Back from a relatively easy, if mostly quite boring, cycle to Gaiman and back today. The first really small village I've been in - i.e. it's small enough not to have any traffic lights. (Is this a new definition of a village?) But enough to do to fill the afternoon. Went to see the dead people first - always easier to deal with than live ones I find. Lots of Jones, Evans and Rogers on the stones. And also rather disturbingly an Elma. I don't think I've ever seen my name on a gravestone before... Luckily I got distracted from this by hearing a horse neighing - someone had parked their horse next to my bike while they got it some water, so I went out to say hello to the beast and got a whole story from the owner, most of which I didn't understand of course but never mind. Cycled about the place noting all the various historical bits the woman at the Info place had pointed out for me. Most of them which could be visited weren't open till the afternoon so I headed off to find the ultimate tea room.
That is of course the one with the giant tea pot in the garden which appears in all the guidebooks. Which, I'm afraid to say, is also a sort of shrine to Lady Di, since she visited it in 1995. The unwashed cup she drank from is still kept in a cabinet in a corner (no, really, I couldn't make this up!). It's quite a bit outside the village, about 10 minutes cycling, most of that over a gravelly path. I don't know if I'd have bothered if I'd been walking. The grounds are all carefully shaped hedges and flowers and inside it's even more totally over the top. Waitresses in full pinnied glory. A Welsh male choir as back ground music (singing Jesus Christ Superstar in Welsh apparantly when I arrived, very odd). A fountain tinkling behind palms. Cabinets full of delicate china. The place was empty, this now being very much the end of the season, but still all the tables were fully laid with cloths and cups and plate settings. I really just wanted a pot of tea and some fruit cake but no, The Full Tea Experience is all that's on offer, so I had that. I was after all officially starving after the cycle out there on a bit of a measly Touring Club Bar breakfast of coffee, bread and jam. I thought I would easily deal with the plates of bread, scones and cakes which were set before me but after a while I had to admit defeat and start decanting bits into my pockets for later consumption. (Tip from me - don't put bread and marmalade into your pocket with only a paper napkin wrapped round it, it runs out and makes a terrible sticky mess...)
After dealing with this excess of food I really just needed to lie down and sleep but I had a whole list of things I wanted to at least see before the cycle back so headed back up the gravel path over the Chubut river (very fast flowing and deep, looks like it should be great fishing). Past the chapels and to a much-acclaimed 'park' where a man has been 'creating' things with recycled stuff for years. Total waste of time. I thought it would be like the man in Spain who's building his own cathedral from re-cycled stuff (see Rascha Peper's 'Spaans Hondje) but it's just... horrible ugly decoration made from old bottles and cans. Nothing is actually mAde from the recycled stuff, it's just stuck on top. I couldn't get away quickly enough. (More later, someone else is waiting for the computer.)
(Got my ticket to Buenos Aires when I returned to Trelew - leaving on Sunday evening, arriving there on Monday at about 5 in the afternoon.)
