Addendum to yesterday's post about roundabouts. We haven't yet figured out how to get my phone (Samsung S23) to talk to the BMW and get the map onto the dashboard console, so I'm reliant on ManpanionTM to call out the directions from my phone. For some reason, he's not comfortable with my holding the phone in my hand while driving... That's where we run into 2 issues.
One - the roundabout's IRL rarely look like how they are depicted on Google Maps. On Google Maps, they are a lovely little round circle (obviously, right?) with a clearly marked lane in and out. In real life, they are a bit more clusterfucky. What is shown as a neat little circle on Google Maps is in reality a distended, grotesque oval behemoth, sprouting entry and exit roads like an all-consuming tarmac octopus. I'm looking at you, roundabout on the A12 to Colchester! That one is a total nightmare and is stitched together by multiple mini-roundabouts that had traffic coming in and out in both directions at the same time in a very disorienting fashion! Not entirely sure how I managed to get through it without incident - lets see if my luck continues to hold out!
The second problem (exacerbated by the first) is that ManpanionTM has no idea how to describe them. Not surprising when you don't run into them in the US very often. I do feel a bit bad for him when its not clear where the first, second or third exits are (see above) and how those relate to the directions we are being shown on the map. And when I'm urgently squawking at him to tell me "which exit do I need?" as I need to make sure I'm in the right approach lane. He's now pretty much got down pat the "go straight over" direction, but we are still struggling with anything other than "first exit". One time, he decided to try a completely novel approach and told me "go 270, 270" - umm, what? He was talking in angles and meant, of course, the third exit (aka last exit). While it was an innovative solution to the problem in hand, it wasn't the most helpful direction I'd ever received. As an engineer, though, he thought it was a perfectly acceptable way of describing the intended direction. After much protestation and general scorn from yours truly, he did accept that it could cause confusion with road numbers ("I want the 290?? But it says A12?") so he hasn't tried it again since, poor lad. I think Cornwall is going to blow his mind. I can't wait until we go down our first one lane road that has grass growing up the middle.
Addendum to breakfast. Butter strategy is also as important as boiled egg strategy - especially in those special cases where you are handed a wodge of butter that has clearly been hacked from a lump still sitting in the fridge. Again, dipping into his engineering mojo, ManpanionTM devised an extremely precise (and, as it turns out, rather effective) way of optimizing the butter meltage per toast square inch (BM per TSI). He even refined it further by hot-pocketing it on his second slice. I sat in shame as I tried to glue the ripped up holes in my toast back together using said still solid butter.
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| A complete butter fuck up by yours truly. |
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| Spot the engineer.... ManpanionTM's far superior approach.... |
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| .... although he still struggled to operate the Gerbil Powered Browning Device properly, however. This was his pitiful attempt at toasting wholemeal bread for his boiled egg (which was hard today!) |
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| Gilding the lily of optimal toast melting strategies. He's kinda showing off at this point.... |
Toasty nonsense aside, we just spent a lovely two days hanging out with Dad, Thomas and his wife Engie. We had met up with Dad on Friday, and Thomas & Engie were due to join us on Saturday afternoon, driving up (down, across?? I have no idea which direction, to be honest) from Coventry. We arranged to meet everyone at a Olde Fashioned Pub in Great Bentley called The Plough for lunch, so we had a fairly lazy morning, exploring the throbbing metropolis that is Wivenhoe High Street on a Saturday morning, visiting the tiny Boots and then pretending to be the little green and red men on the pedestrian walk signals on the 2 min walk home, We know how to party.
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| Wivenhoe High Street 11am Saturday morning |
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| Pretty accurate, I would say. And never, ever bland. |
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| A fine dining establishment in the Greatest of Bentleys |
We managed to sneak in a quick afternoon nap, before meeting up again for dinner at an even older establishment in Colchester called the Old Siege Inn. It was covered in ancient timber beams and there was not a straight surface, roof or floor in the entire place! It totally gave me Sandwich vibes! (the old cinque port in Kent where I used to live). We had dinner on the 1st floor (aka the top floor, for any US folk reading) and it was very creaky and simply fabulous. The food was decent enough and again, the company was excellent, so made for a very pleasant evening. None of us were massively hungry (on account of the giant pies and burgers that had been consumed at lunchtime) but there were enough lighter options available (although I have to say I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't actually get a ploughman's there!!!). Then it was time to tackle the Triple Threat roundabout one more time and head home, rolling into bed around 9.30pm. Tomorrow we had off to Cornwall for some DEEP nostalgia!
Stay tuned!
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| Steak and ale pie. Ohhh baby. So tasty. |
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