Friday May 30th
Tewkesbury is a town worth exploring some more. It still has lots of very old (mediaeval looking) buildings and has bags of character. I had a character alongside me in bed when I woke up this morning and for a second or two I was surprised when it wasn't whom I was expecting. Felice had taken the place of Laura! I am a silly cow sometimes!
Luckily I was able to dissuade her from picking up a guy in the bar/cafe of the hotel for us both to fcuk last night. I think she made the suggestion to see how I would react. I told her I was fine with her having sex with one of the guests but she had to go and do it in his room, I wasn't going to join in. I think she was just putting temptation in my path because Laura was back in Sheffield. I hope she was, anyway. Once I had declared that there'd be no three-way bonking in the room I would be sleeping in she lost all interest in even trying to pick up a guy. [The selection was pretty poor to be honest - most of the single guys seemed to be middle aged or older and none of them looked very attractive, to my eyes at least.)
I did wake up at around 3 am to find that she had wrapped herself around me, which was kind of comforting. So I let her cuddle me and went back to sleep. At about 6 I was wide awake as usual and she had returned to her side of the bed and was still snoring softly. I used the time to grab a shower and then lay on the sofa reading my book until she stirred at just before 8 am.
After Feli had showered we decided to go to the local supermarket (Morrisons) for one of their big breakfasts. It would be cheaper than the hotel's breakfast and the place was just a few hundred yards away down the road. I had the full breakfast but swapped by black pudding for extra toast. Feli had the same but decided to try the black pudding. She thought it was disgusting and could see why I had swapped.
By now it was about 9.15 so we set off to try and find Mary Kindred's house from the directions she had given us. She lived just off the Gloucester Road, a short way past the Abbey, and we found the place quite easily. She was an oldish biddy, older than Mum not quite the same age as Gran. Her casket was quite tiny compared to the other ones we'd seen, measuring about 9 x 5 x 3. More of a small box really. This was quite exciting as it is the first one of this proportion we have ever seen. We did some sketches and took loads of photographs and drank gallons of tea, provided by Mary, plus she brought us mountains of home made cake.
She was a very sweet old lady and seemed genuinely glad of our company. She was pleased her box was of interest to us and found the idea that it might appear in a book, some time in the future, quite exciting. I explained all about our Ph.D research and how we had come across the caskets by accident but that we had decided to run with the caskets as separate work, unrelated to our Ph.D's, even though they were tenuously connected. She asked if we were allowed to do that and I explained that it was a case of what the eye doesn't see the heart doesn't grieve over. With our academic work we are going to be given second and third author status, with a book about mediaeval embroidered caskets we might make some money but more importantly we would have a published work out side our field of study. I think she understood.
We'd driven past the Abbey to find Mrs Kindred and so after parting from her we drove back there, parked up and had a good old wander round this compact and bijou little church. I love being inside churches even though I am not in the slightest bit religious. I love liturgical music too for its beauty not the fairy tale sentiments. I was surprised by just how cute the place was really. They even have a renown choir school and choir based here. I bought a CD of the the choir singing stuff from the time of Elizabeth 1st. I even bought a DVD about a year in the life of the Abbey. I could tell Felice was getting restless after about an hour and half so we trooped off in search of a bite to eat.
If you ever visit Tewkesbury you must pay a visit to Crumpets Tea Room. This, like the Abbey itself is compact and bijou but equally as marvellous. We had a brilliant lunch; all home coked and made with local ingredients. The place is on St Mary's Lane, about 100 yards from the Abbey but tucked out of the way. We wouldn't even have noticed it if the woman in the Abbey shop hadn't mentioned how good it was when I was buying the CD & DVD. She was absolutely right. It has a wooden floor and oak beamed ceiling plus a huge fireplace, which wasn't in use of course. It was very cosy and very good.
After lunch we had another look through the town again and strolled down by the river. I got a bit confused about the river because I thought it was the Severn but it seems that the Avon is the one which flows though the town centre and the one which was close to the tea room. Which ever one it was it is very pretty.
We zoomed away from the town at about 5 pm and Felice did her mad French driver routine again all the way back, except for a couple of spots where the Friday night traffic was so heavy even her lane weaving couldn't make our progress any quicker. She dropped me at the end of our little lane at just before 8 pm. She decided she was going to head straight back home and go to sleep, rather than come in for a cuppa and a snack.
Laura was surprised I was back so late, she had been expecting me sooner than this. I had described our journey down and she expected more rally-driver speeds on the way home too. She had eaten her meal but actually offered to prepare something for me as an early supper. I said I could manage and went and made a bacon butty. This turned out to be three as I needed a second one and Laura, having smelled the bacon, decided she wanted one too.
Despite the fact I hadn't been driving or anything I felt pretty whacked and by the end of Have I Got New For You I was falling asleep. We let Callie out onto the back field, instead of taking her for a walk, and when she came in I had a shower and afterwards just flopped into bed. Zonked!
Saturday 31st May.
Out bright and early with Callie, who showered me with affection on the walk and wouldn't leave my side for ages, but just kept trotting alongside me and sniffing then licking my hand. (She does this a lot.) At the pool we regaled Sarah with tales of Tewkesbury and discovered this was yet another place our pool manager had never been to either. I had to confess that I was in the same boat until yesterday but it was definitely worth a longer visit.
I collected the morning papers from Sylv on the way back home and we spent a good hour reading through them and doing the crosswords (me) and killer su dokus (Laura).
Mum phoned at about 11 to tell me when Karen's funeral was and asked me if I wanted to go. This was a bit awkward, TBH, I mean I hardly really knew her. All my recollections of her are from my childhood. I said that if she wanted some moral support I would go along with her. It is next Friday at 2 pm and Laura has said she will come to give my moral support some moral support. Her last exam is on the following Monday, so a night or two away from home won't interrupt her schedule too much and I can show her my old home town. I explained all this to Mum and she was pleased that we'd be with her. She is going back to the little B & B she used near Woodbastwick and will book two rooms for next Friday.
Laura did some serious revision for next week's exams for a while this afternoon and I read some more of my new book. It's all about 1536 and is written by Dr Susannah Lipscombe! I am so impressed by the way she has turned scholarship into something which is historically accurate but reads like fiction. It is so accessible.
After our meal, Curry in a Hurry, Laura went off to the restaurant and I sat and finished Dr L's book. I have found a few more on Amazon and I have ordered a couple of them. I walked down with Callie to collect Laura at the end of the shift and got talking to Dominic about English Cathedrals. He is astounded that I am totally non-religious yet I go visiting churches and admiring them. I couldn't see a problem with that, I think he thought it was hypocritical or something but didn't have the vocabulary to say it.
I tried to tell him that although I couldn't go along with any of the fairy tales that all religions expound I can still be amazed at how far their delusions took our ancestors in terms of artistic and architectural achievement. I am still not sure he got it, though.
Laura was rushed off her feet at the restaurant and was glad we weren't taking Callie out for a long evening walk, we just climbed the hill and hit the bathroom. I ran Laura a bath and she promised not to pull me in with her this time if I stayed and washed her again. I asked if she thought a night cap would be a good thing to have in the bath, she said Yes , so I scampered downstairs and brought us up a glass each of Calvados (which she loves). When I got back into the room she had laid back in the water and fallen asleep. The poor mite must've been knackered.
I stepped in to the bath with her and proceeded to give her a vigorous scrubbing with the mitt. She did the same for me, then she turned around and I washed her back and she returned that favour too. We dried each other gently with three huge bath sheets and I did the talc routine which we'd tried last week. She fell asleep during the application of the powder. This caused me a little bit of concern, maybe she was overdoing it with all the revision and then the restaurant and me dragging her up steep hills late at night instead of fetching her in the car. We'll have to talk about it tomorrow.
Sunday June 1st.
I left Laura to have a lie-in this morning and pottered about getting lunch prepped. She put in an appearance at about 10.30 looking like death warmed up. I asked if she was OK and she said she was still feeling a bit tired. Seeing my concern she went on to tell me that she had been worried about me going down to Tewkesbury with Felice, not in a sexual way but because she knew how bad a driver Felice was. I hadn't helped on Thursday night when I had phoned and told her how we had driven almost all the way down at around 90 mph. I had realised she was so worried by Feli's crappy driving.
It turns out she decided to stop herself worrying on Thursday night by staying up all night getting serious revision in for next weeks exams. She had not gone to bed at all until I came back on Friday evening. Apparently we both fell asleep in front of the TV on Friday night but she had woken up before me so I didn't notice. When I had crashed in bed after my shower I had been so dead to the world that I hadn't woken up when she got into bed and hugged me like her teddy for a while. We fell asleep like that and she woke up at about two o'clock and returned me to my normal sleeping position.
I told her we must have a day of doing nothing then so we could both get our sleeping patterns back to normal. She had a better idea, we could just go back to bed, make love then sleep and every time we woke we could make love again.
That is what we did until about five in the afternoon when hunger and thirst drove us down to the kitchen in search of sustenance. I'm not sure if it made any difference to our sleeping but it was certain the most sexed up we've been for a while. (It reminded me of what it was like before she moved in with me, when we did meet up (usually at my house) we would stay in bed all day and make ourselves sore from so much sex.)
In order to stay awake until bedtime we watched a couple of our backlogged programmes from the PVR. Bloody hell, "Happy Valley" is good. We had three episodes to catch up on and I was just stunned. If Sarah Lancashire doesn't get a Bafta for her performance in this next year, then there is no justice in the world. The bit where the woman PC was murdered was so horrible and yet so compelling. We both cried. I loved the fact that Sally Wainwright had included a Macbeth reference when the PC was killed, with her, "They've killed me..." echoing Macduff's son's words when Macbeth's minions slaughter the entire family.
I left the Lollster to warm the bed up when I took Callie out for her last walk and I was expecting to find her pushing the zeds when we got back. I was surprised to find her, in bed, propped up on one elbow with a wicked grin on her face, saying, "...fancy another go?"
So we did.
No comments:
Post a Comment