A Tale of Three BnB's

A Tale of Three BnB's             March 28, 2015

Every once in a while, it's actually comforting to stay in a hotel that's very basic and standard - if boring.  However, that's not our usual style.  Usually Bruce goes to the AirBnB website, our favorite enterprise for finding fairly inexpensive places to stay.  Beside the good price, AirBnB's are often quirky and unique - and usually in people's homes.  Our last three accommodations have been brimming over with personality!

In Portsmouth, England, our hostess was Barbara Ann.  We called her when we arrived at the bus station, and she kindly came to pick us up.  She introduced herself with a handshake as hard as rock.  Tall and thin, in her late 50's, with red hair pulled tightly back into a ponytail, she could have been a roller derby queen.  As we loaded our stuff into her car, she advised us not to mind the mess.  

"I don't clean cars.  I just don't do it!"   I hoped that she cleaned BnB rooms!  

As we pulled into traffic, she commented on a fellow who had led a group of students across the street in front of the car. 

 "That fellow is a foreigner.  I know because he didn't thank me for letting him pass.  I'm sorry, but that's how they are!"

Oh, boy, this was not good.  What were we getting ourselves into?  For the first time in our AirBnB history, I was worried.  

On our way to the Fairlea BnB, Barbara Ann drove us around Portsmouth and Southsea, a pretty seaside resort, pointing out the highlights. Situated in a row of modest brick homes, Fairlea was a hold-over from the days when families flocked to the British seaside for their annual vacation - before the era of cheap flights to Spain.  It still had a 1960's feel to it, though it was spotlessly clean with good internet service (not always a given, even in these days).  Our bedroom was on the first floor; the toilet was on the second floor, and the two showers were on the third floor. There was a kitchen on the second floor, too, where we could put together our own breakfast of cold cereal and toast:

"Believe me, you wouldn't want me to cook for you", Barbara Ann had declared.

  Fairlea B & B, Southsea (next to Portsmouth), England

   Beach St. is a bit down at the heels, but "real" :) and at the end of the street is a "luxury, boutique B&B".  

                    The sitting room at the Fairlea B&B

The other guests in the house were long-term workers, staying in Portsmouth during the week for jobs which got them up and out early in the morning.  I met only one of them, a Spanish woman who was there to learn English in a quest to find a job in the difficult times since the crisis struck Spain.  She works on a train, serving food to the passengers who commute to London and back.

It turned out that running the Fairlea and another BnB, as well as managing other property that she owns, were Barbara Ann's full time job.  She was a hardworking business person with a soft side, not readily apparent at first. When it came time to catch the ferry to France, she was up early to take us to the terminal. Despite my initial reservations, the experience had turned out well.

Our next AirBnB experience couldn't have been more different.  It was a small farm in Ste. Marie du Mont in Normandy, France.  The somewhat eccentric couple who run it have two spare rooms in their rambling 1720's stone home.  Claire is a self-taught artist, in her 50's, and Michel, an amazing 77 years old, is a small time farmer, devoted to ecological practices. He lived through the war, albeit at a young age, and had interesting stories to share. One evening they introduced us to various forms of Normandy apple liquors, including pommeau, a bubbly aperitif, similar to champagne.  

         Claire and Michel's ancient home in Ste. Marie du Mont, Normandy, near Utah Beach.

The first evening when we stepped outside to go to our rental car, one of the resident big white geese stood defiantly by and hissed at us, her mouth open wide, showing her tongue and tiny teeth.  We jumped back until Claire came to our rescue, shooing her away and telling us that she had eggs that she was protecting in a nest next to the house.

                      Proud momma goose atop her eggs.

Michel was eager for us to see the baby lambs and their wooly mothers.  On our last evening there, he offered to take us for a walk in the area.  We first passed through a field where a mother sheep had given birth to a baby lamb that very day.  She had actually borne two wee ones, but one was not properly developed and was dead in the grass.  The survivor ran in and out through her legs, snuggling up close. Michel was delighted to hear the mother "talking" to her off-spring.  "She is a good mother", he said. "It is very important for the mother to talk to the baby - for the connection."

Our late afternoon stroll took us down leafy lanes, past a huge modern farm with lots of cows confined to a cement stable.  A huge vat of "shit", as Michel unabashedly called it in his delightful French-accented English, stood just outside the barn.  A massive mound of silage under a sheet of black plastic leaked a sour smell into the air.  Michel rambled at length about the evils of farms such as these, whose practices harm the environment and produce milk and cheese that don't have the proper taste.  

             Michel and Bruce along a Norman country lane.

Claire and Michel did talk pretty incessantly, which drove Bruce a bit batty, but they also bent over backwards to be helpful to us: calling to make resto reservations for us; offering us maps and books to guide us on our WWII explorations at Omaha and Utah beaches; and doing the heavy lifting of speaking in English.  When we left for good, they presented us with a box of caramel candies, a specialty of the area. Overall it was one of our best AirBnB experiences ever. 

Claire and Michel, AirBnB hosts, in Ste. Marie du Mont, Normandy.

The next evening, we lucked into a Chambre d'Hote, which is a common French tourist accommodation, similar to an AirBnB. We had left Claire and Michel and had traveled north to Dieppe, on the coast of the English Channel, still in Normandy.  We stopped into the tourist office, late in the afternoon, where the young woman suggested the nearby "Villa des Capucins".  Without much discussion, given the hour and our weariness, we took it and arrived there about 15 minutes later.  As we approached the address, standing on the sidewalk waiting for us was a debonaire gentleman of about 60, with a mustache and hair the length of mine, horn-rimmed glasses, a hand knit cravat tucked into his wool jacket, and a warm smile.  Bernard Clarisse, our host for the evening, opened large metal doors behind him, leading us out of the seedy neighborhood and into a lovely garden.  Just inside the walls stretched a row house of four rooms, all with their own entrances.  In years past, this had been a small convent estate, dating back to 1900, a medical clinic for the poor, and these had been the rooms reserved for nuns visiting from Africa.  Now they are loft spaces for tourists!   

          Villa les Capucins in Dieppe, northern Normandy

I could tell before we even stepped into it that this tiny doll-house-like place was CHARMING! Obviously, someone with an eye for design had been at work here.  The mirrors of the grand antique armoire seemed to enlarge the tiny space; the immaculate white tiled bathroom downstairs; the loft with its steep steps and then its beautiful bed, piled high with warm duvets and flowered sheets, the cozy lights - it was very romantic!  We loved it. 

                         Up the steep steps, carefully....

                           ...and voila!  a sweet little loft.

                    Bernard's house at the end of the garden.

At the typical French breakfast of croissants and baguette the next day, sitting in the kitchen of Bernard's lovely home at the end of the garden, we learned about his career as an artist. Having retired from teaching at the University of Rouen, he devotes himself full-time to making art.  Painting and preparing for exhibits (plus his chambre d'hote work ?) keep him busy.  His "woman" continues to teach at the University. Being there for only one night, we never did meet her.  And soon it was time to move on, but not without realizing how lucky we had been to stumble upon this interesting corner of Dieppe.  (I didn't have the courage to ask Bernard for his photo, but you can google him and see a picture there.)

Croissants, butter & jam, cafe au lait, juice - yum.  Never before had I been asked if I wanted salted butter or unsalted butter for breakfast the next day.  The Normans take their dairy products very seriously!  

    The astounding plaza in Arras, influenced by the architecture        of Amsterdam.              

So, here we are in Arras, where we landed late yesterday afternoon.  We're still in France but not far from Belgium.  Arras is a city that I had never heard of, but one that is large and beautiful - and very historic, as I'm learning.  Brits and Canadians probably know all about it, since it is in an area littered with cemeteries from WWI.  It is also near Vimy Ridge, another somber Canadian war site.  We stopped at a British cemetery beside the road yesterday and walked to one today. The inscriptions (and ages) for the young men were heart-rending.  

     WW I cemeteries for British soldiers who died in France

 

A lively Saturday market in Arras was an antidote to the futility of war with the loss of so many young lives.

Juno Beach

Juno Beach                 March 25, 2015

This short piece about Juno Beach is for my Canadian family, since it was the D-Day battle in which the Canadians participated.  I know very little about it, so will mostly post photos of the area.  I did learn that the Canadians were the only group to meet their D-Day objective.  We saw lots of references to Canada in the area of Juno Beach.

Bill Millin, Scottish piper who piped for the British troops landing on Sword Beach.  "If you remember the piper, you won't forget the men who died there," he said.  Must have been quite a sight.  Bill was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, but grew up in Scotland.

Juno Beach, where the Canadian forces landed.  They were the only force to meet their goal for D-Day.  Those are British kids learning about D-Day. 

These famous WWII beaches stretch on for miles, from one small town to another, and are liberally posted with plaques describing the battle.  

The Juno Beach Center, designed in the shape of the maple leaf, the only Canadian Museum in Normandy.  A bunch of French school kids are outside.  The French seem to be doing a great job of educating their youth about WW II.  We saw groups at the Portsmouth Museum and all along the beaches in France.  

        This house faces the sea and was the first building liberated.

A photo of the same house on D-Day, as the area is being beseiged.

Sweet little wooden crosses in front of the above home,  placed in the sand by Canadian Armed Service groups. 

                            This group experienced heavy losses on D-Day.

    Daniel Yeo from Alberton, who died in the D-Day invasion.

   Bruce picked up sand and shells from Juno Beach for Dan MacLean.  

D-Day

D-Day                 March 23, 2015

One of the major reasons that we came to Europe this spring was to fulfill Bruce's long-time desire to see the sites where the Allies had invaded northern France in World War II.  The D-Day operation was the largest seaborne invasion in history, and it began in the seaport of Portsmouth, England.  For that reason, we booked 3 days in Portsmouth. At the end of those three days, we would be leaving from Portsmouth ourselves to cross the channel to France.   

The major draw for us in Portsmouth was the D-Day Museum.  We set aside a whole day for this event, even though Bruce is an avowedly anti-museum person.  After we had spent nearly 6 hours there, we concluded that it just takes the right museum to engage him!  

Upon arrival at the museum, we almost immediately encountered an older woman with a bunch of school kids surrounding her.  She was telling them stories from her time as a young Red Cross nurse on a hospital ship on D-Day.  We listened in, and then, when the kids moved along, we sat down for a good chat with Mary Turner Verrier.  Mary loved sharing her experiences - and we loved hearing them!  

Mary Turner Verrier, veteran of the D-Day invasion.  You can google Mary and read more of her stories and quotes.  

"What kept us going were the men themselves, " she said.  "They waited patiently, no one asking for us.  They helped each other.  A Brit would hold the hand of a German and vice versa.  There's no greater leveler than a hospital bed."  

Later, when Mary was working in the hospital in Portsmouth, a bomb exploded just outside, killing many people on that end of the building.  The shock threw her against a wall.  "That's why I'm a bit deaf now."   Almost immediately after this disaster, Sergeant Major barked at the staff to get on their feet and back to work.  Mary asked if anyone had seen the head nurse ("matron"), and said, "I'm going to find out where the old dear is."  She found matron lying wounded, with a large shard of glass embedded across her face.  Mary spoke to her, and matron responded, "Turner, I knew you'd be the one to find me."  Mary put pillows under her head and bandages around the glass until she could be moved, but matron had lost her sight.  With great tenderness and respect, Mary told us, "I modeled myself after her." 

One of Mary's stories was more light-hearted.  It involved a young man rushing past the place where Mary was on duty, claiming that he had a message for General Eisenhower (whose headquarters were nearby).  She didn't believe him and ushered him into a room and then quickly locked him in.  He managed to escape and deliver his message; Mary was demoted, but that story ended up on the front page of the New York Times!

As we got up to leave, Mary shook our hands and said quietly, "When your country said that it was coming over, we broke down and cried.  We were pretty primitive, you see."  

I was the one who was tearful by now.  It had been a privilege to share time with this remarkable woman.  

This D-Day Museum is especially known for its piece of embroidery work that uses fabric pictures to tell the story of the invasion.  It's patterned on the famous Bayeux tapestry, just across the English Channel, created 1000 years ago to tell of the invasion of England by William the Conqueror, coming the opposite way from Normandy.  There's a beautiful symmetry in the whole thing.  I could hardly wait to see both. (and looked forward to seeing its counterpart in Bayeux).   

The Overlord Embroidery didn't disappoint.  It's the longest piece of similar work in the world.  Everything about it is so well done as to be immediately recognizable - even the faces of Ike and the other commanders.  There was text under the panels to describe what was being depicted: the preparations, the meetings, the gathering of men, as well as the battle on the beaches of Normandy.  

While I was studying the Overlord Embroidery, Bruce ran into John, a 94 year old Army veteran, who had served in the D-Day invasion.  He was sharp as a tack and loved helping out at the museum, especially since his wife of 75 years had died last year.  "This gives me a reason to get up in the morning and it is important to teach the next generation about the war".   John said that he landed on Sword Beach on June 6,  "I couldn't show anyone that I was scared to death - but we were all scared.  We were all young and did things in the war that I can't believe now. We fought for each other - not for any grand purpose".   

Bruce described John as a very interesting guy with excellent insights about the experience of going to war - an unexpected encounter.  Bruce wished that they had had more time to chat.

We learned about the role of Jeeps in the war - and beyond - and how the Willys company and Ford Motor Co. had produced thousands of them for the war effort. 

Further along was a very limited display of the Women's Land Army.  I was especially interested in this because my Aunt Jean, a British war bride to my Canadian Uncle Lloyd (my mom's younger brother) had been a member of the Timber Corps, a division of the Women's Land Army.  Jean had grown up as a city girl in Plymouth, on the south coast of England.  However, in 1941, the British government became the only nation to conscript women into service wherever they were needed.  Whether Jean was "drafted" or volunteered, I don't know.  In any case, she ended up far north, in the woods of Scotland, helping in the effort to produce timber for the nation.  

There were other displays and aspects of the invasion that were described, but meeting Mary Verrier and John Jaques were the highlights of the day for us. It had been a privilege to hear their accounts of their experiences - and we were very aware of the fact that, in another year or two, they might not be here. In the words of Winston Churchill, "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few."

In the days since, we have crossed the Channel and are now in Normandy. Yesterday we saw the famed Bayeux tapestry and learned about the invasion of England by William the Conqueror. The WW II liberation of France by the British was a closing of the circle, in some ways.  

Today we spent another 5 hours in a D-Day Museum in Caen, France.  It was a much larger and more fully endowed presentation, with lots of actual film footage (it also had a much heftier admission fee, compared to the free admission to the museum in Portsmouth). We're pretty weighed down now with the sorrow and destruction of World War II but are on schedule to pick up a rental car tomorrow and forge ahead to see the beaches where the invasions took place. I'm counting on some good French wine and creamy Normandy camembert, spread liberally on a baguette, to help lift the spirits!   

                              Patisseries and pink tulips lift the spirits, too!

Downton Abbey Revisited

Downton Abbey Revisited                  March 19, 2015

                Surveying the lands of the estate from the front porch -                              waiting for our coach to arrive :).

On Monday, as promised, John and Mary took us on an adventure to an "estate" house, meaning a house that had been the center of an estate in earlier times.  We didn't know where this would be - only that it would be outside of London.  They had devised this plan after hearing us gush about Downton Abbey, a show which they also enjoy. In fact, since Mary is an artist and John is an art connoisseur and they both are interested in architecture and old things, they were eager to visit this estate house for the first time, too.

It was a typical damp and chilly English day when our hosts picked us up mid-morning.  After that, we proceeded to wander through the countryside north of London for a delightful 12 hours! Our first stop was the ancient market town of Hitchin, known in the past as a center for trading in wool and corn.  It was a charming town with a central cobblestoned plaza surrounded by old buildings.  John and Mary remembered one of them as a meat market run by a persnickety old fellow who was the only employee allowed to cut the ham.  It's now an atmospheric coffee cafe, located just across from a Starbucks.  Guess which one we chose for our cuppa?  

Back on the road, a small detour brought us to Ashwell, an even more charming town, where the residents have worked hard to maintain its pristine old look. John and Mary had once designed and built a cluster of small homes to fit into the town's existing character.  We saw them through the car window but didn't stop.  

Wimpole was our real destination, a National Trust estate with a mansion, formal gardens, a parish church, and a working farm, surrounded by acres of land. Looking out across the fields, no signs of modern life disturbed the impression that we had entered another time.  Over the course of its long history, Wimpole had been owned by various families and was used mostly as a hunting lodge in the late 1800's.  It was last owned by Elsie Bambridge, the only surviving child of Rudyard Kipling.  With the inheritance from her father's royalties, she and her husband bought the estate in the 1930's after it had been largely abandoned for several years.  

The Bambridges worked hard to bring Wimpole back to a semblance of its former grand self.  While adding a few modern touches, they had been forced to tear down one wing to better manage the costs.  It definitely is smaller than the massive mansion where Downton Abbey is filmed, but it was fun to wander through this elegant home, trying to imagine living there. The library had 10,000 leather bound volumes with a special ladder on wheels to fetch a particular book!

The volunteer guides, retirees like us, were almost as much fun as the home - and very knowledgeable.  We learned from them that, even among the downstairs staff, names and titles indicated a class system.  For example, Mr. Carson and Mr. Bates are accorded the dignity of Mr. in front of their names, and Mrs. Hughes and Mrs. Patmore go by Mrs., even though they are not married and are not allowed to marry.  Next down on the ladder are the folks who are called by just their last name, as Branson was when he was a chauffeur.  Further down are the men and women who are called by their first names alone, as are Daisy and Anna and Thomas.  I think I've got it.  It's a bit complicated (since upstairs, Branson was called affectionately and properly by his first name of Tom.)  

Arriving at the horse stables where we bought our tix for Wimpole Estate.

Wimpole Estate mansion, built 1640-1650 (though the estate goes back at least as far as 1086, when it was listed in the Domesday Book.) 

                         Elsie Bambridge's cozy living room

Bruce is lying on cushions (by invitation :) to get a good look at the skylight.

                              This is what he was looking at.

A beautiful dried flower to discretely convey that one should not sit on this chair:  so British!  

 

4-poster bed with ornate - but tasteful - adornment

            A "plunge bath" which holds 3000 gallons of water!  I hope             the water gets used more than once.

                     Gardeners working in the formal garden

             Downstairs: everyday life - a mundane, but lovely,                                    sewing machine.  

                   Bells in the basement, rung from upstairs, to call the                        servants.  What a life - for everyone involved!  

As dusk was approaching, we left the indulgent life of the past and set off for nearby Cambridge.  It's a place that combines the ancient with the modern - buildings and institutions that proudly hold onto centuries-old traditions while vibrant young students give them life.  

  King's College Chapel, from where the Christmas Eve service is broadcast by BBC (and on public radio in Maine).  It had just closed for the day so we couldn't go inside.  

         Just across from the august Kings College, signs of today.

                  Punts waiting to be used on the River Cam. 

Punting on the river, behind several colleges.

Our day concluded with dinner at the Green Dragon, an 18th century pub outside of Barnet.  Despite the photo below, taken earlier in the day, it was dark when we arrived.  As we sat down, a warm fire blazed beside us, other diners created a pleasant hum, and beautifully presented meals were brought by a friendly wait person who seemed to know John and Mary. Bruce strayed over to the bar and caught sight of a Shipyards beer on tap!  Nice to know that a Portland product is a player in a land where good beer is appreciated.  

                   The Green Dragon gastro pub in Barnet.

This was our last meal with John and Mary, who had been so generous, and, as always, such interesting friends to spend time with.  Mary has an intriguing connection to Maine - and, I suppose, to me, quite indirectly.  As a child, Mary loved the book Hitty, a story about a wooden doll owned by a ship captain's daughter.  The story tells of Hitty's adventures after she was lost at sea, going from one new owner to another around the world.  Rachel Field wrote the story - and was a friend of my father's family (the Carpenters)!   Maybe John and Mary will make a visit to the land of Hitty's birth.