Somerset

Wednesday May 23rd
We hopped on the train bright and early along with a bunch of commuters and headed off to visit some friends of Katie's. Mrs. Glendenning picked us up at the train station and took us to their home. Part of their home was built in the 1400s, another part in the 1500s and the most recent part was from the 1600s. Not quite the same thing as my house which was built in 1911! They were a really sweet older couple and I think quite pleased to have us there and to get to show us around. Once we got settled Mr. Glendenning took us on a country walk. We headed off down the street and then turned off onto what appeared to be someone's field. It was, but the public footpath went right through it and public footpaths cannot be moved without a lot of time, legal stress and money. I'm not quite sure how many different fields we walked through, but we got to see quite a bit of the countryside around there and have it all explained by our very own tour guide. He pointed out housed that were classic 1400 style house, 1500 and so on. We also popped into an old church that was along our way. It was really fun and also really nice to be away from cities. When we got back to the house we sat down to tea which we had quite a bit of while we were there. They have it around 11am then they have it again around 4:30 or 5pm and they offered to put the kettle on again around 10 right before going to bed. I like tea, but that is a bit much. The next day Katie and I went off on a walk by ourself (taking pictures) until after 11am tea. After tea we headed our with Mr. Glendenning again to see the Moors. They are rather hard to take good pictures of. It just looks like flat green plains, but they were very pretty and he enjoyed showing us around. We got the best view when we climbed up Burrow Mump (which basically means hill hill). After that we headed back. Now I did not mention this earlier because I need to go into some detail. but the roads we took to get there and back were not like any normal road (even country roads) in the US. They were hedgerows. Narrow roads (and I do mean narrow! some parts were about 1 1/2 cars wide if that) that had hedges on either side of the road. Tall hedges that you could not see over combined with the narrow road. Add to that very few signs and smaller hedgerows heading off every once in a while and it was quite an experience. These roads were so narrow that at times if we met someone going the opposite direction one or the other would have to back up until they hit a wider spot and let the other car pass. And these roads just went on and on. I'm not quite sure how he found his way back, habit I guess, but eventually we made it back to the house. Just in time for afternoon tea. That evening they took us to a concert to hear some Russian singers. They sang a variety of sacred Russian church music and then ended with some fun folk songs. After the concert we headed back to the house for a late dinner party. And it was late for me, I don't usually eat dinner at 10pm. And here is the part were I talk about the most disgusting thing I ate on my trip. Pate. If you have never tried it... don't! If you like it maybe you should have your head examined! At any rate for those innocent folks like me who don't know what it is I will explain. It is basically meat (supposedly only the best meat at least that is what I was told) ground up into a paste with very little added. Maybe some butter and I don't remember what else they said. At any rate I was given the duck pate to try and did. It was nauseating. I think my bad side took over for a minute. I saw that Katie had some of the chicken pate and was forcing it down as politely as possible and I insisted that she try the duck as well. Bad, bad, bad. But Katie won by in turn insisting that I try the chicken. Did I mention how bad the duck tasted? Well take really bad and multiply it by about 10! I think what made it so very awful was that we had to force every bit of it down without gagging. Oh well, now it is something to laugh about, and I know for future reference to always say that pate is not really my thing.
The next morning we headed off to see Bath and then to spend the night in Cardiff, Wales.