"Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms."*

Secondary Title: Adventures in England!

Bella and I met up at Surbiton Station around 10 yesterday morning and hopped on the Southwest Trains service to Guildford. From Guildford, we bought a return ticket to Crowthorne and, since we missed the 11.09, we wandered around Guildford the town for a little while, until the 12.09 train. Guildford is a cute little town, with a shopping mall and a high street and a Wetherspoons on the corner.

12.09 First Great Western train to Crowthorne. We couldn't figure out which way to go from the station; this was a bit of my fault, since I'd looked at the map, but I didn't think to print it out and it looked a lot different. After some dithering this way and that, we walked down Duke's Ride and, instead of continuing on straight like we should have to reach the High Street, we turned left on New Wokingham Road. After a little while of wandering down that way (towards Wokingham and away from Crowthorne), we took a right and followed that and ended up wandering through the suburbs. Cute little place, much different from the suburbs here, more like my street at home. Bigger houses, not connected to each other like the houses here, non-cookie cutter, big lawns. A nice place to raise a family.

Interestingly, most of the houses had their own names, which I thought was really cool. We passed The Whispers and Pinecroft and The Mount, to name just a few. 

Finally, somehow, we made it to Old Wokingham Road and followed it back towards the town. Town to the right, Bracknell Forest to the left, which could come in handy. Took a stroll up the High Street (a few shops, a couple restaurants, two banks, a library and a couple churches) and then back to the pub on the corner of Duke's Ride and High Street. The Prince, nice place, good food.

From there, we followed Upper Broadmoor Road up to the Broadmoor Hospital. On the way up, we passed a hearse and a funeral procession; I'm not sure if it came from the Hospital or beyond. The wiki article described the Hospital as looking like a prison, and it does. High brick walls, a fenced-in field nearby that looked a little mangy...it was cool to get a visual on the setting, but not as exciting as I thought it would be. Still a nice walk, though.

We then made our way back to the train station (which is at the other end of the area; this will have to be fixed in my story) and then back to Guildford and then back to Surbiton.

Things to work out in my story:

+ Train station is far away from the main town
+ Dig site: field next to Hospital? Or nearer to Bracknell Forest?
+ Locals: uneasy, wary? Or invested in the project? Or both?

So that was a fun excursion. Today I'm to finish my sci-fi essay (once and for all!) and then Jules is arriving around dinnertime!

* Title is from the Sherlock Holmes story The Greek Interpreter; Holmes is discussing his brother Mycroft, his mother, and his ancestry from a French painter. It has absolutely nothing to do with this post, but I read an interview yesterday in which the interviewee used this quote and it's been stuck in my head ever since.