**DETOUR**
by Rachael
Stratford-Upon-Avon, England
I wonder how many of our blog readers think we are exaggerating when we say we have at least one detour every day! Today we had three; two due to wrong turnings on our part and here’s the other:
The police told us the road had been closed for a couple of hours and helpfully suggested an alternative route to our destination. Only thing is, everyone else must have been going to the same place and very quickly we found ourselves sitting on a little lane going nowhere. Visions of the Seven Hour Traffic Jam Around Antwerp replayed and it did not take long for us to decide to find our own way to Chippenham. Our smarty-pants route included one of the wrong turn detours, but I still think we arrived sooner than if we had stayed in Da Jam.
When time is at such a premium, why were we so set on going to Chippenham? It’s not exactly a tourist sort of town. There are no big famous anythings. That could be why it was a good place to evacuate young boys to during the war. Today we wanted to find the street, nay the very house, that Grandpa was sent to with Cousin M from Alton, who we met last week. Actually it was not just them – there were three families and a boarder and a few others as well all squeezed in to this semi-detached two-storey home. And when one of the fathers came to visit it tipped the already fragile equilibrium, and so Grandpa and his brother would be sent to sleep next door, something they never complained about as the beds were big and comfortable and there was a BATH. This is the house that had a ledge just below the second storey window, from which Grandpa and the same brother used to jump onto the back lawn when their mother went out. They had read that jumping from eight feet was good preparation for learning to parachute, so this ledge seemed a gift to young boys – how obvious a place to practise! This was also the house from which they pushed Baby Cousin C in a pram – sometimes at the park at the end of the street, sometimes in a nearby woods, usually on a Sunday morning, always far faster than Baby C’s mother would have approved of. Baby C survived, moved to America and now has grown children of her own.
So the stories started flowing again.
Jgirl14 observed eagerly, gathering information for the story she is writing based on Grandpa’s World War Two experiences. Grandpa is collaborating with her, having drawn some illustrations for the story (will it perhaps even be a book?) and so we took a mug shot of the two of them together to go on the back cover one day. You can read the first draft of the first chapter HERE if you wish.
But Chippenham was not the final destination for the day. We still needed to take another wrong turning and head towards Stratford-Upon-Avon. I had high expectations for this town, having heard how wonderfully beautiful it is, but it was already late by the time we arrived and so I cooked dinner while the others walked. Look at what they saw:
Tomorrow Aunty and Grandpa hire a car and take off solo for a quick stint further north; we’ll have time to savour Stratford. We might even do it without a detour!
(Postscript: pouring rain tomorrow means Rob will deliver Aunty and Grandpa to their rental car while the rest of us blob in the Bear Cave….they will pull out of our lane and choose the wrong one of two possible turnings….moments later they will return somewhat sheepishly andproceed on the correct road!!!! I told you we have to detour every day.)
Time on the road: need to check Jboy13’s record!
Distance covered: 160km
Tags: 2008/09, book, children, grandpa's stories, history, housing, postcard: England, transport
rayres
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