somerset – WrAnTz

Describe your most memorable vacation.

This really is a hard task to fulfil. Over the years there have been many vacations, as a child / teenager with my parents and sisters. Then, as a family with my wife and daughters. Finally, there are those adventures with just my wife and occasionally with friends.

Each trip has featured predominantly high points and, occasionally, some low points.

So, I choose to tell you about an ill-fated camping holiday which turned out OK, more than OK, in the end.

The holiday was to be a camping trip down to the West Country, i.e. Devon and Cornwall. The plan was that Gerry and I would drive down to our friends’ home in Limpley Stoke, just outside of Bath. We would be taking the camping gear. This would be after Gerry finished work. Then, the following day, we we would head west.

However, our car, an aged Ford Consul Mk II, had other ideas. When I was ready to leave work, I went to start the car. The engine turned briefly, but not enough to start. My friend and I fairly quickly determined that the starter ring had spun off the flywheel. Well, we bump started the car, and I drove us home, taking care not to stall en route.

Things were not looking good for our camping trip.

I rang Gerry at work to give her the bad news. She hung up on me !!!

I then rang Jane and John, our friends. They decided to drive up to ours to discuss what to do. They arrived before Gerry got home from work.

Gerry arrived home in a less than happy state, slammed the front door, and headed straight to the bedroom. As she passed the door to the lounge, she took a double take as she spotted Jane and John sitting on the couch .

Her anger deflated by their presence, we settled down to discuss a new plan for our vacation.

The net result was that we would all travel down to Limpley Stoke and use their house as a base for our holiday, taking day trips out.

I feel I should explain that their house, a cottage that used to be the chapel for Limpley Stoke Manor House, the garden of which was subdivided by the local railway line. The lower garden, accessed via a private crossing, ran down to the River Avon. Jane and John had been given permission to make use of this lower garden area. This was going to become core to our vacation.

And use it we did. On numerous occasions. A lovely grassy embankment open to the sunshine but with overhanging trees to provide some shade. It was an idyllic quintessential English countryside setting where we would picnic on the river bank, chill our bottles of cider and/or wine in the cool water. John and I swam in those chilly waters, down to the weir and back upstream, much to the chagrin of the occasional angler.

As I said, Limpley Stoke is near the city of Bath. So on a number of occasions, when not enjoying the delights of the riverbank, we visited Bath, where we explored the town and its historic architecture. No visit to Bath would be complete without a tour of the Roman Baths. The city of Bath became a spa c.60AD. It had the Latin name Aquae Sulis. The Romans built baths and a temple in the valley of the River Avon, although hot springs were known even before then. Unfortunately, when we visited, there were restrictions regarding the hot springs, if my memory serves, something nasty in the waters.

One day, we decided that a trip to the seaside was required. Weston-super-Mare was our chosen destination. So early in the morning, we pitched up and staked our claim to a patch of sand at the waters edge. Due to our early start, we all lay down to doze in the sun, but when we awoke, the sea had disappeared. John and I thought we would walk out to find the sea for a swim, but the numbers of people coming back, covered in mud, put us off.

The problem with Weston-super-Mare is that it is situated on the Bristol Channel, which has a huge tidal range. The low tide mark in Weston Bay is about 1 mile (1.6 km) from the seafront. The beach is sandy, but low tide reveals areas of thick mud, which are dangerous to walk on.

Needless to say, we didn’t get our swim. I have no idea where all those muddy people went to get cleaned up. We never saw the sea return.

Although we should have been camping, the time we spent based at the cottage in Limpley Stoke was, to put it simply, gorgeous. Camping would not have been as relaxing or allowed us to chill out in the way that we did. Would we have found as nice a place as we had down on the river bank. I doubt it.

Sometimes, the unplanned, the spontaneous events turn out to be the best of times.

Yesterday we spent a fabulous day visiting Wells in Somerset.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather. After around two hours traveling we arrived and promptly set about finding somewhere to have a bite to eat and a cuppa. We settled on The Crown at Wells and Antons Bistro and opted to eat in The Penns Bar.

Originally a separate inn, it was from an upper window here that William Penn, a Quaker who later gave his name to Pennsylvania USA (and our bar), preached to a crowd below in 1685.

After lunch we started our exploration in earnest. After browsing some of the market stalls and doing a bit of window shopping we passed through the archway and headed towards the Bishops Palace and Moat.

The weather was so good that many folks had brought picnics and were sitting enjoying the sunshine. Not something we are able to do as often as we would like. Of course nobody was allowed on the bowling green quality lawns immediately in front of the palace itself.

Before traveling down to Wells I had printed of the Wells Moat Walk map which guides you around the moat and makes sure you don’t miss the main sights. Each of the following views are from that walk.

The Tithe Barn, unfortunately, was surrounded by parked cars which was a shame. Its a lovely building and deserves to be seen without the automotive graffiti.

As we strolled along the moat we availed ourselves of a deliciously smooth 99 apiece. This really was just like a summers day. We had to keep reminding ourselves that it was still only the third week of March.

Wherever you are in the city the magnificent cathedral dominates the skyline. But there are plenty of other interesting sights.

Adjacent to the cathedral can be found the Vicars Close which has it’s own unique style and, having no through road, forms a quiet secluded area away from the general hustle and bustle.

The cathedral itself has many interesting feature both outside as well as in. Close to the entrance to the Vicars Close, on the cathedral wall you can see the Wells Clock, said to be the second oldest clock mechanism in Britain.

Inside, the cathedral has many beautiful architectural features. In the main body of the building is the scissor arch. An impressive feature but they serve a very real purpose. In the past a high tower topped by a lead covered wooden spire had been constructed but as the foundations were not stable large cracks began to appear in the tower structure. The scissor arch is an engineering solution to the problem.