August 18 Friday
Twyning
We didn't get downstairs to breakfast until around 0930-ish. Jon had made us a couple of big bowls of porridge. We were meeting the boys and going to Ledbury and the Malvern Hills. I had done a little homework the night before and read a bit about the time Robert Frost spent in Gloucestershire where he was inspired to write The Road Not Taken. Reading the history and meaning behind the poem for Robert Frost was drastically different from what I was taught in school and had interpretted of the poem myself. It was a bit deflating. We picked up the boys at their home and headed to the Abbey in Ledbury. A very very quaint town undergoing some reconstruction of their main market. The Abbey had gorgeous Victorian stained glass windows and, like in Tweksbury, there was one with an amazing modern stained glass window. There was a man giving a history of the church who stopped and pointed out some interesting features of the church and Jon brought to his attention that as the stone beams came closer to the wooden ceiling they seemed to lean outwards noticeabley. Half jokingly the abbey historian said the going theory was that this part of the church was the result of the men coming back to work on the church after lunch where they had been drinking alcohol with their meal. That's a plausible theory.
The villiage was the classic white walls and black beams that one always associates with England. "Tudor styly" as Jon specifically points out to me. We did learn that the more money a building or home owner had the closer together and more beams they had in the construction of their home. This was evident as we drove out of town past one of the original hotels. The black beams were very close together.
Lunch was at a pub near Britsh Camp. We had lovely baguette sandwiches before hiking up to the camp. James, William, Jon and I headed up to the top of a short but rather steep hike to the camp. You could see for miles. You could also see the dark clouds coming our way. Villages in between patches of fields and pastures bordered by trees or hedges. You could also see the footpaths of the hills nearby which we also climbed and ran up trying to get a little exercise which we had been lacking since giving up our bikes. It felt good.
It started to rain.
Hard.
The four of us were heading down the tallest steepest hill and were pretty much drenched by the time we reached the car. We headed home after that and got cleaned up while Adrienne took the boys to their home the clean up too. We planned to meet up with Alison, Martin and the boys for dinner later on in the evening.
Allison gave us a tour of her home when we arrived. It was very large with a great back yard overlooking a field. The kitchen was a good size too. Dinner was fabulous with tons of food: burgers, lamb kebab, spicey beef kebab and apple turnovers, Maltesers (Whoppers back in the US) and a selection of cheeses for dessert. William played his flute for us and he is very talented - we were really impressed. This is one busy family. Not only are the boys busy with their extracurricular activities but Alison and Martin have their own activities outside of work and outside of their sons activities as well. I got tired just listening to all that they're involved with! We had a wonderful, wonderful evening and regret not bringing our camera to take pictures of the family so you'll have to take our word for it that they are a beautiful family - inside and out!
We got back to Adrienne's late and pretty much hit the sack. We would be visiting the Cotswolds the next day which I had always heard so much about as quintessential English countryside.