Monday 7 September 2020. Agh... the dark days of Covid. The lockdown had been lifted and we wanted to get out of the house for a few days and motored down to spend a weekend at an ex-colleague's B&B in Dulcote just outside Wells in Somerset.
We had spent a similar long weekend there in 2015 and were looking forward to a nice relaxing time, not rushing about, but staying fairly close with Weston-Super-Mare being the farthest we would wander away from our base. Here is a sketch of the White House. It was good to be back here and we knew that Mary and her family would look after us well.
Bob the dog was a new (to us) member of Mary's household and soon got used to me and even Maggie the timid cat came onto my knee. "It's like having Dr Doolittle here!" Mary said in surprise as Bob replaced Maggie and started stroking my face with his paw.
We headed out to Cheddar, where we found a little cafe to have lunch in and I filled in the foliage around the side of the sketch. The waitress thought it "very pretty!".
The caves were all closed, as were many of the small shops. Fran had a wander as I started another sketch of a row of tiny cottages. It started to rain as I was doing this, gently at first but after Fran had come back to me it came down in earnest and we upped sticks and found refuge under the awning of a pub beer garden where a Guinness helped me complete the sketch!
On our way down to Dulcote we had passed the Rock of Ages a huge cleft rock face set into the hills near Burrington and Blagdon. I had seen signs for it many times whilst driving to and from Blagdon when visiting the software house EMIS who produced our college software in the early days, but had never cut down the road to see it.
An inscription from the 1950s tells how the Reverend A.M. Toplady sheltered here from a storm and was inspired to write the famous hymn, Rock of Ages in the mid 1700s.
Tuesday 8 September 2020. The morning started a bit weird as I had found a tyre going down last night and booked the car in to have it looked at in Wells. What would have been a 15 to 20 minute job at our usual garage turned out to be a 2 hour job in Wells as the place was extremely busy. No matter, we looked round the shops and Fran found a sewing shop that Mary had been raving about.
Then once we had the car back we went into Weston-Super-Mare and had lunch there. It took a while to find a place as all cafes were having to ensure social distancing due to the Covid 19 epidemic and smaller cafes were just not open. Needless to say the ones that were open were very full. Once fed we had a walk along the pier - they still charge for this and were insisting that people wore face masks in the fresh open air along it...(?) Ah well. Then a walk along the Promenade and then a hop in the car to Burnham on Sea before heading back to Wells, filling the car with petrol and buying a sandwich in Morrisons.
On our way home we stopped in a forestry car park on the road from the Rock of Ages as I had seen this field that looked like a barrow field. It was misty and a bit cool and I left Fran sitting in the car to find the field looking more like a naturally lumpy field. However it did have a short row of stones marking the border with the road and forming a gateway for the path leading into the field.
I was really in two minds. It had too many humps and lumps to be both a barrowfield or a natural occuring feature.
This one looked promising, but sadly isn't included in maps of Somerset tumuli that I looked at once back at home.
Wednesday 9 September 2020. We went back into Wells for some lunch and then a sit in the Bishop's Garden, where I drew the gatehouse whilst Fran went back around the shops and a market. A woman braved the transfer of any plague-like germs to have a look at what I was doing and said she'd come back later as she wanted to see how I'd cope with the archway. In the event I coped alright with the archway, though the two sides to the gatehouse should really be the same width as each other...
Then it was back to Mary's to spend our final afternoon relaxing in the garden.
Bob comes to sit with me for a bit but then goes off to lie down near the kitchen door when I stop paying him constant attention!
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