Topless Women Ride Free (not a porn offer, Brendan swears!)

An email out of sequence:

Hello Everybody once more.

I just thought I'd relay our adventures here at Rolls Mills Farmhouse before we moved on into that strange dark land where we have no idea of the locations of any computers.

The first day here we managed to take in the Dorset Steam Fair, an event that showcased ancient steam tractors. Imagine, if you can, rows upon rows of steam tractors, all billowing black coal smoke and white steam high into the air while steam organs pump carnival music out at unimaginable volumes. Next to that is a flea market so big that it sprawls across several fields and it so vast that you can hardly see the other side, or is that the smoke? Next to that still, is a massive carnival midway, filled with shrieking kids, people vomiting from the rides or is that the smoke? Heather, The Brave Traveller, did not react well when I suggested getting a job with the carnival and she just ignored me when I pointed to one of the rides that sported a sign proclaiming "TOPLESS WOMEN RIDE FREE."

We stayed late into the night and forced poor Colin to fight horrendous traffic just to pick us up. We also got the grand tour of Colin's dental practice, a tour that had us both covering our mouths and racing for our toothbrushes as soon as we got home.

The next day we were treated by Colin and Dave, Hayley's dad, to a trip on their motorboat. Heather, despite being a Brave Traveller was teriffied that she would throw up all over the boat, but she didn't feel the least bit queasy. We shall see how she does on the thirty hour ferry ride to Spain. It was very exciting to be on the ocean, salt spray in our hair, wind upon our face, our spines shattering as we leapt from wave to wave, yeah really exciting. Actually we had a really good time, especially racing around one harbour where Colin did not feel like paying his dues and felt we should avoid the harbour partrol! We also got the oportunity that day to see the giant of Cerne Abbas, though not the oportunity to test out his reknown powers. Picture a chalk figure with a phallus around twenty feet long and you can imagine what goes on around him every night. We also got to watch an important English football match were England smashed Germany 5 to 1. Hayley was so excited she was almost through the roof, she was very careful to put down her tea everytime England got near Germany's goal. She sometimes regretted cheering so loudly as she woke up the baby and got to hear another sort of screaming! The highlight of the day was, of course, the chance to sit down and watch American movies on DVD. Travel across all of Canada, a great big ocean, down throught the hills of Wales and what do we do? Watch American movies!

The next day Colin and Hayley raced us about the local countryside, showing us important sites. We took a drive to the stone age fort atop the hill known as the Bulbarrow and got to smell the wonderful english sheep. we also got to see an incredible view over the area as the Bulbarrow is the highest hill in the region. From there we travelled down to the Mill that once served Sturminster Newton. We got a personal tour from the last Millers grandson and we delighted in everything, leaving poor Hayley and Evie (The Baby) waiting in the car and keeping the tour guide well past his quitting time on what turned out to be his wifes birthday. What can we say, we're tourists.

Today Colin took us up to watch him fly his remote control model gliders. Heather was not too excited about watching someone else fly a something. Instead she would rather have sat in the jeep and talked to Hayley about the differences in Candian and British English. Her attitude changed as soon as she saw Colin launch his glider into the turbulent air and sending in practiced swoops over our head. We now know where the shriek of TIE fighters came from. From there we toured outside the Stourhead Gardens, the house was only about the size of the House of Parliment and the replica Pantheon in the back yard only a little lawn ornament. I will be that rich someday, I will, I will, I will!!! Or probably not!

We have greatly enjoyed our time here, resting from our labours. In fact we are so rested that getting going again might be a challenge. The first night was intresting, the soft bed beneath us kept feeling like the ground giving way and I could hardly sleep. Hayley has been a marvel, though she would deny it, she keeps begging off on meals, saying that the baby makes her too tired to do what she would normally, then she puts a full and beautiful meal in front of us. We have gained back any weight we had lost.

Tomorrow we head one, going to visit the other Orman's and the new Forest. In fact we will be switching places with Brian and Sylvia, Mick and Kath and Amy, so if your in Canada and want to see some of the people we are talking about drop by the Fearfull Voyagers parents place. Try not to take too many pictures of them though, they are people too. We will wait around the New Forest (only four hundred years old the forest is, very new if you ask me) for a week or so. Hayley has suggested we visit a medieval festival in Portsmouth, so we will see if we can hijack an Orman or two to go with us. From there we are off to Spain. Spain!! We can hardly belive it will be us going to Spain, it sounds so exotic, and our stomachs clench thinking of going to a county where we know no one. It will be a whole new challenge. They have a completely new brand of funny money that we have to get used to.

We hope to write before leaving but who can say. We are thinking of you all, except maybe you and you and you, so give thought to us now and then. We will try not to rub in how good of a time we are having.

Lots of Love
The Brave Traveller and Fearful Voyager

P.S. Because we have so many people on our address line some email filters think we are junk mail (I hope my writing isn't that bad) or that we have viruses (I've been vacinated I don't know about Heather) (OOOUCH!) and our letters are shunted to other folders. So if you know someone who should be getting our messages but isn't (Hint: look at the people in the address line and see if you recognize any addresses), let them know and tell them to change their settings, its not hard.

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Day 30. Wimbourne still. Sept 5 2001

We slept late, as seems to be our want, then, panniers left behind, we biked back to Kingston Lacy.



It’s a small manor house, but new to us, so we explored it quite thoroughly. The detail work on the heaters, the banisters, all the minute parts of a house that plebs and the rich would normally leave undecorated is amazing, but almost saturating, until the whole display is lost in a saccharine coating.

The paintings were on a similar scale. One room, the dining room, was covered in Rape scenes, which makes one more than a little suspicious. We saw paintings by Titian and Van Dyckand a copy or rough draft of a Velasquez that made Heather gasp so loudly people nearby were alarmed.

The paintings of nude women were more than a little disturbing. Proper women did not pose nude so the artist had to use male bodies as their guide. All the women look like East German weightlifters with breasts.

Especially...interesting... was the painting of a woman fondling her breasts hanging in the lady of the house’s washroom.

Many of the artifacts were collected in “Grand Tours” of Europe, which made me think of our “Grand Tour” which will have few such artifacts but hopefully a big impact.

I was delighted to find, in the collection of Egyptian oddities a statue of the god Hetep baqet, a god of the moringa tree which I can add to my collection of tree gods.

In the gardens we we found an obelisk and sarcophagus stolen from Egyptian sands and many pathways.

  The paths in one section were so well set up for enjoying each others company that they must have been designed with that in mind. Though how they managed to get up those in victorian skirts is beyond me. Necessity is (I suppose) the mother of invention.

I have come to believe that the world needs an aristocracy so that people will sponsor the beautiful things. I only hope to be one of them!!!

However, still a member of the plebian class I , with my paramour, returned to the campsite for our much anticipated dip. The water was warm, at least a good half degree above freezing, and my insane wife plunged in head first while I waded in with trepidation. We enjoyed the water, cold as it was, until freezing temperatures drove us to the warmth of our tent.

Next Entry: Day 31. Holbury
Previous Entry: Day 29. Wimbourne

Day 27. Sept 2 2001

Woke today at noon. Yesterdays rest let us stay awake deep into the night, watching British television and American movies. So we were exhausted this morning. In all honesty I would have preferred spending a day lazing about the house preparing to move on. But we have not come all this way to lie about, so the day was spend sightseeing.

We traveled first to the hill fort atop a local landmark known as the bul barrow.



The sheep flocked here despite hoof and mouth disease and since there was no warning to stay out we felt fairly comfortable around them. It was a beautiful site, drenched in history and a heavy mist. I would have loved to stay longer but we had other things to see today. So we we had a whirlwind tour of the Dorset countryside, with hardly enough time to take it all in.

Finally, on a long plunge down towards Rolls Mills Colin decided that our daytrip was not complete unless we saw the mill in all its glory.

We traveled past the tranquil waters leaving Hayley and baby behind in the land rover and ran into a short balding old man who proceeded to take us on a wonderful tour of the little mill. He delighted in showing us how each machine worked and reciting the history of the place as an antiquarian would recite names and places of ancient battles. He was a descendant of the millers of Sturminster and he loved the history of the place. I delighted to discover that every year the little mill pond flooded, rising eight or nine feet and spilling into the mill. Every year for a thousand years the mills here have flooded and instead of complaining or trying to devise a solution all they have done is take the day off.

Midway through our 45 minute tour Colin remembered wife and baby and ran off. I’m sure he had some explaining to do about what happened to our LITTLE visit to the mill.

It began to mist again as we pulled in from our trip and my mind is now, as it has been since the mist began, atop an ancient fortified village, dancing in the rain.

Next Entry: Day 28
Previous Entry: Day 26

Day 26. The Sea Sept 1 2001

Colin took us out in his boat today.

Though our voyage on the ocean waters was brief it was exhilarating and soothing. Our trip amounted to merely dipping our our toes in almost infinite waters, yet it was easy to see how the ocean had inspired poets through the ages, from Homer to Melville.




The ocean is something so primal that it seeps between heart and gut and grabs hold. Perhaps the memory of it is so deep in our cells that we can never forgets and the sound of crashing waves call us home.



Perhaps the similarity between sea and blood calls out to each other and the rhythm of the sea controls the beating heart. Whatever the attraction it is easy to understand the despair the sea can also evoke, for what writer can find the words to convey all that the infinite sea can define with its mere existence.





Drinking from the wine dark sea was tiring and when we returned to the hard shore our exhaustion was great and we slept through the afternoon, a rest that would have grievous consequences on the nights sleep.

We met Hayley’s parents and found that Hayley's Father and Colin are two men cut from the same cloth. They are both thrilled by anything that is man-made and fast and preferably more than a little dangerous and they love hashing out tiny details.

We drove about Dorset countryside alot today, a most beautiful country. On our trips we passed the Maiden Castle, a native hill fort conquered by the Romans which I would dearly love to explore but for which we did not have time. We did, however, manage to stop at the giant of Cerne Abbas, a great chalk figure carved out of the turf on a hillside, outlined in white. He was well muscles and brandished a club and no one could say his true age. He also sports an enormous phallus, which made him the butt of many jokes but also a fertility symbol of some power and, we were told, was usually populated at night by great herds of beasts with two backs.
We had the strange and slightly surreal experience this evening of watching what was deemed an important football match between England and Germany. Given the energies involved, and the intense emotion, I can only be glad that the two formally warring powers have chosen sport as the ground for their future conflicts.

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