Bit Of An Autumnal Break: Somerset

 ...and the village of my grandmother.... apparently.
Bit of an orchard. And plenty of mistletoe comin' for Christmas.

Come to speak of it.... mistletoe all over Somerset this year. The Old Man says he don't remember it ever being so .... "mistletoe-ish".

In Glastonbury Town...

When we come to Somerset we stay very near Glastonbury... where The Old Man be very impressed by the Biggest Veggie/Organic Supermarket he have ever seen. And this time he is also gob-smacked by a street musician playing a Hurdy Gurdy with great vigour and skill, so that he do actually give him some money.

We do live in West Cornwall .... where I am used to concepts taking over towns and hollowing them out from the inside. (I speak of St. Ives of course, that Barnum & Bailey Circus of the Fine Arts, where every other shop is a "Gallery" and you cannot move for Art and all Things Artistic.) .... Glastonbury now has a similar relationship with Spirituality.... I do not mind greatly. I have woo-wooed a plenty in my time. And, after the prevalence of Art in Cornwall, I find it refreshing to walk down a high street and be faced with an approaching gentleman ambling along in full dhoti and turban. This be after noticing a white-dressed lady peering (somewhat grumpily) out of a shop window which is festooned with golden pyramidal structures - the "Buddha Maitreya Soul Therapy Centre", no less. The Old Man has noticed however that the crystal shops and woo-woo centres on the High Street have increased since our visit three years ago. He no longer can find WH Smiths for his newspaper and have to hunt out a paper from a corner shop down a side street.

So it be that, tired and bewildered on the day of The Funeral, we fill a shopping basket in the Organic Supermarket and...The Old Man clutching as many Cheddar Strawberries as he can manage... we approach the tills to pay.
Bewildered by the loose arrangement of chatting people, The Old Man do ask:
"Is this the queue?"
"Does this look like a queue?" says a gentleman I shall call Mr Philosopher.
"???" say we.
"Your consciousness should bring awareness of those who are here before you." says Mr Enlightened, a young man with a "rasta do" to rival an Indian fakir.
Abashed, we do slide in front of a till... now philosophically unsure of  the existence of queuing whilst simultaneously worrying that we have destroyed its essential organic process.

Somerset Stay

A bit of a time with family dealings... not the least of which is the funeral of a family member of The Old Man. In fact The Old Man do have a say in the proceedings and opted for an eco-coffin and a Humanist service. I think this may not have gone down well with some interested parties and I expect their jaws be still on floor ... (sigh).... Never mind.
The Humanist celebrant be lovely woman from Wells who produced a thoughtful dedication that spelled out the various stages of what she herself referred to as "a long and varied life". If the offended parties do take umbrage... well... they weren't there for all of that varied life, were they? For us... who do get a bit "shunned" by some... it was a healing thing that stitched together those "rich" variations.
However... it has all been quite exhausting and not sorted yet.

But we managed to take a walk over Shapwick Heath... a childhood haunt of The Old Man.... on a beautiful day. We walked along the main Drove and into Canada Farm with its wooded lane. To hear the warblers, a persistent cuckoo, and see hoards of blue damsel flies and a brimstone butterfly.... Well that were lovely.

Time to Go Home....

We walk on the moors and wait to see the starlings which don't quite arrive when we hope but hey I reckon we's too early in the season. But we do see lots of cormorants hanging their wings out to dry instead.

I do feed the farm goat with carrots in order to discourage it from eating my clothes - whilst I'm in them.

We buy stuff in Glastonbury from the biggest eco-organic supermarket that I've ever come across. And we queue up and eat good veggie grub from Glastonbury's Rainbow's End Cafe.

We get a visit from old friends Photo-Girl and Hubbie from Bath. We share lunch and a good chat and a moory-reedy walk with them.

I see the places that The Old Man lived in when he's growin' up.

And I have to say ... last but not least... I do love my stay at MapleLeaf Middlewick Cottages in the wooden cabin with it's garden and view of old orchard fields, horses, hungry goat, chickens... and The Tor.

But..... it time to go home.

A Beautiful Morning in Somerset

Mist rising up from King's Sedgemoor below this hill.

You can see the checquer board effect of the rhynes, narrow drainage channels, running through King's Sedgemoor below.

"Wow..." I did say. As did several others standing on the hill.

My Own Little House on The Levels

Oooh ain't she sweet? A Shepherd's Hut all for me to sleep in.

Wake up in the mornin', open the blind and stare out at The Tor.

I do love it.

We Did Go on Holiday!

We goes to Somerset ... land of The Old man's upbringing and land of my very first student years all those decades ago.

Like the faded hippie that I be... I chose a place right next to Glastonbury.

Here you can see us standing in the garden of the wooden cabin what we stay in....next to a little orchard ... with Glastonbury Tor right behind us.

Oh I always wanted to stay in a wooden cabin. It were nice.