Woke this morning after a very restful sleep at 7.30am. No
agenda today, it was pretty much a catch up day with Mary and to some extent
Bryan. Did some writing for yesterday’s blog, then it was downstairs for
breakfast. Mary was preparing to go to Holton church for a morning service, so
Julia and I, not wanting to disrupt the trend we’ve had forever, of not going
to church….didn’t!
Instead we sat looking at our route to Desborough, where my
uncle and cousin live. It’s about 200kms, but if you factor in the twists and
turns and deviations we make, it’ll be longer. We’ve allowed two or three days
to reach there and unfortunately we can’t really fine tune our arrival as
things happen on the road everyday when cycling, so an approximate time or day
is the best we can do.
After so many years of not being able to visit England,
it’s been nice recently to catch up with important people who have been absent
from our lives. Breakfast was delicious as always and it wasn’t much later that
Mary was home after attending church.
Decided it would be worth a visit to a
local church, which dates from around the 13th century, so into the
car we piled for a short trip, firstly to the local shop for some supplies,
before a drive along the local country lanes in very warm weather indeed….29
degrees, where we pulled up outside a very quaint little church.
The local parishioners were holding a flower festival there
and very nice it was too. We were introduced and welcomed to look around…little
did they know, we were only there for the architecture and history of the
building.
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| the village of Holton |
Back at home, we sat down to a nice lunch with Bryan as well, before
Mary took herself off for a rest and Julia and I took Bryan out for a walk in
his wheelchair to see the Millenium Green, a project where some of the local
landowners gave land to create an area that could be enjoyed by the public, but
also an eco site for birds, bees and small animals. That was very pleasant and
it was nice to have a good chat to Bryan, who seemed to enjoy it as well. Ju
got stuck into the P.A.Y.E. whilst I chatted to Mary and Bryan had an afternoon
nap.
We all assembled a delicious salad for dinner, agreeing it
was just too hot to cook. We have had
many good discussions about various things and Julia read out a moving email
from Irena who had written it after visiting their mum (also Mary’s sister). Mary then dug out a few old letters that Kate
had written when she first arrived in New Zealand in 1954 which was very
interesting.
We have had a very relaxing and pleasant few days with Mary
and Bryan and feel replenished and invigorated for the last part of our
journey.
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| thanks Mary and Bryan - a lovely stay |
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