It
actually went quite well. No arguments, no getting lost, and not much
in the way of traffic jams either. The P&J finished his last exam
yesterday, so, to all intents and purposes, he's now on holiday until
September. Yes, he's got to go back into school for two or three
mornings next week, for Induction into the Sixth Form (which sounds
like some kind of Black Mass for stroppy teenagers), but otherwise
it's late nights and late mornings for the rest of the summer.
So, to celebrate, we decided that today the P&J can do as he wants,
to make up for all that hard revising he assures me he's been doing.
His
choice was breakfast (well, almost lunch, actually- that's teenagers
for you) at Wetherspoons, and a favourite bike ride, from Midsomer
Norton to Bitton- a nice, gentle 18 mile ride to get his fitness back
up. I ordered him a veggie breakfast and a pint of cola. Whoops. I
was supposed to order a Large Veggie Breakfast. We left after
he polished off what was obviously a woefully inadequate plateful, to
go and buy him a lottery ticket as he is now allowed to gamble
(among other unsavoury things). Nope. The lady at the shop wouldn't
sell him one as he hadn't any ID. She wouldn't sell me one, either,
in case I gave it to him.
Around
the 1pm mark, we threw the bike into the back of the car and headed
off to Midsomer Norton. There the OH and I abandoned the P&J in
the middle of a housing estate, and went off in search of our own
adventure. The OH, getting no helpful suggestions from me, threw
caution to the wind and decided we could go and have a look at some
of the local churches. Fair enough, I thought, the excitement being
so overwhelming, it had rendered me speechless.
First
up was Holy Trinity Church at Binegar. Sorry, I don't know if it
rhymes with vinegar or is Bine-gar or B-eye-ni-gar. Couldn't catch a
local to ask, so take your pick. Here's the Wiki page.
And
here are the photo's.
Then
we got a bit lost. But we came across this-
This
is The Blessed Virgin Mary at Emborough. Its been decommissioned.
We
then went on to Chewton Mendip and had a look at the Church of StMary Magdelen. This is quite a big church and was actually open. A
nice man strimming the grass told us to go in. So we did. I took some
pictures. Here they are. And, yes, that is graffiti scratched into the wall. Some of it is dated in the 1600s.
I
didn't take any notes, so if you want to know any more, you'll have
to go there yourself. Or buy a book about it. The Wiki link is highlighted above.
There's
quite a lot on other sites, too. Well, when I say a lot, I mean there
are a lot of sites. The info's much the same on all of them.
Finally,
after several wrong turns, we ended up at St Michael's Church in Burnett.
Here
are the pictures-
There are some
very nice and (probably) very expensive houses in this neck of the
woods. The sort of place names live, if you know what I mean.
We
went on to Bitton and parked in the car park by the Avon ValleyRailway, remembering our many visits here with our train obsessed
little boy- who turned up behind us, all red faced and sweaty, as we
were ordering coffees. He conned us out of a double chocolate chip
mega-cookie and a bottle of cola before we could even draw breath to
say, "What took you?"
We
stopped and watched the last train come in, and then threw the bike
and the sweaty teenager back into the car, and headed off home-
stopping at the Co-op in Long Ashton to buy the P&J the lottery
ticket I had promised him.
Back
home, the cat and dog fed and the OH out getting us a take-away, the
P&J finally took the time to take a look at his lottery ticket.
"How much can I win?" he asked. "About £10million,"
I told him. He is now planning the rest of his life round that
lottery ticket. I smiled benignly and reminded him he'll probably win
nothing. But I got him to promise he'll hand over to his his dad and
me a million each, just in case he turns out to be one of those
really irritating First Time Lucky bastards that you read about...
If
you enjoyed this, why not use the links on your right to download my
full length stories?
