Up and at ’em. After helping myself a bowl of muesli and cow milk, Jonathan prepared a fulfilling breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast. I wrote some, then Linda and I took a walk in the sunny, cool morning along the bike path and through a sheep field to the ancient church, St. George’s. There we tested J’s ceramic flower vases on the pews for the wedding. The building dates from the late 1200s and, like most such vintage sanctuaries in England, was originally Catholic. You can feel the grandeur and weight of deep time here.
Strolled back via the main roads, taking in numerous sights and sounds remembered from our trip here in 2010. After a cheese and bread lunch that couldn’t be beat, we packed and prepared to bug out. Louisa is kind enough to lend us her car for our getaway to megalithic and sacred sights to the southwest. I hadn’t driven in the UK since my outing on the Summer Solstice in Scotland during the aforementioned journey eight years ago. With Louisa in the passenger seat, I got a quick tutorial on the peculiarities of staying on the wrong side and shifting with the left hand while taking her to nearby Shipston for an errand. I passed muster, so took her back to Brailes and said farewell.
It’s a little unnerving to flip your brain mirror-image and deal with cars in the other lane coming right at you. That, and England’s secondary roads are much narrower than those in Texas and mostly lack shoulders. Turning is tricky, as is negotiating the ubiquitous roundabouts. In the British tradition, I kept calm and carried on.
Stopped in Lechlade for coffee, then made a wrong turn in Swindon, a place our hostess admonished us to avoid, and went the wrong way in Marlborough. Just as we were maybe a mile from destination Amesbury, another slip-up sent us westward on a motorway with few exits. A kind local told us how to quickly get back on track, but my low blood sugar, full bladder, and nonfunctioning Google maps conspired against us to waste an whole other hour. We discovered suburban Amesbury with its street after street of row after row of utilitarian but joyless residences.
You can imagine our exhausted joy when we finally pulled up to the George Hotel in the heart of old Amesbury. Checked in, moved our belongings to Room 16, then plopped ourselves down in the pub for a couple pints, battered cod, chips, tomato omelette, and excellent service. More about this 13th century gem in our next chapter.
That, my friends, was quite a day.