August 4, 2022: We'll Never See You Again -

I am reliably informed that this summer’s fashion trend is “coastal grandmother.” You can Google Image it if you like: big white shirts, loose linen pants, bucket hats, straw hats, flowing dresses, giant cashmere shawls, primarily beige, pale brown, and yes, taupe. It’s vaguely convalescent, but on the upside, it’s far from corseted.

Fellow coastal grandmas, our drab yet comfy time has come. We can be like Jane Fonda.

Alas, I didn’t know that the coastal grandmother look was a thing until after I’d landed In England, and met up with my lifelong pal and traveling companion, Dana, who keeps abreast of such things. I’d packed my bags in Practical Grandmother mode, for three weeks on the road. That means I’m  tromping around in my black Doc Marten Chelsea boots, grey pants, and bright floral tops that somewhat disguise food stains.

Not that I care deeply about being unfashionable, because I don’t really want strangers to notice me. If I do draw attention by mistake, my travel mantra is: “You’ll never see these people again.”  

We went to Ely Cathedral today, a huge thrill. We saw a table made from one bog oak, maybe 4,000 years old and submerged in the fens for most of that time. It was black, and by my stride, thirty paces long.

We have been chatting with people everywhere, and they’ve been unfailingly friendly. Today, a nearby older couple let me pat their tiny dog, Toby, then quizzed us at length (had our husbands bankrolled this trip?), argued about Devon versus Cornish cream tea customs, and told us that if we walked a little ways along the river, we would see a giraffe. I asked if it was real or a sculpture, and the woman coyly said she wasn’t telling.

They left. We paid our bill.  We asked the waitress if there was a giraffe nearby. She said yes, it was just down the way. So off we went.

No giraffe.

We accosted some natives along the river path. They knew of no giraffe. A guy sitting on a bench shook his head. No giraffe.  

We decided we had been well pranked, that it was like snipe hunting – send the tourists down the river searching for a giraffe!

HAHA! We were delighted to have been snookered. Maybe the people of Ely had the same, “We’ll never see these people again” mantra! What a hoot!

Then the guy on the bench said OH! WAIT! LOOK! And there it was.