Letter 14 from Europe RV trip

We were leaving the Salisbury area on Friday, but we didn’t need to leave early. We spent the morning on our computers, and then left for Crowcombe, a village of 200 houses in Somerset. We have friends there and had made plans to stay with them for the weekend. Again, we had no problem finding our way. The signs left no leeway for mistakes! We pulled into the driveway of Peter and Valori’s home before four o’clock and didn’t leave until Monday afternoon.

On our way through England, we again enjoyed the names of some of the villages we either passed on the road, or saw on the map as we plotted our course. Tooting was quite near London, as was Twickenham. In other places we found Ockham, Burpham, Mousekill, Itchen Stoke, Wrecclesham, Abbots Worthy and Over Wallop, Nether Wallop and Middle Wallop.

On Saturday, Peter drove us into the lovely town of Wells. We visited the Cathedral (of course) and also a row of 14th century houses called the Vicar’s Close. These were built to house the choir of the Cathedral and have been occupied ever since. We walked through the town and were absolutely astonished at how many people were on the street. But we soon realized that it was not only a Saturday in a rural area where many people spend their Saturday on The High Street in the nearest town – but a day where young families could come to a carnival, a book sale, a street market and probably more.

Welles Cathedral is a 13th century building that has an unusual “scissor arch” which is often mistaken for a modern addition. In reality, it is a 14th century solution to the sinking foundations of the tower. Off to the side of the nave is an old and very unusual clock. It shows the month, the day, the hour and the minute on the four faces of the clock, with the month face being the largest. At the hour, jousting knights ride round and round and a seated man above the clock face rings the bell with his hammer. There are sculptured figures everywhere inside and outside the cathedral, although some of them have lost their noses and their feet to the “Roundhead” army of Cromwell. In fact, there are many spots in easily accessible places where you see a base that must once have held a statue. Those were obviously toppled by the Puritan troops, but most of the medieval sculpture was too high for them to reach. A huge, heavily worn stone staircase leads to the Chapter House – a circular tower where the business of the cathedral was conducted. We enjoyed our visit, and considered remaining to hear the Norwegian Men’s Choir that was scheduled to give a concert at 1:00, but hunger won out. We went out for lunch instead.

The Cathedral was the only sightseeing event of our weekend. The rest of our visit consisted of social visits, lots of laughter, or eating and drinking tea and coffee. We toured Valori’s huge and beautiful garden, talked ourselves silly, and generally had a wonderful time. To tell the truth, that was the only “campground” we really regretted having to leave! To complete the experience, we found that Peter’s new computer allowed us to send out our pictures and in return, we helped Peter and Valori with a little bit of computer tutoring.

On Sunday evening, Peter was part of the choir in a beautiful, little local church. Ron stayed home to work on the computer, and Valori stayed home to make dinner, but Adelle decided to go to the service. Having read all those novels about England where someone always go to church, she decided it was time to see the real thing. It was a good thing too, since there were only four or five people in the church, including her.

Monday morning we worked on the computer training a bit and then we left for Gloucester to see yet another beautiful cathedral. We started off after lunch – and made only one stop – at a supermarket in the city of Taunton, on our way out. We were driving along the Motorway (M5) when traffic suddenly slowed to a crawl. We spent an entire hour in a terrible traffic jam – apparently caused by the juxtaposition of a number of problems within an arm’s length of each other. All three lanes of traffic were very heavy, and just when an additional two lanes entered on the left, road repairs cut off the right lane. And that is where a caravan (trailer) was overturned. We were lucky it was only an hour.

We followed the directions to the campground we had picked out in Gloucester and found nothing. So, we changed our minds and drove on – to a city called Tewkesbury, where the campground is right next to the ruins of the Abbey. When we woke up the next morning, it was great to see the Abbey against the sky.

Tewkesbury is a particularly nice campground because the old town is a very short walk away. In the morning we set out to explore the so-called black-and-white village. The black-and-white refers to the large number of 16th and 17th century half-timbered buildings left in town. It’s a small area – just three main streets and by the end of the first morning, we’d seen it all. So we walked back to the RV, ate our lunch and set out to catch the bus to Gloucester at 1:23. That allowed us to visit Gloucester Cathedral and walk the area around the city center. We even had time for a cup of coffee in a pub that we heard about from a fellow camper. Usually a cup of coffee or tea is one pound 35 pence or more. In the chain of J. Wetherspoon Pubs, it is only 69 pence. That sounds really cheap, until you remember that really costs about $1.35. It was good, and reasonable, and kept us awake through the afternoon.

In the morning we got up and went to the open-air market, where there were some genuine bargains. We bought far too much fruits and vegetables for either the space available or the appetites available, but we enjoyed the market and will continue to do so for many days in the future.

We left the campground at about 10:30 and set off to see the town of Ledbury – another black and white village. We found a parking place for the RV just off the main street, and walked around. The library allowed us to check our e-mail. A lovely old tea shop on an ancient street offered a “Cream Tea” – that is, a pot of tea with a scone, clotted cream and jam – for only three pounds – and it was as good as that treat gets! Then we were off again – to see what the city of Hereford is like.

Our new map book has a great feature. It shows some campgrounds on the map. We decided we’d try to find our next night’s “lodging” by following the map. The first campsite shown was at the horse racing track and it was closed until the next race in September. But the second site shown was open and had good public transit to Hereford. By four in the afternoon, we were parked and ready to take out our computers.