April 7, 2006 - Cheddar

Every day has a new challenge.  Today's difficulty is Bruce and Pam's rental car.  I told you earlier that there are very few parking places in Bristol.  So we asked the landlady where they might park.  She said that there is a garage with the flat and her family was using it, but we could park on the garage apron as long as we kept well over to one side so as to not interfere with the other garages.  We did and within an hour our next-door neighbor "knocked us up" to complain that we were making it impossible for him to pull into his garage.  This was not true.  We later talked to the landlady and she said that this guy was a whiner and to ignore him. Special Note: Apparently the British term "knocked up" meaning "having someone knock on your door" is an America urban legend.  Ruth has told me that in England it means just the same as it does in America - "getting someone pregnant." Wanting to get along with everyone, we elected to move the car.  We were going out to the "superstore" anyway, but when we got back Bruce tried to move the car to an acceptable parking space - there weren't any.  Within the Rownham Mead complex every conceivable spot had been taken.  Outside the Mead one would have to go blocks to find a parking space of any kind.  So Bruce went back to the garage apron and did a yeoman's job of parking so as to not be in anyone's way.  This morning there was a notice on his window from the property manager that that he had parked in an unacceptable place.  During the working day, some empty spots exist so he moved the car to a now empty spot and passed the problem on to someone else.  This problem has not been solved.  We will have to take the problem into our planning and make sure that we are home and parked before all the spots are taken so that people with more tenure will be forced to come up with a solution. Jerry and Nancy walked up to the Barclay's bank at the top of Constitution Hill and got Nancy's signature on the account.  It takes us about 20 minutes up the hill to get to that area of town.

With Bruce and Pam having a car we are able to wander further afield.  Today we journeyed out of Bristol (on the wrong side of the road) and went to Cheddar, the original place where cheddar cheese was made.  Our first impression of small town England was that the roads are even narrower and more crooked than Bristol and there are even less places to park.  When you do get a parking spot, you have to pay for it

Downtown Cheddar

Found a cute little café and had lunch - Jerry and Pam had lamb stew and fresh vegetables that they certainly enjoyed.  Bruce had a hamburger and chips (fries) and Nancy had some pork and herb sausages.  We enjoyed our visit to this little café and the people were charming.  Oh, potato chips are called crisps.

Cheddar Gorge - every wide spot in the road is used for either a tourist shop or a parking place

After lunch, we ventured up to the Famous Cheddar Gorge. Talk about a tourist trap, they had a package deal where you could ride a topless bus, explore one of the caves in the side of the gorge and walk to the top of the gorge wall and look down for one small fee - £11.50 per person (~ $20.70 US).   Bruce drove up the gorge (about 3 miles) and back, negating the need for the bus tour.  Nancy will not do caves and the rest of us were ambivalent. So it would have cost £11.50 per person to walk up the 274 concrete steps to the top of the gorge sidewall.  Bruce studied the tourist map and discovered some side streets and a little back trail that accomplished the same thing for free.  Walked the Gorge Ridge looking at the farms and the layout of the town.

Cheddar Village and the Famous Cheddar Gorge as seen from the tower at he top of the Gorge wall  - tower shown in insert at left

One of the many shops on the gorge road, "The Cheddar Gorge Cheese Company," had a demonstration area to show how cheese was made and we enjoyed learning about cheese.  Did some tasting, but didn't buy anything as we had already tasted some wonderful cheeses at another shop.  Bruce and Pam's taxi driver from the airport lived in Cheddar and suggested that we should definitely try the cheeses from "The Original Cheddar Cheese Company" and after we did, we came home with some of their fabulous cheeses and some local cider, too.  The cider has a 6% alcohol by volume so we will try it another day.

Nancy looked for a good cheese knife but none of the shops had any.  Oh well, we'll find it somewhere else.  Maybe we have to go to Denmark or Sweden or Norway to find the kind that really cuts cheese.  You would think that in a town called Cheddar, they would have cheese knives that had the word Cheddar on it.  Boy, are they missing a marketing opportunity!  No sweatshirts or t-shirts either!

Obviously there is water in the gorge - The locals have done a really nice job with the water channel.

Goats have been brought in and encouraged so as to control the vegatation on the steep slopes of the gorge

Had a good trip home. Bruce is getting better driving on the left-hand side and learning the different signage. Actually, Bruce's passengers are getting more comfortable with Bruce's driving.  We stopped at the grocery store and bought some vegetables and a big roaster chicken and had a wonderful dinner.  Boy, are we eating well!  It doesn't really take much to have good food.  We had to cut the chicken with a bread knife, as we don't have a carving knife.  Still haven't been to a charity shop (second hand shop) yet.  Maybe tomorrow!

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