Our Grand Tour of Europe

Saturday, July 3

When we saw Pat and Allan yesterday (owners of our cottage in Mousehole), they told us they didn’t have renters this week and there was no big hurry to pack up and hustle out at the normal 10:00 am departure time. We had a chance to walk around Mousehole one last time… and one last time for Kelly to climb on the rocks. There seemed to be more activity at the Maritime festival, at least a few more vendors were setting up. I watched some sailboat races outside the harbor while Kelly and Charley did their rock thing.

We had an easy “pack-up” at the cottage. Because we’re now transporting food and other supplies, we have more stuff to pack in the car… more than just the Harrods bag that we added when we left London a week ago. Allan took our photo outside the cottage and then Charley brought the car to the little pullover near our cottage (just room for one other car to squeeze by)—we loaded up quickly and left about 10:45. Kelly is collecting key chains on this trip (a relatively-inexpensive keepsake that doesn’t take up a lot of room) and had spotted one she liked in a shop that didn’t open till 10:30 am, so that was our last stop.

The drive took us a little less than five hours. We basically backtracked two-thirds of the way to London to reach Gants Mill… the road was very backed up on the A30 near the turnoff for the Eden Project… perhaps an accident. We saw two emergency vehicles, but by the time the stall broke, we couldn’t see anything that might have caused our 45-minute delay. We stopped once to take photos of a “windmill farm,” once for ice cream, and once to use a bathroom and load up on tourist information. We had lunch snacks in the car. We exited the A303 near Yeovil and headed northeast to Bruton.

We’re staying in South Somerset this week, about 20 miles south of Bath and 120 miles from London—on a farm called Gants Mill. The owners are Brian and Alison Shingler; Brian met us and showed us around the cottage and the property. This is an absolutely great place! Our cottage is the old stone “millers cottage” and is very large for our family of three. We have a lot more room to spread out this week—a good feeling! The massive wooden door opens into an entrance hall with the large main bedroom on the left, steps going upstairs, and the main living area straight ahead. We have a big great room with cathedral ceilings and rough wooden beams: two big comfortable couches, a dining table that seats six, and a galley kitchen behind a long serving bar made of stone and bricks. The great room has a big window that looks out to the main house, the garden, and the sheep fields on the hill. The bathroom arrangement is a bit unusual— right off the kitchen is a room with a tub/shower and a sink. Right next to that room is another room with a raised tile shower but no door or curtain—we decided that we won’t use this shower since we’d likely end up with lots of water on the floor. Off the other side of the kitchen, through a door, is a little stairway to a mudroom area. The toilet is down there in a little room with another little sink. The mudroom opens into a courtyard with a shared laundry room we can use— Brian told us we could hang clothes in the little yard or could use the clothes dryer if the weather was bad. The British seem to be much more oriented to drying clothes outside than Americans are these days! We can also use drying racks in the mudroom area outside the toilet. Up the steep stairs from the entrance hallway are two more bedrooms, both with twin beds. Kelly will sleep in the larger room that has a little desk under the window looking out over the mill. Charley will use the second bedroom as his “closet,” since there isn’t much storage space in our big bedroom downstairs. He will have to be careful in this house though—a couple of the doors are low and he has already hit his head once!

We have more than twice the space of our rentals in London and Mousehole—and one of lowest weekly prices for this trip… about $600 for the week. (Fortunately I paid when the exchange rate was more favorable!) Brian told us the cottage is about 200 years old. We can tell that it was built in two stages— the two-story part with the bedrooms is the oldest and the great room (with its main stone inner wall) was added later. The river that feeds the mill (the River Brue… hence the name Bruton) runs right under the cottage! We can look out the kitchen window and see it disappearing under our house.

There has been a mill at this location for over a thousand years… they believe Gants Mill was even mentioned in the Domesday Book, though the oldest part of the current structure is only about 260 years old. Brian and Alison have restored the old mill, which is directly across from our front door. Brian’s father bought the property in 1949, so Brian spent at least part of his growing-up years here. His father will be 95 next week and lives at Gants Mill with them. We’ve seen him out working in the garden, quite stooped over but still out there working. We’re connected to the main house where Brian and Alison live by a little archway to the small courtyard with the laundry room and a couple of public toilets. They have three B&B rooms in the house. In front of the main house is an absolutely beautiful garden… a show garden… filled right now with flowers. The clematis, roses and delphiniums are especially beautiful, and I can tell the dahlias will be blooming very soon. They open the mill and the gardens to the public a couple of days a week (Sunday and Thursday afternoons) and also bring in some groups. Brian told us they have 50 acres of property and he keeps about 300 sheep. His property is crossed by a train track, and several times a day a train whizzes by on its way to or from Cornwall. We can just barely see the trains through the trees.

A path behind our cottage leads up to a small grassy area enclosed by hedges—Brian called it our “garden”, though there aren’t any flowers in this garden. The British seem to use the term “garden” for “private yard”… somewhere of our own where we could cook out or play games. We probably won’t use this space—we can also sit in the pretty flower garden, which we would much prefer. Across from our private garden space is another field—a sheep field— where at dusk we might be able to see badgers. Brian told us badgers are nocturnal animals, so we would only be able to spot them at night.

Also running behind our cottage is a public footpath that goes to Bruton… about a ten-minute walk. After we unpacked, we drove through Bruton and then about 15 minutes further to Wincanton, a larger town right off the A303. Wincanton has a much larger commercial main street and then a big Safeway outside of the main village. After we ran into the problem with the Penzance Tesco closing at 4 pm on Sunday, we decided we’ll always stock up on our groceries for the week on Saturday evenings after we arrive. The Wincanton Safeway is the best supermarket we’ve been in so far—we spent about ₤70 this time for the week. This will cover our breakfasts, several lunches and six dinners. We also went to investigate the Wincanton library, where we hope we will be able to use the internet this week.

For tonight we brought back a pizza (good!) that was custom-made to our request. We have some good meals planned for the week. I’m still enjoying the cooking, but have to say that we miss having a dishwasher. Well, we do have a dishwasher… named Charley! Since I’m cooking, he’s volunteered for clean-up duty most every night. Even using the sink is awkward since hot and cold water comes out of separate spigots and there’s just one single sink. We’ve been spoiled by many of the modern conveniences of our large, relatively new American home!

I had picked Gants Mill off the Internet, with only one fuzzy photo of the inside of our cottage. I liked the location and the idea of staying on a farm. I was also very attracted to the photos of the mill and the garden. This was a bit of a risky pick for me, but I’m absolutely delighted with what it’s turned out to be and I think we’ll have a special week here. I’m especially interested in Kelly having a chance to live on a farm for a week. There’s a young Springer Spaniel with a lot of energy named Bramble. She’s thrilled to be around a dog and had a lot of fun tonight running with Bramble in the garden. There are also two black and white cats—Penny and (!) Charley. We’ll enjoy relaxing at this pretty farm and there are lots of things to do within 50 miles. We have some general plans but we’ll see how the week evolves.

About 9:30 pm, Kelly and Charley went out to the upper field to look for badgers… no luck tonight!

Sunday, July 4

At home today is Independence Day—and here we are in the country that America gained independence from! We decided not to set an alarm this morning, though I was up by 7:30 am. Kelly wanted to help Brian with the sheep, so we got her up to meet him at 8:30 am. She was able to feed a couple of lambs (now approaching sheep-size) out of a wine bottle. We decided not to have a major day out today and just explore the nearby area. Charley drove out to get a paper and then fixed a big breakfast with omelets, English-style bacon (ham), and English muffins.

We put on hiking boots and headed off on the public footpath behind our cottage towards Bruton. The path came out on the side of some type of big activity center—we saw obstacle courses and groups of kids sliding down a hill and canoeing. We found out later that this is “Mill on the Brue,” kind of a big summer camp for kids. It looked like a lot of fun. We walked up the main street of Bruton, which is officially a town—a designation by the crown from hundreds of years ago. (It really seemed more like a village to us…) There are a few shops, restaurants and pubs. We peeked in the courtyard of something called Sexey’s Hospital, built in the 1600’s with a bequest from the wealthiest man in town as almshouses for the poor. Today it houses senior citizens. Two people were talking in the courtyard when we looked in and invited us to look inside the tiny chapel—very pretty! We also looked in the church by the river—the oldest parts of this church are from 1350. Behind the church in a lonely spot on a bare hill we saw the Dovecote—a tall thin building with a few small windows, all that remains of an old abbey that must have dominated the town. The Dovecote is now owned by the National Trust and seems to be the “trademark” structure of Bruton. We stopped in a shop to buy important necessities (toilet paper!) and then walked back to Gants Mill. We did stop in at the Mill on the Brue to see if this might be a fun place where Kelly could spend a few hours and be with other kids. There was a kids birthday party in progress, and we briefly talked to an American family who is living in the area for a year for his job. The Mill on the Brue was more of a kids camp… not a “stop in” place for Kelly.

We fixed sandwiches for lunch and poked around our cottage for a while. Since it was one of their “public” days, Brian asked if we wanted to go on one of the tours he does of the mill. He was wearing a little badge that said “Brian Shingler – Miller.” (Alison’s badge gave her title as “Gardener.”) We toured with a nice couple from Bruton who had walked over on the footpath. The mill tour was extremely interesting, and Brian was a great tour guide. He and Alison have done an amazing job with the entire property, almost all of it themselves. Brian told us yesterday that he had worked as an engineer before turning his attention full-time to Gants Mill and beginning the restoration of the mill. In years past, the mill was used to make grind corn, then later was a silk mill with 250 workers, many of whom were young girls not much older than Kelly. Today Brian uses the mill to make feed for his sheep. He also generates electrical power that he sells to the local utility company. He generates enough electricity to support 12 houses. We enjoyed looking at the little museum Brian and Allison have set up in one of the big areas on the third floor of the mill… it tells the history of the mill, how the various operations work, and the story of the restoration. It’s neat to be living right next door to this interesting place!

On the public days Brian and Alison also operate a little teashop on the pretty side porch of their house. We decided we needed to check this out. There were beautiful pots of big colorful begonias and baskets of enormous fuchsias. We had drinks and teacakes and then bought a little book about Gants Mill. We also looked at a scrapbook about the creation of the garden. Brian and Alison used a garden designer to plan the garden and incorporate the various elements they wanted, but they did all the work and the plantings. I would love to have a beautiful flower garden like this, though I know it would be a lot of work. Their little book said they have no plans to expand the garden because they take care of it totally by themselves and they want to have a bit of time left to enjoy it.

Kelly and I walked through their vegetable garden, which was off to the side of the house and not part of the “show” garden. They grow all kinds of vegetables and also had quite a few fruit trees. We swiped a couple of ripe raspberries off a bush. They also grow flowers for cutting. A little sign said Brian and his 95-year old father take care of the vegetable garden, and I suspect they grow much of their own food. Allison has a little greenhouse in this area, and they sell some surplus plants and bulbs. Brian and Alison have been very clever in maximizing revenue from their 50-acre property. They both seem to work all the time… I guess that’s part of the deal when you live where you work—your work and non-work lives are pretty much one and the same. Brian especially really seems to enjoy it. I’m not sure Alison enjoys the people part as well, but she has a lot going on. It was overcast today, so they didn’t have a big crowd… maybe 30 people or so, but Brian said last Thursday they had 60 people show up.

Before dinner we drove over to Castle Cary, another nearby town with a name we like. (The castle is long gone, however…) The town was very pretty on a late Sunday afternoon. The big market house is beautiful… a bright honey-yellow stone and big hanging baskets of flowers. Behind the market house was a little round building with no windows—the old lock up. There were some interesting looking shops, including a bookstore we may come back to. We walked down to the old horse pond and the church.

I fixed another Knorr “Chicken Tonight” dish tonight. At least for now, Charley and I both like this! Afterwards, Charley and I climbed up into the upper field to see if we could spot where the badgers might be found. We did spot two “setts” (badger holes), so Charley will know where to look the next time he and Kelly go up. From up on the high hill above Gants Mill we would see the Bruton Dovecote and beyond that, the tip of King Alfred’s Tower at Stourhead Estate. Supposedly on the opposite hill of the farm we could even see Glastonbury Tor.

Monday, July 5

Kelly has a bad cold and did not want to walk today, so we decided somewhat spur-of-the-moment to do our “Jane Austen” trip. On the last full day of our trip to England in May/June 2002, we drove from Bath to Horley, near Gatwick Airport. I had a long list of places I wanted to stop along the way—too long of a list. The roads were slow and everything seemed to take longer than it was supposed to. We managed to see Avebury, Lacock Village, Lacock Abbey and Stonehenge, but arrived at Jane Austen’s house in Chawton (east of Winchester) literally two minutes after it closed. I was absolutely devastated, since that was the place I had most wanted to visit. So today, two years later, I finally got to visit Jane Austen’s house. It was a pretty long drive… a bit less than an hour and a half, back toward London. We went right by Stonehenge on the highway… close enough for Kelly to take a photo out the window… but decided we didn’t need to see it again.

I really enjoyed our time at Chawton Cottage, and I think Charley and Kelly did too. I studied Jane Austen in college and enjoy her books, and we have all enjoyed the movies based on the books—we must have ten different videos, multiple versions of some of the books. We especially like the BBC/A&E miniseries of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Jane Austen lived in this house—her last home—with her mother and sister from 1809 until 1817. One of her brothers was made the heir of some relatives who didn’t have a son. When he inherited the big estate and manor house in Chawton, he provided this house in the village to his mothers and sisters. Jane did her best work here… revised and completed Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey and wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. She left to go to Winchester for medical care and died there a few weeks later.

The house has been very well preserved and has all kinds of interesting items and information relating to Jane Austen. We all went through it very thoroughly. The two ladies there were very helpful, and Kelly got a pencil for correctly completing a quiz. The gardens outside were very pretty. I splurged and bought a print of the house for ₤7.50—on other trips I wouldn’t think twice about such a purchase, and we normally do try to buy prints of the special places we visit. But on this trip we’re watching our expenses much more carefully and also can’t get prints every place we go. Jane Austen’s house is a special place though, and I’ve wanted to come for years… we decided I deserve a real remembrance. Plus, I had found a coupon in a Winchester brochure and we only had to pay for one of the adult tickets. Perhaps this also will serve as a reminder that you really can achieve your dreams and do what you really want to do. (Title of a new book… Dreams and Determination??)

We doubled back to Winchester about 30 minutes away and were very pleasantly surprised with what we found. Winchester is a city with a lot of history, a beautiful cathedral…and shopping! We got there about 3:00 pm and paid enough in the parking garage to stay three hours. We headed first to the cathedral—the longest in England. The cathedral is almost 1000 years old in places. We walked all through the cathedral—Jane Austen is buried there, as well as some of the ancient kings of England and Essex.

We did like the shopping in Winchester. The pedestrian-only High Street has lots of shops, including many of the British chains that are now familiar to us. We got Kelly a fleece pullover (on sale) at a Millets outdoor store and a backpack cover for her pack at another outdoor shop. We somehow lost Kelly’s umbrella in the transition from Mousehole, and we found a cheap one (₤2) at a dollar-type store called the Stock Market. We found a little place for afternoon tea on the top floor above a bakery, and we even did a little grocery shopping at Marks and Spencer.

When we got back to Gants Mill, we decided just to have sandwiches for dinner. Charley and I went out to the flower garden to have a glass a wine before dinner. When we came in to fix dinner, we had a big surprise—Kelly had fixed our sandwiches. She did a great job and even did most of her own cleaning up. After dinner I started a beef burgundy stew that Charley and I will have tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 6

Charley and I stayed up late last night, and actually Kelly was the first one up today. She woke us up around 8:00 am, as I’d forgotten to set the clock. Kelly went out again this morning to help Brian with the sheep. I really think this is a good experience for her… when/where else would she help with sheep on a farm? Going out with Brian without us also gives her something of her own that doesn’t involve us.

We left at 9:15 am and were at the Wincanton library at 9:30 am to use the computers. The people there were very nice—one of the librarians even let Kelly check out a book on her personal card. Only two of us could use a computer at the same time since they only had two visitor IDs, but we did get one free hour each. I had a lot of e-mail… mostly messages from people who had read my blog entries from London… and not enough time to respond to it all. We may go back to the library one or two more times this week.

From Wincanton we drove to King Alfred’s Tower, part of the 2650-acre Stourhead estate. At 160 feet the tower is one of the tallest follies in England, quite a bit taller than Broadway Tower, another folly we visited in the Cotswolds on our last trip. A folly is a monument of some sort built by a wealthy person, primarily for aesthetics and enjoyment… and perhaps to show off. We knew the Tower wouldn’t open till noon, but this was the starting place for the walk we planned to Stourhead Gardens. Brian had told us there are several different walks through the estate. We parked in the National Trust lot at the Tower and walked about two miles to the gardens. Our route passed through an old Iron Age fort. This is one of our C2C training walks, and we’re also all still breaking in new hiking boots.

We ended up at the small village of Stourton at the entry to Stourhead Gardens. We sat in the courtyard of the Spread Eagle Inn and ate our picnic lunch. We used our National Trust memberships to enter the gardens. Stourhead was developed by the Hoare family, a wealthy banking family from London. Henry Hoare built the house in the 1720s. His son, Henry Hoare II, inherited the estate and was inspired to develop the gardens after a 30-month “grand tour of Europe.” He wanted to incorporate many of the classical buildings he had seen on his long trip. The gardens include a Grecian temple, a building called the Pantheon, a grotto and several other architectural features… features that are supposed to draw your attention and resemble a beautiful work of art. There’s a big lake crossed by a beautiful arched bridge. This isn’t a flower-type garden… it’s one of the premier landscape gardens in England with an extensive collection of trees and shrubs.

In 2002 we visited Stourhead during our two days in Bath. We arrived late and didn’t have enough time to really enjoy our walk through the gardens—we raced through the walk around Stourhead. (Charley thinks I was racing through to get to the restroom, but I’m sure I remember I was rushing to get to the National Trust shop before it closed!) This time we had the whole afternoon and were even able to laze around for 30 minutes or so. After our leisurely tour of the gardens, we went back to the spot with the view of the bridge. Kelly did a sketch of the pretty bridge, Charley sat up in the shade next to two Japanese ladies and may have dozed off, and I actually stretched out on the grass out in the sun to contemplate life.

Lying on the grass, I thought about how much my world has changed in the last month. I’ve been so used to a very busy life… filled with meetings, interviews, reports, phone calls, spreadsheets, e-mails… and deadlines. For years my day-to-day world has involved regular contact with several hundred people. Now my main world is my husband and daughter, then the family members and close friends we’re staying in touch with through e-mail. At least until we settle in Provence, our interactions on our trip will be very short-term in nature. We’ve enjoyed our visits with Brian and Jenny Huskey, Beebee, Wendy and Richard—hopefully we will be able to connect with other people along the way. We’re fortunate this week to be living in close proximity to the owners of our cottage and to have a connection with Brian Shingler… for our two weeks in London we didn’t even really have anyone we connected with on a regular basis. I don’t really miss what I had… not yet anyway.

Before we started back to King Alfred’s Tower, we returned to the Spread Eagle Inn (great name!) for afternoon tea—another cream tea that Charley and I both like so much. Kelly had ice cream. We took a different route back to the Tower… about an hour. I enjoyed the walk a lot. The Tower was closed when we got back—we’ll come back another day to go to the top.

Back at Gants Mill, Charley and I had a beer out in the garden while Kelly played with Bramble the dog. For dinner we had the beef burgundy I made yesterday and Kelly had pasta. At dusk Kelly and Charley went out to the badger field. They took carrots to try to entice the badgers out of their hiding places, but no luck—no badgers tonight.

Wednesday, July 7

The weather has gotten very cold and rainy. The London Times said yesterday that we’d be having November weather in July. It was only in the 50’s today! (I wonder how Wendy and Richard are doing down in Mousehole…) We keep rotating around the few clothes we’ve got that are appropriate for this kind of weather… I have very little to work with: a light fleece pullover, a thin black button-up sweater, a long sleeved cotton hiking shirt, a pullover shirt with 3/4th length sleeves, a pair of white jeans, and two pair of black long pants—everything else I brought is for warm summer weather! Thank goodness I have my new Clark shoes… and Charley has his great-deal jacket. Who would have thought November weather at this time of year?! I’m nervous about the weather in Northern England and Scotland… hope it warms up in a few weeks!

We weren’t especially ambitious today. That’s fine—not all days on a trip this long will or should be a highly memorable day. We didn’t set the alarm and woke up a bit after 8:00 am. We got Kelly up to go out with Brian and the sheep… this at least gives her a reason to get her day going. We poked around over breakfast and left about 10:30 am to go to the library in Wincanton again. I was ready to post my Cornwall blog, but somehow had not properly copied it onto the disk, so I’ll have to go back. I worked on other e-mails and checked my banking instead. At home I usually work on the PC (internet) for two, three or even four hours a night, especially since I’ve been planning for this trip (What a life—most of the day on a computer at work and then come home and go at it some more!) It’s strange now to be limited to using the internet just two or three hours a week!

Charley went out to run a few errands in Wincanton while Kelly and I were using the computers at the library. The nice librarian let Kelly check out a couple more books on her card.

We drove over to Castle Cary to visit the bookstore we had seen there on Sunday evening. It was really a good shop—crammed with all kinds of books, with used books upstairs. I bought yet another book about a family moving to France—this one with a “food” emphasis. Kelly got two books, one of which will be a birthday present two weeks from now. Charley found two used books by two of his favorite authors. He’s had a hard time this past month settling in to any books he really wants to read.

From Castle Cary we drove about 20 minutes to Wells, which is the smallest city in England… according to my guidebook about 9000 people. Wells has an absolutely beautiful cathedral… amazing for a place this size. We found a little café for lunch-- ₤20 for sandwiches, a shared order of fries, drinks, and a cookie for Kelly. Fortunately, it was a good lunch. The waitress joked around with Kelly, which she enjoyed. We walked up through the marketplace… open today with a mix of food stands and flea market stuff. We cut through a passageway called the “Penniless Porch,” where the beggars used to congregate and where today a young woman was singing in hopes of a few coins…. on the other side of the passageway was a large green and the spectacular West Front of the cathedral. Amazing! The first church was built on this site in 705, and the current cathedral dates back to 1180. The west front is covered with medieval statues… about 290 of them. Many of the original 400 statues are broken or missing, but that’s barely noticeable and it’s all so very impressive. Inside the cathedral it’s even more impressive—big arches (what they call scissor arches), beautiful windows… a font from the original cathedral (over 1000 years old). We enjoyed looking at the 600-year old astronomical clock. Kelly and Charley somehow hooked up with one of the docents—a very knowledgeable woman who was passionate about the cathedral. She gave them almost a personal tour… probably spent more than 30 minutes with them pointing out specific aspects of the cathedral. Kelly continues to say she wants to be an architect, so this was extremely educational for her. We may come back to Wells before we leave, since we didn’t have time to see the Bishops Palace and Garden next door.

When we came out of the cathedral, it was raining and very windy—I decided to use my rain jacket instead of my umbrella, but Charley put his umbrella up. It was so windy that his umbrella blew upward and he had to throw it away. We stopped in couple of stores looking for another umbrella, but couldn’t find one of a high enough quality for the low price Charley wanted to pay. So far—in less than four weeks—we’ve “lost” two of our three original umbrellas!

Wells is only 30 minutes—maybe less—from our cottage at Gants Mill. We got back about 4:45 pm. It was still very windy. Charley talked to Brian and bad storms were expected. We turned on the heat in the living room and hunkered in for the night—it would have been a perfect night for a fire. I copied my Cornwall blog onto the disk… the Wincanton library is closed Thursday, but we’ll go again on Friday. I fixed a good chicken stir fry for dinner—couldn’t believe it… Kelly loved the Ho Shin sauce! A sauce made of soybeans and garlic…. yet there are so many other things she won’t even try. Charley did laundry… since it was raining, we could use the dryer without feeling guilty, though it is terribly slow! We do miss our American appliances!

Brian came up to our house after dinner and said there was a tree down across the road to the mill. He was going out to chop it down and hoped we hadn’t planned to go out for the night. We went to bed at 10:30 pm. Kelly has a plan for tomorrow, but we’ll have to see what the weather lets us do. We came here thinking we would spend a day in Bath at some point, but we’ve decided not to go after all. We love Bath, but we spent two days there two years ago. When we looked at the guidebook, we realized that we had seen almost everything and really didn’t want to see most of it again. We’re content to explore some other places and we’ll save a return visit to Bath for another time.

Thursday, July 8

We read in the paper this morning that the storms in Britain yesterday were really bad—some places lost power for several hours and many ferries crossing the channel were cancelled. It was still quite cold today, so we decided to take a “day off,” the first one of our trip. Kelly and Charley went to the Safeway in Wincanton to do some shopping, so I had an hour or so on my own. (Charley read my blog earlier this week and apparently along the way I’ve written several things I had never said to him or Kelly… one of which must have related to needing some time alone!) I really like the cottage at Gants Mill a lot… very comfortable and spacious and a beautiful setting.

Kelly fixed lunch for us—good sandwiches again. She seems to enjoy cooking, though I’m nervous about her around the stove and the knives. She’s fiercely independent about doing it all though, and I guess she has to grow up sometime. My Slow Travel friend Libbie had suggested we try soup as an alternative low-cost meal, and Charley and Kelly found a great tomato soup at Tesco for me—kind of a gourmet soup from the refrigerated section… just perfect for a chilly rainy day.

I used the quiet day to do some computer work… wrote most of a “quiz” we’ll give Kelly in a week or so about England thus far, with some kind of prize for doing well. I also wrote a letter to the school director in Bonnieux and have made a first attempt to translate it into French. I think I’ve done an acceptable job… he should at least be able to understand what I’m trying to say, but I don’t think he’ll be that impressed with my French! I also played way too many games of spider solitaire on the laptop… addictive! I don’t seem to be getting any better with practice though!

About 4:00 pm we drove up to King Alfred’s Tower and climbed the 205 steps to the top. This brick tower was completed in 1770. Henry Hoare II used King Alfred the Great as the figurehead for his folly. Alfred was a key early ruler in England and supposedly fought against the Danes near this spot in 878 AD. Even Charley went up to the top of the tower and actually looked out! There are supposed to be stunning view of the countryside—as much as 50 miles—but we didn’t see near that far today. It was extremely windy on the top. The man at the ticket window at the base of the tower said he had only five people (we were three, four and five) since he opened at noon. He had a low revenue day then, since we were free with our National Trust memberships! There was a little quiz for Kelly, which she always enjoys.

We drove on down the little road through Stourhead Estate, then crossed the main road and turned onto a very narrow track that took us up to Whitesheet Hill. This is still part of the Stourhead Estate (National Trust). The gravel track was very bumpy with lots of very large holes filled with water—would have been a great place for a four-wheel drive. We went all the way to the top of a big clear down where there are several prehistoric sites. Because it was so windy and cold, we didn’t walk around too much. Charley and I did get out and took our photos on the top of the big barrow (burial mound) and we could see the changes in the terrain where the old Iron Age fort had been.

And that was really it for our sightseeing day. We didn’t have a map with us, so we had to pick our way back to Bruton. Fortunately, the roads in England are all very well marked and at every crossroads there are signposts that tell you what’s down each road and how far. Sometimes a road seems so insignificant you can’t imagine that it actually goes someplace… but it does! Charley has become a very good driver in England and enjoys it. I’m the navigator and ride with the map book open on my lap. Occasionally we have to go around a roundabout more than once to be sure we’re heading the right way though!

For dinner we had another good Safeway pizza (actually we shared two this time) and another good Safeway ice cream dessert. We watched a great documentary about elephants on the BBC—Spy in the Herd…. really an interesting program. Kelly and I especially liked the baby elephant.

Kelly got a sketchbook yesterday at the bookshop in Castle Cary and has been working on a couple of sketches. She did sit out in the garden a while this afternoon and has done a beautiful, very detailed sketch of a garden bench. She’s also working on a view of the mill from her bedroom window. She has a real talent and also the ability to concentrate for a long period of time. She’s determined to get it just right. It can be very hard to tear her away when she’s involved.

We hope the weather is better tomorrow so we can do a couple of outdoor things on our last day here!

Friday, July 9

The weather cooperated with our plans for today and we had a really good day, though we chose to circle back to spend more time at two places we enjoyed earlier in the week. We were a bit later than we had hoped heading out for the day… got to the Wincanton library about 10:30 am. Kelly and I went in to use the computers while Charley did some errands in town. I posted my blog about Cornwall and answered a couple of e-mails. I was able to send my sister Debbie a birthday present from afar… it was incredibly easy to send an Amazon gift certificate! I’ve also figured out how to pay bills on the Internet, once I have the address and phone number of whom I need to pay. I’m very lucky my friend Jeanne at home is helping me with my mail and bills.

The Wincanton library has been great—it’s just been a little frustrating to be limited to an hour on the computer, but when it’s free and you’re a visitor, it’s hard to complain! Kelly checked out two more books that she plans to whip through in the next 24 hours and return as we’re leaving tomorrow.

From Wincanton we drove back to Stourhead and parked in the main lot. Charley had made a picnic for us again, and we ate in the courtyard by the ticket office and shop. We really do save a lot of money by packing our own lunch. The sun was out and I could even take my sweater off, though when the sun went back behind a cloud I was cool again. I have gotten a golfer’s (or farmer’s) suntan… my face, neck and lower arms are quite tan… but that’s about it.

We went to look at the National Trust shop, which was a very good one. All of the National Trust shops are very high quality and really good places to shop, but this one had more merchandise including a lot of gardening items. (The NT locations with gardens also usually have some type of plant shops where you can buy plants propagated at the garden. If I lived in the UK, I would develop a garden with bits of plants accumulated from the various gardens I visited!) Kelly got a Stourhead key chain for her collection and then we found a hedgehog key chain and clip. I spotted some nice coats and jackets on sale. My winter coat is in a suitcase that will arrive in Provence in October… and I have been thinking that I won’t make it till then with just my thin black sweater and light fleece pullover. The one jacket I especially liked was ₤35 (almost $70) but was reduced from ₤65… waterproof and kind of an all-weather jacket/coat. So, I went ahead and bought it… and actually needed it and wore it later in the day. I can’t believe I wore a coat in July!

After our shopping, we split up. I wanted to see the inside of Stourhead House and Kelly wanted to go to the gardens with Charley to work on her sketch of the bridge. She and Charley also had feed from the mill and some stale bread for the ducks. We decided to meet up in about an hour and fifteen minutes.

I enjoyed my visit to the house, but I know Kelly wouldn’t have had much fun there, even if there was a quiz for kids. This house seemed very musty to me… and then every room had a musty, sort of stuffy person in attendance to answer questions, the sort of person who didn’t much appeal to me. (Perhaps they become that way after years of standing attendance inside a darkened, musty old house filled with old things.) The house was built in 1721 and then changed in successive years by various members of the Hoare family, a wealthy family who made their money in banking. At one point the Stourhead estate was over 11,000 acres, today only 25% of that.

The house was not all that fancy, as apparently the Hoares never did lavish entertaining in the house. (I heard one of the musty men tell another visitor that…) There were lots and lots of paintings though—an enormous number of paintings—covering sometimes every bit of available space on the walls. Some of the paints were of the family, but many were large Italianate-style paintings. I did like the library a lot—very high ceilings and at least 5,000 thousand books. I’d love to have a library like this—one with a second level and a tall ladder (not a stool) to reach the books on the highest shelves. From the saloon there was a beautiful view looking down to the obelisk we had seen Wednesday on our walk.

Actually the most interesting part of the house to me was an exhibit on the “Forgotten Women of Stourhead,” the wives of the various owners. Four or five of the eight women had died young following childbirth and they had all lost several babies or young children. I guess in those days life was dangerous… even if you had lots of money and a large estate.

In one room I noticed some interesting things—Vogue magazines on a table, a bar of liquor and set-ups, and a computer on a side table. I asked the musty man on duty if the family still lived there, and he said that an Audrey Hoare lived there in the winters. Apparently sometimes when people give their home to the National Trust, they work out an arrangement to lease back part of the house for some extended period of time. Audrey Hoare is a distant relation of the last Hoare owner, and she has now inherited that long-term lease. It’s hard to imagine having people troop through your living room a few days a week!

I met up with Charley and Kelly who had enjoyed their time too. Charley really liked feeding the ducks and the mother peacock and her baby. And Kelly had done a great sketch of the bridge. We discussed a couple of alternatives for the rest of the afternoon and decided to go back to Wells. It rained for most of our 30-minute drive and was chilly when we got there—the car thermometer said 11°C (about 55°F), so I got to wear my new jacket. We parked in the spot right next to where we had parked on Wednesday.

We decided to pursue some different interests in Wells also—I really wanted to see the Bishops Palace and Gardens next to the cathedral—Charley and Kelly really weren’t interested and wanted to see more of the town. When Charley saw the price (₤4 for an adult), he knew he definitely wasn’t that interested. So, I went on my own.

I absolutely loved the whole environment of the gardens—so very peaceful and hardly anyone there. It was an entirely different world than the shopping street of Wells just outside the walls. Just inside the entry a group of older people in white clothes were playing croquet on the pretty lawn in front of the palace. Ramparts surround the grounds, including the beautiful ruins of the old great hall—on the other side are a moat and then an old deer park. I climbed up onto the ramparts and could see the Glastonbury Tor just between the trees. Then I went through a little almost hidden doorway in the ramparts to go to the wells… five springs that provide water (at one point for the entire town) and also fill the moat. The springs generate 30 gallons a second. I saw the two swans that supposedly ring a bell to get food, though one was sound asleep… I watched the other swan for a while, but it didn’t go anywhere near a bell. The flower garden was just beautiful and again, everything was so peaceful. I took a lot of photos.

After I had walked all through the gardens, I looked in the chapel and then walked through the public rooms of the Bishops Palace. Today the bishop and his family live in the restored servants quarters and the big rooms are used for special functions and meetings. One room was set up with several interesting exhibits, including the Bishops robes. There was a display telling about the Bishop of Wells and Bath’s role in the last two coronations. I also was interested in several panels telling the story of Bishop Thomas Ken, probably the most famous Bishop and a very saintly man. He wrote many well known hymns, a few of which end in the doxology we know so well.

I met back up with Charley and Kelly—they had enjoyed their time wandering around the town of Wells. They had visited a candy shop and had even found a good deal on an umbrella. We walked down the pretty cloisters of the cathedral and into the side gardens—also very pretty and peaceful. We looked through a little window to a beautiful view of the Palace Gardens where I had been, including St. Andrews Well. It was like peeking into the Garden of Eden. We then went around the other side of the cathedral and saw the outside of the astronomical clock; at 5:00 pm we watched the two mechanical men strike the clock. Just up the street we walked into the pretty Vicars Close, supposedly the longest continuously inhabited street in Europe. We were really glad we had returned to spend more time in Wells.

We came back to Gants Mill and fixed dinner with various leftovers—pasta for Kelly and me, beef stroganoff for Charley. Unfortunately it was rainy after dinner, so we couldn’t go outside for a walk or to sit in the garden, though Kelly and Charley did go out just before dark on one last unsuccessful hunt for badgers. Kelly was disappointed not to get to play with Bramble again. She’s a bit antsy and needs to work off some energy I think. We had a quiet last night at Gants Mill. We have really loved our week here. Tomorrow we head to the Cotswolds!