Farewell Marjorie, Hello Chris

Ian and I were up at 7:30am again this morning to go walking with Marjorie and Archie. It was a beautiful clear morning with blue sky and the sun starting to appear. We walked to Millennium Seat again and had a much clearer view of the surrounding countryside this morning but still not clear enough to be able to see the White Horse of Westbury. Once back home it was showers and breakfast and then time to hit the road. We have had a wonderful couple of days in Bath and have had a lovely time with Marjorie, it was so good to see her

again after all these years. We got underway just before 11am and decided to head in the opposite direction to where we needed to get to today in order to drive through Cheddar Gorge which Marjorie had said was worth a look. It wasn’t far and was a beautiful drive, initially through rolling fields and cute little villages and then into the gorge with its soaring limestone cliffs rising 450ft. Driving through the gorge we came to the village of Cheddar where we stopped to buy some Cheddar cheese (of course!) as well as some fresh pasties for lunch. There are caves to explore in Cheddar as well but we unfortunately didn’t have time to stop and do this.
On the road again, we stopped to eat our lunch in a layby just out of Cheddar with a wonderful view of the beautiful countryside around us. We drove on to Westbury for a look at the White Horse which we hadn’t been able to see on our walks with Marjorie and it was amazing to suddenly come around a curve in the road and see this huge white horse cut into the chalky hillside. We drove up to the top of the hill for a closer look at the horse – it was still a lovely sunny day but

very cold and the breeze was stronger on the top of the hill so we only had a quick look and then returned to the warmth of the car! It is obviously a very popular spot for hang-gliding as we saw 5 hang gliders up in the air in this area and more people arriving at the top of the hill and getting set up to go hang gliding. It would certainly be very beautiful to hang glide around this area.
After the white horse we decided we needed to make tracks for Chris’s (Ian’s relative) house in Calne – this is going to be our base for the rest of our time in England as Chris goes away on 10th Jan and has very kindly given us the use of her house and car while she is away. We needed to have the hire car back in Swindon for 4pm so we unloaded all of our bags at Chris’s, had a cup of tea and then drove to Swindon with Chris following so that she could bring us back. Got to Swindon and returned the car without any dramas and then it was back to Calne to settle in for a relaxing evening catching up on each other’s news – the last time we saw Chris was when she came

to visit us in Mandurah when Brianna was 3 and a half and Lauren was 6 months old, so it is lovely to see her again. Enjoyed pasta bolognaise for tea - which of course went with red wine again! We all felt weary tonight after lots of driving today and what has been a very busy 4 and half weeks so far so we were happy to have a quiet night relaxing at home with Chris.