Bells and feathers

This morning as I lied in bed reading, I heard bells jangling beneath my window. I got up and peered through the blinds to see people walking just a few feet below, dressed in black with odd, feathered caps. The men had black face, like in the old minstrel shows. There were so many, they just kept rounding the bend. My husband was still dozing, and I told him what I'd seen, and that from my vantage I could see the tops of the men's black hats -- painted in white on one was a pentagram, a skull on another. "It's a strange country," he said, and went back to sleep.

Later, I went into the living room and looked out the windows -- there were more of the strangely-clad folks walking on the river-walk area across the water from our building. I grabbed my camera and took a few shots, as I knew I could never adequately describe the scene. This time, following behind those dressed in black, were people in white trousers, red jackets, and white straw hats. They had trims of red, white and blue and looked like masters of ceremonies from some 1950s Fourth of July celebration.

I have no idea what these groups were, but it must be some kind of traditional thing. Is it a holiday? A commemoration of some type? A festival? I have no idea. Please share if you know the secret of the oddly-dressed wanderers!




UPDATE: I've heard that these were Morris dancers (at least the ones in black, still not sure about the others).

Tanyalee Davis and a night in London

Earlier this week (May 29) I took my first trip to London since moving to England. I'd spent a fair bit of time there as a tourist before I moved to England, but that's when I could walk everywhere. It was quite a different experience this time.

I went to see my friend, Tanyalee Davis, in her new one-woman show, "Little Do They Know " at the Soho Theatre. She's a comedian, and the show tells how she has dealt with having dwarfism and how she made her way into stand up. It had a lot of humor and serious moments, too. I really enjoyed the show, and enjoyed just going to London.

However, it wasn't easy or cheap to get in to London. Due to my knee problems, I can't walk far, nor can I risk trying to walk in crowds because I can't move out of the way and I sometimes stop suddenly if I get a sharp pain. That in mind, I arranged for journey assistance at the Reading train station. That means you book assistance the day before, and when you arrive, you find an employee, give him your name, and they send someone with a wheelchair or golf-cart sort of thing to pick you up and take you to your train. Sounds great in theory. It was a little rockier in practice, and I wouldn't recommend trying to get journey assistance if you're traveling alone unless you are on a mobility scooter or your own wheelchair and all you need is someone to bring a ramp out for you to get on the train. Luckily, I had my husband with me.

Basically, there isn't seating just inside the doors in either Reading or London Paddington. There was seating within say 40-50 feet, but that's a long way for someone with mobility problems. Also, in Reading they weren't very on the ball with providing the pre-booked assistance. My husband had to hunt a guy down both when we left Reading and when we returned (waiting 20 minutes the first time, only to have the guy show up without a wheelchair! But he was very friendly, and I think the problem was with the lady who booked assistance, not the man who came to help). That said, the train ride was nice; I've always enjoyed watching the countryside go by.

We got to London and to our pleasant surprise, the buggy/golf-cart thing was waiting to pick us up! It took us out to the exit near the cab stand, and we just hopped into a cab to the theatre.

After the show, we got another cab and went back to Paddington Station. There the fun began again. There was nowhere to sit anywhere near the door, so I sat at the base of a statue while my husband tried to figure out where we were to go. We were told to go to the first aid station, but we couldn't find it. It turns out my hubby walked past it a few times -- the sign was tiny on a wall and was very easy to miss.


An expensive country

The total cost of our journey? $52 for two standard-class round-trip train tickets from Reading to London (that's a journey of about 35 miles) and about another $64 for cabs to and from the train stations in Reading and London. That doesn't include tips.

Add to that our dinner. We had a very no-frills dinner at the burger joint next to the theatre. My hubby had a burger and fries and a coke, and I just had a burger. The total cost? $25. This country packs a big sticker shock when you translate costs into dollars!

For other disabled travellers

I enjoyed going to London and seeing Tanyalee, but at those prices I don't plan on making many trips. Perhaps with a personal scooter I'll go in more, but even then it's hard to get around -- especially since most of the trains that operate out of reading are by First Great Western, and that train company will only let you bring a scooter on board if you can *carry it on*! They won't let you use a ramp with a scooter; they said the ramps were unstable! This is not a disabled-friendly country, despite some recent changes and many claims by official Web sites to the contrary. Virgin trains do a much better job (probably because they are newer and Virgin tries to be competitive), but no Virgin trains go from here to London. For those with a disability, be aware that this is not the most accessible country to visit, and many of the things that claim to be accessible really aren't in practice (as in taxi and bus ramps often don't work, even though you'll hear how every bus and taxi in London is now accessible). But don't get me wrong, this is a wonderful place to visit -- if you're mobile. You can go everywhere by foot, bus and train. There's no need to rent a car or even take a cab. It's still possible to see many things if you've got mobility issues, but it'll probably cost more as cabs are your best bet to limit walking. If you're in a wheelchair and can easily navigate a block or two to and from stops, a bus will be your best low-cost option, though you may find that some have broken ramps. The Tube should be avoided, as not all stations have elevators (lifts), and you never know when a lift will be out of service.

Peer groups and alternate paths

A friend and I were recently discussing the book "The Nurture Assumption" by Judith Harris. I haven't read it yet; she has. The book argues that it's peer groups and community that influence a child's development far more than his or her parents. My friend and I both agree, and it made me think of the paths my life could've taken due to influence from my friends. And influence doesn't always mean they were trying to get me to do something -- it was the fact that they did do something that made me want to do it, too.

For instance, I always liked to write and was good at it. Mostly I wrote poetry from a very young age and on into my teens, tapering off as I got older. But I never knew what I wanted to do for a living or how my love of writing would ever pay the bills -- I know I wasn't a good enough poet to make it as a poet, and I also knew that not many people really "make it" as a poet anyway (unless they can make it as a songwriter). So anyway, that's where peers came in. My friend Theresa joined the Army after high school and went to the journalism school for the Army. A year later when I found out (by chance) how the fees worked at the local junior college and that I actually could afford to go, I looked through the course catalog. The only thing that seemed interesting was communication. That would've been the most interesting course to me no matter what Theresa was doing with her life, but her being a journalist probably made me feel a little more confident that it was a possible, real career choice for me. I ended up getting my bachelor's in journalism and working in newspaper all of my professional life so far. As for Theresa, she got out of the Army and decided to go into nursing. Just like her older sister (and her sister's choice of profession surely must have influenced Theresa in that direction).

Another friend from high school, Janell, also wanted to join the Army. I never had any interest in this path but didn't know what else to do, so I went in to see the recruiter with her. I needed to lose about 20 pounds to join. I didn't lose the weight so I didn't join the Army (Janell did).

These friends are no longer in my life -- things really do change after high school and you find new friends that fit your life as it changes. Even so, these people who are zero part of my life now influenced it then and had the potential to make a huge impact on the course I took in life.
Had Janell or Theresa wanted me to move to New York with them after graduation and be writers or actors or waitresses or secretaries, that's what I probably would've done, too.

Notes from a foreign land

Here's just a review of the past week. Last Saturday, hubby and I went to the library to check out the book sale and get library cards. The cards double as a photo ID and a discount pass around town. Most of the discounts aren't too hot (50p off, etc.), but at least now we're hooked up with library cards. None of the books I wanted were in, so we left sans checked-out items. I haven't checked a book out of a library in probably more than a decade, but I'm going to give it a go here. I'm used to just buying books, but I want to conserve cash as our budget is tight in this oh-so-costly country.

Went to the knee doc and got bad news. While it was good that the recent test didn't show any major new problem, it definitely looks like I'm in for lots more knee problems over the years and eventual knee replacement of both knees. I'm young enough that the docs don't want to do that for many years to come, as replacements don't last more than 10-15 years, and replacements after the first one tend to be less successful. He recommended I look into Articular Cartilage Transplant (ACT). It's *costly*, not always covered by insurance, and from what I can tell, the success rates aren't thrilling. So I've been bummed out this week quite a lot, and my knees haven't continued getting better as they had the past couple of weeks.

And then there's the weather. I think we're back to more typical English weather. I don't mind it really, but it has been wetter and colder this week. Perhaps that's why my knees hurt more?

England's wild ways

There are lots of little things in England that seem a bit odd, at least from the American perspective. One is that hot dogs come in a can. Yuck! I don't know why I find this odd, but I do. But then again, I think most hot dogs are gross (unless they're turkey dogs or veggie dogs, those aren't bad). My husband bought this can but then couldn't find hot dog buns. That's right, he'll eat hot dogs from a can, but only if they are in a proper bun -- he has got standards, ya know.

A few other unusual things about the UK:

• Bathrooms don't have power sockets -- it's deemed unsafe. Which means I get to blowdry my hair in the bedroom. On the carpet. My husband already calls me Chewbacca because I shed so much, would a little juice in the bathroom be so bad?
• Potato chips (called crisps) come in a variety of flavors I've never seen in the U.S. -- roast chicken, prawn, beef, bacon. Forget about finding good old sour cream and onion, it ain't happening.
• You can buy codeine without a prescription. It comes mixed with other painkillers, like ibuprofin. So the people here can't handle a power socket in the bathroom, but apparently Americans are the ones who can't handle codeine without supervision.
• The mailman will deliver mail, but won't pick it up. My husband searched all over for the drop box for outgoing mail, to no avail. He finally asked the postman what one does with outgoing mail -- the postman gave my husband an odd look and told him you drop it in a mailbox or go to a post office. The nearest mailbox is a few blocks away, they aren't on every corner or anything.
  

Duckies!

Aren't they darling? My husband and I tossed bread crumbs to the baby duckies (and the grown ones, too).

Canal boats and graffiti

I went for a scoot (my version of a walk, but using my mobility scooter) along the River Kennet yesterday and found this spot on a little island in the center of the canal. It looks like various bits of old refuse -- a rowboat, some shopping carts -- and a shed fill this part of the island. It seemed somehow interesting and romantic to me. It's the kind of place that would have sparked all kinds of wild imaginings and a desire to explore when I was a kid -- I'm sure I could've convinced myself it was the final resting place of King Arthur or something equally enthralling (and ridiculous). If my knees were good and I wasn't afraid of what might be living under all that junk, I'd still want to explore it today.

I also saw this moored canal boat. They sometimes go up and down the river outside my window. As far as I can tell, they are merely for pleasure rather than some purpose like delivering goods. They're very long and narrow and have a long, low, windowless (as far as I can tell), enclosed cabin that I've never been able to see into. There is always someone standing outside the cabin, I guess to guide the boat (and enjoy the passing scenery).

Also interesting is the local graffiti. Just like anywhere, you can get a sense of the people and a town based on the scrawlings of local vandals (some of which can be quite artistic, but most completely moronic and disfiguring to an otherwise nice area). Someone painted "GOSH" on this side of this trash can (at least that's what it looks like it says). I'm not sure why that would be something someone was just burning to scrawl for everyone to read, except that the vandal was probably bored and unimaginative.