have bargain basements, so don’t miss those.  Check out Hay-on-Wye at http://www.hay-on-wye.co.uk/  Obviously weekends are busier than weekdays, and I hear it’s packed during the Book Festival, so we avoid visiting at that time.  At one time, Richard Booth (who established the first shop in Hay and who owns the castle and who is truly a character in his own right – as we found out the day we met him and chatted…don’t get him started on politics…although I don’t know how you can halt him from talking about it <g>) offered shipping through his shop.  He goes to the US to purchase books for his shops (so be careful you’re not buying something you could get at a used book store at home) and ships them by container back to Wales.  He used to ship items back to the US in those empty containers for what was a reasonable price.  I’m not sure if he still offers this service.  If not, there are other places that do.  If you’re buying a piece of furniture or an antique, talk to the sales clerk.  They’ll often know of places that will arrange shipping for you.  This will mean your items may take more than a month to cross the pond to get to you, but if you’re not in hurry – or the item is cost-prohibitive to ship – consider this.

Don’t forget the gift shops at the various venues you are visiting.  Most of them have excellent books on their site and also on their historical period, especially if you’re looking for recipe books or social histories.

Grocery stores – if they’re big like the ones in the US – are usually at the edge of town or set off from the town centre where they’ll have room for a car park.  If you want something quick – like a bottle of water or you are in desperate need for a Dairy Milk bar (btw, the British Milky Way is in actuality a Three Musketeers – no caramel in it!) – look for Spar’s.  It’s sort of a 7-11/Cumberland Farms/Circle K/bodega type of shop.  You’ll find all the basic needs of life – bread, milk, candy, crisps (potato chips to Americans), ice cream, disposable diapers, and newspapers.  These are also available at many petrol stations which have an attached shop as well as the welcome breaks on the motorways.

If you get sick, look for the sign with a green cross which is a chemist’s/drug store.  Boots is the big chain drug store, and you’ll find them on High Street and in shopping arcades.  They sell glasses, so should be able to help you if your eyeglasses are broken or lose a screw.  But make sure you have all your meds with you – both prescription and OTC.  Items that are OTC in the US aren’t in the UK.  We ran out of Advil once, and Bill went into the chemist’s…and he had to wait until the chemist came back from lunch because it couldn’t be sold by a store clerk.

Sadly Woolies (Woolworth’s) went bankrupt and has vanished in the past year from the British town centres.  There are still dollar (um…pound) stores like Poundland and Thing-Me-Bobs where you can find good, cheap stuff.

Hmmm…I think that covers shopping.  Follow the same rules you do here.  Retail doesn’t allow for bargaining; other shops/sales, go for it.  Always greet the owner/manager of a small shop when you enter and bid them farewell when you leave.  Avoid tourist trap shops unless you want a tourist item.  All of their items will be more expensive than in shops away from the tourist routes.

Oh, don’t forget what you aren’t allowed to take out of England/bring into the US (and those of you in other countries, check your regulations).  You can’t bring meat or dairy products – including cheeses – home.  You are restricted on the amount of alcoholic beverages you may bring in (and yes, both England and Wales have some amazing vineyards…who’d guessed????).  No plants of any kind.  No soil…although no one at customs has offered to do laundry for us so we don’t bring in those stained jeans where we clambered through the mud.

Now that we’ve had a whirlwind tour of the countryside – which I don’t recommend, as you’ve seen in real life, because I think it’s fun to spend time really getting to know a small area on each trip – it’s time to bop across the Channel and pay a visit to the Continent.  There are several ways to do that.  You could jump on the Chunnel Train in London and arrive a short time later in Paris.  You could go to Dover and catch one of the ferries, assuming you want to go to France.  Check out the ferries all along the coasts of England and Wales.  There is a ferry that comes to Newcastle-upon-Tyne from Norway, which we considered when we went to Sweden and Norway a couple of years ago for my husband to take delivery of his new car.  It sounded like great fun until we imagined driving in the UK with a car set up to drive in the US.  That quickly sent us back to the trip planning board, and we rented a car in Bergen, Norway, to drive through the fjords.  From Cornwall and Wales, you can go to Ireland.

But the focus of this class is flying to the Continent.  All the major airlines fly from all the major airports to the major tourist cities and capitals of Europe.  But what if, as we have in England and Wales, you want to go off the beaten track?  The choice is low-cost airlines at alternate airports.  Sort of the Southwest Airlines of Europe…but with a lot less service.  Remember the news item a few weeks ago about the airline that wanted to charge passengers a pound to use the on-plane toilet?  That’s Ryanair, one of the airlines we’re going to discuss…and, yes, they did back off from that plan.

If you decide to book via any airline a trip that will be complete within your original booking (in other words, the trip isn’t a leg of your complete journey), you need to book it before you leave home.  The two low-rate, out-of-the way/alternate airport airlines are Ryanair and EasyJet.  We have flown the first but not the second.  However, we’ve talked to people who have flown EasyJet, and their experiences were similar to ours on Ryanair.  And we called ours “The Greyhound of the Sky” – not in a nice sense, but in the sense it was more like a bus than an airplane (although in the past year, most airlines have lost so many of their services and tacked on so many fees that there isn’t as much of a difference).

You’ll notice that, for the most part, their planes leave from Luton and Stansted, so if you don’t have a car, you need to arrange public transportation via train or bus to the airports.  If you do have a car, you need to make a reservation for parking before you leave from home.  We use the Pink Elephant off-airport parking (also at Heathrow and other airports).  http://www.pinkelephantparking.com/  It will ask for a license plate number, but just put in some random letters (5-6), and it’ll think that’s the plate number.  If necessary, you can update when you have your rental car and know its plate number.  Your reservation will be connected to the credit card, so make sure you have that credit card to swipe when you reach the lot.  You may have a reserved spot, so make sure you park there.

For information on parking at British airports, check out http://www.baa.com/

Now it may seem to you that it’s crazy to pay for a rented car in England while you’re on the Continent, but remember you’ll need transportation when you return, and it’s cheaper to have one reservation (unless you’re going to be gone for more 3-4 days).  The other use of a rental car is to store your extra luggage.  Not only do the low-cost airlines charge for each bag, but they have very specific restrictions about what you can bring on before you trigger an extra charge for an oversized bag.  We leave our extra bags in the rental car (out of view, of course, even though the lot is patrolled and has the ever-present CCTV cameras), so we carry only what we need for that side trip.  What we save puts a big dent into the cost of the idle rental car.  There are some B&Bs we know of near Gatwick (The Lawn Guest House B&B, specifically http://www.bedandbreakfast.com/surrey-gatwick-horley-thelawnguesthouse.html ) that will allow you to leave your baggage with them for a fee when you’ve been a guest.  When we stayed in London at the Cumberland Hotel http://www.hotel-in-marble-arch.co.uk/ , we left our extra baggage with the bell captain while we went to Bath.  In that case, we stayed there both before and after our driving visit to Bath.  So there are alternatives to leaving your extra luggage in your car.  Just ask and see if where you are staying will offer this service to you.  Don’t expect it to be free.

Make sure you are at the ticket desk with your reservation and passport to check in before it closes for that flight (often 30 minutes or more before the flight – the web site should inform you of the requirements).  Be early if you want the first choice of seats.  With Ryanair, we were given numbers based on when we checked in – and the first, say 15, people were allowed to board first.  Ryanair makes its money by turning its planes around fast and getting them back in the air with a full load of passengers.  We timed it at Poitiers, France, and they took 20 minutes from the time they reached the gate until they left the gate with a new load of passengers to subject to what is an in-flight infomercial for whatever they happen to be selling – duty-free, credit cards, food, drinks, etc.  My last flight on US Airways resembled that Ryanair flight.

Know the restrictions of the countries you’re traveling to as far as export/import restrictions and carry-on bag restrictions.  At the moment, it’s the same as here – one carry-on and one personal item, but it changes with each terror threat.

Hope your next trip across the pond is great fun!

If you haven’t already “dropped” from all those castles and gardens and tramping through the countryside, then it’s time to shop.

Shopping malls as we know them in the US – set away from the old-style business district of a town – don’t really exist in the UK.  The shopping malls in the UK are in the city centre.  They usually keep the same hours as the shops on the streets around them, so they close earlier than their US counterparts.  These city centre shopping malls often have a parking garage attached for the ease of their customers.  You’ll find all the standard shops in the mall – clothing, shoes, books, music.  Just remember that European sizes are different from the US.  Shoes are easy if you’re wearing sneakers (oops, trainers) because the corresponding sizes are listed inside.  When our luggage was delayed on one trip and we had a clothes allowance from the airline, we stopped at a city centre mall in Leicester.  I stuck with small, medium, and large…but even those can be different from US sizes.  So try on anything before you buy.  Again remember that the UK system of credit cards is chip and pin, so you may need to walk the clerk through swiping your card.  This is not a problem in big cities, but the smaller the town, the more likely you are to run into a clerk who doesn’t know/remember how to use a swipe card.

Smaller towns have high streets.  Bigger cities have them as well, but the shopping may have moved with time toward the malls or pedestrian promenades.  More than 90% of the time, the high street is called “High Street.”  You’ll hear references to this in “high street fashion” or “high street prices”.  What those mean is retail as compared to used or discount.  On High Street, you’ll find everything from clothes to fruit to the butcher to a travel agency.  You may see familiar names such as Staples…where we’ve gone to get tape for the boxes we brought to ship things home.  We will bring an empty suitcase or a knocked-down box (and tape!) if we’ve got extra luggage allowance.  Also you’ll see T*K* Maxx, the British version of TJ Maxx here in the US.

And you’ll find charity shops.  Charity shops are a great venue for finding deals.  The charity shops usually are open Monday-Saturday, but not Sundays.  Each charity shop raises money for a particular charity from Oxfam for world hunger to Scopes for cerebral palsy.  Some shops are well arranged.  Others look like someone’s attic exploded.  Some are single rooms while others go through room after room or up/down stairs.  If you’re looking for used books, bric-a-brac (we decorated our pub out of charity shops), framed pictures…go to a charity shop.  To find them, use Google maps.  Type in the search box the town you’re visiting and the words “charity shop”.  It will bring up a list of shops and their location on the map, and you’re set to go off and shop.  Keep your eye peeled for special charity sales events that might be going on in the area where you are traveling.  Also for specialty shops such as Oxfam Bookstores and Oxfam Furniture stores.  Just be aware that used books in Oxfam Bookstores are more expensive than in most charity shops…but the choice is soooooooo much wider.

Antique shops dot the British countryside, especially near tourist areas.  As always, shop with a careful eye and feel free to negotiate the price.  Even a moment of hesitation can get you a few pounds off on an item.  Let the owner know what you’re interested in, and s/he may have something that’s not displayed that’s exactly what you’re looking for.  Antique sales are held in many communities.  These are big events – often under a marquee (tent) – with an admission fee and lots and lots of dealers.  If you’ve seen “Bargain Hunt” on BBCAmerica, you know what these shows look like.

Markets are a great way to spend a morning.  Market towns were established in the middle ages, and they’re still around today.  The DK Eyewitness Books list market days and times, or you can look online.  When we last went to North Yorkshire, I typed in “north yorkshire market days”, and up popped this link:  http://www.northyorkshire.org/market_days.php  Market day means the main street or the town centre plaza is closed to traffic, and vendors set up their wares on tables and/or in booths.  You can find everything from food (including take-away food – food to go) to toothbrushes to antiques.  Wandering among the booths is great fun.  Definitely feel free to bargain, and be ready to walk away if you don’t like the price.  Some of the big cities – like Norwich – have markets every day and permanent booths.  Other towns – like Hexham in Northumberland – have a market day with lots of vendors, but also a daily farmer’s market.  Pickering in North Yorkshire has a market day once a week, and at the same time has an indoor market for antiques, books, and collectibles every day.  These indoor markets are fairly prevalent throughout England and Wales.

Auctions for all of us who have seen “Cash in the Attic” have great appeal.  Just be certain that you know all the costs involved, including what the buyers’ premium will be.  This is a percentage added onto the price you pay.  Also know how to buy at an auction – don’t get carried away on the excitement.  If you’ve never been to an in-person auction before, go to watch the first time.

Boot sales are great fun.  Think of a community yard sale in a field on the outskirts of town, and you’ve got a boot sale.  The boot sale is named for the boot (trunk) of a car.  However, most people will have their wares spread out on tables or on blankets.  Boot sales are weekend events from early spring to late fall, and you’ll see LOTS of signs for any upcoming one.  Some boot sales have a charge for parking or admission.  When you go to a boot sale, bring your negotiating skills, especially if you’re interested in multiple items from a seller.  Hey, what’s the worst that can happen?  They say no!  And we’re writers – we’re used to hearing the word “no” and persevering.

What do you do if you find something you just love…but it won’t fit in your suitcase?  Have the seller (assuming you’re buying it in a shop) ship it back to the US for you.  Make sure you arrange for insurance as well because items can easily be broken on the trip.  It won’t be cheap, but it may be worth it to you.  See below with used books for another suggestion.

If you’re interested in used/OOP research books, charity shops and boot sales are your best bet.  However, if you’re *really* interested in used books, you want to visit a book town.  The biggest and first is Hay-on-Wye on the Wales/England border (there is another in Wigtown in southern Scotland, but I’ve never been there, so I can’t say how good it is – check out http://www.booktown.net/ ).  Dozens of shops await you in Hay.  I usually give myself a day and a half to visit Hay…and I don’t try to get to all the shops.  I have my favorites including the Hay-on-Wye Bookshop, Addyman’s, and Richard Booth’s.  Some shops have bargain basements, so don’t miss those.  Check out Hay-on-Wye at http://www.hay-on-wye.co.uk/  Obviously weekends are busier than weekdays, and I hear it’s packed during the Book Festival, so we avoid visiting at that time.  At one time, Richard Booth (who established the first shop in Hay and who owns the castle and who is truly a character in his own right – as we found out the day we met him and chatted…don’t get him started on politics…although I don’t know how you can halt him from talking about it <g>) offered shipping through his shop.  He goes to the US to purchase books for his shops (so be careful you’re not buying something you could get at a used book store at home) and ships them by container back to Wales.  He used to ship items back to the US in those empty containers for what was a reasonable price.  I’m not sure if he still offers this service.  If not, there are other places that do.  If you’re buying a piece of furniture or an antique, talk to the sales clerk.  They’ll often know of places that will arrange shipping for you.  This will mean your items may take more than a month to cross the pond to get to you, but if you’re not in hurry – or the item is cost-prohibitive to ship – consider this.

Don’t forget the gift shops at the various venues you are visiting.  Most of them have excellent books on their site and also on their historical period, especially if you’re looking for recipe books or social histories.

Grocery stores – if they’re big like the ones in the US – are usually at the edge of town or set off from the town centre where they’ll have room for a car park.  If you want something quick – like a bottle of water or you are in desperate need for a Dairy Milk bar (btw, the British Milky Way is in actuality a Three Musketeers – no caramel in it!) – look for Spar’s.  It’s sort of a 7-11/Cumberland Farms/Circle K/bodega type of shop.  You’ll find all the basic needs of life – bread, milk, candy, crisps (potato chips to Americans), ice cream, disposable diapers, and newspapers.  These are also available at many petrol stations which have an attached shop as well as the welcome breaks on the motorways.

If you get sick, look for the sign with a green cross which is a chemist’s/drug store.  Boots is the big chain drug store, and you’ll find them on High Street and in shopping arcades.  They sell glasses, so should be able to help you if your eyeglasses are broken or lose a screw.  But make sure you have all your meds with you – both prescription and OTC.  Items that are OTC in the US aren’t in the UK.  We ran out of Advil once, and Bill went into the chemist’s…and he had to wait until the chemist came back from lunch because it couldn’t be sold by a store clerk.

Sadly Woolies (Woolworth’s) went bankrupt and has vanished in the past year from the British town centres.  There are still dollar (um…pound) stores like Poundland and Thing-Me-Bobs where you can find good, cheap stuff.

Hmmm…I think that covers shopping.  Follow the same rules you do here.  Retail doesn’t allow for bargaining; other shops/sales, go for it.  Always greet the owner/manager of a small shop when you enter and bid them farewell when you leave.  Avoid tourist trap shops unless you want a tourist item.  All of their items will be more expensive than in shops away from the tourist routes.

Oh, don’t forget what you aren’t allowed to take out of England/bring into the US (and those of you in other countries, check your regulations).  You can’t bring meat or dairy products – including cheeses – home.  You are restricted on the amount of alcoholic beverages you may bring in (and yes, both England and Wales have some amazing vineyards…who’d guessed????).  No plants of any kind.  No soil…although no one at customs has offered to do laundry for us so we don’t bring in those stained jeans where we clambered through the mud.

St. Mary-in-the-Marsh, Romney Marsh

If you want to see all of English architectural history in one place, visit an English church.  This is a favorite pastime for tourists and English citizens alike.  You’ll see not only architectural history, but the political/religious history of England and Wales.  In a typical church, you can have architectural elements from the 12th century until present-day, especially if the Victorians missed the church in their zeal to “update” and “renovate” everything.

We have visited churches and holy sites from Holy Island in the north to St. David’s in far western Wales.  We’ve learned to follow the “rules” that aren’t posted in most places but which we’ve learned from doing as the locals do.

Most country churches are open during the day except when there are services.  Of course, you are welcome to come in for regular church services, but obviously you can’t wander about and look at the structure of the church during a service.  In larger towns, some churches have begun to put out boards that say: “Church open.” when the church is unlocked.  Others will have a note by the door where the key to the church can be found if you want to go inside and see it.  Usually it’s only a few doors away.

Let’s start with the basic parish church:
After coming through the lychgate (a free-standing gate usually covered and the place where the pallbearers could rest before carrying the coffin the rest of the way to the church), you will be in the churchyard.  Some country churches have famous people buried in their churchyards, and usually there will be something in the church to let you know about that.

Look up at the eaves.  Even simple country churches can have gargoyles spitting out water.

The tower is where the bells are.  Some churches have spires on top of their towers.  Others have what are called “witch-hats” because the top of the tower looks like what the Wicked Witch of the West would wear.  In Norfolk and Suffolk, there are churches with round towers.  There are plenty of questions by historians as to why these towers are round – and you can find articles about that hanging on the walls in many of the churches with these round towers.  Basic answer:  No one is really sure.

You will enter a church via the porch – a small covered attachment where there often are bulletin boards listing community events and outreach.  This was where marriages took place for many years, because the couple couldn’t go into the church together until they were married in the eyes of the church.  Don’t hurry through the porch to the main door.  Often there are plaques on the walls that list the current and previous parsons of the church back to the establishment of the church.  Also there may be interesting memorial stones in the floor of the porch…even though the words probably are worn from the many feet who have walked across them.  In addition, you can see what outreach programs the church does…insight into the community.  In especially small communities, there may be a listing of which church has a service on which Sunday, because several parishes share the same parson.

When you open the door into the church, make sure you close it behind you.  If you don’t, animals and birds can get into the church…and you’ll find sheep in country churchyards.  A cheap and easy way to keep down the grass and weeds.  If there are other people in the church, especially if they are sitting the pews, be considerate.  If they are there cleaning up, talk to them.  The best guides are the parishioners themselves – and as much as we love talking to the English, they love talking to visitors from outside their country.

Unless posted not to, you are free to take photos (again be considerate of anyone there in prayer), and you may use a flash.  Some of the bigger churches/cathedrals will charge you for a photo license (often around £3) and you will be given a sticker to wear.  It’s a simple way to raise money for continued upkeep.

Some things to look at in a country church:
1) Baptismal font – many of them are works of art which reflect the local history or the village itself
2) Stained glass windows – don’t just look at the design – look at the writing in the memorial section which often lists who donated the window and why.  Also you can find unique items.  There is a small church outside of Bodmin, Cornwall, in a town called Temple (I’m not sure where the town is, but we did find the church).  It was built on Knights Templar land, and one window shows a Knight Templar.  The design of the other windows have a connection to the Templars, too.
3) Memorial plaques on the walls
4) Memorial stones in the floors  – you can see where brasses were ripped out during the Reformation.  Some of the brasses were left intact (although they no longer be on the floor but on display somewhere in the church) if they weren’t secular themes.  These are of particular interest to me because I have a great-great-great (back in the 1500’s) with a memorial stone in Norwich Cathedral.
5) Altars and altar screens.  If you’re in the north of England, especially, but in the midlands, too, you should look to find a small mouse carved into an altar or the screen.  It means it was carved by Robert Thompson, who was known as the “mouseman”.  When he began his woodcarving, he was as poor as a…okay, you get it.  He was as poor as a churchmouse, so he began to put his signature mouse on everything he carved.  Sometimes in bas relief and sometimes flat.  If you visit the original Coventry Cathedral, there is a small gray chair by the altar with the cross at the far end.  Look down at the chair’s leg, and you’ll see a wee gray mouse carved there.  (Then look up and see the carved squirrels on either side of the bay where the altar is placed.) But altars and altar screens are wonderful pieces of art, even if Mr. Thompson didn’t make them.  Some are carved, some are painted, and some are very grand.
6) Painted murals on the walls.  When people couldn’t read and the Bible wasn’t in English, murals on the walls told the story of the Gospels.  Some of the paintings are pretty grim as people are cast down into Hell, but they are always interesting and reflect the style of painting for the time when they were created.  In St. Peter and Paul’s Church in Pickering, Yorkshire, the paintings were rediscovered in the middle of the 19th century, but the pastor had them whitewashed over because he thought they were inappropriate for the eyes of good churchgoing folks.  They were cleaned again and are lovely.  Churches in the middle ages were brightly painted with surprisingly modern designs on the columns.  You can see some remnants of that in St. Alban’s Cathedral.
7) Pulpits.  Some are simple, some are amazing.  The steps to the pulpit in the small church at Llananthony Abbey in Wales are cut into the outer wall of the church, so the parson climbs up a small stairwell to get to the pulpit.
Pews.  Some pews are simple, some are ornately carved.  Many will have kneeling pillows needlepointed by the parishioners that show important aspects of the church and the community.  If the pews are ornately carved (or the whole church is like the parish church in Launceston, Cornwall), look at the back of the last set of pews.  What look like vines with roses/other flowers may instead be self-portraits of the wood-carvers.  Unable to sign their names, they carved themselves (or each other) into the pattern.  If you go into Trinity Church in Coventry (right in front of the cathedral), ask one of the docents to point them out to you.  Another interesting set of pews is in St. Clement’s Church in Romney Marsh.  If the words Romney Marsh bring to mind the 1960’s Disney movie “The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh”, you’ll remember the leader of the smugglers was the vicar.  Disney arranged with St. Clement’s to use its church for interior shots – a great arrangement because the church was in dire need of funds.  But there was a problem – the white pews were too glaring for the movie cameras.  So the pews were painted a soft pink, which they are to this day.  The parishioners decided to keep the color when they redid the church again a few years ago.  Btw, you’ll notice in the big, old cathedrals, there are no pews.  That was because people stood during services.
9) Which leads us to looking in the choir.  Some older churches that were once connected to an abbey will have misericords under the choir seats.  These are carvings – often mythological characters or everyday people – set beneath a small shelf on the underside of the choir seat.  During the middle ages, these seats were pushed up during service, and the elderly monks/sisters needed something to lean against.  The small shelves were introduced to help them.  Misericord derives from the Latin word for “mercy.”  The carvings came later to decorate them.  Some churches still have them in place, so feel free to put your fingers under the choir seat and see if it lifts up.  Btw, photographing misericords led to Bill and me being locked into a church one evening.  I was sitting in the choir and Bill was in a chapel (more on those in a minute) – both of us out of sight of the main door.  We heard the door rattle, but didn’t look up.  We figured someone else was coming in.  When we were done a short time later, we went to the door and found we were locked in.  Of course, Bill had left his mobile in the car, and the church office door was locked.  As we considered that we might be spending the night in the church and wondering what was in the church kitchen to eat (we didn’t want to set off the fire alarms by lighting candles and holding them to the smoke alarms <g>), we realized that this church, unlike most, had a second porch.  This inner door was locked from the inside, although the outer doors proved a bit more of a challenge.  We were able to get out that way eventually without causing any damage and secured the doors from the outside.  Now Bill always carries his mobile with him when we go into churches late in the day.  Lesson learned!
10) Chapels.  Larger churches may have chapels.  Often these are set off to one side of the altar.  They often are dedicated to military units from the area.  You can see original flags (some with very few threads) flying there.
11) Effigies.  Even small country churches may have effigies of important locals.  Churches like St. Mary’s Collegiate in Warwick have amazing effigies.  The Beauchamp chapel has effigies of some of the most important people of Tudor England.  Look at the costumes as well as what is also carved with the person.  A book?  A dog?  A child?  Also where the effigy is placed speaks to its importance.  If it is looking up at a holy figure in a nearby window, it usually is intended to suggest a connection or an especial godliness about the person.
12) Crypt.  If you want to go back in time, go into the church’s crypt.  The one at Hexham Church (once part of the Abbey) in Northumberland dates back to the 7th century.  My favorite is the crypt at St. Mary’s (a very, very common church name in England) Lastingham, Yorkshire.  It is accessible right from the center of the church.  It is said that St. Cedd, one of the early missionaries to England is buried beneath the altar table.  There are also carved stones from Viking, Anglo-Saxon, and Norman times on display there.
13) Bells and clocks.  You can see the ropes where the bells are rung inside, and you can see the clock(s) on the face(s) of the towers outside.  Also many churches have sundials on one side or in the churchyard.
14) Organ.  Some are small and modern.  Others are magnificent and set in a balcony over the church.  Please don’t touch them.  Just admire them.
15) Booklets and postcards are often on sale on a table near the door.  The prices are usually well-marked.  The booklets give you the history of the church and point out items for which the parishioners are especially proud.  The poor box is usually in the wall next to the table.  There may be more than one slot.  If so, they are usually marked for publications or donations.  Even if you don’t take the booklet with you, but used it during your visit to guide you around, pay for it.  Also leave a donation to the church of no less than a pound.  It helps with the upkeep of the church and its grounds.  When I visited a church named (what else?) St. Mary’s in Watford, Hertfordshire, there was no box in sight for the donations.  I opened a drawer on the table and saw someone else had left coins there, so I did the same.
16) Guest book.  If the church has a Guest book, sign it before you leave.  We’ve gotten holiday cards from churches we’ve visited, which is always a treat.
17) Everything else.  Each church is unique.  Some have amazing sculptures.  Some have used book and toy sales going on.  If you buy something in those churches, leave the money in the appropriate box.

Cathedrals will have most of the above as well as a cathedra, which is the official chair of the bishop.  You’ll see it often near the choir.  In a cathedral, the exterior of the building is as important as the interior when it comes to architecture.  Lincoln Cathedral’s front is covered with statues telling Biblical stories.  Even the entry doorways show figures floating up the arches.  And don’t forget the gargoyles!

In the cathedrals, look up at the ceilings and admire the bosses.  These are the small sculptures where the arches of the roof come together.  Norwich Cathedral in Norfolk is famous for its hundreds of bosses that fill the cathedral and the cloister connected to it.  In Lincoln Cathedral in Lincolnshire, look for the imp – a small demon carved at the far end of the church.

You’ll often find a Green man (and/or woman) among the carvings.  This shows the connection to England’s pagan past, but the cathedrals (and the churches) display them proudly as fine works of art.

Visit a “new” cathedral/church like the one at Buckfast Abbey (actually St. Mary’s Abbey, Buckfast) in Devon – a Catholic Benedictine abbey by the way – or Truro in Cornwall or Coventry Cathedral.  In Coventry, what remains of the original St. Michael’s Cathedral after the Blitz stands beside the contemporary cathedral, so it’s easy to compare and contrast the two.

If the church has a tower, consider climbing it.  Yes, it’s hundreds of uneven curving steps to the top, but the view is worth the breathlessness and the sore muscles the next day (what don’t get strained going up get strained coming down!).  Usually there is a small extra charge.  At Coventry Cathedral (in the original part), you can look down on the bells through plexiglass in the floor – and try not to jump off the roof when they ring!  York Cathedral offers a view across the rooftops and to the old medieval walls.  My favorite may be St. Mary’s Collegiate in Warwick, because you look over the town and into the castle.

Visiting other holy sites such as holy wells is fun, too.  Each is as unique as the time it was built and how long it was visited.  St. Cybi’s (pronounced Cubby like on the old Mickey Mouse Club <g>) on the Lleyn Peninsula in Wales has a pool where people could step down into it and a room for changing, because it was in use as late as the 19th century when such privacy concerned everyone.  St. Non’s (the mother of St. David, the patron saint of Wales) holy well is a small pool out in the open air with just a statue of the Virgin Mary next to it.  The ruins of a chapel are nearby.  Stop by the holy well and its spring.

Conwy Castle, Wales

Okay, Anglophiles Anonymous members, we’re here in the countryside of England.  What do we do now?

You have a few choices.  Two are going to be discussed today and others in the coming days.  Today the topics are: visiting protected historical sites and the rules of walking in the country.

Let’s start with protected historical sites.  The two main organizations in England are English Heritage http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/ and National Trust http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-index.htm  Wales has a separate organization.  I’ll talk about that by itself.

Each organization has different sites, but the same goal.  Protecting England’s historical sites.  English Heritage tends to have sites where no one now lives (lots of castles and ancient ruins) while National Trust has properties where the family may still be in residence at least part of the time (and lots of gardens are in the Trust as well).  That’s certainly not a hard and fast rule, but it fits the majority of properties in each organization’s care.

While National Trust developed as families put their properties into the Trust to keep from losing them to inheritance taxes and to help maintain them, English Heritage started at St. Alban’s Cathedral just outside of London.  That’s not quite true – it didn’t start at the cathedral.  It started *because* of the cathedral.  A wealthy gentleman offered to put up the money to rehab the failing cathedral, and the church leaders gladly accepted.  So gladly that they didn’t think to mention that the renovation should be historically sensitive (if it couldn’t be accurate).  Now as you enter the cathedral, you’ll see a Norman style ceiling…which never existed in Norman times.  And there is a rose window, even though the cathedral never had one.  The gentleman had grown up in York, and because York Cathedral had a breathtaking rose window, he decided “his” cathedral needed one, too.  The resulting uproar gave birth to English Heritage, whose mission is to protect historical sites and make sure the renovations are historically accurate/sensitive.  The docents at St. Alban’s still sputtered with outrage when they told me this story (actually a docent and a docent-in-training, so I got to hear all his questions and her answers along with my own).

Another difference between English Heritage and National Trust is that most EH sites allow photographs while many NT don’t.  Always check when you arrive to make sure photography is okay.  Usually if it isn’t, there are big signs, but sometimes the signs are easy to miss.

Both sites have excellent web sites which list their sites and days out events.  Days out mean special events.  For example, EH has days out with classes in flying hawks or spending time with a historical interpreter or even shooting weapons.  NT’s days out tend to be quieter with settings in gardens and special tours.  If one of the events that appeals to you coincides with your time in that region, I urge you to take advantage of it.  There may be an extra charge for the event.

You should buy an OVP (Overseas Visitor Pass) from EH if you intend to visit more than 2-3 of their sites which have an entry charge.  Sites marked open mean that there is no entry fee, but keep to the hours they are “open” because some are accessed only via private property, and you don’t want to be tramping across someone’s barnyard after dark.  The OVP is bought for a specific number of days – either 7 or 14 days.  You can buy it at the first venue you visit.  There’s no need to buy it ahead of time.  The nice thing about the OVP is at sites that have recorded tours (where you wear a headset and push the button to activate the recording at each numbered location within the site), the headphones are included in your OVP.  If you use the headset (which I strongly, strongly encourage), figure you’ll spend 2-3 times as long at the site as if you just go in and walk around.  You’ll learn so much more in a fun manner, and you can stop the recording, replay, etc. if you want to take pictures or want to hear something over.  The length of time of your pass begins on the day of your first visit to an EH site – usually the day you buy it.  Sometimes, they’ll toss in a few extra days just to be nice.

National Trust has an identical program for either 7 or 14 days.  It’s called a National Trust touring pass.  However, in this case, you *must* buy it before you leave home.  Buy it here:
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-visits-overseas_visitors/w-visits-overseas_visitors-touring_pass-buying.htm

Now let’s talk about CADW (pronounced – as close as I can anyhow – as “kaa-do” (rhyming with “baa-moo” – think of those animals in the countryside <g>) with the emphasis on the first syllable).  This is the Welsh version of English Heritage, and cadw is the Welsh word for “preserve/keep”.  You can find them at: http://www.cadw.wales.gov.uk/  They have a visitors pass called an Explorer Pass.  They are sold for 3 or 7 day visits.  You buy them at attended CADW sites (sites that aren’t just open, but have staffers there), and the clock starts ticking for those when you purchase them just as they do for EH.

If you buy a pass from one organization, check at another organization’s site to see if you get a discount.  Some sites offer those.  If you buy a full membership in one organization, you may be half-price or free entry into other sites even if discounts aren’t offered to passholders.  The best thing to do is read the web sites, decide which one(s) work best for you, and go and enjoy.

One thing you’ll notice at all the sites is that they assume you’ll be rational during your visit.  Unlike sites in the US where there are all sorts of warnings and legal small print, at the UK sites, you’ll see signs of a person falling with stones around him – which means careful when you go along that area because there’s a risk of falling.  If there is a barrier, don’t try to go around it.  It’s there for a reason – either to protect you or the site from damage.  Watch out for others – those narrow, circular towers in castles aren’t meant for two-way traffic.  And don’t hurry through the sites.  Take time to soak up the historical aura…the good and the bad.

Don’t miss the gift shops.  Most sites have souvenir books for the site (and sometimes others).  The EH and CADW books are fabulous – with colored photos and historical information and often floor plans.  The NT books tend to be more about the contents of the home – often with b&w photos and focused on the artwork.  I don’t often buy those unless I’m planning to put characters into a similar house in a similar period.

As I said earlier, if you plan to go to open sites, you need to stick to the times listed for the site.  Usually it’s any time that there’s daylight.  If you are crossing private property, and you very well may be, stick to the path cut into the grass or through the woods.  Sometimes the path is signposted with a footpath sign.

The public has the right-of-way throughout England via a web of footpaths.  The right-of-way is marked with wooden signs that show a walking person and the next destination on the footpath.  Sometimes there is a distance included – such as 1000 yards or 2 miles – but usually it will say only the destination or “Public Footpath”.  Some show a horse, which means that the path is open as a bridle path as well.  If you’re going to a EH, NT, or CADW site via the footpath, there will usually be a sign showing their logo.  EH has the cross-hatched square, NT a sprig, and CADW signs tend to either have the Welsh dragon or simply the letters CADW on a green background.

The rules of walking in the country are simple.  It should look as if you were never there.  Never forget that you’re on private property, even though you have a right-of-way.  That means if there is a closed gate, make sure it’s closed behind you.  If there are animals in the field, do not approach them or disturb them in any manner.  Don’t let them out.  But you can – and should – if you’re around sheep in the spring oh and ah about the cute little lambs.  Most likely the animals will wander away from you because they are accustomed in human encroachers.  Stay on the footpath.  It usually will follow a wall or a hedgerow, but, if it cuts across a field, stay within the mowed border.  Don’t pick any plants or break any branches.  Don’t litter.  Cross a wall only where there is a stile.  Some stiles look like benches.  Stand on them, swing your leg over and down onto the other side.  Some are wooden stairs set over the wall.  Some are just stones jutting out from the wall that you climb like stairs.  Always be careful.  You use them at your own risk.

A word about the Dartmoor ponies (and other such wild animals).  Don’t feed them.  Give them space.  They are used to people admiring them, but they aren’t accustomed to up close and personal.  And they will eat what you offer them, even if it’s not good for them, so just admire them and take lots of photos.

When you reach an open site, respect the site as you have the footpath.  If the sign says don’t climb on the walls, don’t.  But you can touch.  I’m a great believer in touching standing stones and other ruins – just to put my hands where other hands have been.  Stay within the site.  Don’t wander off into the nearby fields or woods, no matter how tempting it may be.  If you pass by someone’s house and they’re outside, nod and say hello just as you would to one of your own neighbor’s.

The Brits like to walk.  You may not have guessed this if you’ve only been in London where everyone taxis and tubes and buses.  But in the countryside, you’ll see people (from the very, very young to the very, very old) walking.  Often with their dogs.  They walk everywhere from the South Downs to the North York Moors.  You’ll see a lot of empty cars along the road, and you can guess their owners are off walking somewhere.  If you plan to do long-distance walking, make sure you have an Ordnance map or other good guide, so you don’t get lost as you could easily do on any of the moors.  A couple of the favorite long distance walks are the cross-England walk from the Lake District to Robin Hood’s Bay or the length of Hadrian’s Wall along the military road (B6318 on modern maps).  You can find websites that show the routes and popular sites and inns/hotels/B&Bs along the way.  There are even services which will carry your luggage from one night’s stay to the next, so you don’t have to tote it with you.

You’ll see white obelisks at certain points (usually high ones) that are Ordnance markers.  They’re at high points because Ordnance, after all, is about aiming guns and firing at a distant target.  An ordnance marker has a plaque on it announcing it as such, and they are marked as such on the maps.  You can used them as landmarks for your walks, but many of them are not on the easiest paths.

One of the reasons we like going out into the country is that the pace is slower, and it “forces” us to slow down, too.  Why hurry when you can spend a couple of hours wandering around a medieval abbey or watch the sunset over standing stones?  We spent one day on a recent trip on Anglesey visiting only Paleolithic and Neolithic sites – mounds and standing stones and ancient villages.  We drove all around the island and marveled.  Along the way, we saw lovely beaches (where we stopped, too) as well as Roman ruins.  On our upcoming visit, we’ll have castle “days” – just visiting a couple of castles which will take the whole day.  That’s easy to do in Wales where there are more castles per square mile than anywhere else in the world (or so they claim!).  Of course, a massive castle like Dover or Caenarfon can take a whole day…and you don’t see everything!

 Pub is the Red Lion in Avebury set amidst the stone circles.

I’d love to invite you all to join me at my local…and sit around a table and chat.  Local?  Pub, I mean.  Pubs are part of what make any trip to the UK special for my husband and me.  We joke that no village in England can call itself a village unless it has a church and at least one pub.  But the joke is based on truth, because in the days before good transportation, the parish church and the local pub provided the framework for a village.  In fact, in Lastingham, a delightfully tiny village on the North York Moors, the church parson’s wife ran the pub a couple hundred years ago.  Very convenient for everyone because they’re across the narrow road from each other.

First thing you need to know about a pub is that it’s not a restaurant (why is the verse from CATS that a “cat is not a dog” playing through my head?).  A pub is also not a bar as we know them in the US.  It’s both and more…and it’s set up differently.

Let’s walk through a trip to our local (that means our neighborhood pub where we go regularly):
Stop as you’re going into the pub and look at the pub sign.  Does it say “Free House” or does it have a name over the top of the sign (or at the bottom) that says, for example, “Greene King” or “Tetley’s” or “Beefeater”?  A free house means that the pub is not owned by a brewery…or in recent years by a pub chain.  Greene King and Tetley’s are both brewers, and Beefeater is a chain.  There is nothing better or worse about a pub that’s not a free house.  Just be aware of what chains you like and don’t like.  For example, the Greene King pubs and the Beefeater pubs all have the same menu (other than specials) wherever you go.

Also notice the art of the pub sign that matches the name of the pub.  Some of the pictures on the sign aren’t what you expect.  Some of them are funny.  Some of them give you a hint of the history of the pub or the area.  Most of them are wonderful pieces of art.

Look at the door and/or a window near the door.  Do you see a sign for CAMRA or Cask Marque?  Those two signs mean that you’ll find real ales inside the pub.  CAMRA is the Campaign for Real Ale, a beer-lovers’ association that has scads of members worldwide.  http://www.camra.org.uk/  Its focus is to make sure that English pubs continue to have hand-pulled ales that are not carbonated in the cask (American beers are carbonated in the keg).  Cask Marque is for excellence in serving that real ale.  http://www.cask-marque.co.uk/

Now we’ll go into the pub.  Some pubs have two doors in the entrance – one to the bar, the other to the restaurant.  At lunch time, both will be casual.  In the evening, some pubs are casual in the bar and more dressy in the restaurant.  Most of the time – but not always – the menus are the same.  Other than a Friday and Saturday evening (and Sunday car very/roast), you probably won’t need a reservation.  Always check to make sure they’re serving in both places.  Sometimes, especially at lunch, the service is only in the bar area.

Each pub is decorated uniquely.  Feel free to wander around and look at all the pictures on the walls and the doodads displayed.  Okay, it’ll mark you as a non-regular, but the regulars all know each other, so don’t worry.  Select a table.  You don’t have to worry about non-smoking/smoking sections because all pubs in the UK are now smoke-free (hooray!!!!).  Check your table to see if there is a number on it.  Sometimes it’s posted on a wooden spoon set in a container.  Other times there is a small circle with a number at one side of the table.  You’ll need to know that number when you order.  If you can’t find it, don’t worry.  Just say where you’re sitting, and they’ll find you.

Look around – there should be a blackboard (or more likely more than one) where the food offered is listed.  Sometimes there are small blackboards over the bar as well, but more and more, those are listing the wines available.  There also may be a menu at the bar.  Ask, and they’ll be glad to tell you that and if there are any specials.  Sometimes there are “specials” boards as well.  Also look for the “afters” or “sweets” board to see what luscious desserts are available.  My rule of thumb is simple – I’ll only order it if it comes with warm custard on top of it.

We usually order our drinks first.  Go to the bar to order your drinks.  All the beers are set out in a row – the hand-pulled ones have the big, heavy-duty pulls and the carbonated beers have the taps we’re accustomed to seeing.  Americans turn up their noses at the idea of “warm” beer in the UK.  My husband did until he tried them…now he’s a member of CAMRA. <g> A pub keeps its casks in the cellar, where they are naturally cooled.  The beer is then pulled up through the tap and into your pint glass (which by law must have a line that shows an exact pint).  Each pull is labeled with the beer and the alcohol content which can range from 3% to more than 6%.  Something that’s important to know if you’re planning to drive after a pint or two.  Every pub has its “regular” ales and then guest ales.  Guest ales can be a new one by the brewery that owns the pub or it can be from a completely different brewery.  Just FYI – a publican will tap a cask only when s/he knows it will sell out in 3 days or less.  If you’re ordering soda, make sure you ask for ice if you want it.  They usually ask, but just in case… Most pubs have a full bar of liquor as well as, increasingly, a good wine list.

Some pubs allow you to run a tab through your meal.  Others ask that you pay as you go.  No rhyme or reason to it.

Take your drinks back to your table and decide what you want for your meal.  Unlike in many Central London pubs, in the country, you need to return to the bar to place your order.  Your food – and your condiments, silverware, and napkins – will be brought to your table.   Remember your table number if you have one.  Sometimes for pubs that don’t have table numbers, you’ll be given a wooden spoon with your order number on it.  Put it in plain sight, so your food can be delivered to you.

If you order another drink, take your empty glass back to the bar with you.  Or if you have only drinks, return your glasses to the bar.  If you have a meal, don’t return your dishes to the bar.  They will be cleared from your table.  Remember you don’t need to tip, but if the service or the food has been extraordinary, feel free to do so.

Pub food is good basic food.  It sounds as if most of the people here have been to the UK and know that the rumors about awful food aren’t true any longer.  You’ll get a lot of grilled food – steaks come with grilled tomatoes and mushrooms – and a lot of fried food (fish and chips anyone?).  Pies are always a good alternative, and there’s usually at least one vegetarian choice as well as – more and more – a choice of Indian food.  A high point of my most recent trip was being served chicken tikka masala with both rice and chips – the ultimate meal of the British Empire.  And for lunch (if you’re really hungry and want to sample something very English) – try a ploughman’s lunch.  Cheese, meat, pickles, bread and butter, fruit and whatever else fits on the plate.

I mentioned Sunday roast/car very above.  There are some places that serve car very every evening, but most places it’s on Sunday.  Car very is a variety of roasted meats and all the accompanying side dishes.  The meat is sliced off for you, and is usually an all-you-can-eat glutton’s dream.  Sunday roast is served at lunch (and if any is left over for supper) on Sundays.  It’s a huge plate of roast (usually the choice is either beef, chicken, or ham).  It comes with veggies and several varieties of potatoes with everything covered with gravy.  If this very English meal appeals to you, you want to get reservations, because the pubs fill up big time for this.

A new entry into the English pub scene, especially in the southeast (Kent and Sussex), around London, and in popular tourist areas (Padstow, Cornwall, is a good example) is the gastro-pub.  Gordon Ramsey (of Hell’s Kitchen fame) has been a leader in this direction.  The pubs look like regular pubs from the outside, but inside they may have a French chef and/or a foo-foo menu that you’d expect in a restaurant in NYC or London.  If you’re looking for good old-fashioned pub food, you won’t find it there.  So always take a quick look at the menu before you order drinks because you may want to go elsewhere for your meal.

A few pubs don’t serve food at all.

As I said at the beginning, the local pub is the heart of a village just as the church is its soul.  Even though the whole dining area is built around a bar, you’ll see families with young children there.  Some pubs have restrictions about the times children can be present or that there has to be a parent with them, but, if you’re traveling with children, I can tell you that I’ve never seen a pub that serves food restricting children at meal times.

You’ll also see dogs.  Lots of dogs.  English dogs are the most well-behaved pets in the world.  Most pubs welcome dogs as long as they stay quietly by their owners or under the table.  Just be aware that there may be a dog lying by the bar, so be wary of stepping on its tail!  Don’t feed anyone’s dog, but do talk about the dog.  Like here, dog-owners adore their pets and love to talk about them.  We found out all about the ferry from Holyhead to Ireland by beginning a conversation about a cocker spaniel with its owner.

And you’ll see cats.  They belong to the pub owners.  Some belong to the pub.  There was a cat in a pub in Hay-on-Wye in Wales that was part of the agreement on the sale of the pub.  The new owners had to allow the cat free range of the pub (much to the delight of the patrons) and take care of it.  Cats in a pub will beg for food, but don’t feed them unless your host says it’s okay.

Pubs have special events – some weekly, some monthly, some focused on the football schedule (and you know I mean soccer when I say that <g>).  Feel free to join in.  We learned a lot about football when we happened to take the table next to the TV in a pub in Mousehole, Cornwall, and were still eating when the game came on.  Everyone in the pub gathered around us, and we cheered when they did.  Many pubs will have a quiz night.  It’s basically a trivia contest played with teams – 2 or more people.  Everyone throws in a pound, and the money goes to the teams with the top 2 or 3 scores.  Often the publican will provide free snacks during the quiz.  We joined in one in Norfolk a year or so ago and didn’t embarrass ourselves – actually came in 5th place out of 12 teams.  It’s a lot of fun and laughs…and, yes, we got picked on as “the American team,” but everyone cheered when our placement was announced and congratulated us.  There are also casino nights (usually for charity) and other such events.

If you are walking/hiking, make sure you clear the mud off your boots before you come into the pub.  Usually you’ll find plenty of room for your backpack and/or walking stick.  Some pubs along walkers’ routes will have space to store your equipment.

Don’t ask for the ladies’ or men’s room.  Ask for the toilet.  “Loo” is a primarily London term, but toilet is used everywhere.

We occasionally will eat at a chippie (a fish and chips shop – that usually serves chicken and chips and other meals, too – but definitely all fried all the time), but 99% of the time we eat country pubs.  We’ve enjoyed the people we’ve met/seen (such as when the reenactors in Roman garb arrived at the Twice Brewed pub off the military road near Hadrian’s Wall).  Now we’ve recreated a pub in our house when we redid our dining room into a pub, complete with a bar (fashioned after the one in a pub in Poundbury – the Prince of Wales’ model village development in Dorset), a clock set to British Summer Time, rafters with beer mats and beer mats, and a genuine pub sign on the wall beside the door.  The pub sign is from the Royal George on Charing Cross Road, sold by the painter who did the new version.  So I guess you can see how much we enjoy pubs!

Hungry yet?

Driving in England – It’s not impossible.  In fact, it can be a LOT of fun.  It takes patience, and it takes practice, but if you can drive on the right side of the road, you can drive on the left.

If you are going to rent a car, don’t rent one in London.  We made that mistake on our first trip, and we got lost (even with a street map) going out and coming back as well as having to deal with all the traffic.  Now there is a congestion fee attached to driving in Central London, and that will be added to the cost of your rental.  And where are you going to park that car????

If you’ve spent time in London at the beginning of your trip, take the tube or a train to one of the airports ringing London – Heathrow, Gatwick, Luton, or Stansted (depending on which direction you’re traveling after you pick up your car).  The simplest one to get to is Heathrow, because you can take the tube rather than a train.  In each case, you can pick up your rental car and be on the motorway quickly…and avoid that Central London traffic.  If you’re going into London at the end of your trip, just drop off your car at the nearest airport and go in by tube or train.

Btw, it’s often possible to rent a car in one location and return it elsewhere without an extra drop-off charge.  We did that several years after we took the train to Carlisle and then dropped off the car at Heathrow.  In fact, for our upcoming trip, we’re flying into Manchester and picking up our car there…and dropping it off at Gatwick with no extra fee.

If you’re going to rent a car:
1) Arrange for the rental and pay for it before you leave home.  All the familiar companies are there – but they’re called “car hire” in the UK.  We’ve had the best luck with Hertz as far as the quality of cars and quality of service.  When you make your reservation, tell them that you must have an automatic.  Even though both of us can drive a standard, the idea of shifting on “the other side” and driving on “the other side” at the same time is too much.
2) At Gatwick, you come out of the terminal and go to the building just to the right for car hire.  At Heathrow, it’s away from the terminal, so follow the signs for car rental/hire buses.
3) When you pick up your car, go over the “previous damage” sheet with the customer rep.  You want to point out every boo-boo on the car, because you don’t want to be the one having to pay for it.  We had that problem with National in the UK – they tried to make us (and our credit card company) pay for damage that wasn’t ours…even though it was reported more than a week *after* we turned in the car (and someone else rented it after us).  We had other problems with the quality of cars with National – one with a radio that didn’t work because the antenna was broken off, another with no heat on the passenger side (and this was for a trip in late autumn when the nights were chill – thank goodness for seat warmers!).  Thrifty offered good service and cars, too.

Okay, now you have your car and you’ve tuned your radio (which may need a PhD in engineering to figure out) to your favorite radio station.  Btw, if you listen to one of the major BBC stations, it will follow you throughout the country – just switching to different frequencies as you go from one coverage area to the next.  My first task upon getting the car – while Bill goes over it with the customer rep – is to tune in BBC2 (the adult contemporary station) which advertises itself as 88-91FM for its various frequencies around the country.  We don’t touch the dial the rest of our trip.

You’ll notice that even though the steering wheel is on the other side of the car, the brake and gas pedals are in the same position to each other as you’re accustomed to.  Gas to the right and brake to the left.  Oh, before you go far, make sure you know which side of the car your petrol tank is on – and if it’s petrol or diesel.  Diesel cars are actually a good deal.  They get better mileage and the up-charge on diesel isn’t as prohibitive as in the US.  Also diesel is sold at all petrol stations/garages.  Gas is sold by the liter, and expect to pay a LOT, LOT, LOT more than you do in the US.

Think left when you drive.  It’s easier to think left when you’re just driving along the road than it is when you’re facing an emergency.  It’s instinctive for US drivers to pull to the right in such a situation, but you have to think left.  Our biggest mistake was on our first trip when Bill had to make a sudden turn into a petrol (gas) station and pulled in on the right side…and got honked at for his mistake.  So if you have to pull over on the road or if you’re pulling into a drive, keep left.  You’ll notice that most Brits keep left when they walk, too, which has made for some strange “dances” between Americans and the locals on sidewalks.

The roads in England and Wales are numbered and lettered.  The numbers are M, A, and B.  There are also unnumbered roads.  If you’re going to drive, I strongly suggest you purchase the AA Concise Road Atlas Britain 4 miles to the inch scale.  It’s listed at £9.99, but you can often find it for much less, especially if you buy the previous year’s edition.  And we’ve only seen one time when a road number changed on a very minor country road.  They are available in shops at welcome breaks (rest stops) on the motorways and in bookstores everywhere.  We’re still using our 2005 version, but it’s going to need to be retired soon and replaced.

“M” roads are the motorways – what we call interstates here.  Four-lane highways with limited access and exit ramps.  Most of the exit ramps will be to the left, remember.  The big difference is that you enter from the left and the slow traffic stays left rather than right.  It’s a joke in the UK that no one knows the speed limit on the motorways because it’s never posted.  However, it is 70 mph.  Yes, *miles* per hour.  Even though the UK is ostensibly on the metric system, its distances are still in miles and its speed limits are mph.  (And don’t forget about the pint at the pub!  That’s not going metric!)  You can find out about speed limits in the UK at http://www.smartdriving.co.uk/Driving/DefensiveDriving/Speed/UK_Speed_limits.html You’ll see signs for speed cameras – and they’re there, so watch your speed, especially coming into villages signposted for lower speeds.  At the end of the village speed limit you’ll see a circular sign with a black slash across it – that means the end of the speed limit (or actually a return to the national limit for secondary roads).  You can see an example of UK signage and what it means at: http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/tss/trafficsigns.pdf

“A” roads are a standard two lane highway.  You’ll see big arrows pointing from one lane to the other.  This means that you have to be back in your own lane beyond that because it’s not safe to pass.  And you’ll see a car passing another at what looks like an unsafe distance with oncoming traffic…but that’s because three British-sized cars can fit across on the highway.  But, if you’re on unfamiliar roads, don’t try this!  You’ll also see some roads like the A1 that becomes the A1(M) which means at that point it’s set up like a motorway, but is still part of the A1 road.  Regular four lane A roads are called “dual carriageways”, and they may have stoplights along them, so be doubly alert.

“B” roads are country roads.  For the most part, it means there isn’t always two complete lanes available all the time.  You’ll be driving along, and the center line/dashes vanish.  This means the road is too narrow for two full lanes.  You’ll see the center line vanish also when you’re driving through a village.  Now this doesn’t mean that the road has become one-way (unless it’s signposted thus).  It’s still two way, but only one lane wide.  Follow the same rules as on the single-track roads below.

Unnumbered roads are the ultimate English driving experience.  They’ll lead you up onto the moors and way off the beaten track.  They are often edged by hedgerows (which you don’t want to drive into because the greenery hides rocks and tree roots).  Some of them have two lanes, but most are single-track.  If you see little arrows on them on the map, it means you’ll be dealing with steep inclines.  Fun driving!  The rules of driving a single-track road are simple.  Always be alert to oncoming traffic.  Take note of the lay-bys as you pass each one.  A lay-by is a shoulder that you can pull over onto.  If a lay-by is closer behind you, it’s your honor to back up and let the other car go past.  Of course, if you can see another car coming, you can pull over right then.  Flash your headlights to let the other driver know you are waiting for his car to pass.  He’ll wave his thanks to you – wave back with a smile.  If the other vehicle backs up first or signals to you, make sure you smile and wave your thanks as you pass.  Btw, you’ll quickly learn while driving these roads why European cars have more sensitive steering and brakes!

When you get to an intersection on a numbered road, you’ll see a signpost with towns in each direction along with road numbers.  If you see a number in ( ), it means that the current road will lead you directly to the road number in the ( ).  You’ll also see this format on the M roads, especially around large cities where multiple M roads come together and branch off.  There are examples of it in the pdf listed above.

Roundabouts are ubiquitous in England.  While people here in New England are paralyzed by the thought of what we call a rotary (especially if it leads to Cape Cod <g>), they are great ways to keep the traffic moving.  As you approach the roundabout, there will be a large sign showing the configuration of the roundabout (and btw, they all have names, so you may be given directions by the name, but more likely it’ll be: “Go three roundabouts and then…”).  The configuration looks like a crop circle with small and large lines sticking out of it.  You want to read it clockwise (as opposed to anticlockwise, as the Brits say).  On each line sticking out will be a route # and town name.  The smaller/thinner lines usually are for stores or dead end roads or limited access roads (like the recycling centre, for example).  All you have to do is stay in the roundabout until you get to your exit (which will be on the left, of course).  Okay, it’s not quite that simple because there are rules of the road with roundabouts, too.
1) Traffic in the roundabout has the right of way.
2) If there are multiple lanes to enter the roundabout, the left one is for left (exiting at the first exit) or straight.  The right lane is for straight or right (exiting at one of the more distant exits in the roundabout.  Some entrance lanes have route numbers painted on the road.  Get in the lane that matches the route you are taking.
3) When you enter and pass each exit, move to the left.  The lanes should do this for you, but be aware of it.  If you miss your exit, just go around again and catch it when it comes up again.
4) Large roundabouts, especially those attached to motorway exits, have traffic lights.  Watch for them.
5) There are double roundabouts (now they really look like crop circles).  Follow the same rules as with a single one.  Exit the first one following your route, and then proceed into the next and do the same.  Once you’ve mastered that, you may want to try the Magic Roundabout outside of Swindon.  See http://www.answers.com/topic/magic-roundabout-swindon  Makes my brain ache just to look at it.
Roundabouts are also great for U-turns.  If you find you’ve missed your turn or turnoff, just go into the roundabout and come back out going in the opposite direction.  We use them for that far too often <g>
Whatever you do, don’t stop in the roundabout (except for a traffic light, of course).  Just keep moving.  As I said, you can continue to go around again if you’ve missed your exit, or exit and find a place to pull off and get your bearings.
Occasionally you’ll see roundabouts that aren’t anything more than a slightly raised area where two roads come together.  Pull slightly to the left around it to avoid oncoming traffic.

Pedestrians have the right of way as they do everywhere.  Crosswalks are well marked, and they may be on major roads where there is a bus stop, so be aware of them.

Some traffic lights (not all of them – just to keep you confused) will turn red *and* yellow before they turn green.  We call it the drag race countdown.

Parking – Don’t try to park on the street.  Parallel parking in the opposite direction that Americans are accustomed to is a challenge you don’t want to try.  Especially when there are car parks in most villages and town centres.  If you’re coming into a village or town, look for the signposts to “town centre”, then watch for the blue parking logo with the big white P on it.  Follow those signs.  Car parks are “pay and display”.  This means you go to the machine at the car park (bigger ones have multiple machines) and put in your coins for the amount of time you want to park (this is the reason you need to keep plenty of coins with you).  Busy areas will have time limits – including designating some car parks as short stay (just a couple of hours) and long stay (up to 8 hours or more).  Make sure you go to the correct one, and avoid car parks that are for stores, if you’re not shopping in that store (you probably won’t be able to park very long there anyhow).  The machine will spit out a slip with the time you can park legally.  Peel back one edge of it and stick it to the inside of your windshield (windscreen in UK) so it’s visible to a passing parking officer.  We did encounter one machine in Lincoln that required us to enter numbers from our license plate before it would give out the display slip, but those machines are the exception rather than the rule.  Parking officers do patrol the car parks, especially in popular tourist areas, regularly, so keep an eye on the time if you don’t want a ticket.

Parking garages are often set up in the same way as car parks, but others have the push a button, get a ticket as you enter.  Check to see how you pay.  Some of them have payment machines in the stairwells instead of at the exits of the garage, so you may need to carry your ticket with you and pay for your parking before you return to your car.  The machine will spit out your ticket to you after you’ve paid, and you insert it in the slot to raise the bar at the exit of the parking garage.  We’ve seen this type of parking garage in many places in England and Europe.

Most pubs have car parks (look for the signs on the building or beside it) which are free as long as you’re drinking/eating there.  You shouldn’t leave your car there all afternoon while you wander about the town, even if you had lunch there.  The car parks are small.

Special alerts for driving in the country:
1)  Just like people, animals have the right away.  If you’re driving up on the moors where the sheep ramble freely, be careful.  Sheep have one of the lowest IQs of domesticated animals, and they will not move…especially if the road has been warmed by the sun and the evening air is chilly.  On several occasions, I’ve had to get out and shoo them off the road so we could pass.  The same goes for wild animals and birds in the spring when they’re more interested in each other and future generations than they are in passing cars.  Also farmers may be moving their animals from one field to another, so be patient if you encounter this.  It never takes long.

2)  Don’t try to slip around the gates at railway crossing.  The British trains travel at a high rate of speed, and you won’t be delayed long.  Build plenty of time into your plans if you’re traveling in the country.  You’ll encounter farm vehicles, horses, and other reasons to slow you down.

3)  If you reach a ford on your journey, you will see a huge measuring stick set beside it to show you the height of the water.  If there is water across the ford (and some of them are dry at certain times of the year) and the level is low enough for you to cross, drive carefully and slowly to the other side.  You may want to check your brakes to make sure they haven’t gotten wet.

4)  If a gate cuts across the road, you can open it and drive through, but you must also close it after you without letting out any animals that may be on the either side.  We’ve seen these the most on the North Yorkshire Moors, but they are also in other places.

5) Again be careful of hedgerows.  They may look like gentle green walls, but you can’t see what’s in them.  Many of them are centuries old, and in that time, trees have grown and been cut back, leaving stumps and roots.  The same is true if you’re on a single-track road and you need to pull over where there isn’t a lay-by.  Watch for rocks (or animals) in the grass along the road.

Most of this has been common sense and “play well with others” info.  Bill and I enjoy driving – put us on a single-track road with arrows showing a steep incline, and we’re happy campers.  Even when we met a milk truck coming at us on a single-track lane after dark without a lay-by near.  <g>