Day 12: Dunstable? Where the hell is Dunstable?

We had a good stay in our apartment in London. It was small but it was central and very comfortable and, perhaps surprisingly for London, reasonably quiet. We had thought tat Big Ben was down for maintenance but we could hear it chiming gently.

Our apartment was comfortable. There was a dormer window. Some had added a small window at the side through which you could see Westminster Abbey over the rooftops.

From the dormer window one could see that finest of ecclesiastical supply companies, the well-known (to a cleric at least) Wippel & Co. Their website tells me that they have been going "since 1789 and have established a reputation that is second to none throughout the World for supplying goods and services to Church and Clergy of the finest possible quality". Note the capital "W" in world. I rather like that.

We packed up and grabbed a cab to the Hertz place in Edgware Road where we picked up a large (it is pretty big) Volvo C90 SUV. It's rather a nice piece of equipment and, importantly, it has satnav. We set off a would our way through Kilburn and other famous London suburbs before emerging onto the M1. We had plenty of time and thought that an excursion would be in order. In the event we had not choice. The M1 was closed for maintenance between Junctions 10 and 12 so we turned off at Junction 9. Unfortunately so did everyone else. Thus began an adventure of epic proportions.

We crawled at a speed that is less than any positive speed you can think of (that means something to a mathematician, to you Gentle Reader it means "snail's pace" or slower) toward Dunstable. Now, I have heard of Dunstable but I had never been there. I shall be glad if I never go again. It has more traffic lights than any other town of similar size in the world. Of this I am certain. None of these traffic lights stay green for longer than a nanosecond or two.

You would think from its market cross that Dunstable might be quite pretty but this picture is highly romanticised.

I read of Dunstable in Wikipedia that "in Roman times its name was Durocobrivis. There was a general assumption that the nominative form of the name had been Durocobrivae, so that is what appears on the map of 1944 illustrated below. But current thinking is that the form Durocobrivis, which occurs in the Antonine Itinerary, is a fossilised locative that was used all the time and the Ordnance Survey now uses this form". I have no idea what is a "fossilised locative" and I have no desire to. 

I had thought that we had seen the worst of England's towns but I was wrong. Having eventually escaped the grasp of Dunstable's traffic control system we thought we see what Aylesbury was like. We were not impressed. Aylesbury was declared the new county town of Buckinghamshire in 1529 by King Henry VIII: Aylesbury Manor was among the many properties belonging to Thomas Boleyn, the father of Anne Boleyn, and it is rumoured that the change was made by the King to curry favour with the family.

It does sport a statue of Benjamin Disraeli though I have been completely unable to discover the connection between Disraeli and Aylesbury.

Benjamin Disraeli in Aylesbury. Why he is there no one seems to know.

We are staying at Pastures Farm which we stayed at last time we visited the UK We rather like our hosts Debbie and John and Pastures Farm is in a beautiful setting. We checked in just in tim for a cup of tea and then set off to see The Parents.

We found them hale a hearty and in good spirits. My Mother had baked a cake of which we partook a slice each and it was just like the cakes my Mother used to bake. She always had a cake in a tin ready to go and often more than one. She reminded me that her Gingerbread was among my favourites. I have the recipe somewhere. My Father was in good form and being humorous as ever.

We stayed for dinner which I assisted with although possibly not very ably. We will return tomorrow.