May 11: Gloucester and the countryside

 Once again I am reliant on the kindness of strangers to post / update the blog.

Today we went to Gloucester by way of two more barrows.  The first was a bit of a ruin, but had amazing views of the Severn Valley.  The second barrow, called the Ulley Long Barrow, more familiarly known as Hetty Pegler’s Tump, was much more complete, and Alanna, Ian, and I climbed on our hands and knees through the mud, which has left us looking glamourous for the rest of today.  We went into the town of Gloucester, where we did a bit of shopping, then off to the city museum, where we saw the history of the city through Roman and Medieval times.  We went briefly to the Beatrix Potter “attraction” which looked an awful lot like a store.  Next we saw the amazing Gloucester Cathedral, including the tomb of Edward II, the amazing Norman building soaring into the skies, and the cloisters, where Harry Potter was partly filmed.  We drove down the eastern banks of the Severn, and are now in our local pub, between fish and chips – chicken for Ian – and dessert.

Today the weather began to change.  We left under overcast skies and drove to our first stop, Pymsfield Long Barrow.  The car park was full of cars, which soon proved to have brought dog walkers to the site, which has amazing views over the Severn Valley.  Just as we got to the viewpoint, the sun broke through.  We took pictures of lambs in impossibly green fields and the vista beyond.  Alanna looked at her pictures later and said, “Doesn’t it make you want to write a poem?”  Somewhere out there was Tintern Abby.

All of us, in a barrow

Our next stop was only a mile south, and is listed on maps as the Ulley Long Barrow, but the sign at the first place referred to it as Hetty Pegler’s Tump.  I noticed that these people of 4000 years ago always build their long barrows along the edge of rape seed fields – we’ve yet to find out if the name has been changed to canola here.  This barrow was harder to get into, as the roof is intact.  Disregarding our clean trousers, we crawled in on our hands and knees.  Alanna went last, allowing her to get charming pictures of the last bits of her aunt and uncle to disappear “down the rabbit hole”.  Inside it was larger, so that one could have one’s shoes on the muddy floor, but not straighten one’s legs or back.  Ian amused us by whispering “I walk on dead people!”, which is only funny because his mother keeps telling us stories of his refusal to walk in Westminster Abby when he was eight.

Ian crawling in

Interior view of a barrow

Off we drove to Gloucester, with no more than the usual number of missed directions and wrong turns.  We parked near Blackfriars, and walked up to the tourist information centre.  For the next hour, Alanna waited in the street while the older ladies went shopping in Marks and Spencers and then in the 99p store, and Ian replaced his broken camera – an early birthday present from his mother.  We have to work on our city walking skills, as the last person in line occasionally stopped to look at something, and the first person in line didn’t know, which left Alanna waiting in the street again for half an hour.

A building in Gloucester

This mirror belonged to a Romano-British woman.

 We got a private tour of Gloucester Cathedral from Val, and she was an AMAZING docent.  We are a diverse group, with some of us having studied the cathedral before leaving, some of us mad about Harry Potter, and others wanting to be amused, but she did an excellent job and answered all of our questions.  

The Saints at the Main entrance

The oldest church in Gloucester was built by the Mercian King Osric, and was originally both a monastery and a nunnery, ruled over by an Abbess.  This church, built in the Seventh Century, is long gone, and like most ancient structures, the existing church is the result of the original era and dozens of renovations, repairs, and “improvements”.  The result is a tribute to the hundreds of people who laboured for the glory of God.

This is a little memorial to a stonemason who was killed falling from the roof.

King Osric's memorial

The cathedral as seen from the cloisters

The cloisters

We left Gloucester when the parking ran out, just before 4:00, and drove down the Severn Valley.  I managed to get us on the M5 by mistake, but it only took us 45 minutes to get back to where we started.  We went to the local pub, which was very nice, and speculated on where Highgrove must be from where we sat.

We arrived back at the cottage by 7:30, and after festooning the cottage with its daily round of freshly washed laundry, we went out for a walk around Tetbury in the gloaming.

Altogether, a very satisfactory day.  I don’t miss email – and having to deal with it -- at all!