Monica

As I mentioned before, the primary purpose of this entire trip was going to the Fforde Ffiesta, which is a celebration of the works of Jasper Fforde. The personal back story here is that from the late 1980s through 2002 I more or less commuted between Los Angeles and Boulder, Colorado. I discovered a mystery bookstore in Boulder (Rue Morgue Books, owned by Tom and Enid Schantz) and made regular trips there, especially when they had signings and, hence, stayed open late. A couple of my colleagues were also mystery fans and we spent many pleasant evenings at a Caribbean restaurant a couple of doors away, followed by book browsing. Anyway, they published a newsletter, in which they made book recommendations and one recommendation in 2001 was for a book titled The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. I bought and read this and loved the originality of the concept, so I kept reading the Thursday Next series and many of the rest of his books. A couple of years ago, I had a conference to go to in London and learned of the existence of the Fforde Ffiesta, but the tickets were already sold out. I kept it on my list of things to do. And back in May 2025, I was able to register for the 2026 event, which happened the first weekend of this May (i.e. 2026).

I had a little preparation to do. For one thing, it made sense to reread The Eyre Affair as I had forgotten various things in the past 40+ years. I had ideas for the costume contest, but never managed to complete executing them. I also never quite got around to crocheting a dodo. (Dodos are popular pets in the Ffordean world.) I decided that it would be easy enough to join the Legion of the Danvers, so I did actually do what amounts to cosplay. Mrs. Danvers is the evil housekeeper in Daphne DuMaurier’s novel, Rebecca, and the prototype for evil housekeepers in other literature, e.g. Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein. Clones of her work for the Goliath Corporation in Fforde’s books. Dressing as her just requires a long black dress, a grey wig, and dark glasses. Here I am as Mrs. Danvers, standing next to a cardboard cut-out of Jasper Fforde, i.e. Flat Jasper. (I’ll explain more about this later on.)



While the Ffiesta officially started on Saturday morning, I arrived at the hotel in Swindon late in the afternoon on Friday. I ended up having supper at the bar and didn’t know that two of the people sitting across from me at a table were Jasper and his wife, Mary. (And I got to explain airag, the Mongolian fermented mare’s milk drink, to Mary. It’s actually not bad and, yes, I’ve done some weird traveling over the years.)

Anyway, I picked up my Ffiesta packet and joined a group of people to play the unofficial Friday night trivia. Our team was doing well until a question which required teams to match Shakespeare plays to the number of people who died in each one. I figured that people don’t die in the comedies, but I have pretty much no clue when it comes to the histories. I redeemed myself when it came to some geography related questions and, in particular, got us close enough on listing countries that have capitals starting with the letter “K” for the rest of the team to make a good guess and have us end up in 3rd place overall.

The official Ffiesta started on Saturday morning. There was a Ffordian Fete with several games to play. Two of them stuck in my mind. One involved guessing the contents of three cans with their labels removed. (I didn’t have a clue.) The other required fishing for magnetic word tiles and using them to write a poem. I came up with:

Chant sweet summer death
Her dragon eyebrows can shine.

Also on Saturday morning was a brief opening ceremony, which included singing the song “Leaning on a Lamppost.” The significance of that is that it was originally popularized by George Formby, who is President for Life in the Thursday Next books. But it has some personal significance for me, because it was used in the revival of the musical Me and My Girl in 1986. I saw the Encores production of this in 2018. “Leaning on a Lamppost” is the second stickiest song in its score (behind only “The Lambeth Walk,” which is as much of an earworm as “It’s a Small World” and the Oompa-Loompa Song from Willy Wonka. There is a special circle of hell for the writers of all of these.) There was also an opportunity to sign up for some activities and I signed up for Literary Karaoke, choosing Chapter 12 of The Eyre Affair, which involves Mycroft’s Prose Portal.

The first event of the afternoon was Jasper’s Tour of Swindon. Some people had spent the morning building a cardboard model of Swindon and Jasper pointed out various of the places and people in it. My favorite part of this involved Michelle, Swindon’s only jogger. There was also Michelle’s understudy, her understudy’s understudy, her stalker, her stalker’s stalker, etc.

That was followed by a Q&A. The most exciting thing Jasper said is that there will be a sequel to Red Side Story, which is itself the sequel to Shades of Grey. Yay!

After a brief break, there was Quiz Hour, with three games. I thought I would have been good at Name That Fruit, since I’ve eaten odd things like kiwano melon and tamarillo (tree tomato) but it turned out to include activities like making a face out of a coconut, which I don’t think I would do so well at.

Next was Evade the Question, in which contestants had to talk for a minute without mentioning anything relating to the given subject. For example, the first subject was “elephant” so one couldn’t mention anything like animal, Africa, trunk, grey, etc. My favorite challenge of that round came when one contestant said “I was painting my room” and was challenged because “elephants are notoriously in the room.” By the way, the last round is traditionally “Life, the Universe, and Everything,” and the challenges were fast and furious, on the order of one or two seconds. I may suggest playing a version of this at a Loser event. (For those who don’t know, Losers are devotees of the Invitational, a humor contest that used to appear in the Washington Post. For more information, see The Not Ready for the Algonquin Roundtable Society. Loserdom is a big part of my life.)

The final game was Fforde or Fraud in which two contestants had to guess whether or not characters appeared in The Eyre Affair. The catch was that they were separated by a whiteboard, so couldn’t see each other. The funniest part of this is how much trouble Jasper and Mary had with it.

I also spent some time hunting lobsters. There were various toy lobsters hidden around the public areas of the hotel, each with a tag on them. You had to find them and write down the name on each tag next to the number from the other side of the tag. I call shenanigans as some of them were actually crabs. (And some of us know the sad story of Herman the Lobster and Sally the Crab, immortalized by the Smothers Brothers in the lyrics “crabs walk sideways and lobsters walk straight and we won’t let you have her for your mate.”) I never did manage to find the last few crustaceans, alas.

The evening started with the Fancy Dress parade. (In case anyone doesn’t know, “fancy dress” is British English for “costume.”) My personal favorite was the two people who dressed as “Deleted Characters.”

The day ended with an auction, which was raising money for a literary charity in Swindon. There were several interesting items, but the prices got steep rather quickly. I was seriously tempted by a CD about Swindon and cheese, but wasn’t willing to spend GBP 40 for it. Overall, I think the auction raised about GBP 3000, which is impressive.

By the way, my favorite quip of the day (from Jasper, of course) was “I just learned that microbiologists are the same size as other biologists.”

Sunday morning started with Jasper reading from Dark Reading Matter, the last book in the Thursday Next series, which is scheduled to come out in October. I’m looking forward to being able to read it.

Then it was time for the Legion of the Danvers to meet in the hotel’s quadrangle. There were 81 of us, total, which is impressive given that there were 158 total attendees at the Fforde Ffiesta. There was an oath, a bit of “tutting” and “huzzahs,” drills, marching, and songs. Later on in the day, we got our service and pay books, which obviously need to be kept in a safe place for future events. Here’s a picture of extreme Danversing. (I think you should be able to click on the picture on flickr to see the action.)



I did not stay around for Lobster Space Invaders, since I wasn’t in the mood for a water fight. I used the lunch break to catch up on my travel journal and puzzles and such other mundane activities. In the early afternoon, everyone reconvened to watch the production of Richard III. There were a few people who seemed a bit lost as to what they were supposed to be doing, but it was still entertaining, especially as we were provided with noisemakers to aid us with audience participation.

That was followed by Literary Karaoke. I think my reading went fine and someone did tell me I’d read well. The main thing I’d practiced was making sure I stayed within the time limit.

After a short break, there was a demonstration of dodo whispering. Because, as everyone knows, it does take some effort to train your pet dodo properly. That was followed by prize giving. There were elaborately designed plates for the winners of the big contests and bags or boxes of sweets for the more minor events. Even though there was a brief closing ceremony, there was another unofficial event later on. That was a race night. There were videos featuring races with dachshunds, Shetland ponies, marbles, pigs, sheep, babies, and Fforganizers (that’s the term for the volunteers who organize the Fforde Ffiesta). I used the same approach which I take to actual horse races - namely choosing the contestant whose name I like best. It worked about as well as it does for actual horse races, in case you thought that was a rational approach.

In the morning, I got a taxi to the train station and on to the next leg of my trip, which I’ll write about soon. The bottom line is that the Fforde Ffiesta proved to be ffabulous ffun and I’ll certainly try to go to it again in the ffuture.

I got back from New York on Sunday afternoon and was off to the UK late in the day on Tuesday. There’s no longer a daytime flight from IAD to LHR, so it was the agony of a redeye, which is, at best, just tolerable, even in premium plus. The e-gates at Heathrow worked fine, but I arrived on the day of a major transit strike. This was a somewhat complicated trip and the transit strike definitely didn’t help. I’d vaguely intended to leave my luggage somewhere convenient (e.g. either Paddington or Victoria Station) and do something for a few hours. But I was exhausted and decided it would be best just to go to the hotel I was staying at overnight and figure things out from there.

By the way, I had managed to forget to bring my Oyster card with me. But using my credit card to tap in and out of the tube worked just fine. And the Elizabeth Line and Thameslink were not affected by the strike.

That hotel was the Bloc Hotel at Gatwick Airport. Why? Well, I was flying to Jersey from LGW the next morning. As it happened, by the time I got there, my room was ready and the idea of a nap was more appealing than the idea of actually doing anything. The hotel was quite comfortable and amazingly quiet for a hotel that is inside an airport. It had somewhat complicated controls for the lighting, but I figured out enough to be comfortable. The only problem with the hotel was that the bathroom is of the “wet room” variety. That is, there is no actual shower stall (not even a curtain), so taking a shower just floods the entire bathroom. I’ve encountered that before and it still strikes me as a horrible design flaw. Anyway, after catching up on some things on-line (e.g. puzzles) and napping for a couple of hours, I got supper at Giraffe, mere steps away. I went back to the room, read for a while, and got an okay night’s sleep.

I should probably explain that I was leveraging off an event in England to finally get to the Channel Islands, a region I’d been interested in for several years. Jersey is the largest island of the group and definitely has the most developed tourism infrastructure, though there is still plenty of agriculture there, including both cattle and vegetable farming. It doesn’t hurt that both Jersey and Guernsey are on the Travelers’ Century Club list of countries and territories. Also, I’d met a woman from Guernsey when I was on the Queen Mary 2 in November and made plans to get together with her.

In the morning, I just had to check out and take the elevator downstairs, where I used a machine to print out a bag tag and send my bag off to my plane. My British Air flight (booked using Alaska Air miles) to Jersey was fine. After retrieving my bag, I took a bus to the main bus terminal in Saint Helier, from which I had a short walk to my hotel. I had booked a room at the Pomme D’Or Hotel largely for its location, right in the heart of St. Helier and across the street from Liberation Square. It proved to be a good choice - both convenient and comfortable.

My first sightseeing excursion started with walking over to Liberation Square.



After a stop for lunch, I walked around the waterfront, which has an interesting (but non-working) steam clock.



Then I went over to the Maritime Museum. I’m not particularly interested in shipping, so I opted to go just to the Occupation Tapestry Gallery. This has 13 tapestries (one for each of the 12 parishes on the island, plus a final one added later on) having to do with the Nazi occupation of Jersey during World War II. The work is quite detailed and I found this fascinating. Here are photos of a couple of the panels, so you can see for yourself.





There are also videos about the occupation and liberation and about the making of the tapestries. I found all of this very interesting, especially as it is something we never really learned about in school when I was growing up. (We spent almost all of European history on the French Revolution, with everything from World War I onwards covered in under a week.)

I wandered up to the Central Market, getting there about an hour before it closed. I suspect it would have been livelier a bit earlier in the day. I browsed briefly at a book stall and found a yarn shop, which was (alas) already closed. And there was this interesting fountain to look at.



I spent another hour or so wandering a bit aimlessly around St. Helier (and getting lost in the process). Eventually, I made my way back to the hotel and, after eating supper, had an early night to try to get my body clock back in sync.

One of the sights I was particularly eager to see was the Jersey Zoo, which had been founded by Gerald Durrell. I have to admit that I haven’t read any of his books, though I have read a couple by his brother, Lawrence. Gerald was a pioneer in conservation and founded the Jersey Zoo specifically to breed endangered species. Getting there is fairly straightforward, as there is regular bus service from the terminal in St. Helier. There are a couple of different routes and the one I took was quite scenic, making me wish I had more time to explore some of the places it passed.

The zoo itself is not really my sort of zoo, since it runs heavily towards primates and I am a lions and tigers and bears (oh, my!) type of girl. Still, I did watch some gorillas and geladas (Ethiopian baboons) and (more briefly) orangutans and tamarins and a few lemurs. I will concede that this young gorilla was cute.



And I don’t think I’d ever seen geladas before.



There was also a good reptile house (poison dart frogs!) and a lot of birds. But I think the most interesting part of the zoo is the building devoted to Gerald Durrell’s life story. His grave (well, the site where his ashes were interred) is right outside that.



Overall, I was reasonably satisfied with my visit to the zoo.

I started my final day on Jersey by seeking out a statue I’d seen a photo of on-line. I did find it, but only after a brief diversion to listen to a ukulele club.



The story behind this is that, just as British people call the French “frogs,” the French decided to call the people of Jersey “les crapauds” meaning toads. The residents of Jersey responded by adopting the toad as a symbol for their residents. I’m not sure how old this story is, however, since the toad statue wasn’t actually erected until 2004. Still, it’s an interesting landmark.

There is a yarn shop a short walk from there and, alas, I was able to verify that there isn’t any local yarn available. So Jersey will not see a place in the long-standing knitting project that I call “the coat of many countries.”

Another priority for me was visiting the Jersey Museum. This includes a reasonably informative film about the island, a history exhibition (focused on the Nazi occupation, the liberation, and the aftermath, e.g. the marketing of Jersey as a honeymoon island), an art gallery, and a Victorian house. It was prety interesting and, best of all, admission was free.

There was a food festival going on nearby. I might have gone to it, but it was very crowded and there was an admission charge, so I opted just to sit on a bench across the street and listen to music for a little while. Then I decided to take “Le Petit Train,” which is a tourist ride (not a real train) that goes along the coast to St Aubin. It was scenic and the narration was entertaining enough, so it was a reasonable way to kill a little over an hour. After that I retrieved my bag from the hotel and headed over to the ferry port, to take the ferry to Guernsey,

The ferry ride should have been an hour and 10 minutes. But, as we approached St. Peter Port (the capital of Guernsey) the ferry began to vibrate and we pulled back out to sea. Eventually the captain announced that we had to abort landing due to a propeller problem. It turned out that a fishing bob had gotten caught in one propeller. They did eventually free it (so we were able to dock) but not before people were speculating that we might have to spend the night on the boat. I managed to find my way to my hotel (the Best Western Moores Hotel) where I collapsed for the night. While the hotel was at a convenient location, it was a bit weirdly designed. For example, there’s an elevator, which is very useful if you have a large rolling suitcase. But there was a flight of six steps down and another of six steps up in the middle of the hallway between that elevator and my room. And the bathtub was very deep, which is nice if you’re going to soak in it, but makes getting in and out to take a shower a bit treacherous.

I texted with my friend, Julie, and we made arrangements to get together for lunch on Monday. I had arrived on Saturday night and on Sunday there was a Seaside Sunday Festival event along the waterfront. There were craft stalls lining the quay and food stalls (and a stage with music) on the Victoria Pier. I did buy one crafts item (a felt hat). I enjoyed listening to a couple of singers. And I ate some tasty fish and chips and some particularly delicious gelato, especially the orange ricotta flavor. By the way, there was a surprising variety of ethnic foods, including West African dishes like jollof rice, and stalls selling Thai and Vietnamese food.

I also took Guernsey’s version of Le Petit Train, which had some interesting commentary. For example, at the bathing (i.e. swimming) beach, they had a story about a lifeguard who could only rescue people by throwing a rope towards them because he had never learned how to swim. There were also good views of the primary tourist attraction in St. Peter Port, namely Castle Cornet, which dates back to the 13th century.



On Monday, Julie met me at my hotel and whisked me off around the island. We had lunch at a restaurant called Coast (in the Imperial Hotel) with a lovely view of the sea. Our next stop was the Folk and Costume Museum. The “folk” part consisted largely of household items, e.g. an old-fashioned kitchen, and a display of a child’s room with toys, as well as a dollhouse and a collection of marionettes. The “costume” part included a selection of Dior dresses, as well as a collection of historic costumes, many of them hand-sewn. There were also some knitted Guernsey sweaters, which are notable for the use of steeking for creating necklines and armholes - a technique which, frankly, I find terrifying.

After that we went to Oatlands, a small shopping center. Alas, the crafts store there told us there was no local yarn, the chocolate store was closed, and the cafe didn’t have Guernsey gache, a fruit cake that I was curious about. Julie continued around the island, stopping at a few places with views across to Sark and Herm. Ideally, I would have had time for day trips to those islands, but I was at the mercy of ferry schedules, so it would have to be some other time. At any rate, there were lovely views from the places we stopped at.



Back in St. Peter Port, we did succeed in finding gache at Cafe Emilia, just a couple of doors from my hotel. This proved to be somewhat similar to the fruity bread my friend, Tim, makes, though not quite as sweet. At any rate, it was quite tasty, eaten with butter and accompanied by tea.

My major expedition on Tuesday was to the Guernsey Museum. This was actually not very far from the hotel, but I took a taxi because I found the idea of climbing the hill to get there to be intimidating. The museum is in a lovely park (Candie Park) which also has a library, gardens, and a statue of Queen Victoria. The museum was very interesting. For example, there was a display of paintings about nature, which included some relief casts of how the paint was applied. The Discovery Room was intended for children, but did have recordings of a storyteller performing Egyptian myths. The main museum had all sorts of odds and ends, including an embroidered sampler and a lock of Victor Hugo’s hair. (He had lived on Guernsey when in exile and you can tour his house if that sort of thing interests you.)

I was particularly interested in a display of glass reproductions of invertebrates because it was made by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka, who also made the glass flowers at the Harvard Museum of Natural History which is one of my favorite museum exhibits of all time. There is plenty of material about early life on Guernsey from neolithic times through the Romans. I especially enjoyed sections on Guernsey language (which included samples to listen to), folklore, and witchcraft. Me being me, of course I had to listen to all of the stories.



After a stop for a light lunch, I wandered around the Candie Gardens, which were lovely.





By the way, there is a Guernsey Tapestry, presumably similar to the Jersey one. But it is in storage, so I was unable to see it.

In the evening, Julie and I went to Saint James Assembly Hall for a poetry reading by Brian Bilston, which was part of the Guernsey Literary Festival. He has been one of my favorite poets for a while and his reading was phenomenal. He engaged well with the audience, making occasional side comments and enhancing his poetry with his deliberate pacing. If you have the opportunity to hear him read, go. Unfortunately, they ran out of books.

Overall, I had a good time in the Channel Islands, though I could have used a few more days. But I very much wanted to take the ferry versus flying back to the UK mainland, which I did the next day. The ferry from St. Peter Port to Portsmouth takes about 8 hours, so I’d opted to pay a little extra for lounge seating. That’s less crowded, but the reclining chairs were just okay. I read and napped for a lot of the trip. Fortunately, I didn’t get seasick, though several other people did. So, if you do this, you might want to bring your seasickness preventative of choice. (Mine is acupressure bands, with bonine as a backup for more extreme conditions.)

We docked at Portsmouth and I got a taxi to the train station. I boarded the first train from there to London, which took me to Victoria Station. That was convenient to get a District Line train to Earl’s Court - and the next part of this travelogue.