Tintern Abbey

The week went quickly by - Harry is recuperating well - enough for a few little walks and a visit to Tintern Abbey and the Botanical Gardens during the weekend. He was an avid internet visitor during the weekend to find out the results of the rugby - well done Southern Hemisphere teams and Scotland - as it doesn't make the news much here at all. We should be living in Wales. Other interesting news was that students at a school opened their exam papers during the week (GCSE I think is equivalent to School Cert or NCEA Level 1 - its for 15 year olds anyway) only to find that they had studied Midsummers Night Dream all year and the paper asked questions on MacBeth. I wonder if someone's head should roll for that one!! This was accompanied by articles on schools running 'non competitive sports days' and how the education system is not allowing children to excel at what they are good at mirrors what I have seen happening in New Zealand - and we wonder why our athletes don't come up to the mark in a competitive environment. Getting onto 'green' issues, the Swifts (a cute little bird that nests under eaves) are looking threatened due to renovations and new housing where no holes are designed for them nest. They come to England between May and July especially to use the housing for nesting and then head back south. Also, the fuel price crisis is hitting holiday makers hard. Lots of English aren't going on overseas holidays this year, and package holiday organisers are considering adding a surcharge onto the already paid amount if they can justify increase in fuel prices (its in the small print they say). I wonder if that will happen to any of our trips. This week I sat on the net, after finding that Ryan Air was offering cheap fares and managed to book one way to Dublin and another to Knock (also Ireland) for 2 pence and £20 the other way. I guess a 10% fuel surcharge on that will still be manageable. Usually Ryan Air offer cheap fares and then add up to £80 of taxes etc on top of it which makes it quite expensive - but not this time - free taxes as well. So, we will probably hire a car and do some tripping around Ireland - it is just so lovely and reminds me so much of New Zealand - have I have said that before? Over the week, due to low mobility, we watched three dvds - one called An Angel for May (a family story set in England during the war), Hairspray (someone suggested the stage show is the best they've seen so thought we'd watch the movie to see if it appealed -quite fun, but other stage shows might take precedence), and one with Meryl Streep white water rafting down Colorado Rivers with criminals (not brilliant - and had touches of the old movie 'Deliverance' in it). We've also been looking more closely at what is in food items this week. A newspaper article discussed how hydrogenated vegetable oil was known to contribute to heart disease but was not banned in the UK. It quoted certain foods such as some chocolate bars and bakery items (eg some muffins) having it. Denmark banned it 5 years ago and has had a 40% decrease in heart disease. You can't really call that a coincidence. So, when we went shopping we looked at labels - Mars bars currently on special have it - Snicker bars also on special have it - and I am really upset my favourite discovery since I have been here Lion Bars also are made with this ingredient. So, apologies to all those of you I have sent them to because I thought they were a treat - we have a packet in the cupboard which I am psyching myself up to throw away!!
Harry's job during the week was to find something that he would and could do this weekend and he chose Tintern Abbey and the Bristol Botanic Gardens (what is that lover of cars and aeroplanes turning into you might ask?). Tintern Abbey is across the bridge in Wales, and was one of those 'must go back there' spots. It was built in the valley beside the Wye River, picturesque in summer but I imagine freezing cold in winter (they only had 2 fire places in the whole place and one of them was in the kitchen). The Abbey itself was built in the 11th Century for Monks and was inhabited all through the centuries until Henry VIII did his thing in trying to eradicate catholism and closed it down (that man has a lot to answer for and I often wonder where we would be today if Catherine of Aragon had borne him a multitude of sons). Anyway, back to the Abbey. It was so peaceful, which to me reflected the spiritual nature of the place, but Harry suggested that architecturally it was built more as a place of contemplation than war (compared to a castle) - I think we are both right - and add in the situation in the valley with the hills and river and you get rather a serene environment. We wandered for quite a while around the ruins, watching the white doves, cows in the paddocks and children playing. We didn't know where the term 'lay person' or 'lay man' came from but now we do. There were two types of monks - choir monks (who I assume sang and were well educated and did the business) and lay monks (who lived separately and did the labour that made the place tick over practically). Lay comes from Labour. The monks took a three fold vow which was about obedience (to the Abbot and to God), stability (to remain within the community) and conversion of ways (to embrace the religious life). This was reinforced with daily manual labour, seclusion, restrictions in diet and rejection of personal possessions (plus I added to that list they had to wear undyed wool - a penance for anyone with skin problems). The clouds again were a highlight and we now know why Constable painted so many country scenes with clouds in the background - everyday a place is different because of the sky.

We wandered along the path by the river for a few minutes and came to Tintern Village. Quaint little pubs and tea houses were built around what was the mill (where the monks got the flower to make their bread - their staple food). We spent a while looking at the craft shops (not many and it didn't take long but I did think of that some of my friends would have enjoyed this part). The shops were all quite small with different crafts for sale and so I started my Christmas shopping (are you impressed?). We wandered over the bridge looking back at the Abbey and thought that when we are able to walk further will make another trip to walk the track along the River (or perhaps bike?). On the way home we ducked into the shops and came out with a tent (to try out in a few weeks when we want to go to Skomer Island in Wales), a little gas cooker to boil a cuppa when we camp), a couple of fold up chairs (for air show picnics), a bike rack (to take our bikes back to the Wye River etc etc), and 2 cheap bags with wheels so we can pull rather than carry our bags onto the plane (it costs more to put them into the hold and you have to wait at the other end). So, didn't we do well.

Sunday, we wandered around the botanic gardens after a leisurely morning of getting up late, mowing the lawns and sitting in the sun. Bristol really doesn't have a botanic garden like we know it. It is run by the University of Bristol (costs to get in) and is a teaching garden for their botany students. 3 years ago it was moved to its present location around a rather impressive Edwardian house. So, still quite new, not all has been planted but quite interesting. We learnt that plants are pollinated by different insects and birds, (yes there are bee pollinated plants, wasp pollinated plants, butterfly pollinated plants and wait for it hummingbird, bat, sugar birds, sun birds also do their thing with different plants). And more outstanding facts for us with no green fingers, they have discovered plants have DNA and now are finding that some plants they thought belonged to one family (presumably they look and smell alike and grow in similar places) actually belong to quite different families and as they discover them the University moves plants around to make sure they are planted by family with other family members. We loved the big waterlillies in the greenhouses (what a pity Caramello chose to stay at home as a photo sitting on one of them with a frog would have been soooooo cute).