Dear Friends and Family, March 22
It’s Saturday morning and I’ve just finished watching the qualifying sessions for tomorrow’s Formula 1 Malaysian Grand Prix. The Ferraris are in pole position, which is as it should be. I was a bit worried after their disastrous performance in Australia last weekend which was particularly galling as I had woken up at 3am to watch the race. (Or should I say I sort of dozed and watched at the same time; the point is that I got out of bed.)
Through the window I can see occasional snow flurries. It’s certainly very cold outside for a South African, but not cold enough for the snow to gather on the ground; it just melts away as soon as it touches down. We have more of this predicted for most of the weekend.
Our week began last Sunday with a long drive west into Worcestershire and Herefordshire, almost to the Welsh border. Large tracts of land were flooded after two days of heavy rain. The Rivers Avon, Severn and Wye had all burst their banks in several places. There’s just no drainage here – everything is so flat. Reading the newspapers though, particularly the more salacious tabloids, one would think it’s all the Government’s fault. I haven’t yet seen anybody explaining that a flood plain is called a flood plain for a specific reason. We were thankful for the high clearance provided by the Honda CRV around the corner from the Eastnor Castle (http://www.eastnorcastle.com/) in the Malvern Hills where we came upon flooded patch of road which we had to ford. I knew having a 4X4 would come in handy. Much to my surprise we also came across a couple of vineyards, although nothing like the scale one would find in traditional wine growing regions around the world. I wrote down all their names in my little black book to look them up on the Internet, and for future reference. I’m sure we’ll take our own wine tour around the estates in due course. (http://www.ukvines.co.uk/vineyards/fourfoxes.htm; http://www.broadfieldcourt.co.uk/) We didn’t take any pictures of the day simply because the sky was too grey for the pictures to show much. (But you can find more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones as usual. You will have to download the pictures if you want to see them in a larger format.)
When we got home, and I was waiting for Lucia to gather her belongings together, I suddenly noticed, much to my chagrin, that the front driver-side bumper had been scraped and that the headlamp washer had been snapped off. It was one of those cases where I stood there wondering whether I had done it myself. But the giveaway was that the smashed headlamp washer was lying in one of the parking bays. Clearly some ineffable pratt had driven into my car while trying to manoeuvre himself/herself out of the parking lot. I took the car to Honda on Monday morning and arranged to have the damage repaired on Thursday which cost just shy of £200. One hundred of that went straight into the pocket of the paint touch up specialist around the corner and out of view of the management.
I had decided to go to the Midland Air Museum while the car was being fixed, and walked the mile or so there only to discover that it only opened at 10am. So I walked all the way back and caught the bus into Coventry. The first bus driver wouldn’t let me on because he didn’t have change for the £20 note I offered. The next bus driver also wouldn’t take my money citing the absence of change. I fixed my eye on him and asked in desperation: What does nobody have change? Where are you from, he countered? South Africa. Then he explained to me that the Travel Coventry buses don’t handle any money as a matter of security. When buying a ticket, passengers put the fare directly into a slot which leads to a mini safe. So if you don’t have the exact fare – tough. But he let me on anyway, much to my relief. I spent a pleasant morning wandering around the Coventry Transport Museum which is entirely free.
On one of the days during the week, I forget which, I went to Leicester after visiting the zoo. Leicester is just another 13 miles up the road from the kennels. I can tick off Leicester; there doesn’t appear to be much reason to go back.
Yesterday (Good Friday) I took Lucia to Birmingham. This is the first chance Lucia has had to see the city. We strolled along some of the canals and the streets of Birmingham’s jewellery quarter before the clouds drifted in and the rain started spitting down. After lunch, I took her to the Bullring shopping centre which I find so impressive. Not so impressive were the crowds; we didn’t stay long. We did find biltong at Selfridges though, but not a price I was prepared to pay.
On most days I still take different routes home as I try to build up a mental map of the area. One of the things I have noticed is that very few of the old stately homes and manor houses are still in private hands. Most are hotels, conference centres, tourist attractions, business parks, schools, colleges, belong to the state or are in ruins. And I got to wondering why? The simple answer is tax. In most cases, the families that owned them had to sell up because of the UK’s swingeing inheritance taxes. This raises an interesting point which my friend Johan had noted about property in the UK – there is no absolute right of ownership. If you don’t pay your council tax, your house can be taken away and sold. And when you die, the state appropriates, or should I say misappropriates half your wealth. In other words, there is no right of ownership.
What I didn’t know is that the US has similar inheritance taxes. This week in The Times, there was an article about this using Bill Gates as an example. The article noted that, should he drop down dead today, his estate would owe about $35 billion to the government. The really interesting point though is that the US, like most other countries, demands that its taxes be paid in cash. I think Bill should start building up a stock of 1c pieces.
That’s it for now
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
