Leaving my second home.

On the eve of leaving for Amsterdam, Scandanavia and European realms unknown, I'm reflecting on what England means to me. First in the mind and the heart is the wonderful support, reliable and warm, that my extended family shows me. There's not many Kingstons in Aotearoa, and whereas over here, we had sixteen family members helping blow out on the 96 candles on Nana's birthday cake. I'm starting to understand the joys that extended family bring. (Now just keep putting up with the overstayer, when he comes back 'kay folks?)

The most Scottish Town in Italy

In the evening I almost miss my stop in Fornaci di Barga (the 'furnaces' of Barga). Hungry for English words, I had been absorbed into the very porous substance of a discarded Daily Mail. Fornunately, there to welcome me and signal to the conductor as I scrambled off where two of my three British uncles: Graham and Douglas... more family and friends are gathered at the rented farmhouse up the hill. We are having a little festa in Tuscany!

What happened at Barga? We regaled the birthday girls with gifts, we visited the picturesque, walled Lucca; we quaffed massive pitchers of cheap local wine. We ate fresh figs and aged cheese and salads with spelt. The boys attacked the Hungarian sausage I brought. We heard Uncle Douglas and Aunt Sarah blag their way through Italian conversations. We plaid the violence-inducing card game Racing Demon. We shivered in the mornings and sweated in the afternoons. We expolored a wild canyon and stared at dramatic skylines.



(Hillside Barga has two official claims to fame: having the second best shilloute and being 'the most Scottish' town in Italy. The first is due to its physical geography, the second, a history of 20th century migration to and from Scotland.)

It is great to have the chance to relax in the company of people I don't have to introduce myself to, to never once talk about day-jobs, and at the same time to be in this strange, beautiful, semi-wild landscape, with such an exciting culture and history.

And too quickly it seems, the week I spend there is over - it is almost time to leave.

I visit the duomo (town church) before I leave and note good signs for my future plans. The bas-relief above the door depicts the grape harvest, and inside is both a massive statue and painting of Saint Christopher - the patron saint of Barga, as well as travellers.

Wirksworth-Manchester

It is time to leave old Wirksworth. (Or `Wazza´ as some call it). I´m glad of the company of Uncle Graham, who cycles with me to Buxton, in the heart of the Peak District. The name may conjure up images of our bikes ascending alpine pinnacles a la Lance Armstrong, but really it comes from the old English ´peac´ - rolling hill, and we biked along old railway lines. Mainly flat. And it was awes, man. We bike through the White Peaks - an area of limestone jutting like teeth from the green gums of pastures. Graham tells me that D.H. Lawrence (a local boy) calls this area the navel of England. It´s where the flat grain fields of the South give way to the hilly sheep and cattle pastures of the North.

A typical Ewan late start and it´s the mid-afternoon when arrive in Buxton. I fill my water bottles from the famous mineral water, flowing free like the speights tap in Dunedin. "It tastes metallic" Graham warns. Nonsense! Then, in understated English fashion, we part and I am travelling alone again for the first time in a month.

Of hair and head-tilts

Yes, it’s been a while since my last entry. It’s not that I’ve been uninspired, in fact, I’ve been doing a lot of writing*. It’s just that I’ve been leading a rather pedestrian life, literally. My bike is in the garage here in Wirksworth and some days I don’t leave the house. Here in Wirksworth, an old town of 9000 in the limestone quarry part of the Midlands, the focus has really been family. With my Nana and Grandad (ninety-five and ninety-two) it’s flavoured by the numerous cups of tea, the stories of time spent in Malawi in 50’s, 60’s and 70’s, the bus trips to villages up the valley of the ‘mighty Derwent’. Helping them with some small challenges – opening fiddly juice containers and pesky email attachments - is a pleasure. Aunty Rosie and Uncle Graham are consistent with hugs and literature suggestions. Cousins Elliot and Alexander show me how to party – Wirksworth style. They have strange rules for pool here. And a wah-wah pedal! I also earn some pounds helping renovate houses for a local.

You may have heard of the flooding in nearby Yorkshire. Intense. Six people have died and there’s been around a billion pounds of damage. (Not nearly as bad as the floods in Pakistan, though) The rain definitely got to Derbyshire, but don’t fret, pet, we’re safe. Perched on a hill, it all drains away from Wirksworth.


What’s it like living here, in the midst of England’s countryside? You guessed it, it’s quaint. Quaint little “pooubs” quaint old shop-keepers who call everyone “duck”. Quaint houses from the local stone, strewn higgledy piggledy around the hills. And people probably think I’m quaint. Having conversations with people I pass myself off as normal; it’s the small interactions with strangers that I fumble my way through. I still haven’t completely weaned myself off the very kiwi eyebrow-lift, chin-tilt greeting and I pay the price in blank stares. And when people say “y’right?” over here, it’s a warm greeting, as Mel tried to teach me, not an anxious probe. And sometimes, like when I make jokes to strangers at the tennis court, I think maybe I’m just being too friendly, even for Wirksworth.

Even the monumental and historic buildings are quaint. I visit Cromford, a village famous for being the 1771 site of Lancashire entrepreneur Richard Arkwright’s deployment of mechanised cotton-spinning and the factory system. Some call it the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. Most of the ”mills” (really factory buildings) still stand, large they may be, but (see photo) still pink and cute. Not like the working conditions. Surplus labour from the dying lead industry was exploited, and children crouched under the water-powered spinning machines to clean or “scavenge” any debris. If you weren’t bang on time for your twelve-hour shift, you couldn’t work any of the day. Those who know about my punctuality can envisage my potential cotton spinning pay-check. Other factories were even harsher, apparently


It really is a strange place to be spinning cotton. Several thousand miles from your nearest cotton field, it was only intense secrecy about industrial practices (and the protective measures of the British government) that meant the industrial revolution happened here, rather than closer to the cotton itself.

Arkwright had one of his mills destroyed early on by anti-mechanisation rioters (hooray!) and promptly developed a militia and a cannon to guard this one. Oh, yeah, I was talking about quaint. Get this. Arkwright picked the relatively remote Cromford for his project for several reasons – but how was this foreign guy familiar with the place? He was a wig maker, and travelled to large gatherings to gather the human hair for his wigs. The story is that nearby Wirksworth had a good deal of country fairs, and thus a good supply of hair. Arkwright came for the hair, but he stayed for the prime factory location!

*If anyone is keen on reading my new Roald Dahl-(think Tales of the Unexpected, not BFG)-esque short story, let me know, and I’ll swing you an email copy.