Day six: 5 May: Salisbury to Surrey and the Unusual Schoolboy Incident

Connie scrambled a good egg but Salisbury eggs were pale bought ones, not nice yellow free range eggs like the Totnes ones. The poor chooks must be on a different diet. Still, the coffee was hot and strong, just like Rodney. After breakfast I ventured in to Salisbury to check out the cathedral as a sight-catching thing, seeing I was in town. As cathedrals go it was quite spectacular, with lovely Gothic arches (I like high Gothic) and plenty of interesting tombs and chapels. People were very small in those days, as they didn’t have Vogel’s bread and Vegemite to build them up nice and strong (like Rodney), so the little men lying around the cathedral were quite short, and had their arms folded nicely across their chests in a sort of penitent pose, perhaps to protect them from vampires. The spire of the cathedral is the highest in Britain so the local people make quite a thing of it, putting it on all kinds of tacky souvenirs to sell to sight-catchers like me, but I wasn’t sucked in. In fact it is so high that it put a bit of stress on the marble pillars holding it up, and you can actually see the bends in them as they strain to take the weight of the spire. Don’t let anyone tell you marble won’t bend, because it does. Apparently the foundations are only four feet deep, but set in wet gravel, which rather bafflingly keeps the whole thing steady. Apparently the gardener has to water underneath the cathedral every day in case the gravel dries out and the whole thing collapses. I just hope there is never a drought in Wiltshire or the gardener gets sick.

The Magna Carta was housed off to the side of the main building. It was written in 1215 in Latin, so I couldn’t read all of it, just the bits about tables, masters, and love, which is about as far as I got in Latin. I have often wondered why the early Romans were so pre-occupied with tables, masters and love, and daren’t ponder on this too much in case I form the wrong conclusion. Still, it was good to check it, and it’s reassuring to know that even in those days people learned Latin at school, just like I did.

After that I went back and had another look at Stonehenge, but there were still heaps of people perving at it and the weather was freezing, so after a quick circumnavigation, Very Worried, Francoise and I headed off to Leatherhead to the conference hotel. We weren’t going to get caught staying in the wrong hotel again, so I wanted to arrive a day early. We got to Horlsey Park at about 3pm and were devastated to discover that I wasn’t accommodated in the castle. I nearly turned around and went home, but then I remembered that I had promised my boss I would give a paper at the CHME conference, so I decided to stay. The room wasn’t the best, being at the entrance where people could perve in and see me parading around in my next to nothings, so they gave me a room change and I went upstairs. Quite frankly, I think this was a sensible move, as the complaints my next to nothings would have generated with other customers would not have been easy to deal with. By the time I had unpacked and ironed my clothes, done some washing, and generally sorted everything out, it was getting on towards 4pm. It was about then I discovered I had donated my power adaptor to the Salisbury B&B, and would therefore be unable to use my laptop, clean my teeth, or check my Blackberry until I got a replacement. So Very Worried, Francoise and I headed into Guildford to buy a new adaptor and return Very Worried to the rental car company. All went quite well until I ignored Francoise’s instructions and wound up doing rather repetitive circles in the middle of Guildford. It was busy and difficult to find my way out. Very Worried was true to her name. I eventually asked Francoise to take me to the nearest point of interest (which turned out to be a railway station), and waited for her instructions about how to get out of the inner circle. ‘Phew’ said very Worried and Me, as we changed lanes and eased out of the middle of Guildford. We were a bit on edge about inner circles after our visit to Stonehenge.

Because I was running out of time, I took Very Worried to her depot, and then decided to return directly to the conference castle by train, so asked Francoise to take me by foot to the closest railway station. En route she kindly guided me past a local Curry’s shop, which contrary to expectations sold electronic supplies, and was not even remotely connected with India or saag dahl. I bought myself a nice new adaptor, walked to the local railway station, and took a train to East Horsley, which is how I encountered the Unusual Schoolboy Incident (USI).

As I sat there quietly doing my knitting and observing people come and go at each station, a gaggle of dapper schoolboys got on, and sat in my carriage (I guess that's obvious - I would hardly be reporting a USI that happened in the next carriage!) I clenched my teeth in anticipation of the kinds of conversations I would have to listen to, as I am used to the school boys on the Auckland trains. They usually talk loudly (Mondays are worst) about who they had sex with, how much they drank in the weekend (extra kudos if they threw up or passed out), how stupid their parents are, and sometimes how fast they drove their father's car, narrowly missing getting captured by the local constabulary. But these boys were very strange. They were chattering about some kind of bail out of Greece, and how Greece should not perhaps have been admitted to the Euro-club, though not all agreed, and some had counter arguments that appeared to have some logic to them. They were citing share prices and talking about CPIs and other acronyms I hadn't met, and generally arguing quite excitedly. I decided they had been set a group assignment and were in opposite teams, but as I listened I realised they were having proper conversations about proper things and were actual dapper privately schooled well educated youths who fully expected to be running the country or at least a profitable organisation within it, either before they left school or shortly after. I put away my knitting and got out a crossword puzzle.

On arrival at East Horsley, Francoise kindly guided me past the local curry shop, where I celebrated my safe return and bought some channa dahl for my tea. So it all worked out. Francoise and I were quite sad to say goodbye to Very Worried, but happy we could still walk around and have adventures. I changed her settings though, to make sure she didn't take me on the motorway.

In due course I went to bed and watched a crappy movie before falling happily asleep in my very comfortable bed, even though it wasn’t in a castle.