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Mission Visits the UK - England & Wales, May 2013
Chapter 12th - Gareth 4
Chapter 12th:
The Author Petting
Henry Every (The cat! I mean the cat!)
Picking up the details of Thursday where Chapter 11 left it - Home for tea and cats; Dinner at a drover's inn with plenty of irrelevant asides (it's an important part of what we do in these Journals); Back to the Olde Tavern; Why you should never ask about the best way to Cheltenham and An amazing discovery.
Having made the successful circumnavigation of the Black Mountains as Gareth had said we would, we headed back to Pen Y Parc for tea. Gareth and Elizabeth have two cats, Jamaica Rose and Henry Morgan. (There. Now that's piratey for you.) They were both rather skittish around me, with Jamaica Rose being particularly so. However, as we sat down to tea in the living room, Henry allowed me to pet him. I considered this a great accomplishment. Later on Jamaica Rose allowed me to pet her a little bit before she remembered that she was the more anxious of the two of them and ran away.
The Rawhide Drovers: Gil Favor, Rowdy Yates &
Pete. Wishbone (the cook) is down in front.
For dinner, we were going to go to a drover's inn. Well, it used to be a drover's inn at one time. It was referred to in this way because drovers would stop in at this inn as they were doing their job. See, 'Drover' is basically a way another way to say driver - as in driver of animals - only much, much cooler. The next time you are talking about an animal driver use it instead. You will just feel the cool oozing out of your pores.
Now, I don't know if you've noticed this or not, but I have been primarily using UK-based pop references in this Journal. It only seems fitting. (I am still trying to figure out how to work Penfold into this thing, but I just haven't found the right opportunity. Unrecognizability Rating of Penfold by name: 88%. Unrecognizability Rating of Penfold by sight: probably still 88%)
However, I must now stick a blatantly American pop-c ref in here. See, I was fascinated to be going to a drover's inn because I had first come across this term about a year ago while watching old episodes of Rawhide. In Wales, drover refers mostly to driving sheep, in Rawhide, it refers to driving beeves. ('Beeves' is another much, much cooler word I learned while watching the show.)
The back of the Rhydspence, which is actually the front
The drover's inn was named the Rhydspence Inn and, not surprisingly, the manager knew Gareth instantly. (It was only a mile or so from his house.)
The manager, Paul, was a very friendly guy and he ribbed Gareth for a bit before I even managed to get into the conversation. Paul told me about the garden he was creating by a stream on the property which served as the border between Wales and England. Since I showed an interest, Paul offered to take me down there where I got some photos of it. It was quite lovely as you see here
 Paul, Rhydspence Manager, in His Garden |
 Mission Enjoying the Garden in a Very Posed Way |
Gareth Chatting with Paul (Offscreen) in the Rhydspence
Back in the restaurant, a couple showed up who immediately began explaining to the three of us how fascinating they were. The woman poignantly dropped the fact that they were from West Sussex and they were coming down the next weekend for the Hay Literary Festival, a literary celebration that takes place annually in the city of Hay-on-Wye. (Don't you just love all these place names? Admit it.) She noted that the festival was internationally famous although I confessed I had never heard of it.(This didn't bother her a bit. I was clearly an American rube.)
So that was sort of amusing. When they sat down to a salad they had ordered, the man 
The Point of Cucumbers: Roald Dahl's Big
Friendly Giant Eats Them (the Repulsant
Snozzcumber variety) Instead of 'Human
Beans'
(Unrecognizability Rating: 99%)
actually said he didn't like cucumbers because, "I don't see the point of cucumbers." I can't write stuff that good.
Now I don't bring these folks up to make fun of their pretentiousness... well, maybe a little... but because this rather tactless woman said some curious things to Gareth. First, she was fascinated by the fact that that he was a farmer and he could speak Arabic. (She actually marvelled at him in the third person saying something like "Imagine that! A farmer that speaks Arabic.") He had learnt it in the army and it was an invaluable part of his work. Gareth actually said something in Arabic to her to prove it, which sounded quite foreign coming from him. (Ha ha! Foreign! Get it? But, no, really, it was quite jarring to me.)
Second, she called him a mercenary because he was involved in selling radar systems and such in the Middle East. So Gareth explained a few facts of life about terrorism to her which bounced off her like freshly shelled peas bouncing off a thick oak board. She continued to prattle on like that, so I got to watch Gareth struggle a bit while mastering his temper.
After dinner we took our leave of Rhydspence and West
The Cheltenham Discussion in the Olde Tavern
Sussex, returning to the Olde Tavern, which we found to be mostly empty at that point. We had a pint and people slowly trickled in and began to fill out the place.
I had been up since 5 am thanks to the light which came streaming in my room this morning, so by the time I got half way through my pint, I was beginning to feel a bit sluggish. That was about the time that Gareth brought up the topic of the best route to Cheltenham.
From there, a 10 to 15 minute discussion of epic proportions ensued. Everyone had a strident opinion about this and none of the six or seven opinions agreed with each other. Some of them didn't even seem to agree with themselves.
Eventually, everyone in the pub was loudly talking about this, trying to make their point except 1) Gareth (whom, you will recall, started this and was sitting there grinning like a Cheshire cat), 2) Sharon the barmaid (who had her head buried in her hands behind the bar) and me (who snuck behind the bar to get a photo of this. I'm not even sure where Cheltenham is.)
When it was over, I commented to Sharon that the idea that seven or eight mature men would spend so much time heatedly discussing the best way to get to a town was simply amazing. She replied, "What's really amazing is that they've had that same argument several times."
 Mission, Pretending He Knows How to Hand Pull Ale |
 Mission and Sharon the Bartender |
I have one last pub story, then we'll close this chapter. Right before the Cheltenham discussion, a guy named Allen came in with a dog, whose name was Charley. (I took notes tonight, so I knew these names for certain.)
Allen and Charley, His Dog
Allen explained to me that Charley was in the habit of stopping at any pub he passed while out for his evening stroll and there was nothing he (Allen) could do but give in to him (Charley). Such a curse, Charley was to Allen.
Anyhow, in the course of our discussion, I learned that Allen is an American Civil war reenactor, who plays a confederate soldier and has been doing so for the past 30 years... here in England. (I asked him why he played a confederate soldier and he said it was because he liked to root for the underdogs.)
Allen currently owns more than 20 period guns for reenacting, all registered and legal. He even fixes guns for other people because he says they can't get decent parts in the UK and he has a source in the US. He explained how difficult it was to import these guns direct into England from America, so he worked with a company in Germany to reduce some of the import overhead.
The idea that group of UK residents would reenact the American Civil War fascinated me, so I did a quick internet search which resulted in my finding several UK-based civil war reenactment groups. Of all the things I could have hoped to find in this little village pub, that was not even on the list. Which makes it a wonderful last story for this chapter.