Today I did something that I don't often do. I went shopping, as a leisure activity. Having decided that no more books should be bought (for reasons of suitcase weight and maintaining a non-obscene level of consumerism), I set out to tackle dvds and cds that aren't easily available back home.

To that end I now have a wide selection of British tv, which I will inflict on all those I love when I get home. I also have The Greatest Hits of Show of Hands, which is a folk band that sings songs about British nationalism (among other things). Going up to counters in Bloomsbury record stores and asking if they've got Show of Hands gets about the same response that I presume one would get asking for pornography involving farmyard animals.

The afternoon was spent skulking around the Romano-British and Post-Roman British rooms in the Museum. The more time I spend there, the more I find myself appreciating the smaller museums I went to in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

The size of the collection in the British Museum means that most of the items are squeezed together into cases and have only a very perfunctory label. Also, every single person from the greater London area; continental Europe; and any part of Asia where the English used to be, seemed to be packed into that building. And all of them, without fail, seemed to be talking about something other than what was in front of them. There are many places in which a discussion of what happened last night on Coronation St are appropriate, but I personally don't think that standing directly in front of the helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship burial is one of them.

Also, to the French artist who chose that very spot to attempt to seduce me (god knows why, as I'm starting to smell and look like Bill Oddie) with the promise that I could be his model, the Sutton Hoo room is not a pick-up joint. My icon is addressed to you, sir.

Tomorrow, I'm going to go for lots of long walks outside, where I can quickly get away from people talking loudly about dull things or anyone with an easel.

Today I went to the British Museum, or at least one room of it.

The Roman Sculpture Room is mainly filled with Roman copies of Greek sculptures, which I think is a bit tough on all the Roman vernacular sculptors, but there we go.

In this room, I had another one of my "I never realised that while I was studying this" moments. At Uni we were given the broad gist that we were the inheritors of Greco-Roman culture, admittedly via Arab libraries, the Renaissance, and a bit of archaeological conjecture. But looking at the features of these sculptures, particularly their profiles (which we are generally not shown on slides at uni) I noticed that almost none of them had features that could be described as Northern European. They were all either Mediterranean, Arabic or African. This is fair enough, as these were in fact the people who comprised the central Roman Empire. But still, no British, Scandinavian or Germanic looking types around. Hmmm.

And now for some religion. So far in Britain, I've attended a Taizé (French choral) Service in an Anglican church, and made a prayer to the Romano-British goddess Sulis at Bath. Today I went to a Quaker service at Friends' House in London.

We all sat around in quiet contemplation, until a pigeon wandered into the silent room and got the shock of its life seeing all those people. It was gently herded back out and, after we'd all had a bit of a chuckle, it was back to contemplating. After we'd contemplated, we all shook hands and had a cup of tea. Only a religious movement invented by the English would involve a hand shake and a cup of tea. I enjoyed it immensely.

I've also managed to squeeze the Tate Britain in today. I have to say, I haven't quite enjoyed the mega galleries as much as I have the little ones with eclectic collections. I was also a bit annoyed that I couldn't find Turner's sketch of Tintern Abby, despite wading through what surely had to be far too many paintings to have been produced by just one man.

Valentine's day found me rising early, putting on my sensible walking shoes, and going down for breakfast before a day's book shopping…I mean sightseeing.

The breakfast room at my hotel is divided into 3 sections - a large middle section with 4 tables and elbow room, and two little sections on either side with as much elbow room as international economy seats. About the same time as I got there, 3 other women, all with short hair like mine, sensible shoes, and guides with titles like “20 Bracing Walks in London”, all turned up. We were all obviously sick of being put on the pokey little tables (the curse of anyone who says "table for 1"), so, as one, we decided to comandeer the big ones.

As we were eating breakfast, a few straight couples began to turn up, only to find that the main dining area was being taken up by a Lesbian Spinster Convention. I'm happy to say that while they may be smug and married, they ate Valentine's breakfast shoehorned into single booths.

The highlight of my day, though, was my visit to the Sherlock Holmes Museum at 221B Baker St. It was wonderful! Absolutely my favorite museum so far. The lower two floors are set up exactly as if Holmes and Watson had just popped out. The upper two floors are set up like a real museum, with exhibits showing the murder weapons from cases Holmes solved, and portraits of him and Watson, and Watson’s diaries, and I could go on and on.

I was absolutely giddy. I went though once just to look (and secretly to pretend I had come to see Holmes about a case, and was waiting in the sitting room for him to get home), once with my camera, and once with the video camera.

In the adjacent shop, I bought a print of my favorite of Sidney Paget's illustrations.

For lunch I went to The Honest Sausage in Regent’s Park, and had their “Park Porker” lunch. It involved a free range pork sausage (the pork presumably was free range, not the sausage), onion marmalade, tomato sauce and a bun made with organic flour. It was yummy and warm.

In other news, I've got hold of a ticket for Avenue Q on Monday! I'm so excited I'm tempted to use more than one exclamation mark in a row.

I also went to the Quaker bookstore (in my top 5 of UK bookstores so far), where I bought a book called "The Year of Living Biblically", by a New York journalist who tried to follow all the commandments for a year (all six hundred and something of them). Apparently he was a bit stuck when it came to stoning adulterers.

For dinner I'm putting on my nice outfit, going to Sainsbury's, buying a bunch of things like olives and cheese, and going back to my hotel room to have a picnic and watch amusing news quiz shows on tv. Do I know how to have a good time or what?

On Thursday I arose early, ate a hearty breakfast, and set out on the epic journey from Castle Cary to South Brewham.

Well, actually, it was supposed to just be a short train-and-walk jaunt. However, it turned into the sort of thing that Odysseus would shudder to hear about.

After many trials (too horrible, and quite frankly dull, to go into in detail), I made it halfway along the public path between Bruton and South Brewham, only to find a crucial section closed. There was a little notice up giving details of a detour (that would make my particular trip about 4 times as long), and a note saying that these directions were available in large print, Braille, and an amazing number of other formats. There was absolutely no provision for someone with a mild mental illness who had had a stressful morning and couldn't go on a path other than the one she'd planned to go on. I should sue.

Anyway, many taxis later, and a bracing walk along a road, I made it to South Brewham (in the churchyard of which I found a very interesting inscription) and back. Rural taxis in Somerset are absolute bandits when it comes to tariffs.

Today I'm back in London, and back online.

I made it to the Sherlock Holmes tour run by London Walks. The quality of the walk was good as usual, but focused a bit too much on Arthur Conan Doyle, who was, as all Holmes fans know, a mere literary agent for Doctor Watson.

In Taunton.

Soaked through with rain, but no more snow as yet.

More family history reasearch done - I have an ancestor called Judith Open.

Bought more books.

All my internet time taken up with uni admin. Boo! Hiss!

Today I went to The Museum of Welsh Life at St Fagans. It is a collection of reconstructed and relocated buildings, dating from Iron Age roundhouses to Victorian schoolhouses.

It was rainy and dark outside, which meant there were few people around, and only made it more incredible to go into each of the buildings to find them lit only with an era-appropriate fire. The past was dark!

Beside each fire was a guide with a depth of knowledge that was quite simply staggering. I didn't ask a question that these people didn't know the answer to, no matter how technical, obscure, archaeological or out-of-left field.

You haven't been welcomed into a roundhouse until you've been welcomed out of the rain into a roundhouse by a large bearded man in a voluminous coat seated beside a roaring fire.

Walking along the path through the woods to the 16th century farmhouse was made utterly wonderful by the fact that there was a candle in the window, as if the inhabitants were waiting for a traveller to return. The warm light that the candle gave off shone like a lighthouse against the grey stone walls, the grey sky, and the grey-brown woods.

The insights I got into the construction and use of the buildings was just incredible. I think I learned more in my conversation with the guide over the fire in the smokey roundhouse than I learned in the entire series of lectures on the subject back at uni.

My favourite is a close tie between the village of roundhouses, and the 13th century church. The church was decorated with careful replicas of the original pre-reformation paintings, which were in a clear cartoonish style that really got the point across. The 13th century artist who painted the picture of hell clearly had far too active an imagination. There were some more light-hearted illustrations - the picture of Noah giving a lion a leg-up into the Ark was a real laugh.

The church decorations weren't the only thing that seems at odds with the highly formal worship and church design that exists today. The church was not in either of the shapes that we would consider standard today (a single room, or a cross shape), and people walked around and chatted though the Latin service (it was attendance that counted, participation was not required).

I could go on, but, being merciful, I won’t.

Though there are over forty buildings, I only made it to 6, but I spent about an hour in each and had an absolutely wonderful time.

Today I went to Bath.

Despite the manic excitement this created in me, I'll try to avoid excessive use of superlatives or any purple prose. That said, my progress from the train station down to the Abbey was much like an extended version of the screaming run that contestants do down the isle when they're selected on The Price is Right.

The Abby was quite nice architecturally, but the really exciting thing was for me was that it was there St Dunstan made Eadgar omni angli rex. Hence it was there that England became England, and the English became the English. My excitement at this was so great that even a monument to Governor Phillip (with a Kangaroo, in place of the Cook monument's dorky dolphins) couldn't dampen it.

I next went on an excellent two hour free tour run by local volunteers. It had an aspect of pantomime about it, and within half an hour we were all going "Oh no!" or "Ooooh!" at the appropriate points.

Next up was the Jane Austen centre. A good 90% of the women in Bath were packed into that building. Blokes and lesbians - a great place to meet women. All you'd have to do is sidle up, say something flattering about Mr Darcy or Elizabeth (depending on the orientation of your target) and you'd be set. Unfortunately I didn't have time to put this into practice, as I had mere hours to take in the Roman bath and temple complex.

The baths were fascinating, as so much of the Roman building was still intact. Standing by the water in the main bath area, it was quite easy to imagine that the people around you were fellow Roman Britons and you were all about to go in for a dip.

The real highlight for me though was the remains of the temple. Though I disagreed with a few of the interpretations of things (which will surprise no one back home), it was absolutely wonderful to see the artefacts themselves. The god's head in Celtic style from the front pediment (which isn't a Gorgon, no matter what the information card says) was utterly arresting. The warm stone made it seem alive, and the longer I looked at it the more its expression seemed to change - a stern frown becoming a paternally indulgent smile. I sat there for a long time.

I threw a coin into the new sacred spring (which was the Roman frigidarium). I made my wish in Latin and in the proper format, so I hope that gives it a bit of extra oomph.

My day complete, I had to run for the train back to Cardiff.

Also, an apology to eight sides - as you probably guessed I didn't hang up on you this morning, but rather I ran out of phone credit. I blame British Rail, as I was on a train when it happened.

Today I decided to go to Bath. I got up very early, got dressed, opened the blinds, and saw that it was snowing as if it was winter on "Little House in the Prairie".

I turned on the news to see if it was perhaps something along the lines of a 'localised flurry' (wishful thinking). The first thing I saw was a newsman standing in his own mini snow drift, reporting live from Bristol (just down the road from Bath), and saying that the whole area was going through a blizzard.

At this, I thought, "I'm going anyway. How bad can it be?" And then I realised that I'd spoken the very words that tourists in Australia say just before they try to drive their SmartCar to Ularu. I didn't go, which turned out to be a wise choice.

Instead, I went down Mermaid Quay, where Torchwood exteriors are shot. It was smaller than it looks on tv, but totally awesomely cool.

Unfortunately it was also quite cool literally, so there was no one around to take a photo of me on the invisible lift. Eventually a Spanish tourist wandered past (poor fool). Between Latin and hand gestures I conveyed "Can you take a picture of me in front of that big thing just there". Unfortunately we were on the wrong side, and I just couldn't figure out how to say "Can you walk all the way over here and take a picture of me on the other side of this big thing, that looks exactly the same on both sides, because *this* is the side where there's the invisible lift."

So I've got a photo of me on the wrong side, but I think I'll just claim that I didn't want to fall down the hole if the lift was in action.

That was the most exciting thing, though. They've been so careful with the layout underground, that it perfectly fits in with the real features up top. I found it impossible not to believe that Torchwood 3 was down there.

I then went to the Doctor Who experience, which was tons of fun. It was a testament to the storytelling on the tv show that the cybermen and daleks were a little scary, even when they were just sitting there. What was a lot scary was when I walked around a corner and saw one of those weeping angels that eat you if you take your eyes off them. I had to give myself a good talking to before I could bring myself to turn away.

At the gift shop (as well as buying things for Dove's friends), I bought myself a Dalek ice-cube tray. I'm not sure if it was a high point or low point of my life.

This morning I slogged through snow, mist, and light rain, all to get to the National Museum and Gallery of Cardiff. And yes, it is their museum and gallery in one building. If it were a snack, it would be called 'fun size'.

Despite being the sort of thing that you could get through in a morning, it was very pleasant. The museum on the lower floor was along similar lines to the one in Edinburgh - the story of the nation told from the moment the landmass broke away from the original mega continent to the modern day. Thus it covers geology, palaeontology, archaeology, history and inevitably impressions of various eras by modern artists. Oh well, I suppose they have to eat too.

I've been thinking about it, and I think this is the sort of thing that just wouldn't work in Australia. No matter how much we try to fit the two pieces together, our history is divided far too sharply between Aboriginal culture and colonial settlement. In Wales or Scotland successive groups of migrants and invaders took on the native culture as much as they enforced their own. Obviously this was not the case in Australia. This lack makes for less-well set out museums if you ask me.

In the afternoon I went to Cardiff Castle, the interior of which is just nuts. The architect was either smoking something, or the 19th century equivalent of a modernist artist. The grounds had been done over by Capability Brown, which meant there was no original structures left and they looked just like every other landscaping project that had been done over by Capability Brown. That man has a lot to answer for - him and his fake ruins too.

( Click here to read me boasting. )

However, the real victory is that today I bought a book by M. E. Braddon. I've checked every second hand bookshop I've been to so far, and none had any of hers. Apparently I'm not the only person that likes her, and, as one bookseller kindly told me, it's quite unlikely that I'll ever find one for under £1000. The reason I was only checking second hand stores is that they haven't been reprinted for sale in Australia. In Waterstone's today (where I was just browsing, honest), there it was: "Lady Audley's Secret". After I'd finished my dance of book-buying joy, I bought it.

I am also victorious because I exercised good shopping judgement. I didn’t buy eightsides the really nice vase I saw, even though it was in the style she likes, because it was large and ceramic. I didn’t buy phase_shifter the mirror-backed black line drawing of Starsky and Hutch because it was on a mirror, as large as a card table, and, despite its subject, the ugliest thing I have ever seen. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that it was the ugliest thing…in the world.

Well okay, I haven't actually been eaten by Weevils. But I am in Cardiff.

I can't describe my relief at being able to write that. What started out as a simple journey ended up being the sort of thing that Tolkien wrote about.

Last night it snowed badly, and the temperature dropped. On the news, they said that you should stay inside. If you absolutely had to go out, you should take warm clothes, food, and a shovel. Yes, that's right, a shovel. They also said that all forms of transport were going to be hit and miss.

With this in mind, I (very responsibly) waited in quite a long phone que and talked to an absolute liar who told me there was no problem with my train service.

About an hour into my train service there was a problem.

I'd had my nose plasted to the window, going "Ooh! Aah! Wow!" as the snowy countryside rolled past. I was just thinking to myself "Wow, the snow's really deep here. It's a wonder the train can get through." At which point the train stopped.

We eventually got underway again, and arrived in Crewe just in time for me to miss my connection.

I spent an hour and a half getting to know all the other people trying to get to Cardiff, as we waited for the next train, which was late.

I eventually crawled into my hotel room after 6, and fell upon the proferred cup of tea like a starving woman. All I can say is that it's a good thing their dog moves fast.

Today is has snowed. It has snowed in hard little pellets. It has snowed in dreamy, fluffy clumps. It has snowed in swirling spirals, sheets, and single flakes. In fact, it continues to snow vigorously at this very moment.

Apart from being quite cold, I'm having a lovely time of it. So are all the neighbourhood children. I'm staying in a suburb of Edinburgh at the heart of which is a square of Georgian houses around a park. The park is covered in about 10 centimetres of snow. I was there at just the right time to see all the children stream out from school, some with parents and some with friends. Within moments there were snowballs and snowmen and snow forts and children half buried in snow.

We don't use the word 'jolly' much in Australia, except if we are being sarcastic (eg. "I had a jolly good time on the trains yesterday"), or trying to talk like Bertie Wooster (this only happens very occasionally). But this was a scene to which the word jolly could be applied in all seriousness.

Steam was pouring from the chimneys of the houses, making them look inviting and well-loved. The children were rugged up so much that even the slimmest among them looked plump. The adults had taken on that contentment that can only be got by seeing your child at innocent play. As people walked across the parkland, the snow was pushed aside by their shoes and they left green tufty footprints where the grass was revealed.

When I tore myself away from the snow, I went to the Scottish National Museum, the best Museum I've ever been to in terms of layout. What's more, it used the odd diorama, something all modern thinking archaeologists agree is a shooting offence for a curator. Hah! Take that, modern archaeology.

In the afternoon, I retreated to my hotel, where I thawed out, and wrapped eight books in bubble wrap in preparation for their round the world trip.

Back out into the snow. I keep expecting to see Scrooge heading by with the massive turkey that he buys at the end - it really is that picturesque.

Today I went to the Museum of Childhood, which is meant to show how things were back in the day. You know, wooden tennis racquets, paper dolls, Girl Guides in blue shirts, and sewing cross stitch samplers. This all sounded quite familiar to me, but the informative signs left me with the impression that these things went out in the 60s, if not earlier.

It was a lovely little museum, though, with eclectic displays covering broad themes like education, health and leisure.

I had my own childhood moment when I discovered that the fudge store which I went to as a 14-year-old was two doors down. I have fond memories of buying a box of slices, and then cutting tiny slivers off them for hours to make them last, only to gobble up the last half when my self restraint broke. Unfortunately, inflation had struck in the interim, and I could only afford one slice. Which, all considered, is probably a mercy to my now adult digestive system.

In the afternoon, I sidled up to Waterstone's (like Borders, only not Borders because they have them here too), and thought: "I'll just pop in for a minute and have a browse". This, off course, was a fib. I spent the money I had put aside for mittens (yes, it is cold enough to wear mittens over gloves) and lunch on Stephen Fry's "The Ode Less Traveled", and feel like I am a better person for it.

Last night's dinner was very posh. I went to a place where they take your coat off at the door (only to help you back into it on the way out), where they played a mix of jazz and old crooners, where the lighting was low, the paneling was walnut, and the food came in courses.

Today, I proved that I would rather be cold and hungry and reading Stephen Fry, than warm and fed and not reading anything. So tonight it's back to the local fish and chip shop for dinner, where you keep your coat on because of the poor heating, where they have the tv on and set to a quiz show, where the lighting is fluorescent, the paneling unidentifiable, and the food comes in polystyrene.

With the weather girl looking particularly grim, and the strong possibility of freezing temperatures for the next few days, I decided that any outdoorsy things to be done must be done today.

In the morning, I walked to the top of Arthur's Seat, which is a hill situated conveniently in the midst of the Edinburgh suburbs. Being a little vain, I decided to forgo the easy East approach, in favour of the moderately hard track. As I wheezed my way up, I was overtaken by two medical students who were chatting easily, a jogger, and finally and most embarrassingly, a dad with a 5 year old. If the next person to pass me had been a senior citizen on a walking frame, I think I would have thrown myself off the side.

The top was cold and windy, with great views.

I then got lost going down on a different path. Happily, I got lost in the same area as two girls from Malta. We pooled our knowledge, which wasn't much - the fork in the path wasn't on my map, and they didn't have a map. Eventually we were given directions by, I kid you not, a senior citizen (thankfully walking unassisted).

Having made my way back down, I found myself ravenously hungry. Not willing to settle for a packet of crisps and an apple, I went about seeking out something hearty. That's when I came across a store with a whole roasted pig in the window. The store was owned by the same family who had farmed the pig. They were offering "hog in a bun", 50p extra for two slabs of crackling.

If I was going about my business in Australia, and someone came up and asked if I wanted hog in a bun, I would politely decline. But I'd just been tramping over rocky outcroppings in the sort of wind that can freeze a person dead on contact.

Let me say, that was the best hog I've ever eaten. And yes, I did get the crackling as well.

Post-hog, I trekked up to the castle, and had a wander round.

Now, I'm off in search of a hearty dinner. Run for your lives, hogs!

This morning I went to the National Gallery of Scotland, which has an interior like an Escher drawing. I had a map, and I was almost permanently lost. But more to the point, so were lots of other people. What made it worse was that I kept on ending up in the modern art room, which was the last place I wanted to be, and therefore never the place I was hoping to end up in.

When I finally found it, the old European collection was quite nice. There were also two groups of plaster casts taken from Roman marble busts. I spent a little while playing Name That Emperor, but it wasn't as much fun without the competitive element introduced by another player.

I have to say that after seeing five years worth of floor to ceiling projected images of these statues, and hearing lecturers I respected go into raptures over them, it was all a bit anti-climactic. I was able to identify Vespasian by his military attire and frown lines, Julius Caesar by his traditional cloak, and Marcus Aurelius because of the little ringlets in his Greek beard. But when you get right down to it, they were the same size and material as the little sculptures that I used to be able to paint at the Plaster Fun House as a kid.

In the afternoon, I sidled up to the street of book stores, telling myself, "Well, I'll just visit one and have a bit of a browse". This, off course, was an absolute fib.

Read more about the books ( here )

Well, okay, maybe it's not the coldest place in the world, but it's the coldest part of the world I've ever been to. When I was out in the afternoon, my tour guide said it was 3. Now I'm quite enjoying the cold over here, but that seems like a bit much.

The tour of which I speak is the The Secrets of the Royal Mile. As it was quite cold, and the middle of the working day, I was the only one who turned up for the tour. My tour guide was a retired history teacher, so we got along famously, wandering around and each trying to translate the Latin inscriptions the fastest.

We also found a newsagent that stocks the Australian newspaper. I've never been gladder to see the right-wing old rag, even at £3.

In the morning, I had located a branch of my gym, and hiked over there for some exercise. On the way back to my hotel, I stopped in at an op shop to buy an outfit for going out. Now that I'm in holiday mode, I do feel like going out to see the local orchestra, and to the nice restaurant down the road from my hotel. Unfortunately I didn't bring any suitable clothes, and don't much feel like attempting entry to either of those places dressed like an Australian backpacker.

This outfit is a real triumph of thrifty shopping. A long, lined brown jacket with a belt; a long brown dress in a 40s style; black high heels also in a 40s style, that fasten with little buttons at the side; and a grey clutch purse. All that, for £10. The tights I'll have to buy tomorrow, so that I can actually wear the dress without freezing to death, will make this a bit more expensive, but I'm still quite proud of it all.

In less pleasant financial news, today I accidentally stumbled upon a veritable den of second hand book stores and vintage clothing stores. I don't know how I'm going to keep to my £30 a day budget. Probably with a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

This morning, not only did I travel more than half the length of the land mass I am currently on, by train, I also went from one country to another, by train. (This will only be exciting to people who live in Australia).

The train trip was very nice (the scenery in particular), apart from the woman in the shop, who, in response to my innocent query as to whether fruit was available, looked at me like I was a fruit-eating pervert and said, "We don't do fruit."

I'm now in Edinburgh, and I have no words to describe my relief at having a hotel in a middle-class suburb again. The Shakespeare was in the dodgy bit of Bedford, and the nitenite was in the CBD in Birmingham, in an office block. Both were surrounded by people who spat, swore loudly, and congregated in groups of over 20. Here, people walk around with small children, buying organic bread, and wearing beige. I am among my people once more!

My hotel is lovely, the people are lovely, and (this is the most exciting bit), I actually have my bearings. Yes, that's right; even though I sometimes get lost driving from my student's house to phase_shifter's house, I actually remember my way around Edinburgh from when I was 15. Hmm...maybe that knowledge has been using up all my "sense of direction" brain space all these years.

The street of shops near my hotel is full of op-shops, arty little places that eightsides would drool over, and places selling fair trade tea. I'm going to have to drag myself away from there to do sightseeing in the city proper.

Also, there is a shoe repair store, which I am hoping can be the Dr. Frankenstein for my Docs.

We are really missing out in Australia. And no, I'm not talking about the weather, newspapers or tv. I'm talking about pantos!

It was the most fun...IN THE WORLD! Not to mention the campest two hours I've ever been witness to. Camper than a meeting of the Melbourne Uni gay students collective, camper than Bert Newton interviewing Molly Meldrum, even camper than the Top Gear episode where they all go camping together in a very small carivan. Yes, that camp.

I would type more (considerably more), but the rather futuristic hotel I'm staying at at the moment (nitenite in Birmingham) has computer alcoves instead of a pc on a desk. I feel like I'm on Star Trek: The Next Generation, only, unlike me, they always seemed to be able to get the keyboards to work properly.

Oh, I also bought another book :)

For starters, a buying and using a return ticket to Biggleswade entails having to say 'Biggleswade' quite a bit. I personally find the name quite funny, and I've been wondering all day if it is the source of the name of that quintessential English colonial hero Biggles.

Anyway, a return ticket to Biggleswade took me today first to Chalton, then Biggleswade itself, and then, on the way back, to the charming town of Northill. Yes, all the ancestral seats of the Burtons, all on one bus ticket.

I didn't get to see as much of Chalton as I had planned, because a little old lady with a massive shopping bag got off at the same stop as me. Before I know it I'm carrying the bag, walking beside her, and saying things like "Yes, yes, I have noticed that young people today don't respect their elders". It actually made me a bit homesick, as all those who know my grandmother will appreciate.

Fortunately, I still had a little time to clamber about in the fields that Burtons once tilled.

At Biggleswade, I had plenty of time to spend in the large churchyard and cemetery, but a group of youths had got there first. I left them to it, and went and had lunch. (I was in a reckless mood, and ordered a tortilla from the local pub. What arrived at my table wasn't a tortilla, but it was quite nice).

Northill was particularly picturesque, although once again I wasn't able to find any of my ancestors there - it seems that only the very grand tombstones have survived this long. Unfortunately, the Burtons have never been very grand. Well, apart from that period around the 1750s in Biggleswade, but I was unwilling to get mugged just to find where the one rich Burton was buried.

I have bought another book. Arthur Mee's excellent "The King's England: Somerset".

I'm going to another bookstore now. I may buy more books.

Yesterday, despite the weather forecaster being very grim and saying that it would rain like nobody's business, I decided to take the bus out to Haynes, the town where most of our Bedford ancestors appear to have hung out.

It was absolutely lovely - definitely one of the most enjoyable days I've spent so far. I passed other ramblers, and we greeted each other in a jolly sort of way. It was all extremely pleasant, even the walk out to the church, which I had assumed would be in the town, but wasn't. It was in fact, somewhere over to the West. I don't know if it was closer to the town when it was built (parts of the tower are Norman), or if it was some sort of post-conquest fitness initiative. "Your eternal soul will be saved, but only if you walk 3 kilometres each way to church every Sunday".

This was all going well and good. I had just filmed a piece about how lovely it all was (birdsong, earthy smell etc.). I was admiring the scenery and not looking where I was going (and here I'm sure Moonboy, Dove, phase shifter, and eight sides can all tell what's about to happen). Anyway, as I said, it had been raining, and there was therefore mud all over the path, which I stepped in, and which sent me sprawling onto a thoughtfully placed rocky outcrop.

This allowed me to discover that my trousers are made of incredibly strong fabric - they didn't rip, but the inside of my trouser leg did rip my knee open, just a little bit. The birdsong was then drowned out by my shout of "Ow, that hurt!" along with your profanity of choice.

(This had led me to believe that other nature-loving types who walk along looking at scenery [David Attenborough, Bill Oddy, etc.], must have someone walking along beside them off-camera, yelling "No! Wait! Don't step there!").

If I had been really hurt, I was within a 500 meters of houses, and I'm sure if I'd yelled "help" with enough vigour someone would have. I also had my fully charged mobile phone, so I could have called an ambulance. But you can't really call an ambulance and say "I'm in a field halfway between Haynes and St. Mary's, and I've hit my knee. It smarts quite a bit."

So I walked to the bus stop, took the bus to Bedford, walked to my hotel via the corner store where I bought frozen peas, applied frozen peas, and then watched Top Gear repeats. This was actually quite a pleasant evening, perhaps proving that, like the dog, I am too stupid to feel pain if distracted.