Weekly Dispatch #13:In Which We Catalog The Things We Love The Best & Will Miss The Most
We are winding down our time here in Canterbury, and though we are both looking forward to seeing our family and friends (and horse), we are equally sad at the notion of leaving. Because I knew that this last week is going to be a busy one—in addition to packing, we are also hosting our neighbors for dinner, our students at a Christmas party, and I have papers to grade—we started talking a couple of weeks ago about the things we have enjoyed and will miss the most. Here then, in ascending order, are the 11 Top Ten things:

11. Charity Shops: Whenever a customer buys something in a retail shop in the UK, he or she is assessed a 17.5% VAT (Value Added Tax) which can, if the total from the store tops the minimum, be recovered through the customs office at the airport. But if you don’t top the minimum, you don’t get the 17.5% back. I mention this because it is one of the reasons we have found going to the many charity shops in Canterbury (and other communities) such an enjoyable experience: no VAT. Unlike the Goodwill stores at home, which are large and impersonal, the charity shops here tend to occupy small spaces, and each has its own character. The YMCA shop, for example, has quite a bit of furniture, while the Hospice shop is so packed with clothes that you can hardly turn around. And there is a higher quality to the “castoffs” in these places, too. Beth is quite proud of the cashmere coat, the tweed jacket, the wool winter coat and the “little black dress” she has picked up while we’ve been here. I’ve not been so lucky; the tweed jacket I saw in the front window was gone before I had a chance to get to the store the next day and I lost out in the same way on a tuxedo that looked like it might fit. We also picked up some kitchen things our house lacked when we got here and came across some great “white elephants” for the Christmas party we’re having this week with the students. What makes it especially enjoyable is that the stock is never the same from one day to the next, which means I may still have a chance to pick up a tweed jacket before we leave.

10. Historical Sites: A visitor to this country could spend weeks—probably even months—visiting places where, literally, history was made. It is possible to go from the Neolithic sites of Stonehenge and Avebury to the Roman city of Bath in a day, traveling only a few miles but through hundreds of years. There are notable Roman ruins, including Hadrian’s Wall near the Scottish border and a Roman fort near Richborough, and there are many more hidden treasures buried underneath London—and even Canterbury—which can be visited. At the British Library in London and in Salisbury Cathedral, you can see copies of the Magna Carta, one of the most important documents of law ever written, and, at the Library, you can also see Shakespearean folios, the working notebooks of Lewis Carroll and Jane Austen, pages from the sketchbook of Leonardo da Vinci and original, handwritten lyrics of Beatles songs. If you go to Hastings, you will be on the site of the 1066 invasion of England by the Normans. If you have a cup of coffee at Chambers in Canterbury, you will be sitting in the place where the Pilgrim fathers planned the voyage of the Mayflower to America. In Dover, you can walk through an ancient castle that stands above the subterranean headquarters of Britain’s navy during World War II. Everywhere you go, there is something of historical interest, and even if you’re not a history buff, you will still, I guarantee, pause for a moment when you look down from the parapet of a castle and think about what happened there on that very spot hundreds of years ago.

9. Train Travel: Probably the best purchase we made in preparation for this trip was a pair of BritRail passes. We thought at first that we would never recoup the cost (about $600 apiece), but we have far exceeded the amount we would have paid in regular fares during our visit. And more importantly, traveling by train was a delight—once we figured out how to read a timetable. Whether it be short trips to Faversham or Chilham or longer excursions to Edinburgh and Newmarket, the trains were clean and safe and on time. Most cars were equipped with tables, so it was possible to spread out a bit during the longer journeys and on some trains, a man with a catering trolley rattles—and occasionally crashes—his way down the aisle. As I mentioned in an earlier dispatch, the best thing about the trains equipped for longer runs was the quiet car. The trains that are primarily for commuters tend to be a little noisy because you will have business people on their mobile phones, kids on their way to school listening to music and goofing around, and you expect to have a bit of pandemonium on a trip of that nature, but when you know you’ll be in transit for six or seven hours, silence is the key, and the quiet cars provide that. Overall, unless it’s biking or walking, there seems to be no better way to get around England. Coaches are fine for local runs—and you do get great views from the upper deck—or, if you are going to a remote site and have the nerve, a car is handy, but pound for pound (pardon the pun), nothing beats the train.

8. Ale & Cheese: The Germans can claim to have the best beer in the world, and the French are fond of flouting their cheese, but, for my money, there is nothing better than a pint of hand-pulled English ale and a wedge of English cheese. On a recent tour of
Shepherd Neame Brewery—Britain’s oldest brewery—in Faversham, we learned that what we have been enjoying in pubs since we got here is real ale, ale that is put into a barrel and gets its fizz from yeast rather than carbon dioxide. It is served at room temperature and is remarkably smooth and tasty. The ales also range widely in color—I prefer the darker ales; Beth likes the paler varieties—and in alcohol content. (A comment from Beth: Pat prefers the higher, I prefer the lower.) Most pubs have the strength of the ale posted—from about 3.5 to 8.5 percent—so you have a pretty good idea of how many pints you can consume before you start proclaiming your love for all things British and actually worsen relations between our two countries. (Three is a safe estimate.) As for the cheese, we have grown to be great fans of great cheese with great names like Red Leicester and Stilton, Shropshire, Wensleydale, and Double Gloucester. Combine a pint of good real ale and a cream cracker topped with a chunk of blue-veined Stilton, and you’ll think you’re somewhere in the vicinity of heaven. Or Liverpool.

7. London: We did not go to London until October—not by design, but because we were finding plenty to occupy our time here—but once we did make our way there, we couldn’t get back often enough. With Oyster cards in hand, we learned how to navigate the Underground and how to Mind The Gap as we sped around beneath the city, popping up at all of the right places—OK, not always at all the right places—so that we could take in all that the city has to offer. London is a vast city—twice the area of New York City—but it’s a low-rise city, so there’s never the claustrophobic feel in a place like New York. It is—surprisingly to me, having Chicago as my most recent point of reference—a somewhat hilly city, so it’s possible to find places where a portion of the place is spread out below. We, of course, did not see everything—the trick, we’ve been told, is to always leave something undone so you have a reason to return—but we did get to take in most of the tourist attractions—Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, the British Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral, St. James Park—and we did get to one show in the West End—a farcical and hilarious version of The 39 Steps, adapted from the 1935 Hitchcock thriller, well-worth seeing again. When we come back to England, as we surely will, more than a couple of days will be spend in the city, exploring as much as we can but, again, leaving a few spots unvisited for the next trip.

6. Pubs & Restaurants: Because the tourist trade is the city’s biggest industry (or so it seems), Canterbury is a city filled with places to eat and drink. While we’ve been here, we have dined on Lebanese, Italian, Portuguese, Mediterranean, Thai, Indian, and, naturally, English cuisines, with Indian being far and away our favorite. And we’ve also visited some of the city pubs, most notably The Thomas Becket and Simple Simon’s. These were all wonderful establishments, but what we found we enjoyed even more are the village and country pubs, where you get both a pint of good “real” ale (see Ale & Cheese) and great food. This is not typical bar food I’m talking about here. These little places in remote spots have actual chefs preparing meals that rival anything you might find in a swankier place in a city. For example, we recently had a lunch that consisted of “coriander carrot, curried parsnip with basil and croutons” soup and “Portobello mushrooms with minced Thai chicken in hoi sin sauce.” And that was at the Red Lion pub—our favorite pub—in the miniscule village of Stodmarsh—one of our favorite miniscule villages—five miles—twenty minutes by bike—outside of Canterbury. There are others, too—The Wool Pack Inn in Chilham, The Half-Moon and Seven Stars in Preston, The Duck Inn in Pett Bottom—where we stopped—typically during a bicycle journey—and dined royally and reasonably. We also found the country and village pubs to be warm and welcoming, with owners and staff who seem to truly love their places and their work. I wish there were something comparable at home, but our “native” bars just don’t have the same atmosphere, I’m afraid.

5. Canterbury: The novelist Virginia Woolf said, “There is no lovelier place in the world than Canterbury,” and we have to agree wholeheartedly. From the very first time we walked into the city centre on our first day here back in September, I have felt that we are living on a movie set—and I don’t mean that pejoratively. Outside of Disneyworld, where it is all a brilliant fabrication, I’ve never been to a place with more charm or character than Canterbury. From the towering presence of the cathedral to the narrow, winding cobblestone streets, the bustling crowds on High Street, the crooked houses with their chimney pots, the riverside parks, the city walls and tall stone gates, this is an amazing place to live. And to add to its allure, it is a compact city; everything a person needs or wants is within a few minutes’ walking distance. Maybe it was that we knew our time here was short, but we have taken in this place like no other place we have ever lived and will miss it in a way we have missed no other place.

4. The Cathedral: It’s hard to explain the feelings I have for this magnificent structure. Every morning, when I look out of our bedroom window, it is there: tall and solid and ancient. Every evening, I can see it lit up against the black night sky when I get ready for bed. I’ve never lived before in a place where a single building so dominates not only the skyline but the life of the city as well, but the Canterbury Cathedral does just that. Each day, there are hundreds of pilgrims clustered outside the gates, snapping photos and waiting their chance to tour the building, to follow the last, frantic moments of the life of Thomas Beckett and to see the place where he was murdered, to walk through the dark quiet of the crypt, to see the tombs of kings and princes and archbishops and to wander around the ruins outside. We have spent many hours in the cathedral, showing friends around or attending evensong (last week, we had the good fortune to get tickets to a stunning evening of Christmas music performed by the students of Christ Church University), and I suspect it will be one of the last—if not the very last—place we visit before leaving at the end of this week.

3. Pace of Life: Slower. That’s the best way to describe life in Canterbury, but that doesn’t mean it is not active or vibrant. Rather than drive to the grocery store, we walk or take our bicycles. When we want to go to the city centre, we walk. When we go to school, we walk. At mealtime, we don’t throw something in the microwave; we take the time to prepare and cook good meals. We’ve both been reading voraciously, and we rarely turn on the television. There’s no sense of rushing, no need to rush. Granted, we don’t have bundles of student papers to grade or lessons to plan, so the stress level is considerably lower and we have more time, but we are hopeful that we can hang on to at least some of this way of life when we get home, even though we both know how easy it can be to slip back into old habits. With that in mind, we’ve made a pact that our first and preferred mode of transportation will be walking and that we will continue to make our “at home” time as comfortable and relaxing and fulfilling as it has been here.

2. Countryside and Villages: A few weeks ago, Beth said, “I know this country doesn’t belong to me—obviously, I’m a foreigner—but I do feel that the countryside is mine. I don’t feel that way at home.” That may sound odd, but I know just what she means. Here, we have ridden country lanes on our bicycles and have walked public paths for hours, meandering across farm fields and through woods with complete freedom, never fearing that we were trespassing—or would be accused of trespassing—and getting to know the land in a way that is not as easy—or even possible—where we live. Granted, there are well-tended bicycle paths, and I’m sure we’ll use them more than we have in the past, but they are often crowded and, in some way, even more treacherous than the narrow roads we’ve ridden here. I know I’m romanticizing some because we’re about to leave all of this, but there is, quite honestly, something more satisfying about tramping out of town on a well-walked pathway than there is to driving to a forest preserve to take a hike. And it’s very possible that we just not ever tried it before we came here. Maybe it is possible to find a trail that leads us past the shopping malls and the housing developments, across busy highways and out into the countryside. But I really doubt it, and for all of the good things to which we will soon return, I don’t think anything will be able to replace or replicate this part of our experience in England. It is what we will both miss the most and will most look forward to when we return sometime in the future as shorter-term visitors.

1. People: Without question, it has been the people we’ve spent time with here that are the highlight of this trip. We’ve had the good fortune to be traveling with 13 wonderful students from home who have enriched this trip for us on a daily basis. And we’ve developed a fondness for the students in both the Missouri and New York groups as well. I’ve also been lucky enough to have worked with equally wonderful English students, a group which reassuring me that, no matter which side of the ocean, students are students. In addition, we’ve been extremely lucky to have had guests visiting regularly during our stay. We would have enjoyed traveling around on our own, certainly, but being able to share that with family and friends made it even more memorable and transformed us from strangers in this country to residents and tour guides, responsible for knowing what to do and where to go. And, lastly, we have met some truly lovely people while we’ve been here. Our neighbors, Reg and Sylvia Steel, took us under their wings and will, we hope, be coming for a visit, their first, to the States sometime soon. We hope we can be as gracious as they have been. Then there was Martin, from The Bushel Pub in Newmarket, who was such a jovial and enthusiastic host that we had a hard time leaving his place. The Ramblers with whom we hiked the public pathways, the owner of Red Lion in Stodmarsh, every person we met who helped us when we were lost, the driver who brought us to Canterbury, the driver who took us back to Gatwick when the kids flew home, every person we worked with at Canterbury Christ Church University, even the bearded busker whose gravelly voice made me drop coins in his hat every time we heard him in the city centre…without all—without any—of these people, our time here would have been diminished.

And so, we get ready to leave. As we re-stuff our suitcases and decide which things will make the trip and which will have to be left behind, we’ve been talking about this remarkable adventure and are incredibly thankful that all the stars that needed to align for us to be here did so. In less than 48 hours, we will drag our bags out of the front door of 25 Monastery and say goodbye to the house and to the city and to the country, and we, no doubt, will be a little misty-eyed when we pull the door shut for the last time. But, as with all good things, there is an end.

It’s time to come home.