A Black Hole

Mark has never been crazy about carrying his wallet in his back pocket. But he did it anyway. At least until he lost weight. Now he says it hurts. No doubt it does. He has very little padding and he probably has six months worth of receipts in his wallet. Something is making it fat and he doesn't carry much cash. That leaves receipts and credit cards. Not to mention an iPhone 6 and car keys that have to fit in somewhere.

He thought the solution was to carry his stuff around in a "man bag". He has a very good one that he's had for as long as I've known him. It's been in the closet because it "didn't have enough pockets". He bought another one with more and deeper pockets. While we were in London he struggled with that bag because he could never figure out which pocket his phone was in until he'd missed the call. (Welcome to my world!) So while we were in London, we found a market where they were selling bags. He found one with fewer pockets that weren't quite so deep. It was more of a small briefcase than a man bag. But even though it struck me as a bit on the big side, he seemed happy with it and after transferring all of his "stuff" into the new one he gave his old one to the young man in the booth to dispose of.  (I'd be willing to bet he turned around and sold it to someone else.)

He seemed happy enough with this new bag. Then last Saturday morning while I was on the stationary bike, panic set it. His wallet was not in his bag. He had checked it three times. That was my cue to get off the bike and help him look. He showed me how he'd looked into each compartment of the bag and then run his hand inside. Nothing. I did the same. Nothing.

I called the restaurant where we'd eaten the night before to see if someone had turned in a wallet. I couldn't believe that we could have walked away from the table and left a wallet sitting on it. But I suppose it's happened with phones, why not a wallet? Alas, no one there had seen a wallet.

The only thing left to do? Cancel the credit/debit cards and get a new driver's license. Guess who gets the bulk of that job? And if he could figure out a way for me to get his driver's license for him, I'd have been doing that, too.

Did I mention how fat that wallet was? Probably because there were about a dozen credit cards in it. Business cards. Personal cards. Debit. Credit. Mastercard. Visa. American Express. Home Depot. Macy's. You name it, it was in there.

Lucky for me I keep a list of all the cards along with the last four digits of the account numbers just because the mail carrier we have here is a bit unreliable. That way if I don't get the bill I can phone them and get a copy sent so I don't incur any late fees or interest charges. The list sure came in handy when I needed to cancel the cards.

But I should have checked the safe drawer because often when we travel, we don't take all of them with us. There were at least three I cancelled unnecessarily. And what I found is that once you cancel them, you can't uncancel them. You just have to wait for the new ones to arrive. Only one card qualified for free overnight delivery. If I'd paid to have the others overnighted it would have cost a small fortune. Fortunately not all of our accounts are joint so I was left with about three cards that I could still use. He had none. I guess he wasn't going to go anywhere without me.

Right after I'd cancelled those dozen cards, which was the safe thing to do because even if we got everything back, someone could have written the numbers down and could have a really good time shopping online. We also decided to sign him up for Lifelock. There's just too much information in your wallet that could be really useful to an identity theif. I phoned them up and while they were trying to up-sell me, Mark came into the room waving his wallet. I would accuse him of not looking very closely except I'd have to accuse myself of the same thing and that's just not possible. That mini briefcase definitely has a black hole in it. Things go in and you are truly fortunate if they come back out. As a consequence, the mini briefcase has been reassigned to the closet and  the old man bag has resumed it's duties.

So far so good.

What Was He Looking At?

In the past we've stayed at some pretty quaint awful places. I've written about them. You can go back through my archives and find most of them. But after the last fiasco, we decided that we'd only stay in places that have good TripAdvisor ratings. Mark assured me this place had a good TripAdvisor rating.

We really didn't want to stay in a hotel this time. The primary reason is that you don't have as much control over what you eat when you stay at a hotel. You end up eating a mammoth cooked breakfast. And it's the same stuff every day. (Okay, I might eat yogurt and granola almost every day but at least I switch it up with the flavors. You can't do that with bacon and eggs!)  Even though there's more choice for lunch and dinner, the food almost certainly has too much fat and too many calories. 

Also, the primary purpose of this trip was to attend a funeral. We wanted to have a bit more room so we could go through the boxes of Mark's dad's memorabilia.

A caravan seemed like the ideal solution. It would give us a bit more room and we'd have a kitchen where we could prepare our own meals. Mark found a place in St. Osyth Beach Holiday Park. The Holiday Park concept may be uniquely British.  It's similar to a campground except all of the units are static - they don't move. It's really not the same as a mobile home park in the US because most US mobile home parks require skirting, decking, and a certain degree of landscaping. Some of these units have those features, but most do not.

This particular park featured an indoor pool, restaurant, bar, and nightly entertainment. It sort of reminded me of a cruise ship. The "entertainers" wore a number of hats. In addition to singing and dancing, they also conducted trivia quizzes and called out the numbers for Bingo. We wandered over to play trivia a couple of times. The food was the typical pizza, burger, and fries - not really on our diet. Besides the place was heaving with kids because it was a school holiday week. On the plus side, we could step out the door and see the seawall. The beach is just the other side of the seawall. However, it was October and we had no desire to put our toes in the sand. It was a short (3.1 mile walk to Clacton Pier. The negative was that most of that walk was through Jaywick - a topic I discussed a few days ago.

But let's get back to the unit we rented. It was absolutely the worst. If we hadn't paid in advance and been trying to deal with a death in the family, we wouldn't have stayed.

We had to pay extra for bed linens. Towels weren't available at any price. Fortunately, my mother-in-law was kind enough to loan us some towels.

The carpet was 50 shades of gray. Looks like its original color may have been beige. Keep your shoes on! The fabric on the sofa cushions was several shades darker than the same fabric on the base. There was obviously a moisture problem. There were small plastic bowls of salt positioned at the tops of the curtain rods throughout the unit. The bathroom had carpeting in it which I believe retains some of that unwanted moisture. When you stepped out of the shower, you stepped onto a small throw rug that was perpetually cold and damp. The floor beneath it was spongy and gave you the sensation that the next time you stepped on it, you could end up going through the floor. The shower was a bit moldy. You just tried not to touch anything. Fortunately, neither of us has a mold allergy.

There was stuff junk stashed on top of the kitchen cabinets. There were plenty of dishes, but no more than two matching ones. We only had one tea towel so we had to leave the dishes to dry in the rack. The mirror covering the inspection panel also showed signs of moisture damage.

I wanted to run the vacuum cleaner. I found one in the closet but it was being held together by duct tape so I decided against using it. When you plugged in the tea kettle, as you do in England, it would throw the breaker. Mark had to go outside to reset it. One time when he went out to do this, I was in the shower. That's when he noticed that the water from the shower was emptying out onto the concrete pad. It was not going down any pipe. At least this problem didn't extend to the black water.

The bedroom was small. (The two we didn't use were even smaller.) The neighbors were typically up yelling at each other well past midnight. While the oven worked, the broiler did not.

The decor, if you can call it that, appeared to be late 20th century garage sale. The TV did not work at all, which wasn't surprising since it looked like a 1980s model. Big huge thing - not a flat screen.

And it wasn't what I'd call cheap. We could have stayed in a modern hotel for less. I'm not sure what's up with TripAdvisor. I tried to find the reviews for this place so I could see what Mark was looking at when he booked it, but I couldn't find it. In the future, I want to see how many reviews the reviewer has actually written. I suspect the stellar reviews on this place were written by the owners relatives.

Check it out:

50 Shades of Gray

Bowl of salt on the top of the curtain rail

"Stuff" on top of the kitchen cabinets

Dirty filter

Inside the shower

The bottom of a mirror between the dining and living areas

A Day at the Tower of London

All the times I'd been to London and I'd never actually gone into the Tower of London. I had walked all around it, but never gone inside. As towers go, it just isn't that tall. It's dwarfed by the modern buildings surrounding it. But the crown jewels are inside. And the Tower figures heavily in many of the historical novels I'm so fond of. Oddly enough, Mark had never been inside it, either. It was time.

The Thames has been diverted away from the tower and the moat is no longer filled with water but as you can see, there's still a bit of water by the Traitor's Gate.

The Tower was not just a prison. It was also used by monarchs as a fortress and safe haven during troubled times. This is the chapel attached to the king's bedchamber.

 I was surprised to learn that the beefeaters are all former military who served with distinction and that they, along with their families, live inside the Tower. You can see some of the residences in the background of this photo.

The Tower Green is where some of the more famous prisoners, like Ann Boleyn were beheaded. As I understand it, it was an honor to be executed inside the confines of the Tower. The common criminals were executed somewhere outside the city. There is a memorial there with the names of all those who were executed on the Tower Green. Interestingly, Henry the VIII was responsible for almost all of those executions.

The crown jewels. We didn't see them. This is why. Very long line with a wait time to match.  Besides, it gives us a reason to go back.

Lots of history. And like Windsor Castle, it's in really good condition to be as old as it is.

Not to mention the really great view from the wall.

A good visit!

Fighting Back

Nearly everyday we walked along the seafront from St. Osyth Beach to Clacton Pier. It's just over three miles and it takes you through Jaywick. It seems that Jaywick has gained some notoriety having recently been featured targeted on a reality show that exposes benefits (welfare) fraud.

It also seems that Jaywick is the poorest, most deprived areas in the UK. And some Jaywick residents have taken exception to this. There was a home made banner flying over one of the central streets - "Proud Jaywick Fights Back". At least they spelled it correctly, unlike the sign posted by the local council warning that only "athorised" parking was allowed.

I'm not clear on how Jaywick is fighting back. I'm going to suggest a plan of attack. Start by cleaning up. As you walk from St. Osyth to Clacton, if you look to your right you see the sea.

If you look to the left, you see a street like this one.

But you can only walk an average of 20 steps between dog poop on the pavement, so you are better off to keep your head down. If the proud people of Jaywick think that people won't notice the sad condition of the houses because they are forced to keep their heads down to avoid stepping in the poop (or the broken bottles, broken plastic, broken pottery, abandoned toys, empty snack bags, styrofoam food containers and dumped ashtrays) they are mistaken. It just paints an unflattering picture. And to be truthful, I was always relieved when we got to the golf course without incident. Jaywick is not a place where you feel safe. We would only walk through there in the daytime.

I have sympathy for the homeowners who do take pride in their properties - who have glass instead of plywood in their windows and doors as well as neatly kept gardens. People who don't just throw their broken "stuff" out the door and leave it. Those other folks, whose numbers are way too high, are pulling property values down.

My mother always said that being poor was not an excuse to be dirty. My experience tells me otherwise, but I still like to think Mom was right. Jaywick! Clean it up!

A Visit to Windsor Castle

Even though we'd stayed in Windsor several times before flying home, we'd never managed to get there in time to tour the castle. So this trip we took a day to go to Windsor for the sole purpose of visiting the castle.

If you want to see how the other half lives - (well maybe not the other half - maybe the 1% or maybe not even that many) this is the place. Even more opulent than the Vatican if you can believe it. I could live there. Most definitely. Great house. It's claim to fame is that it's been a "royal residence" since the time of Henry I - over 900 years.

Amazing that it looks so good since it's so old. The ceilings that were burned in the 1992 fire have been restored to their original look and much of the art work escaped damage. Over the years it's been upgraded with all the modern conveniences and while the decor is a bit over the top for my personal taste, it fits the size and purpose of the rooms. If they were going for "impressive grandeur" they certainly achieved it.

Since there were notices advising that photography within the castle was not permitted and I didn't fancy being carted off to the Tower of London, these photos have been pulled from the web but a good representation of what we saw. Except, of course, for the aerial view.