onionbagblog

You may remember the wonderful story of the downtown NY State couple that came “on vacation” to Wivenhoe towards the end of last year. Eager to find out more about the North Essex estuary rural way of life, the lovely Chris and Heather came to stay in Wivenhoe and mix with some of the locals.

Following some online dialogue during the planning for the trip, I was then lucky enough to be able to meet up with our special relationship friends for a coffee one morning down at the Corner House.

Stories were exchanged, bonds were made and even a brief podcast was recorded.

Blimey.

Here’s where the story all starts to get slightly interesting. Intrigued by the story, the Editor of *cough*@Colchester101 then commissioned me to write a short piece about the rather unlikely meeting of American and Wivenhoe minds.

A quick OK with Heather and Chris, and then the piece then appeared in the January edition of Colchester 101. You can even read the tale of the Rochester folk in rural Essex on p.2 over here.

But this wasn’t to be the end of the transatlantic story. Taking the tale to its logical conclusion, it would only be right if a little bit of Wivenhoe then found its way over to NY State. An early Saturday morning trip to the Wivenhoe Post Office, and then soon a copy of 101 was USA bound.

And so to conclude this highly improbable tale involving a love of Wivenhoe, Martin Newell and the Station cat (cripes) – here comes the photographic evidence of Chris and Heather, very happy to be reunited with Wivenhoe back in their hometown. The descriptions are kindly provided by our American friends.

“Colchester 101 is hanging out on the Broad Street Bridge overlooking the river. In the background, you can see the Main St. Bridge (center) and a nice riverside hotel (right) that keeps changing management.”

“There we are in Aqueduct Park! This little park is part of the campus where I work (so we got free parking!) and it’s really kind of pretty. It’s right on the water and, when the weather’s nice, the city puts on free concerts some Wednesday afternoons.”

“Colchester 101 is featured with the Broad St. Bridge in the background (center). It’s a deep bridge because it used to be open and it housed the old Rochester Aqueduct that brought the Erie Canal into the city and across the river. Once the canal was diverted, they built the bridge and converted the aqueduct into a subway tunnel. The subways are long gone and the tunnel isn’t used for anything but graffiti now.”

“We took Colchester 101 farther down the river to to the High Falls district. I’d never actually seen the High Falls themselves but Chris knew of a terrifying pedestrian bridge across the gorge. We couldn’t get far enough out on the bridge to get a shot of the falls due to extreme wind and my fear of bridges but we did get this shot of Colchester 101 posing with the Genesee Brewing Company!”

Welcome to Wivenhoe. Please drive carefully and please look after our cats.

Meowww.