Excerpts from the Travel Journal: Day Six--Wells and Cheddar

[earlgreytea68]

The next morning was a very early morning, because we were meeting T at Wells Cathedral at 10:30. The drive was not long distance-wise but took forever because we could only take the motorway so long. We arrived at Wells and ignored Verity (ha ha ha!)’s directions, because she seemed to be taking us away from the cathedral. Once again, AT OUR PERIL. We parked and walked to the church we’d found,

which had a sign proclaiming it to be the parish church of St. Cuthbert. This seemed to be a funny thing for the cathedral to be called, and I noticed in the distance another big spire.

“Guys,” I said. “I don’t think this is the right church.” We met an older lady coming out of the church, who confirmed my suspicions, but she said the town was small and it would only take “young things” like us ten minutes to walk to the cathedral. She then asked us where our accent was from, because it was so “lovely and soft.”

jlrpuck confirmed that T wasn’t at the cathedral yet, and we wandered around St. Cuthbert’s for a bit

before walking to the cathedral.

I kept saying how very adorable Wells was as a town,

as we headed toward the cathedral and met T. And T? Is AWESOME. She gave us a fabulous tour of the cathedral,

which is her actual church where she goes to mass. The cathedral is gorgeous.

Except for this scary sepulcher that has a skeleton on it and freaked me out. T took us all around the building,

telling us this fabulous story about a Richard Dean Anderson fan event she’d set up there. And then she revealed to us that Wells is the town where Hot Fuzz was filmed. We’d had no clue, but, once told, it became obvious. She took us to the pub where the pub scene was filmed,

and we sat and had coffee (well, tea for me) and chatted. T is a million different kinds of fun, and the biggest regret of the trip is that she wasn’t able to go to any of the plays with us. T had to go to London but she quickly took us into the Hot Fuzz Sainsbury’s before we parted ways. I stopped in to buy ice cream, and we bought some fudge, and then we got in Aloysius for the drive to Cheddar, apologizing to Verity (ha ha ha!). First we detoured to this place called Wookey Hole, though, where apparently the Cybermen episodes were filmed.

Cheddar was adorable, this tiny town

tucked into a gorge.

And yes, it is the town where cheddar cheese originated, although there’s only one company still making cheddar in Cheddar.

We ducked into the tiny, charming TI, and then went to a place called Derrick’s Tea Rooms for lunch. Derrick’s served breakfast all day, so I got a mini English breakfast, because I am a big fan of the grilled tomato that comes with English breakfasts.

Derrick’s was very cute and very quaint. They even made you walk outside through their “tea garden” to get to the bathroom. They also had a scary Halloween mannequin thing set up that kept booming laughter.

We sat for a while, confused, waiting for the check before finally asking for it and learning you’re supposed to get up and pay for it in the little shop. We paid, and then walked along the other side of the river in the town.

This walk was very weird, with palm trees

and random statutes of cougars, and at one pointarctacuda asked me if I was part of the von Trapp family and if I’d had clothes made out of curtains.

Eventually, we reached the end of the walk and arrived at the cheddar museum. You’re supposed to pay to get into the museum but no one was manning the door, so we just walked right in. We watched the guy make cheddar cheese for a while before heading to the gift shop for a cheese-tasting and the buying of lots of cheese. On the way to the car, we ducked in so arctacuda and I could buy hot mulled cider. This meant we had to stand around for a while on the street in Cheddar as we drank them. Arctacuda and I worked on our musical, which now included the line, “That is true/But veddy rude.”

We drove through the gorge a bit before going home, stopping in a grocery store because we’d forgotten to buy tin foil. It took us forever to find the tin foil. I think we walked up and down the length of the Tesco four times before I finally stumbled across it. We also had difficulty finding the eggs, which were not refrigerated and instead shelved with the cake ingredients.

Food purchased, it was back in the car. The radio was interviewing Americans about the election and they were saying things like, “Well. I guess I’ll vote for Obama, he’s the best we’ve got.” There is a way in which this election is completely Orwellian.

That night we ate at home. There was a weird moment when jlrpuck hid the fudge on me and arctacuda tried to gaslight me into thinking I’d hidden it myself in a moment of insanity.

Our choices on TV were not great, so we settled for back-to-back documentaries, one on modern dance so absurd I felt like I was in that episode of Spaced (“I shall now perform an entire interpretive dance about heartache using only my pinkie toe,” proclaimed arctacuda) and one on Savile Row tailors. The highlight of the night was a commercial for “the British Army: regular and territorial.” “Wow,” I commented. “The Brits are careful to be accurate in their adjectives. All the restaurants advertise good food instead of great, and our military is all proud and the best you can be, and theirs is just regular and territorial.” “Yeah,” agreed jlrpuck. “What the best you can say for their army? Well, it’s regular, and it’s territorial.” There was a moment of silence before arctacuda ventured, “Guys? I think it’s their two types of army: regular and territorial.”

Comments

[dbvixxen.livejournal.com]

“Wow,” I commented. “The Brits are careful to be accurate in their adjectives. All the restaurants advertise good food instead of great, and our military is all proud and the best you can be, and theirs is just regular and territorial.” “Yeah,” agreed jlrpuck. “What the best you can say for their army? Well, it’s regular, and it’s territorial.” There was a moment of silence before arctacuda ventured, “Guys? I think it’s their two types of army: regular and territorial.”

*snickers* Well, good thing it was in the privacy of your rooms. That might have been embarrassing out in public. Very funny, though, either way! ;)

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

We are enormous idiots. Every once in a while for the remainder of the trip, arctacuda would be like, "The two of you with that army commercial..." and we would just collapsed into giggles.

[jlrpuck.livejournal.com]

Oh! We got a picture of the Army slogan yesterday, just for you! (I say "just for you" because I collapsed into giggles on a Glasgow street yesterday when we found it...ok, so maybe the picture is for me, too).

[dbvixxen.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA! Fantastic! Can't wait to see that.

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Oh, excellent! So that really is their slogan, huh?

[auntiesuze.livejournal.com]

*applauds your use of 'gaslight' as a verb*

I can't wait for this musical that you've been putting together! lol

This is probably one of the most fabulous travel journals EVER. :)

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Heh. I *love* "gaslight" as a verb! I really love words based around pop culture, because I love the awesome elasticity of language.

The musical is going to be EPIC, okay? I can't wait for arctacuda to get home so we can plan more of it. (A-cuda! Come home! It is lonely in Boston!)

I'm so glad you're enjoying the travel journal!

[azriona.livejournal.com]

I have to think there is some kind of context to asking if your clothes are made of curtains, but for the life of me, I'm not seeing it. I will say that's the second Sound of Music reference I've seen today. Three, if you count the fact that my brain has already starting redoing one of the songs for Doctor Who. Grr.

Also, I'm curious about the documentary on Saville Row tailors. But really, that ought to be expected. *grin*

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

The context was that jlrpuck spotted a flower she thought was mistletoe. And then she paused and said, "Maybe edelweiss. No, definitely misteltoe." This, however, was my cue to start singing "Edelweiss." Arctacuda sang along for a bit, then admitted she didn't know the words. I said I knew all of them because my mother used to sing me the song as a lullabye (this is true; I have vivid memories of her rocking me to sleep while she sang me this song). And arctacuda just turned to me and said, "Tell me the truth. Are you just part of the von Trapp family? Soon you'll be like, 'Oh, and once? She made us clothes from curtains!" I do have kind of an annoyingly close family, and we do do some kind of ridiculous things together (we actually did spend more time than I care to think about on Saturday night after I got home singing songs like "Three Blind Mice" and "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" in rounds) so it made total, hilarious sense to me.

Ah, the tailor documentary was interesting, because it was about how they're struggling to stay alive in this century. Their clients are...interesting people.

[azriona.livejournal.com]

*shudders* Edelweiss....

I can only imagine who goes to a tailor these days...probably well off enough that they can also afford to be amusingly eccentric.

[jlrpuck.livejournal.com]

Oi! *I* found the tin foil, missy! But yes, it was cleverly hidden. Those English--they're tricksy when it comes to cooking supplies.

;)

[earlgreytea68.livejournal.com]

Oh, did I say that I found it? I take credit for everything!