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2001-11-26 - 11:32 a.m. U.K. Day 6: Poohsticks! After breakfast at Le Brunch, Beth deicdes she's tired of my humming 'Horse with no name' and other filk variants insulting the lack of British road signs (cause they'll tell you where you're going, but not what road you are actually on which makes map girl's life hard cause you can't use a map unless you know 'you are here'). So she nips back to the flat for her copy of "Man of La Mancha." Damn diaries - she knows that will get stuck in my head. We load the car and decide to drive down the hill to the grocer's which has a convenient car park, grab snacks and adventure forth. Gridlock on Tooting High Street. The turn into the car park is completely blocked, so Beth tries the circle the block theory. Buses block the back entrance and the entire interchange. I loose patience and hop out of the car. Promising to meet them at the front, I head to Sainsbury's. Cash machine stop, check. Beverages and snacks, check. Cough sweets for Beth, check. Stop dead and stare at the clown. In the middle of the bread aisle I find a clown doing his marketing. Full white face, bulbous read noise, yellow polka dot hat, plaid mustard and purple check suit. When he turns around, you can see his name on the back of the coat - 'Garibaldi'. How is it possible I can find a clown with the same name as my cat in a British grocery? I complete the shopping list and still no Rob and no Beth. I check out and wait at the front. And wait. And wait. And begin to panic. Stay where you said you'd be, stay where you said you'd be. 25 minutes later, I couldn't stand it and head to the car park. I run smack into Beth coming round the corner. Apparently, the neighborhood was so gridlocked it took them half an hour to get back. Finally, we are underway for Ashdown Forest in the Sussex/Kent area south of London. Ashdown was the near the home of A.E. Milne, author of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, and inspired the Hundred Acre Woods. Today, you can find 'Eeyore's Gloomy Place', 'The Enchanted Spot' and 'Poohsticks Bridge' along the forest trails. The directions I have point us to Hartfield and recommend we find the shop "Pooh Corner" which was the favored sweets shop of young Christopher Robin Milne. This involves a bit of Zen driving towards Hartfield and along High (Main) street, but we find the shop. Now it sells all the Pooh merchandise in the world, and will provide maps through the Hundred Acre Woods and rules for playing Poohsticks. It also provides a new stuffed tigger - we'll call him Ash for the forest. It is a perfect day for hiking. With Ash and R.K. tucked in coats and packs, three humans and two stuffed animals set out through perfect English autumn day. [You didn't think we were leaving the stuffed animals in the car, did you? This is Pooh forest] It's about a twenty minute hike from the car park to the bridge. Allow extra time for pausing to scrounge for appropriate sticks. You need a good supply on hand for Poohsticks and, oddly enough, there aren't many sticks near the creek. We pause for a brief pit stop (Mind the holly bushes), wind through the forest, across the public road, down the bridle path and, finally - Pooh bridge. For anyone that doesn't know how to play Poohsticks, I'll summarize the rules. *Each player takes a stick. *Players present their chosen stick to each of the participants so all players may recognize which twig belongs to which player. Bits of ribbon are recommended if it gets too confusing. If there's too many players, tie the ribbon on both the sticks and the players, so they may be matched. *Sticks are dropped in on the upstream side of the bridge. *All the players make a mad dash to the downstream side of the bridge and scans the water anxiously. The first stick out from under the bridge wins. Pooh bear invented this game in one of the stories - Pooh and Piglet were playing. Eventually, various animals end up in the water thanks to bouncy tiggers. After ten sticks, we finally decide to read the entire rule book and discover throwing sticks in the creek is considering cheating (Wendy! ... Um, Sorry Beth.) and you should synchronize the drop with a countdown of 'Ready-Steady-Go!' Hey! The ready-steady bit makes this work much better! says Beth. We have decided Owl is Beth's inner Pooh animal. Dan (the guy with the sausage) is most decidedly a Rabbit. With various delays, we exit Ashdown forest at almost 1 pm. We decide, regretfully, we'll have to give up on an afternoon in Canterbury - it'll just take too long to drive over. Instead, we settle down for a superb lunch at a local pub, Anchor Inn, which served the best cream and broccoli soup I've ever had in my life. Beth had an English ploughman's lunch - a delicious assortment of unique cheese, chutney's and salad. It was kind of like a snack plate. The balance of the afternoon we spend at Hever Castle, because it's on the way home. It's the ancestral home of the ill-fated Queen Anne Boelyn. At the turn of the century, it was purchased by the Astor family who went on a mad Victorian restoration kick. The probably with Victorian's is they get it correct-ish. Hmmm, we don't know if the Tudor era Hever castle had a dropped ceiling in the dining room, but we know Hampton court did, so let's copy that. It is gorgeous and the ground are amazing. The Astor's had a lake dug out and built extensive gardens to house their priceless collection of Italian statuary. Sunset by the late was incredible. Still water like glass reflecting a Raphael scene of sunset. Nothing moving through the picture perfect twilight except a couple ducks gliding on the surface. We wind our way through the hedgerows of England's B roads in the gathering dusk. Anyone feel like we've just entered Sleepy Hollow? Beth cackles evilly from the back seat. We put in the soundtrack to 'Man from La Mancha' and drive through the dark English night. Back to London, drop the car at Beth's and catch the Tube to the local Shire meeting. The pub was so smoky you could cut the air, so we ended up leaving after Beth said brief hellos. Several of the Drachenwald folk we'd met at Pennsic joined us, including Lucrezia (Tina) and Helena (the lovely lady from South Africa who's working in London for the month). We beat feet for Milroy's because Milroy's is a fabulous whiskey shop (happy Theo) and it features one of the best tasting bars in the world in the basement (ecstatic Theo). What more could I ask than to finish a superb ramble through Pooh forest with several drams of amazing Scotch? The bartender is (thank you god) extremely knowledgeable about Scotch which is a welcome change from ordering from wait staff who can't pronounce Islay much less Bunnahabain. We lingered for about forty-five minutes then rounded up several bottles for transport home. This would be one helluva place for a Scotch party - it would get expensive with 4 to 6 pounds per dram, but that's really a bargain. For 6 pounds (9 bucks U.S.) you can taste bottles worth $40 to $200. Anyone who's a fan of Islay's should keep an eye out for the just launched 'Lord of the Isle's' bottling from Islay's Ardbeg distillery - 25 year old. Anyone that adores Theo should get her a bottle for Christmas. Okay - it's 100 quid (pounds), way too expensive for presents - just send your love. Anyone who ever finds a 1966 bottling of Glenturret should buy it and I'll pay you back. Of course, we're going to visit Glenturret and I might get lucky... Tina, fabulous native guide, herds the party to Savoir Faire for a lovely French dinner, 11 pounds for two courses, so not bad for central London. I recommend it if you're ever near Tottenham Court tube stop - no I can't give directions, I was just following Tina. It was nifty chatting with the Drachenwald folks over dinner. The SCA varies greatly Kingdom to Kingdom, but can you imagine playing in South Africa? We whine about the drive across Atlantia, but at least we can get anywhere in 11-12 hours maximum. Imagine South Africa, which is a six hour flight or more from the next closest group. And you go everywhere on planes. Our medieval furniture, pavilions, chests - no hope of transporting those. On the plus side, Drachenwald usually provides sites that are actually castles or houses from period and you leave in a research rich environment. We got to bed way too late, but I wouldn't have missed a minute of the day. � � � 
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