Sunday, 30th April - Bolsover

Today we packed up the car with a picnic lunch and headed for Bolsover Castle north of Nottingham in Derbyshire.  Today's event was a medieval Knights' Tournament.  We traveled through parts of Sherwood Forest in our normal configuration with Bruce at the helm, Pam supplying navigation and J&aN in the back supplying color and commentary.  The roads in England are narrow and the roads in the countryside are very narrow.  Much of the road is between the infamous hedgerows, fences  of vegetation.  We noticed that periodically Bruce would come to screeching halt or bolt into the oncoming lane forcing the oncoming car to stop or at least slow down. With the assumption that Bruce wasn't completely nuts - I tried to figure out why.

The black car in this picture is parked  and the driver has left the car while the owner goes about his business.  You from America and the Continent will note that the car is parked on the right side of the road - which in England is the wrong side.   This kind of thing happens on many of the roads.  The result is that traffic must squeeze past - usually at breakneck speeds.  The parked car may or may not be breaking the law depending on the regulations in effect at the time.  The single yellow line indicates that there are parking limitations but one would have to read the signpost to find out what they are for this street..

After a while a pattern emerged.  Every time Bruce pulled one of these maneuvers there was a car parked in the street either on our side of the road or the other.  You may remember we complained a while back that there was no place to park.  You probably assumed that I was only referring to Bristol.  Actually the statement is equally true of the countryside as well.  Parking is so dear that drivers, out of desperation, will park on the roadway.  I expect that at one time they were careful to park beside the road in those places that the road was wider than the width of two cars passing in opposite directions.  But the next car to park, seeing the car parked at the side of the road, would pull in behind the parked car and be oblivious to the fact that his back end is intruding into the traffic.  Add a couple of more cars to this scenario and the last car could easily protrude into half or more of the traffic lane.  We've seen this happen in Bristol, forcing the buses to behave similarly to Bruce, so the problem is probably countrywide. I asked Bruce what the rules were and he said that he had asked and was told: if the parked car is blocking your lane, you are required to stop and let the oncoming traffic through.  It appears that not everyone understands the rules or doesn't care.  The gap between the cars gets alarmingly close.  The last possibility in any driver's mind is to slow down.  Indecision is as big a sin as aggressiveness.  Another thing of note is fences.  There are very few fences in England.  There are garden walls of stone or brick, there are board fences in some of the newer developments, and there are hedgerows, but there are almost no barbed wire fences.  In the early days in areas that had rocky soil (New England type) the stones dug up in the fields were used to build walls as property lines and to contain animals.  In those areas where there are insufficient stones the farmer would build this same kind of boundary/containment using live plants in hedgerows.  Hedgerows make an effective containment wall to keep the animals out of the traffic, but from the traffic side of the hedgerow you have miles of roofless tunnels limiting any view to straight ahead.

Hedgerows In the picture to the leftt you may notice the attractive blonde in the center as she runs alongside the highway

During the winter and spring the hedgerows in some places gets pretty skimpy.  With openings in the hedgerow the containment of animals isn't practical and so they have to be augmented with wire.  Those hedgerows that define property lines are unaffected by being skimpy. One of the more famous authors in this part of England is Beatrice Potter, so it is no surprise that the gardens about the house that B&P are using are infested with rabbits.  The rabbits are a gray cottontail and are very shy.  We spent some time  trying to get a picture but any noise will spook them and they would be gone.  We were told that we might be able to see some hedgehogs out in the country - looked, but didn't find any.  Also, there is basically no road kill on the roads

The day's adventure was a trip to Bolsover Castle.  The UK is littered with castles and Bolsover is typical.  A good share of this Castle has been reduced to walls; some restoration has occurred, and the building known as the Little Castle is still standing but stripped of its internal finishing.  The castle site has been occupied since the 12th century but has undergone at least three major buildings with the last being about 1621.  Note: the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth in 1620

A model of Bolsover Castle The tall building to the left is called the "Little Castle", the building to the right is in ruins and the buildings top center have be restored as a riding academy and a Childrens Museum

A view from the ramparts - the area around the castle is quite rural  - the yellow field are rape seed

We arrived at Bolsover at about 10:00 and did a walk-thru of the castle ruins.  The site had been set up to have the tourists use a tape recorder as a docent, so signs were at a minimum.  Because of the large number of people who had turned out for the Knights' Tournament, the recorders were not available, and so we were left to guess at each room's function.  We timed our visit to the castle so that we arrived at the field of combat for the Opening Ceremonies.

Because of our familiarity with Renaissance Fairs in the US, we are well versed on the events of a Knights' Tournament.  I don't know if we have become jaded by our exposure, but the English version seemed much more docile than those we've seen in California.  The event was definitely more family oriented than what we saw in CA.  The attendees were not in costume and the event people were wearing much more modest costumes than in CA.  The scheduled events were archery, falconry, and in their armor mounted skill of arms, foot combat and the joust.  We really enjoyed the falconry demonstration. The weather started out quite pleasant but by middle afternoon it was becoming obvious that a front was approaching and it was starting to get cold.  We watched a couple of rounds of the Joust and decided to head home.  We made it back to "Waterworks Cottage" before the rains started.  It rained most of the night. Another good day!

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