Round and About

Saturday Harry was up before the sun and on his way to his second Birmingham Car show. He went up with a few guys from work and spent hours wandering the exhibits, seeing some demonstrations and arrived back in Bristol with 3 sunhats (advertising Audi, Peugeot and Toyo tires), some airplugs (worth keeping for the airshows) and some ideas about the new technology for the coming year. While he was taking photos of car (including Lewis Hamilton's 2008 Formula One Car) I headed back to Wales with Chris to the Welsh Village of Life (not before I spent 15 minutes scraping a weeks ice off the car windows and I think a shower of snow - I discovered short arms don't easily reach the middle of the window without leaning on a cold and wet car - where was Harry in the time of need?). We spent a few hours wandering around the little village - made by relocating (began in 1948) a whole lot of shops, homes, school etc from various parts of Wales, and then also to the walls of the castle, the manor house, woollen mill (first time I had seen a water powered woollen mill), boat house and Italian garden. It was fairly similar to a lot of other museums of this type but I did learn that in the 16th century manor house the staff used an iron for ironing the daily newspaper. Why you might ask? Not to flatten it but to make sure the ink was fast before taking it up to the Lord of the Manor on his breakfast tray. I suggested to Harry that this could be a Sunday morning occupation for him from now on but the suggestion didn't go down well. Anyway, spring is coming - the buds are budding and the little red robins are out and about picking up the seeds - good news for us warmer weather lovers.

On Sunday - after spending so much time on our feet we decided to hire some dvds from the library (White Christmas - Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in the early 1950's, the Scots Flyer - a dvd about a cyclist achieving world records, and another which didn't overly enthuse me). But before that lazy afternoon we went for a Tor Hunt and found 2 not far from Bristol. The first wasn't open but was in memory of Lord Robert Somerset who was a nephew of the Sixth Duke of Beaufort and a general at Waterloo. It stands about 100 feet high and we saw a good view of it and the Tyndale Monument at North Nibley as we wandered down the very muddy, puddly, icy and snowy path beside the monument. Tyndale Monument was more spectacular as it was perched high on a hill (very steep muddy path up to the top) and it was open so we could climb to the top. It is dedicated to William Tyndale who translated the first bible into English in the late 15th century. However, our old friend Henry VIII didn't like him much and persuaded him to return to England from Antwerp. He agreed if the king would print an English Bible. By the time Henry published his Great Bible, Tyndale was already imprisoned by a fanatic and later killed after being tried for heresy in Brussels.