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The Heart of England
This is not a guide to the Cotswolds. This is not a guide to Stratford-upon-Avon and Bourton-on-the-Water and Moreton-in-Marsh and Chipping Campden and Stow-on-the-Wold and Winchcombe and Broadway. This is not a guide to all those little towns and villages. This is not a guide to the famous Cotswolds stone, limestone yellow and old. This is not a guide to the rolling hills, undulating green pastures perforated with sheep.
This may not be a guide at all.
But the Cotswolds is called the Heart of England by some, and maybe her heart will guide us some where no guidebooks could.
This is the Cotswolds, my friend, and we have no guidebooks for the paths that we are about to tread.
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Swan River
No lakes here, the water run too fast. The swans rest on the banks of the river, they rest and they fast as the boats slowly pass them by. The swans pretend to be asleep and do not look at the tourists on the boats looking at them and calling at them to lift their heads up from their wings, from their pure white feathers so the tourists may take photographs to develop later when they are back home and show to their neighbours and their friends, See how white and magnificent the swans of England are! How they preen their plumage and how their feathers flutter! Swans. They’re the best entertainment.
No, the swans refuse to pander to these silly touristy ganders.
The tourists may have paid for their little boat cruise, but the swans aren’t part of that package. Instead, ignoring the tourists keeps the swans amused. It’s their river after all, and they’ll do what they damn well please.
Tourists. They’re the best entertainment.
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The Ice-Cream Boat
There is this ice-cream boat that only appears on a perfect summer’s day. When it’s really hot and perfectly unbearable and an ice-cold ice-cream cone would be just about… perfect.
It would be perfect except…
… they would never have any of the flavours you wanted. They’d be out of chocolate and vanilla and strawberry ice-cream. They’d be out of rum-and-raisin and coconut and bacio and Nutella and peppermint and pistachio. (And before you try asking, they don’t have any of that nasty frozen yoghurt shit either.)
What flavours would they have?
Dreams Come True. Eternal Love. Happily Ever After. Pure Contentment. Healthy and Wealthy. Bliss. And other perfect little bites of whatever we could desire.
Except what we really want is a good lick of chocolate ice-cream, but they never have that. We came too late. They ran out. Damn.
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The Naked Man in the Park
(I’ll leave this one to your own imagination, beloved readers. Uhm.)
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The Other Wishing Tree
There is another kind of wishing tree. You don’t make wishes under this tree, not for yourself. You leave wishes here, instead, for others to chance upon and decide if they would carry them out on your behalf.
You could make someone else’s life a whole lot better, or worse. More interesting, surely. It couldn’t be worse than that.
But then, you don’t have to wait to find this other wishing tree and pluck a wish from its leaves to do this, do you? You can change someone else’s life right now.
I dare you.
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Tisanes
Tea Room & Garden.
English Tea.
Scones and Clotted Cream.
A Sunday Afternoon.
A Perfect Cup of You and Me.
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The Winter’s Tale
You promise me we’ll go watch a real Shakespearean play in a real Shakespearean theatre. None of those touristy crap visiting touristy traps like Shakespeare’s house, his mom’s house, his wife’s house, his great-grandaunt Petunia’s house… No, none of that.
We are gonna go watch ourselves a bonafide Shakespearean play.
Even if we can’t understand most of it. Even if you fall asleep within the first fifteen minutes. Even if you start snoring. Even if the boyfriend of the girl sitting next to me starts snoring too. Even if you both are snoring in unison, almost drowning out Leontes and his mad ranting. Even if we leave after half-time (they call it an “intermission”, I believe), right after the giant bear appears on stage, made up of books and thunderstorms.
Even then.
We’ll catch Shakespeare. Remember, you promised.
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The Italian Market
There are olives and artichokes, porcini mushrooms and its wilder cousins. There are a hundred types of oils and vinegars and huge fronds of red chillies hanging from the rafters. And sausages and cheese. All that tastes good, all written in Italian.
I don’t speak the tongue, of course, and this Italian Market only opens one Sunday a month. But still. For one special day, our languages don’t matter when our tongues and tastebuds meet as we lunch together and drink to each other’s health and courage to face all the good eating to come our way.
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The Well and the Wisteria
He looks at the sprawling strands of wisteria climbing up and clambering down, like serpents, like the golden hair of an imprisoned princess. He stares into the depths of the well, hidden and unknown, sinking into forever, blackholewater.
What if fairytales clash together, he wonders.
What if Rapunzel plummeted where Rumpelstiltskin stamped and stomped, the heights of heaven and all that awaits below?
We fly and we fall. It’s human nature.
Only fairy tales, they have Happily Ever After. It’s a guarantee. It’s not the same with us. We have to get up, brush the dirt off our kneecaps, kiss our own cuts and bruises and get on with the rest of our lives if we want any chance of that.
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The Tower
Stand tall, stand strong. The world is waiting, my friend, for your story and your song.
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THE COTSWOLDS • Stratford-upon-Avon & Broadway, England
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Copyright © 2009 Kenny Mah Ying Fye.
~ The Great British Invasion ~
Part 1 • London
Part 2 • The Cotswolds
Part 3 • The Lady of Bath
Part 4 • Lake District
Part 5 • Edinburgh
Part 6 • Return to Bath
Very interesting pictures!!! You really bring it from different angles, niceeeee.…..
I like this bit the best:
But then, you don’t have to wait to find this other wishing tree and pluck a wish from its leaves to do this, do you? You can change someone else’s life right now.
I dare you.
The strong contender was the naked butt but, hey, it’ll still lose out to the ability to change someone’s life right now.
What a beautiful start to the week. Thank you, Kennymah!
How lah my melbourne’s coverage gonna top your great Great Britain Invasion post? *stress stress*
What a perfect perfect trip! Greens, swans, scones and naked man in the park! Happily ever after totally humanized and realized, even if forever was that one afternoon!
As befit a Chinaman in the Heart of olde England , things can only get better ( badder ) from here. The Clash will become that much sweeter and west east passion intertwined till england on the china malaysia
..change life.. watch naked butt..change life…watch naked butt… that Queen’s land has so much to offer indeed.
no guarantee of Happily Ever After but u make a great argument for trying! =)
Spent an entire weekend in the Lake District with my ex. Went crazy out of boredom. Swore off the countryside thereafter
Glad you’re liking it though!
how cool.. everytime i see your shots, i cannot w8 to go bk there! how didja like the Shakespeare play.. ? *yawn* .. i prefer broadway.. pleb dat aye yam
I like Tisanes best. The tea and the scones. That’s the heart of England!
Having English tea in a tea room sounds lovely and relaxing.
i wouldn’t mind some of those SPECIAL ice-cream flavors… ;-p
the last photo, when i saw it, i thought you looked as if you entered the monastry and became a monk.
ya, my eyes are playing tricks on me ;-p
I like this one right upfront…
“…we have no guidebooks for the paths that we are about to tread.”
That is so true of life. No matter what we plan, life often has a different itinerary for us.
The wishing tree? I thought it only happens in HK Canto drama where pple throw a written note/wish tied to some heavy object (stone or something?) and make the wish while you throw (and hopefully, it hangs to the branch or something)
Hahhahaha.….I am a Potato-in-Couch!
nice one… how was the winter’s tale? i like play, drama and musical… awesome~ how bout you?
I like to watch dramas, because even though there’s the melancholy parts, the evil characters busy scheming and plotting the goody-two-shoes, but best of all, I know there will always be a fairytale-happily-ever-after ending.
Give me some flavours: I want forget-it-all and hoping-to-meet-the-one
)
The pair of swans are a good symbol of eternal love. =)
you know you had a good holiday when you return with a song and pictures as beautiful as these.
well done, bro.
aww… where u going this time? looks like you have problems with clearing your backlogs too; so many things to blog, but not enough time. And add in, too many vacations. haha
of scones and clotted cream. and strawberry jam. just had them at Cameron’s Smokehouse the other day .….
of course, merely bearing resemblance to the REAL deal, yet imitation’s the best form of flattery.
Not a guide to UK but yet your passage catches glimpses of what the tourist may have missed; to pause and look at the swans than the swans looking at the “ugly ducklings”;
to have English Tea with scones and clotted cream and savour the atmosphere is such a standstill moment in UK whilst the world goes by and us drinking teh tarik or teh see with curry puffs over here!
They put such a lovely name for the ice-cream?
& the half naked man (he still with his T-back on, haha ^.^) .….what was he doing ar?
Fantastic babe!
Lucky, lucky you. Thanks for making me green with envy, though with the flu virus, a lot less so. have fun at your next destinations (macau and HK), and — oh dear — you mentioned English tea and did not post photos of the scones and clotted cream? How could you?
Thanks, dear… hopefully the angles weren’t too weird…
Haha, I’d thought the naked butt stood a decent chance!
Eesh, eesh. It’s two different places and vacations lah. I for one am looking muchly forward to your Melbourne post!
Two afternoons, actually… one in Stratford-upon-Avon, and one in Broadway. But yeah, it’s like one perfect, long afternoon…
The China Malaysia? Am I that Cina-pek meh?
Hahaha… naked butts and life changes, what more can we ask for from the Queen, eh?
haha, no ur not! =P
Why would you? Yours is the Ultimate already…wait there’s another trip post coming up. Now that could be the ultimate of all ultimate. It’ll be the greatest love story ever told. One to be pass down to many generations of readers to come.
Ayam what… No meh?
Shhh… Don’t tell them about the other trip. I haven’t even finish writing this one yet! LOL
And what greatest love story are you talking about??? I’m partnered with the most unromantic human being on this planet, you know what… (and that’s just fine hor, dear?)
*gulps*
Try? Master Yoda says Do, or Do Not. There is no Try. *muahahaha*
How could you get bored, bro??? There is SO MUCH to do! Hiking, walking, trekking… okay, anything that involves a lot of leg movements. Ahem.
Anyway, the Lake District post ain’t up for a good bit yet…
Hehe, I enjoyed The Winter’s Tale, snoring and all… well, the first half that I caught anyway…
P.S. I lub musicals and the smaller plays too… Jom kami pegi one day?
Haha, these scones are arguably some of the best in England, according to our tastebuds, anyway. (And the droves of folks that are gathered at Tisanes at all hours, too.)
It was. I only wished that afternoon never ended…
yeah. if not you two will be too sweet to handle!
romantic + unromantic = a perfect pair! =)
Oh, c’mon! Not more of that “us causing diabetes” theory again… I assure you we do not result in hyperglycemia. Really.
Perfectly imperfect, but yeah, I see your point.Thanks!
Woo-hoo! Which ones, if I may dare ask?
Me, a monk? Hahahahhaha…
*takes a breaher*
…nope, no chance of that one happening. Ahem.
“No matter what we plan, life often has a different itinerary for us.”
Heh. That’s very true, and well-put too. But let’s all of us fly the friendly skies…
Aiyo, the way they do it… if liddat, it’d prolly fall on the head of an innocent passer-by and ketuk their head, then their head burst and the blood spurts out everywhere and then they scream bloody murder and their head spins around like Linda Blair in The Exorcist and then they swoon like a beautiful princess and their Prince Charming (who would look like a dashing Korean soap opera star) will catch them just in time except then they are both thrown into the flow of oncoming traffic and there’s a huge-ass oil tanker coming their way…
*pauses*
Okay, so maybe not just in HK Canto dramas…
Oh I really liked the Royal Shakespeare Company’s staging of it… there is an insidious energy, a wrath unhinged that absolutely caught my attention… well, for the first half anyway. After that… ah, you know what happened if you read the vignette above, yes?
hahahaha.. noted…
Aww, don’t frown… It’s okay, it’s the manic magic that matters… and we got that even from the first half.
Those are some sweet flavours, bro… Tell me how they taste like?
A great symbol then, that.
Thanks… oh but it’d be great if I could have another holiday now… so swamped with work don’t even have time to take a breather, much less do what I like best — reading books, blog-hopping, exercise… (ahem).
dude, u just came back from one not long ago! haha
I know. And don’t kill me… I’m going for another one this weekend…
Yeah, I still have several chapters to go on my UK trip, and then there’s the Penang food crawl and later this weekend… well, wanna hazard a guess where I’m heading too?
Hint: It’s a food haven. Hehe.
You are not coming to Singapore are you? Or Hong Kong? haha
Nah, not Singapore… I go there almost once a month… As for the second guess, well, it’s half of it…
Hehe, I’ve given up the ghost and you can find the answer to your query in my latest post here.
Oh the REAL deal’s merely what’s in our mind half the time, methinks. The environment, the taste, the service, it all melds together into one great experience, no? And I bet you had a blast at Cameron’s Smokehouse.
Haha, now you’ve gone and made me wanna write an ode to teh tarik and teh see. (Bonus verse featuring karipap!)
Would you like to hazard a guess?
Happy Ever After wld be nice!
Haha, that’s a perennial favourite!
Aw shucks… *blushes*
1. Flu virus or no flu virus — life goes on, right? With proper precautions, I venture I’m in no greater danger abroad than I am back home.
2. Hehe, no pics? Cos I couldn’t wait to devour all them delicious scones and clotted cream, that’s why!
Maybe in coming posts?
not at all! =)
Aww, so sweet.
but so hard to achieve…
I know, but the hard work’s worth it, no?