My dear Family & Friends
CharlieBrown, our black and white tomcat, came marching in through the patio door with a shrew in his mouth while I was cleaning this morning. I saw him coming and tried to shut the door on him, but he was quicker than me. He bounded through the house and up the stairs with me in hot pursuit. He dropped it when we got to our bedroom to leave me to chase it. I quickly caught it and set about pondering what to do with the little blighter. It’s my experience any animals that I’ve saved from the clutches of the cats are usually mortally wounded. For that reason I don’t generally interfere; I just keep them out of the house. The worst experience was having Tigger bring a small snake in at our home in Cape Town. The shrew was no exception to the mortality rule; it wasn’t doing well when I let it go outside. When next I looked, Tigger (who was still outside) had found it and was heading over the fence with it. I can tell that CharlieBrown is pissed off at me for having stolen his prize.
On Tuesday morning I took the dogs to the boarding kennel where I have booked them in for our holiday at the end of August. The owner likes to make sure that the dogs will be able to settle in before she will definitely accept them as paying guests. As such, I had to leave Edgar and Hazel with her for the morning. Hazel did not like being left behind, but they still passed their test with flying colours.
While the dogs were at the kennel, I went to Warwick Crown Court for a look around and to exercise my right to witness the law in action, or, in this case, inaction. There had been an “administrative error” which resulted in one of the courtrooms staying closed for the day. The courthouse is a beautiful old building with high vaulted ceilings built in the mid 1600s. The walls are adorned with the original javelins used to protect the judges 400 years ago. In a quadrangle outside one can still peer down into the dungeon which was built at the same time as the courts. Back then people awaiting trial were tossed into the dungeon without food. Their families were expected to throw food to them from the aperture at the top of the cell. Outside and around the corner one can still see the marks on the wall where the gallows were set up for the public executions.
The first case I sat in on was the sentencing of two 18-year-olds who had pleaded guilty to assault occasioning grievous bodily harm. The story, as best I could gather, was that the person who had been assaulted had arrived at the front door of one of the boys in the dock with a baseball bat. A stolen bicycle was at issue. But it appears that the alleged thief had a posse of friends with him waiting for this character to arrive. When he saw that he was outnumbered he threw his bat away ran like hell with this gang of youths hot on his heels baying for blood. They inevitably caught him and beat the hell out of him, smacking him a number of times with a shovel as well for good measure. The two boys in the dock were the only ones who had been caught. The more thuggish-looking of the two had a record as a youth offender going back nearly 10 years (remember he was only 18 years old.) He was sentenced to a year in prison and his accomplice (a first time offender) to eight months. The judge said they would have to serve half their sentences before being considered for release. Their family and girlfriends, who were in the public gallery with me, melted into tears. I was fairly outraged myself that they should get off so lightly.
The second case was also the sentencing of two bothers for shoplifting, theft and burglary. Both were drug addicts. They had several cases against them outstanding in various districts. They would get caught stealing something, get bailed, and go right out stealing again. The older of the two was given a drug rehabilitation order and sentenced to 70 hours community service over 12 months. I thought that was fairly lenient too. The younger brother is to be sentenced at a later date after a probation report.
The third case was against three older teenagers for aggravated assault and robbery. They beat up someone on a bus, stole his keys, and went and robbed his house. The case had begun the previous day, but there had been some negotiating overnight which led to guilty pleas on the lesser charges of assault and burglary. The jury was called in and dismissed. Sentencing can only take place after a probation report.
All through the day I had the tune “Duelling Banjos” from the movie “The Deliverance” playing in my head. But it was interesting; I’d like to go back again.
Yesterday I went exploring again. This time I drove west looking for our nearest beach in Wales. I took the most direct route in my map book, driving west to Worcester and then following the A44 all the way to Aberystwyth. It took me nearly four hours to travel about 160 miles (about 250km). The problem is that if you are not on a highway or dual carriage way here in the UK, the roads are narrow and very windy, even if it’s a fairly major route. As a South African I’m used to straight, wide roads that also have a nice wide hard shoulder. Here the roads zag and zig on an ancient path around somebody’s cow pasture and there is no hard or soft shoulder. The hedgerows remove all forward vision making it next to impossible to overtake. And when you do get the opportunity to overtake, you have to floor it, and you don’t take your foot off the accelerator until you are past and back in your lane. One hears and sees a lot in the media about the causes of accidents here – drink driving, reckless youths, unsafe cars and many more. But it’s interesting that no one ever blames the roads or the hedgerows which I think are the most dangerous elements of driving here in the UK. Straighten the roads, add a hard shoulder of at least a metre on either side of the road, and introduce a new law that bans hedgerows within three metres of the side of the road, and I reckon the accident toll would decline quite significantly. Just the “A” roads mind you; not the “B” roads and country lanes. And then there will be those who probably think that I should be shot for merely suggesting this assault on the English countryside.
Anyway, once I got to Aberystwyth, I strolled about the town and the castle ruins for a while, and then sat down for a baguette and a coke for lunch at a beachside café. Aberystwyth seems to be a fairly popular beach resort town in the British mode – not something that I really like. I prefer space (not a lot of that to be found) and white sand. So after I’d let the dogs run on the beach in the designated area, I loaded them in the car and drove north where my map book showed there were more beaches. I found some really nice beaches at the mouth of the Dovey River; the village of Aberdovey also fit my mould for a place where I could enjoy a beach break although I suspect that it wouldn’t be cheap to stay here. I found more pleasant beaches heading north past Tywyn, Llwyngwril and Barmouth.
At Llwyngwril I took the dogs down onto a nearly deserted beach and threw sticks into the sea for them to retrieve. There were only two young teenagers nearby taking pictures of each other leaping into the air in various poses. It looked to me like they were practising for a hoped for career in modelling. Like my experience in Devon, the water wasn’t really that cold and I disappeared behind a rock to change into my costume. I waded in to the sea and eventually took a dive into the water. It wasn’t quite as warm as I thought, but it was still bearable. After swimming and splashing about for a while, I heard the two girls shouting and waving wildly and pointing out to sea. I thought “SHIT”, there cannot be sharks here while I was sprinting out of the water as fast as I possibly could with the dogs behind me thinking this was all part of some game. It’s amazing how fast you can move when you think you might be about to become shark bait.
Well, it wasn’t sharks, it was dolphins, and all the young girls were trying to do was share their excitement with me. They’d never seen dolphins before. Ja well, I never thought I was about to be eaten by a shark before either. I went back in for another swim when my heart rate returned to normal. When I gathered the dogs to trek back to the car, Edgar kept looking behind him as if to say: We aren’t going already, are we? Ag no.
For the drive home I headed for Shrewsbury so that I could pick up the highways through Birmingham. I really didn’t feel like another four hours of sitting behind some tosser driving at 40mph. I did see one old dear nearly roll her car though. I have no idea how she managed keep the car on the road and carry on driving as if nothing had happened. I would have had heart failure.
That’s it for another week. I haven’t taken many more pictures, but you can see them at http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/llewellynijones as usual.
Love, light & peace
Llewellyn
