Well since Bethberry has announced her intention or reporting on her visit here, I may as well follow perceived wisdom and get my retaliation in first!
Without boring you with too many details the Mini-moot of the Southfarthing was arranged when Bethberry, in her folly, expressed a wish to meet me again (strange but true) on her UK visit for ROTR. Now it happened that I wasn't planning on going to ROTR but Poison Ivy who is technically rather than actively a Downer but whom BB had met at an Oxonmoot, and who lives less than a mile from me, was, and that Bethberry and I were both investigating our family histories and had links to Gloucestershire villages less than a dozen miles apart, so after various possibilities had been considered it was arranged that Bethberry should stay with me from the Friday before ROTR, we would have a jaunt up to Gloucs and then Poison Ivy and Bethberry would travel together to ROTR.
Now these things seem so simple months in advance but car problems, illness, natural sloth and the fact that we were doing rather well at the Olympics (astonishing for a nation conditioned to thinking of itself as plucky losers or gallant runners up...and yes ok a lot of the medals were in "sitting down" sports but it still counts), and the planned programme of decluttering, decorating and gardening went by the by and milady Bethberry was due to arrive and the place looked like a low rent Satis House set in a jungle. But at least a guest room was habitable and mostly denuded of the handiwork of Shelob's little friends.
But though I was vaguely ready, the car had been sprung from the fettlers and even the worst case journey time between airport and my local station had elapsed there was no word from Bethberry and several attempts to call her cellphone resulted in being informed bilingually that she was not available, so I was beginning to worry. But then the phone rang and an unfamiliar voice asked for me and I had one of those awful moments when you expect to be told of accident or disaster but it was merely a nice man who had lent BB his phone.
So delaying only to put the roof down on the car (when I changed mine recently I yielded to the temptation to get an elderly rag top instead of something sensible on the grounds that Bethberry would expect it after her previous visit to an UK Downer), I went and got her. Having exchanged gifts (she brought me maple syrup in hugely indulgent quantity , I gave her a bubble sword that gave a blue glow lest there be orcs at ROTR), Bethberry discharged her duty as Shirriff and passed on a special Shirepost delivery. We then hit the Tolkien trail viewing the sites of Chris Wiseman's house and Tolkien's holiday cottage in the next village, then went for a meal and up to Lyndhurst to see the grave of Alice Liddell (Alice in Wonderland).
The next day started with another dead literary figure and a visit to the grave of Conan Doyle which happens to be in the same Forest village as Furzey Gardens, who won Gold at Chelsea - a particular achievment since the team included workers with learning disabilities. It was quite inspiring that the gardens were wonderful by any criteria. Also for the amusement of Tolkienistas were features designated as Elvish bowers and what just had to be Beorn's table.
Since one DLF is not enough for a day, we pressed on to Winchester and Jane Austen's tomb. It always amuses me that the actual floor slab makes much of what a wonderful sister and aunt she was but fails to mention the small detail of her books. Had I known then that Bethberry is not a fan I might have had to kill her or at least start a twelve step programme but she wisely concealed this information until the eve of her departure, and at least was able to experience the quintessential English experience of choral evensong. Not, since it was holidays, the cathedral choristers but a first rate guest choir.
The next day saw us meet up with Poison Ivy and we had lunch in Hobbits restaurant in Hythe. They are hobbity themed but haven't run foul of the Saul Zaentz company,apparently since they don't sell merchandise. Then we went to the New Forest wildlife park. We saw wild boar (unskewered by spear thrusts), wargs, the most adorable otters and a tame deer which ate my skirt, possibly in revenge for the Bambi burger I had eaten a few days previously. Bethberry was spared a DLF for a dead folk hero and we visited the grave of Brusher Mills, the Snake catcher, at the ancient church in Brockenhurst on the way back to Poison Ivy's hobbitly comfortable house for wine and the LOTR musical dvd (music and stills).
Monday started with various alarums and excursions. Apart from the usual paranoia of "Have I locked doors?" etc (telling BB to assure me should I have "a moment" later along the way that I had checked the gas and immersion were off and had locked the back door, didn't stop me checking another five times) I managed to lose the car key and, in a last minute decision to get a bag for the maps, I managed to up turn a pot of paint in the half decorated kitchen. Unfortunately I didn't realise this until I had also spread it over the hall carpet and, as it transpired when I had cleared everything else up, myself. After a bit of a hunt I managed to find garments that hadn't been packed or eaten and we finally managed to head of on the expedition. Sadly the traditional English weather of heavy cloud and heavy rain had turned up but we ploughed on westwards, acquired a substitute camera for BB who had exhausted hers by photographing every bit of thatch in south Hampshire
, thinking there would be time on her return I spared her the Shelley memorial in Christchurch Priory and we pressed on to the Miramar and then the site of Tolkien's bungalow in Branksome Chine. Then it seemed like a bright idea to bypass the horrors of driving in Poole on a wet lunchtime and take the Sandbanks ferry across the mouth of the harbour to the glorious Isle of Purbeck. Glorious that is if you can see it. By now there was very limited visibility and of the prettiest parts of the country poor Bethberry saw naught but a sea fret.
Being a considerate host I chucked my guest out of the car to photograph the ruins of Corfe castle whereupon it rained as if someone had chucked a bucket of water over her. Then a steam train emerged from the mist compounding the feeiling we had slipped back in time. Heading inland the weather improved and I couldn't resist taking the slow road north to introduce Bethberry to an old acquaintance. I told her he wouldn't say much but he would be very pleased to see her. The jest became clear when I followed the signs for the Cerne Giant - one of the chalk carvings in the area of a smiling man with a great big.... club.
We pressed on to Sherborne where I let Bethberry visit the Abbey alone being weary from hours at the wheel - and having spent many Sunday mornings there hushing my young charges in my incarnation as a boarding school matron, I didn't feel such a need to return. A bonus was seeing one of the post boxes painted gold in honour of a local Olympic champion - in this case the trap shooter Peter Wilson.
The next stage of the journey was the stressful bit.. the rolling English road was getting tiring and tiresome and I had a mini-meltdown caught up on the outskirts of Bristol (I have a history of getting horrifically lost there and arriving at best friends wedding in time for the signing of the register so the paranoia may have kicked in). Fortunately Bethberry was very calming and we arrived at the historic inn where we had booked rooms late but in one piece. I had chosen it mainly because the location was handy for the dead rellies but also because the Queen had stayed there when stranded by a blizzard. It was a fortuitous choice because they served good food til late and had extremely comfortable beds and served a truly epic breakfast.
No Nazgul disrupted our departure (though we hadn't met a ranger at supper either) and we went first to Bethberry's ancestral home. I thought she would just take a picture from the drive but by the time I had parked she seemed to have disappeared. Then there was such a hound music that I assumed the owners had set the dogs on her and discretion being the better part of valour I left her to it. As time wore on and I realised that I might have to explain to her family how I lost her, I grew more concerned but fortunately my guest reappeared having used her charm to wangle a guided tour. We then went to the church which was sadly but all too commonly in this godless age closed due to Vandals (not as it happens Bethberry and me) and Bethberry set off to look for graves. I parked my idle carcass on the nearest box tomb and basking in the sunshine noticed that the faded carven name was very familiar..... Photos taken we went on to the village where a few generations of my family had lived in the middle of the last century. No graves located here but I saw where they had had their shop and happily the church was open so I could be where they had been hatched, matched and dispatched. Best of all was the bench sited to best observe a view surely unchanged since their day and which represented to us much of the Shire that Frodo strived to save... little fields and hedges and hills...
Could have stayed all day but time was not our friend and we took a more sober road to Avebury by which time my feeble knee and possibly feebler appetite for history flagged and I appreciated much of it's attractions while drinking tea. It is a fascinating place which claims as so many do to have inspired Tolkien but certainly Silbury Hill could have had Edoras set on it.
We now headed south and in Salisbury Bethberry managed to catch the tail end of another evensong while I caught the Archers in the car ..sorry I was cultured out . The next day was sadly so wet that the hoped for trip to the Isle of Wight would have been masochistic but my guest took me for a meal at my favourite restaurant and eventually we got a wonderful view of it. We made a shopping foray before the day ended in Poison Ivy's summerhouse which she had turned into a LOTR shrine with Aragorn standing guard and provisioned with Elvish snacks. We played the LOTR trivial pursuit which was based on the film and proved a challenge to Bethberry and me who have only seen the films other than the fellowship once. I started a variant whereby I would try to guess beforehand and believe me no invention was more ludicrous than some of the reality. Anyway we contrived a Bethberry win as courtesy to our visitor and so ended the mini moot of the Southfarthing since the others were booked on an train straight after breakfast. And that is far more than anyone probably wanted to know. Ah well..