It goes without saying, and indeed typing, that one of the essential activities for those from Old(e) England when visiting (or living in) this country is a visit to New England. Preferably, this should take the form of a tour of several or all the six States which make up the beautiful and historic north eastern corner of the country.
(Now, in the days before the Information Steve Heighway (without which this site would not exist, of course), I could have had some fun by asking you to name the six States of New England. Thanks to the good people of Google, however, my fun has been curtailed. But here's a suggestion. Just for fun - no prizes or any of that nonesense - British and other non-American readers (imagine that!) should resist the temptation to Google it and try to guess the six using only their grey matter. The answers will appear at the end. But there'll be a couple of clues along the way.
Go on - do it now, before you read any further.
OK, let's move on.)
So, this summer, The Referee and family decided to make the traditional pilgrimage north and east to see what we could find. We decided to start on the coast of MA, then inland to NH, and then back east to the coast of ME. (You will note that I am writing in code in order not to spoil your fun.)
Well, it was just as beautiful and peaceful as we had imagined, in part. On the other hand, it was also strange and over-eventful...
1. MA
I cannot over-recommend to you the beautiful villlage of Rockport MA which, like St Ives in Cornwall - another of The Referee's favo(u)rite places - is both a fishing village and an artists' colony, as well as the proud owner of some lovely beaches. We spent a very happy couple of days there, staying at a wonderful B&B (the Old Farm Inn) which, having been there since at least 1705 (as the home of one Cpt William Woodbury), must be one of the oldest buildings in MA, and indeed in the US of America. But Rockport is most famous for "Motif #1", an old red lobster barn on the harbour, so-called because it is said to be the most-painted object in the country. I don't mean that it is often re-decorated, I mean that... You know what I mean.
2. NH
From there we drove north and west into the spectacular White Mountains, which are not particularly white in the summer, but a popular place to ski at other times of the year. They are notable primarly for (i) Mt Washington, the highest point in New England (and, at 6,288ft, half as high again as Ben Nevis, the highest point in the UK of Blighty), and (ii) the Mt Washington Hotel, which sits at the foot of the mountain in the town of Bretton Woods, and which hosted the famous post-war financial conference which goes by that name.
(It has also been said by some that the spectacular hotel was the inspiration for Stephen King's novel The Shining, although Mr King himself in the introit to the book explains that the inspiration was a hotel in Colorado, which seems to rather scupper that theory.)
Anyway, it's a remarkably beautiful area - like the Scottish Highlands on steroids - and we enjoyed a fascinating day taking the steam railway up to the top of the mountain, which the engineers were keen to explain is the second steepest railway in the world, after one in Switzerland. When you're going up the section which has a gradient of over 37%, you take their word for it.
The locals like to say that Mt Washington is the home of the world's worst weather. This might seem impausible at first but, being something of an anorak for this type of thing, I was pleased to learn that it holds the world record for the faster-ever recorded wind speed: 231 mph.
3. ME
Then things started to go awry. We had booked ourselves into an apparently beautiful little cottage, on the coast, in the middle of nowhere, in upstate ME. Sound idyllic? That's what we thought.
The first sign of trouble reared its head when we arrived in the nearest metropolis, let's call it Little Inbred. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not suggesting that the good people of this area are completely uncivilised. But - this is true - the man employed by the local chamber of commerce to give out tourist information warned us to be careful about the locals, who were not always particularly welcoming of outsiders. For a town where there was clearly absolutely nothing going on except tourism - and there wasn't much of that - this was quite an admission. (The chap in question, who, it seemed to me, was doing his best in difficult circumstances, was wearing a t-shirt proudly advertising the local Lupin Festival 2007.)
Feeling rather unsure about whether we'd done the right thing, we set off in search of a supermarket. Since Little Inbred clearly had nothing at all to offer in this department, we decided that, before finding our cottage, we would have to check out the nearby settlement of Imarriedmysister. It quickly became clear that Imarriedmysister was a much more happening place, boasting not only a supermarket but also a parking lot, a couple of fishing boats and a dog with almost the requisite number of legs. We came away relatively pleased, in all the circumstances, with our haul of some long-grain rice from the 1970s and several potatoes with some lovely green shoots.
Without going into boring detail (imagine that!) about the accommodation in question, suffice to say that, on arrival, we quickly concluded that life is not always like the internet. Perhaps that's a blessing. But this place was not only different, it was also dirty and it smelled (although not as badly as the chap on my flight to Melbourne - see my message of 8 August).
We then did something which we hadn't ever done before, but which was actually rather fun. We had a family meeting, and we made a democratic decision. The unanimous decision was that there was no way we were going to spend a week in this place - we would stay only that night and leave again first thing the next morning.
After an unpleasant night, on the floor in my case (the kids were so spooked out by their creepy room that they got in our bed and refused to get out), we packed up and drove off, to nowhere in particular.
I don't know if you've tried this, but there is something strangely invigorating about driving with a car load of stuff and children without any idea where you're going to spend the night.
To cut a long story short (too late for that! I expect you're thinking) we were taken in like waifs off the street by the wonderful Carl at the Old Farm Inn back in Rockport MA, and spent a lovely few days there back on the beach, eating at the same restaurant every night, followed by the same walk to admire the wonderful harbour and Motif #1. Perfect.
The moral of the story, I suppose, is that things which look like they're going to go wrong sometimes turn out better than they would have done if they had gone right, if you see what I mean.
And finally, the answer to the quiz is, of course: Connecticut, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachussets, Maine and Rhode Island. But then you already knew that.
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