Basingstoke and Beyond

Friday 17 October, 2008

Arrived here at Cholderton Rare Breeds Farm after coffee and bacon sarnies in Basingstoke, where the two women in the shop were quite taken with Alex. They addressed all their questions about our travels to him. One of them asked his full name so that she could say she had met him when he becomes famous. Funny!

One of the things that strikes me about the English people we’ve met is that they’re so friendly and helpful. And very polite. So many people seem willing to talk and give us directions, even before we ask, sometimes.

After breakfast in Basingstoke, we headed towards the Vyne. Not too far, according to my google directions. But I’ve had trouble with google directions, mentioning streets and areas that don’t appear on any signs, so I always ask a local as well. We asked the ladies in the cafe how to get to the Vyne and the boss sent us towards a village called Hannington on A339.

We finally saw a sign “The Vine PH”. What’s a PH? I guessed public house. But we weren’t going to see a public house. We were going to see a National Trust house. And anyway, the spelling was wrong. Are they slack about spelling in England? I wondered. Don’t they know the King’s English? We turned down that narrow lane and drove for a couple of miles between two hedges hoping that we wouldn’t encounter a car coming in the opposite direction. There wasn’t room for two cars to pass. Scary! Don’t want to damage the Jetta. Alamo is holding 500 pounds of my money in the event of dings.

I saw a postman’s van and asked for the Vyne. He told me to continue on down the road. I asked if it was National Trust and he told me it was a pub, and that I wanted the Vyne, near Tadley. And sent me off back down the narrow lane to find the A340. And so we arrived at the Vyne. . . Unfortunately, it was Thursday. I’d forgotten that the Vyne is only open Monday - Wednesday and Saturday. Oh well, mustn’t grumble. Hope to get back there on Saturday.

We’ve had a lot of trouble arriving at our destinations here because of the road signs and the endless roundabouts. On one roundabout, the sign will direct you, for example, to the M3 and London. The next sign on the same road says that you’re on the A33 and going to Kingsworthy, somewhere you’ve never heard of and that is definitely not on the itinerary. At the next roundabout, London and Kingsworthy both drop off the scope (did you note the TAA term there? It’s never far from my mind, as you can imagine) and you are now heading towards Micheldever Station on the A303. Alex is finding the navigation stressful. I’m wasting a lot of diesel and hours. Yesterday we arrived at the ring roads around Basingstoke three times!

After the Vyne, we landed at Cholderton Rare Breeds Farm without too much more trouble. I needn’t have bothered about booking our room two months ago, though. We share the Youth Hostel with one other guy. Alex was very happy yesterday, visiting the weird and wonderful chooks, the ducks, the peacocks, the saddle back pigs, the goats, the sheep, the horses and ponies. (See his photos of his Cholderton friends.) A very pretty little farm on the Salisbury Plain. I watched the sunset, had a couple of ciders after dinner and dropped off to sleep about 7.30.

No internet access here for residents, so no new entries until we can get on-line again in a few days.