The next day we leave for England and I close and lock the door on all the renovations and I am well pleased. We drop our hire car off outside Venice, there's no one to check for damage, we just park and drop the keys into a box. The daughter suggests we're close to Venice proper since we have the rest of the day to fill in and it takes me a while to process the change. It's strange that I'm suddenly thrown by the change of plans, we were going to hang out in the hotel and then suddenly this vista opens and I realise I am not good with last minute plan changes but I am determined to change that about myself so off we go.
Best decision ever! Even though the sudden heat of Venice assails us after the mountains, we sit by a canal and have a Cynar Spritz (artichoke digestive and prosecco) with some cichetti (little rounds of toast with gorgonzola, walnuts and balsamic cream) and life is good.
We arrive in England to a bustling airport and then we’re on the bus to get the hire car and three hours later, we arrive in Bath. We wander the streets but it seems decimated since we were here last, empty shops and a desolate feel whether from the pandemic or Brexit, I don’t know. We dine at our favourite Bills restaurant, which is a franchise here but although it looks beautiful, it used to sell beautiful biscuit tins and jam and doesn't anymore and my favourite shop of all time - Cath Kidston has shut down 61 stores here.
But we have a lovely B&B just out of the city centre and the owner tells us his family is Italian and comes from the Dolomites. The next day, after a good breakfast, we head towards the Botanic gardens, the daughter’s decision. I think we’ll regret it if it’s anything like the centre but it is absolutely beautiful. Full of flowers, flowering trees, squirrels, birds and the daughter finds a stone with a tiny shell fossil on a pathway of pebbles. Spring in England is magical. The grass is full of small pinkish white daisies where the squirrels pause to nibble on something they’ve found. We wander for an hour before the next 3 hour trip that we’re embarking on.
Lyme Regis is the focal point of the trip. We are on the search for ammonites. And they are in Lyme, in abundance, according to reports and of course, the movie itself. It’s a three hour trip according to the map but it seems longer. English drivers do the right speed, like the Austrians and I’m used to doing at least 10 over so as not to upset the Italians. But here the highways go quickly from one speed to another and it's usually to a slower one.
We stop off mid way at the beautiful little village of Stoke-Sub-Hamden where we have the best home made scones and homemade jam at Katy’s Bakes. It’s like stepping into a 1940’s movie set, Kate is even wearing an apron and she’s playing old songs. Next door they’re re-thatching a roof! I didn’t know it was still done and made of bundles of straw.
Next, on the way to Lyme we stop at a fossil beach, Charmouth. We know it is one, because fossil people are in isolated groups hunched over like birds, hammers in hand, checking for rocks. We find a place that probably thirty other people have vacated and have a dig around. Nothing. But we do find ammonites in huge rocks that sadly we have to leave and then we head towards Lyme Regis.
Lyme is a special place for me because of an old movie, The French Lieutenants Woman with Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. It was an all time favourite and hauntingly beautiful and so I embarked on a trip to England just to go there and stand on the cob as they call the man made structure around the small port, where Meryl stood and gazed out wistfully across the sea. I’m so excited to show Venetia. But this time I see it differently, ammonites are everywhere, in shops, on the ground, in mosaics, in museums and shops. I think they're having their time again because of the other movie, Ammonite.
But how things have changed. A huge parking lot at the top of the hill, which is good as the narrow streets would never cope with the traffic. I remember coming here by bus and alighting and looking for a sign saying: Room to rent. And finding one up a narrow flight of stairs in the middle of the town with a lovely lady. Now we had a room booked which turned out to have a few issues and so did the parking as it wouldn’t accept our credit cards and the cash machine wasn’t working. So up and down the hill we went to keep checking on it.
Finally we headed for the nearest hotel for fish and chips and a gin and tonic. And then for a walk along the rocky beach with beautiful stones, the sound of the sea pushing them back and forth was mesmerising but equally noisy. Along the beach were the tiny little painted beach shacks and some of the very old houses had ammonites in the walls and one of them has a down pipe made of wood! We are enthralled. Even the street lamps are ammonites! I remember bringing the daughter back a few years ago and telling her about the ammonites and she was disinterested as a teenager, now we are both slightly obsessed.
Next morning we find a good cafe with excellent coffee just across from the Smugglers Way because Lyme, apart from it’s fossil history, was a place where contraband was smuggled and if a coastguard was spotted they could weight the watertight barrels and trunks with stones and drop them into the sea.
The next day we go to Seatown, a beach of red sand and cliffs, to check out the beach there but nothing. And then we head to the other end of Lyme, past the famous Cobb and wander along a bit and there are the ammonites, big ones but encased in even bigger rocks. I find them first and wave to the daughter only to find she has found a lobster that has been washed ashore and with her lobster skills (from watching people catching lobsters - as you do) is gently taking it back to the sea and encouraging it to swim away. Did I mention that apart from fossils, she loves lobsters?
Then she follows me and we see them everywhere. There is the sound of hammers and people squatting over interesting looking rocks. It is a veritable fossickers paradise. But we don’t find them here, we head across to another beach and we meet a man who has a pocket full of tiny ammonites, he shows us where to find them. Tucked away underneath the big rocks. And there we find gold - an ammonite turned to fools gold and lots of perfect little ones. It's windy and there’s a slight drizzle and we are slightly frozen but oh, so happy!
We return home for a celebratory expensive drink (drinks in England are double the price of the ones in Italy) and to the best Indian in Lyme at La Qilla and then down to the rocky beach where people are sunbaking and swimming and it's 15 degrees. Impressive. The rocks are beautiful colours and I sit and listen to the waves washing over the shingle, the sound is so loud as the stones are sucked back by the waves and delivered again to the shore.
Comments