From Torquay to Bath

Sadly we had to pack up and leave our lovely apartment in Torquay this morning and were on the road by 9:30. Today’s destination was Bath to spend a couple of nights with Marjorie, a family friend of Ian’s parents and who Ian and I stayed with when we were travelling around England in ’95. Marjorie and her late husband Ken used to live in an old railway station – converted into an amazing house – in Saddleworth, but Marjorie has now returned to her home town of Bath.
It was a cold, grey day again but still no rain and a bit of sun

trying to break through the clouds. We decided to drive through a small part of the Dartmoor Forest before getting on the motorway for Bath and were rewarded with some very lovely, picturesque countryside. Although we decided it’s not really a forest, more an open, shrubby plain with sheep grazing and wild horses here and there. We saw a lot of people out walking, enjoying the bracing air and the countryside. We stopped in one layby for a bit of a walk around and went to see some of the wild horses – who are actually quite tame and will let you pat them.
Next stop was Glastonbury. We had forgotten to buy bread yesterday so no ham and cheese sandwiches today – instead we stopped for lunch in an old English pub in Glastonbury. Glastonbury is full of shops on natural healing, gemstones, tarot card reading and other alternative things due to the Glastonbury Festival which is due to be held there again this year, so as well as being historic it is also a very quirky and interesting town. We had a walk around the ruins of the

Glastonbury Abbey – when Ian and I were last here in ’95 you could just walk around the ruins at will. Now you have to pay to go in and there is a museum/information area at the start telling you all about the history of the place before you walk around the ruins. It is amazing to look at the ruins and to imagine how big the Abbey would have been in its heyday.
We left Glastonbury just after 3pm and got to Marjorie’s place in Bath around 4pm. We had a lovely evening with her, talking about Roy and Vera, filling her in on all the family news as well as catching up with all of her news since moving to Bath. Marjorie has a dog who is also called Archie – he is a lovely Cockapoo and was very overwhelmed initially with our arrival, wanting to stay very close to Marjorie as he checked us all out. Lauren had a lovely time sitting with him, she has been missing our Archie so it was lovely to have some dog time! He gradually got used to us all and was willing to leave Marjorie’s side once he knew we were ok!! We were spoilt with a lovely roast chicken dinner and headed to bed about 10pm.