How to describe the boxed area of Southeast England, with London and the Thames on the north and the sea on the other sides? It’s often referred to as the garden of England, but here’s a more emblematic analogy: The Shire. Yes, from J.R.R. Tolkein’s tale of hobbits, dwarves, elves and others. The hobbits live in The Shire, a bucolic farmland of hard-working, fun-loving little people with hearts of gold, endless appetites, and steel spines. The Shire represents a pre-industrial idyll of England, standing athwart the grime and poverty of the coming industrial revolution.
Cranbrook is a small town that fancies itself the capital of the Weald, an Old English term referring to this vast woodland area. It’s a teeny capital: just a few streets, only one real intersection, not even a stop sign, less a traffic light. We’re staying on High Street (American translation: Main Street), about a block from the all the action, that is, the intersection. There is a fine collection of pubs and restaurants, all terribly quaint, a grocery co-op immediately behind the house, and walking trails and nature reserves galore.
First Alicante, then Madrid, then London, now (wait for it) . . . Cranbrook? One of these things is not like the others, as they used to sing on Sesame Street. What are we doing here? Last year, I promised my dear wife we would get a dog sometime during the year. As the year wore on, and we looked at our travel plans (including the near-future ones), Judy came to the conclusion we simply couldn’t get a dog right now. We’re traveling a lot, because we still can, but soon a day will come when we can’t (travel, that is). So she forwent her immediate dog fancy.
In exchange, she countered with a novel idea: perhaps we could rent a dog. Not literally, but figuratively. We joined an international house-sitting website which matches people wiling to take care of other’s pets in exchange for staying in the owner’s home, free. No money exchanges hands, but the owner gets a vacation free of worry about their pet and the pet-sitter gets to “live in” rather than just visit a new place. I readily agreed, as long as we could fit it into our existing plans.
Judy started applying for “sits” in the UK in June, as we had plans for Alicante already set, and we just held off on scheduling our return flight, which we were using points to fly on Virgin Airways, Heathrow to Los Angeles. But we were planning months early, and many people don’t even post their requests until a few weeks out. We had no nibbles, and were going to go ahead and close out the idea, when we saw a sit in lovely rural Cranbrook, Kent. Not only that, it was two weeks long (longer than most, which are a week-to-ten days) and gave us just enough time to visit Madrid and London on the way from Alicante. Best of all, the dogs we would be sitting were Vizslas, the breed we owned for almost thirty years! This was a dog-fix extraordinare for Judy! We applied, were interviewed online, and finally got the sit, partly because we were so darn enthusiastic about just sitting the dogs. The owners were telling us all about the charm of the area (selling us), and we were “that’s nice, we just want to be with your dogs!”
So here we are in the Shire with Toffee and Treacle! Treacle is thirteen years old, so she’s limited to shorter walks around the local nature reserve, or up the High Street to the Church and back. Toffee is only six, and she’s the type of dog, if you tied a treat on a string hanging from a stick in front of her snout, she could walk the Camino de Santiago, in a week. Probably need a few extra treats.
Things are very quiet here during the week. We have adapted easily to the laid back pace, which revolves around the dogs’ eating and exercise schedule. On the weekend, things get pretty busy, as tourists and big city types abscond from London in search of the pretty English countryside, which is what the Weald offers in abundance. Better still, it’s bloom season, and everybody seems to have roses or other perennials adorning the outside of their cottages.
The heat wave which chased us from London moved on, and we moved out to cooler climes, so outside of a hot sun in the middle of the afternoon, the climate is very comfortable. We have the windows full open all night, which sometimes necessitates a duvet on the bed. Remember, I told you the English haven’t discovered air conditioning yet! Perhaps with global warming this newfangled technology will become a local fashion.
Weekends require a longer walk with Toffee, who seems to know her way around the local forests quite well. I was navigating using AllTrails, an app I have found most useful for such things while traveling, while Toffee kept stopping at various crossings, indicating which way I should go. She may be a local, but I had GPS. Between us, we navigated several miles of dense woodland and returned safely.
Things we noticed during this Spain & England visit? England is way more expensive. I expected it in London, but even out here in the countryside, groceries, pints at the pub, and restaurant meals are $$$$. I spent £33 on a glorified chicken sandwich and fries the other day at a local pub, and yes, that’s almost US $45! The Tube in London is still cheap, there are good free museums, and you can shop around and find less expensive meals, but England in general is much more expensive than Spain, or even the US.
You have to love the English trail system. Every forest, every reserve, and even the farmlands have public rights-of-way that allow you to stay off the roads and wander from town to town. Which is a good thing, because the local roads are narrow, people drive fast, and they always seem to be on the wrong side (sorry, couldn’t resist. It’s my response to being told I ‘had an American accent.’). The trails themselves vary between trodden dirt paths in the forest to paved and maintained paths in some meadows. Whatever their condition, they are a true delight and a national resource one must enjoy when out and about.
The Spanish appeared younger, happier and healthier than the English we met. It’s a gross generalization (is there any other kind?) but an accurate one for our experiences this trip. Perhaps it’s just an artifact of where we visited and stayed, but maybe not. Almost nobody engaged us in political discussions, with the exception of our dog-sit host: the husband and I had a long talk about the Trump phenomenon and Sir Keir’s problems at #10 Downing Street, and it was all quite pleasant. I have always found Europeans to be quite happy to talk about their own politics when they meet an American who shows interest. Certainly everybody we met was welcoming.
As we walked the dogs in the nature reserve trail the other day, Judy said she was “ready to go home” and I agree. The cruise, the time in Spain, Madrid & London, and the Shire have each been very enjoyable, but we’re ready to get back to Mexico, where the locals assure me the rainy season just started with a big thunderstorm!