Farewell to Old England

Our time here is nearly at an end. On Thursday we fly out to Germany. Since the last post we have had a wonderful get-together to mark my brother’s birthday. Most of our mother’s side of the family attended. Several of the younger ones (i.e. less than 70!) cycled from Bradford on Avon along the tow path of the Kennet and Avon Canal (which used to link the two port cities of Bristol and London) to Bathampton.

These are the assembled guests, our uncles and aunts in their 90s, most of our cousins and Wop’s good friends the Howmans.
On Sunday we travelled down to Devon, stopping off at the ancient religious centre of Glastonbury. Nowadays it is dominated by new age mumbo jumbo (you couldn’t make this sort of stuff up)


but historically was an important early British, Celtic and Christian site. The once magnificent abbey was largely destroyed at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries in Henry VIIIth‘s time. Today the ruins and extensive grounds are a peaceful and calming place.


We stayed with Noreen’s brother and sister-in-law in their thatched house
and went for a walk on Exmoor with their two dogs.
The route took us through a mixture of open moorland (these are Exmoor ponies),
country lanes, woods
and streams. This is the Danebrook which divides Devon and Somerset
and its confluence with the River Barle.