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Now Frying Checking our newly acquired map we found we could indeed go either straight or right at the roundabout. We chose to go right on the quiet country road. In Woodbridge we stopped in a picturesque clean park. With toilets. I liked England. Two park workers busily planted marigolds. A little girl rode past in a wagon pulled by one of the workers. Her arms were folded like a miniature princess. "Ah, bliss," she sighed as she passed. "How was breakfast?" one worker asked. "I had bacon and eggs." "So where are you headed?" the other asked. "Lunch," I replied. On my map, they pointed out where there was "a good pub." An old gent watching them plant flowers said they must be hoping for rain. "We'll let these blokes get their tent set up first," one worker said. I noticed a dark stain on my handle bar bag and wondered how I got grease on it way up there. When I went to put on Pyralvex, the rhubarb extract for my cold sore, I discovered what was making the stain. Apparently, when I used the medicine in the dark the night before, I screwed the cap back on askew. The bottle had fallen over and dumped its contents. We meandered along quiet country lanes, getting lost a couple of times, passing a tree that looked like a craggy old face with a bad hair day and tobacco juice oozing out of its mouth. At noon we passed a restaurant with a sign out front reading: Now Frying. It was a fish and chip place and they had take-out. I got into the lineup. It was a one man operation. The fryer resembled Popeye and was doing both frying and waiting on tables. From a bucket of batter he poured a generous amount into a bread loaf tin, then dipped the fish and plopped the battered hunk into one of three deep fryers. Fresh potatoes were pre-cut into chips and he dumped them in too. While the fish and chips were frying he took orders, wrapped fish and chips in newspaper and took money. He was busier than a one armed paper hanger. The restaurant side had customers too, so he divided his time between those of us in the lineup and the folks in the dining room. As I neared the front of the line I listened intently to what other people were saying when they placed their order. There wasn't any menu board or price list. I couldn't understand what they were saying. That was English? I guessed it was pretty straight forward. Fish. Chips. Fish and chips. There. That about covered it. Next. When it was my turn I asked for one fries and two fish. It came to $8. So if I were working for England's minimum wage it would have taken me almost two hours to pay for lunch. A lineup of customers were in front of me when I arrived and fifteen minutes later when I received my order there was a lineup of customers behind me. No one seemed to mind paying eight bucks for a couple of greasy fish. The fish was bland tasting (especially after raw herring) but salsa ketchup spiced it up. I didn't know what the English were making all the fuss about. Country lanes were narrow. They were about the right size for bike paths. Whenever we heard a tractor approaching we quickly pulled off and waited for it to pass. They took up the entire lane plus some of the hedge. We followed the lanes to Dunwich, a former town by the sea. Storms had eroded the chalk cliff and Dunwich fell into the sea. Some years only one foot of land would fall in, others thirty feet would disappear. Over the years about a mile of the land had been washed away. Dunwich used to have an important natural trading harbour but a huge storm filled it in. A story making the rounds was that the entire town of Dunwich had fallen into the sea one stormy night and now, on lonesome sea tossed nights, one could hear the church bells tolling beneath the waves. John said that it was impossible to hear church bells because they were valuable and had been removed long before any of the churches fell into the sea. But it made for an interesting tale. While it was raining we explored the museum. It was still raining when we came out. We went to find a grocery store, but Dunwich was mainly a tourist attraction. The next town on our map showed more promise since it had a couple more dots. Arriving there we found that the only grocery store was combined with the post office. It was closed and it was still raining. Looking for a camp spot we cycled down a dead-end road leading to trees beside a pond. We set up with a view of the water. Sharon filtered from the pond and we made tea that tasted okay. For some reason, we were both extremely tired. Sleep came quickly. |
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