Number Seventy News

Thanks to Robert (Bob) Gibson for inviting 3 of his jazz-loving acquaintance onto his Bradford Community Radio Jazz programme last week.  We each chose 3 favourite tracks, which resulted in an interesting mix.    My choices tended towards the saxophone, of course, and the Norwegian.  Interesting to be in a live studio for only the second time in my life, and to do it in such a relaxed and enjoyable setting.  I always fancied myself as a DJ back in my teens.

The Royal Show has ceased but the Great Yorkshire goes on and on – and seems to have more and more for everyone.  We always say that to really understand rural shows you need to go to the Great Yorkshire and also one of the really small ones – Farndale in Yorkshire or Hayfield in Derbyshire.  The GYS is enormous – you can’t experience it all in a day – even if you miss out the entire farm machinery section, and the car salesmen, and the kitchen gadgets and 90% of the clothing stalls.  Maybe when I retire I’ll get a 3 day ticket and really linger around the forestry, and the eco-bits, and the side rings for cattle, sheep and pig judging, and really sample all the free goodies in the food tents and see all the show-jumping.

25 years ago the PSP went out one evening to Elvington and Sutton on Derwent on a wonderful collection of ancient and modern cycles, leaving the pub late into a July evening, and as we pedalled along, a stately and eccentric peloton, a barn owl flew silently above us in the not-quite-wholly-dark.  For reasons which are no longer clear to me, we decided to divert from the bridleway at Gipsey Corner and take our bicycles, and tricycles, and tandem, along the footpath, through the wood, over stiles,along the narrow edge of a wheatfield beside the hedge.  It was, therefore, rather late, probably about 1am when we paused at the end of Long Lane, to admire the summer lightning glittering on the hills which ring the plain of York.  A warm, still night – no rain – and no lightning on the plain.  So back, unsteadily into the city, stopped only by a passing police car who was concerned by the lack of lights on the Dursley-Pedersen.

And the next morning, we awoke to the news that York Minster’s South Transept had been gutted by fire in the night, though whether caused by a random lightning strike, or divine wrath directed at the Bishop of Durham, no one has yet discovered.

So, 25 years on to the night, a few of us pedalled out to the end of Long Lane to reminisce, and then repaired to the Bay Horse in Marygate to reminisce some more with other less stalwart souls.  There was the odd rumble of thunder, and the occasional drop of rain, but we, and the Minster, were spared conflagration.

One of the delights of the area round Lake Constance is that the menus almost always include lake-caught fish – doubtless the grown up versions of the millions of tiddlers we could see at the water’s edge.  And then, because we were in Austria at one point, there was schnitzel, and the ice-cream parlours down there have such wonderful concoctions, and the wheat beer, in a number of different varieties, was just the thing after some hot cycling.

Bromptons are still rare enough in continental Europe to be noticeable (except the Netherlands, where there seem to be quite a lot), so when I parked my Brommie outside a shop in central Paris one morning, I was quite surprised when I came out to find another couple parked outside the shop next door. I was even more surprised, after parking my bike in Heilbronn, Germany, which is almost nobody’s idea of a tourist hub, to turn round and find two Bromptons (a different two) sailing past.  

The Brompton folded nicely and Eurostar was happy to accept it as luggage, as were all the other trains in France, Germany, Austria and Belgium.  It was useful to potter from station to hotel/youth hostel / house(s) of friend(s) but also enjoyed itself on a 70km jaunt from Schwabisch Hall to Heilbronn on a mixture of quiet roads, forest and farm tracks, and an old railway line.  There were a few steepish hills, but only one where I had to walk, and that was more because it was very hot and humid than because it would have been too hard.  

Pedalling alongside Lake Constance from Lindau to Uberlingen was just fine, and of course no problem on the train back, even for my daughter’s hired conventional bike, because German local trains have such generous accommodation for bikes.  Much better than the niggardly provision in the UK.  This was well illustrated when we turned up at Lindau station for the train to Wangen, only to find a cycle club of about a dozen middle aged gents waiting for it too.  But it accommodated the club, my daughter’s bike, and another couple we picked up on the way, perfectly adequately.

Then a lovely ride from Wangen back to Lindau – beautiful countryside, excellent cycle path, a good lunch, and almost all downhill.

The Brompton / train/ bus combination is just ideal.

By train to France, Germany, Austria and Belgium, though the first and last were transit only.  Eurostar fine and on time both ways, though Brussels Midi was a complete zoo.  Don’t be tempted to try an under half an hour connection – it might not work unless you have a business person’s breeze-through permit.  TGV OK from Paris-Est to Stuttgart though we lost a minute or two on a very slow approach into the terminus.  But then Deutsche Bahn laid on what turnedd out to be the first of a succession of late running trains.  I had a five minute connection in Heilbronn, which should have been fine, but again a slow exit from Stuttgart saw us running late and only a breathless scamper with luggage made the connection to Schwabisch Hall (now a 2 hourly through service which would have been a pain).  On time into SHA, though,  A few days later, travelling from Heilbronn to Lindau, we were held up outside Friedrichshaven and got into Lindau several minutes late – enough to make a fellow-passenger who had to rebook at Lindau miss his onward connection to Munich on the Arriva Trains shuttle. This latter appears to run quite frequently, complete with diesel loco and sometimes no more than 2 coaches.  Creeping privatisation, I suspect.  The return journey to Heilbronn involved a late arrival in Stuttgart, where the train reverses, but sufficient layover there to get back on schedule.  

I had a through ticket from Heilbronn to London via Brussels for only 69 euros, which was great, but the only trains which ran on time were the local train down the Neckar Valley at the start of the journey, and the Eurostar at the end.  The IC from Heidelberg to Cologne lost time and showed no enthusiasm for regaining it, and the Amsterdam-Brussels ICE I joined at Cologne arrived late and in spite of the new high speed line across the Ardennes didn’t regain anything.  The swept-nose ICE sets are beginning to look a little tired – they need refurbishment – and preferably to get more than 50% of the loos working.

The point about late running, of course, is that if connection times at major stations are between 8 and 3 minutes, punctuality is essential.

Miraculously, although I had a window seat with a pillar on the outgoing Eurostar, half a pillar on the TGV, and a complete pillar on the ICE, on the only other train where I had a booked seat, the IC which travels down the Rhine Gorge, the window seat was actually by a window, and on the right side of the train to view the river.  

Having said all that, on the whole the DB system remains far superior to our chopped up and disconnected privatised railway.