Leicester to Cornwall

We left Tom's that day and began the drive to another of Mum's friends places, Joanne is Nina's (we met her in Delhi, remember?) daughter and Nina is our Nan's good friend so Mum saw lots of Joanne when she was little. When we arrived at Joanne's we met her daughter Alice (12), Alice's friend Beth (12) and son Joe (My age 13 turning 14). We (the girls) went upstairs and painted our nails then chose which movie we were going to watch (Twilight). Alice, Beth, Abbey and I walked down to the local shop and bought ice cream and a bag of lollies. Their Dad, Kevin came home and we all had dinner. Very nice meal, potato's in their jackets mmmm! When Twilight had ended we all dropped into bed and fell asleep.

The next day Joe went to work at the cafe opposite the shop we walked to the day before.. Before going to the living museum Joanne drove us to the cafe where Joe works and we had a hot chocolate (YUMMY!). Mum bugged me about getting a job when I am back in Tassie and Joe told us all the things he has bought with the money he has earnt. Joe went to wash our dishes and Joanne drove us to the Museum. The living Museum was really cool, it was jam packed full of old houses many of which have been taken down and moved to the museum then reconstructed. The old buildings were outside. There was a red house (The colour red was lucky in that era) which was 300 years old! It had a thatched roof and a stable out the back. All the rooms had furniture based on what the old owners had in that time period. There also was a mill and we saw it working. Past the mill was a barn yard and Alice, Beth, Abbey and I peeked into one of the stalls and saw......

Piglets!!!

We named three of them (My memory is bad and I can't remember what Beth and Alice called theirs) Abbey and I named ours Runty.

There was a church that was built like five hundred years ago!!! It had been painted based on the original paint work from that time period and it was kinda cool the way those people drew. Mum, Dad and Joanne had packed a picnic lunch and we had the meal on a Victorian street!


After we had some ice cream and looked at a row of cottages; each cottage was from a different era. There also was a school house, complete with canes (for whipping kids) and all! We walked to a Tudor style house which stank of coal and then went to the shop and bought four pom pom sheep pencils and did Twilight and New Moon re-enactments in the car on the way back to Joanne's. Beth went home.

The next day we went to Nina's house for lunch. Alice, Abbey, Joe and I played piggy in the middle with Alice and Joe's cousin Ruby (who is five). We played until Nina served up lunch then played until it started raining. I remembered we called Meg and Jemma's big brother Henrietta so we started calling Joe, Josephine- and he called us Alberto (Abbey), Anthony (Alice) and Frank (me), we called Ruby Robert and Libby Lewis. We took Robert and her little sister Lewis inside and watched Toy story with them! Nina served up the apple pie and ice cream and then we went home. The girls watched TV while Joe played on his PS3. Alice, Abbey and I made fairy cakes. They had real chocolate for icing and then put hundreds and thousands on top. We went into Alice's room and planned a full scale attack on Joe, his PS3 and his friend (he had his friend on his phone while they played). We were listening to her CD's, I got out the Justin (Forgot his last name but it is not Timberlake) CD and played Baby and then we realised that we had heard that song before but we thought the singer was a girl... Embarrassing!!!

We served up the fairy cakes and then had some photo's taken outside on the trampoline. I made a new facebook account and then we went to sleep.

The next morning Mum woke us up really early so we could say good bye to Joe, Alice and Joanne who were going to work/school. After giving them hugs they left and then we left for Glastonbury.

The ruins of old Glastonbury Abbey stood tall and decrepit in the wide grassy hill. The guide, an eccentric archaeologist character took us to each unique place. Ranging from the holy thorn bush, (where Joseph, Jesus's uncle, pushed his staff into the ground and the staff blossomed into a thorn bush) to King Arthur's grave. We also saw the abbots kitchen that was entirely made of stone ,so luckily King Henry did not destroy it like he destroyed all the other parts of the Abbey for the lead in them. Its roof towered over us and a little maid told us how they used to make food for the pilgrim's and sometimes even the king. We walked around the gardens and saw Meadow Sweet that smelled of soft sweet honey. We went on a small wild life walk and saw lots of wrens and red breasts. Then we started driving again.

The Dartmoor ponies grazed quietly, their heads never lifting. A chestnut stallion finally walked up to us but we shooed him to a stop ('Do not encourage ponies to come to you encase it bites or kicks', said a sign). A mare and foal drifted from afar towards us. Our camera's chinked at the sight of ponies.

We drove on and saw more and more ponies. A dun pregnant mare stood upright on the moor. A foal stood on a bump itching its hind legs. 
  

A bus travelling in front of us got stuck because the roads are so small and they have towering hedges on each side. We waited and waited …...........and waited …..........and then it started backwards and we drove into a wheat field to let it pass. Then we started down the road again and saw many more Dartmoor ponies. Right now we are heading in to a town to shop for food.

RMS

ABBEY

We took the Old Fosse Way from Leicester on the way to Usk Which took us to Stratford passing Tiddington on the way. We stopped quickly to take a photo of the cottage where we lived in before we moved to Scotland when I was six. 

That's where my earliest memories begin way back when my Dad lived with us and I was only three!! Again everything was much smaller. The road in front of the cottage where Mr Scarrot caught me practising my road crossing skills was no where near as wide as it seemed back then. The foot path to the village green where Grandad taught me to ride my bike was no great distance.

We drove into Stratford and stopped at Cox's Yard for lunch just because it was familiar and reminded me of the Dirty Duck which we used to frequent way back then.

From there onward to Joanne's in South Wales. I haven't seen Joanne since they left Eskdalemuir 32 years ago!! Joanne was quite different to my memories... so much taller and quieter but like everything else that I am discovering about memories, at first the similarities are distant but gradually there are more and more hints of what it was I used to know. It seems each person remembers different things or aspects of the same things. Joanne has remembered all the scary adventures I used to get her into!! Maybe I was so busy with my adventuring I hadn't noticed how quiet she was as I dragged her out of bed to go and play in a den in the middle of the night! It was fun recounting those crazy times and discovering where we went from there. Rachel, Hilda, Joanne and myself all had the same environment to grow in and Joanne and I had similar families to grow in and yet we all chose very different paths to follow.

Frances has filled you in on all the adventures we had while we were there. We had a super time the girls loved having friends to hang out with rather than us old fogies and they all got along really well.

Monday morning came and we all said our goodbyes and continued on our way.