Twilight Border Country

Some random photos from our stay in the Border Counties between England and Wales, Monmouthshire, The Wye Valley, The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire... a  couple of weeks ago.

We stayed in a lovely cottage  - part of The House of Bread  at  Coleford near Monmouth - with two rescue hens in their enclosure next to the kitchen who were our morning alarm clock.

In the Forest of Dean....

following The Sculpture Trail...

through the beech woods.

View of Symond's Yat from near The Rock where we walked on the evening of our 28th wedding anniversary - feeling chilly, sad, bleak.

We start our walk the next day at Symmond's Yat East following the loop of the River Wye...

 past a muddle of duck and swan...

the swing bridge takes us across...

then back to the start point - we are collected by a hand pulled ferry

 for lunch at The Saracen's Head overlooking the river.

 The round tower where Nelson and Mrs Nelson ate breakfast three years before he died at Trafalgar - The Kymin built in 1800 as a memorial 

to commemorate British naval heroes....wonderful views..

 12th Century Goodrich Castle -  home of the  Earls of Shrewsbury in the 15th century which fell to the Parliamentarians during the Civil War in the 1640s.

I was  fascinated by the remains of the very small kitchen and tried to  imagine cooking this Easter feast in 1297 -  including 600 eggs.

I have a phobia of hairy caterpillars  - stemming from my childhood in Zambia when I put my hand on a nest of them in a frangipani tree and ended up with a palmful of pain... but I got over it enough to take a photo of this luminous acid green one creeping along the forest floor minding its own business.

Less dangerous but more prickly chestnut coats...

caterpillar coloured oak leaves...

 In the car park at the Dean Heritage centre....

Ross on Wye....lovely peaceful park at the top of the town overlooking the Wye

 and the Old Station at Tintern - renovated to its 1940's state -  where we stopped for a cup of tea and a walk along green path of the disused railway line.

It seems ages ago now....

Random moments from my day....

This morning we drive to Taunton bus station in the rain to pick up my sister and brother-in-law travelling back from Heathrow. They have been on a big half way round the world trip and look brown and relaxed and happy to be home in cool wet Devon after the humidity and noise of Hong Kong. I'm happy they are home too.

The men are supposed to be starting work on our chimney and repairing the roof to keep out the rain and the damp... For the last 2 days I've been up early to be ready for them starting at 8am but they don't arrive...too wet maybe ....maybe tomorrow they'll come, but I'm losing confidence....and sleep.

I'm reading a novel about a woman who has early onset dementia  - a rare Alzheimer's  - I didn't know it was about that when I borrowed it from the library.... brave and heart

breaking.... Although it's not the same as Semantic Dementia it's making me think about what it's like for my husband.... trying to make sense from the inside - from that twilight border country between his two worlds.....

And something else I read today -  about the more you wish something to go away or to end the more it hangs around....and the more you welcome it/love it  - however painful/annoying /tragic the sooner it disappears ...or at least it doesn't run your life....like coughing and sneezing and spitting.....