The Horror of the M6 and The Tranquility of Burnham

Yes, things have been quiet
on the blog front recently and that’s because I managed to leave my iPad on our Gatwick to Kraków flight. We haven’t given up yet, and I had the next entry for Yorkshire stored on it, so we’re leapfrogging ahead to the next stop and hope to plug the hole later. Photos for Yorkshire and Essex are posted in the galleries.
After 5 stormy days up North, we have to transfer to County Essex, NE of London, which means a 5-6 hour motorway journey down to and around the Capitol. The M6 is being upgraded to be a “Smart Motorway” which boils down to endless road construction. After a fairly grim first hour we’re “relieved” to find out that our problem was, primarily, a travel trailer which had lost a wheel. Happy Day! Not so happy for the senior hippie sitting by his caravan, hope he got sorted quickly. We’re also happy that we weren’t Northbound that day as that was the longest traffic jam we’ve ever seen, which is saying something.
Somewhat shellshocked, we make it off the M25 London Orbital motorway band and head off into Essex.  Essex gets a bad rap for being the least glamorous and affluent “home” county, meaning the counties directly adjacent to the Greater London area, but it has its good points. In addition to the Thames, other rivers such as the Blackwater and Crouch empty into the North Sea resulting in extensive waterways and wetlands. These places are not on the way to anywhere big so the flatlands are quiet backwaters with big skies, a world away from the big city.
We’re meeting our old friend Carole to stay at the Creeksea Place Barns, farm buildings converted to vacation units overlooking the River Crouch. We’re in need of relaxation and physical recovery so this place will fit the bill exactly. Given this, the first order of business is to go down the pub in Burnham-on-Crouch to see some live rock’n’roll…….The geezers aren’t bad and bang out some Blur, Kaiser Chefs, Fratellis and Small Faces before giving up and placating the regulars with their weekly dose of Johnny B. Goode and “I saw her standing there”.

We’re in Europe, where the history comes from, so it’s time to do a castle, Colchester being the case in point. Although the existing castle is, primarily, Norman dating from the 11th century, there are artifacts here going back to the Neolithic period.  In fact, Colchester is the oldest recorded town in Britain.  Moving forward we have the Roman occupation of Colchester, or Camilodunum, as it was known then, by Emperor Claudius who built a temple there, the foundations of which still remain under the current castle. R 
The famous Celtic Queen Boudicca led an attack on the Roman city, destroying everything and slaughtering everyone, but the rebellion did not last for long and the Romans regained control. The mayhem continued over the centuries as Saxons, Vikings and Normans did what invading armies do. The Siege of Colchester in 1648, during the Second English Civil War, is another noteworthy historical blood stain with the starving Royalists surrendering and their leaders executed on the castle grounds. And then there was the plague of 1665 and around the same time, the evil administration of Matthew Hopkins, the infamous Witchfinder General, who was responsible for the deaths of over 200 “witches”Good times!

On a happier note, rumor has it that Hopkins was himself accused of being a witch and drowned.  These days Colchester is undergoing significant regeneration which, given its bloody history, is only fair.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch we take it easy for a couple of days enjoying the scenery and taking long walks along the riverfront and through the fields into the small town of Burnham-on-Crouch.  Burnham does show up in Ian Dury’s song “Billericay Dickie”, but is otherwise known as a boating town and there are some impressive yachts in the marina.

We get an earful in the boatyard from a geezer who assures us he built his boat from scratch himself, a 40 ton container landed on it, hence its current disrepair, and then tries to interest Carole in purchasing said boat while simultaneously bemoaning the state of the nation, wishing extremely bad things on the owners of another nearby marina and name dropping famous East End gangster “firms” of Kray and Richardson. We nod our heads, do not take the bait and carefully shuffle away.

After three relaxing days we’re off to see friends around London and, in a parallel timeline, searching for the missing IPad and hoping we don’t get any sicker than we are now.  Nearly a month on the road has worn us down big time.