Travels with My Cousin

The last time my cousin, Sandra, came over from her home in New Jersey to visit was a staggering fourteen years ago, and we had a fantastic time. I think it was the Easter holidays, so I wasn't working fixed days, and we went on a road trip to Leeds, which included visits to Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire, Mr Straw's House in Worksop and Eyam in Derbyshire. And then a volcano in Iceland called Eyjafjallajökull erupted and all the planes between the UK and the US were grounded and we squeezed two extra jaunts out of her forced stay, visiting Isle Abbots and Shepton Beauchamp in Somerset, where our uncle lived, before walking from Langport to Muchelney and back, followed by a third trip to Kilve and East Quantoxhead. It was great. 

And funnily enough - although not for the poor folk of Grindavik - another Icelandic volcano erupted during this visit, but not causing enough air pollution to ground her flight this time. So she had just a week here, at a much less pleasant time of year, and during term time. Nevertheless, we still managed to meet up a couple of times, for which I'm grateful, and who knows, hopefully I'll get over to visit her in America sometime too. 

The photo below was taken by her at Easter Compton farm shop, where we had breakfast before my Auntie Mollie's 90th birthday party, the main reason for the timing of the visit. There are few photos of the Northerner and me together, so I'm really pleased to have this one.

With my cousin Joy, Sandra's sister, and her family

My late mother's six surviving brothers and sisters (from a total of eleven)

With as many of my cousins as could get to the party - we number 24 in all

my boys

Thursday was the day I had Sandra to myself, except of course there were still people who wanted to see her before she went back, so it was largely a matter of balancing everyone's needs, coupled with a truly gruesome weather forecast. In the end we booked a table at the Little Harp in Clevedon, where for a few years at the end of their lives, I took my parents on my mother's birthday. First, though, Son the Younger drove us to Portishead, where we spent a couple of hours with my friend, Liz, who knows Sandra well, and her husband, Paul. 

Clevedon was drizzly, as promised, but when we emerged from the pub, fortified by our lunch and the company of our cousin, Sarah, who lives in Clevedon, her dog Foxy, and the friend formerly known as 'Er-over-the-Road (who's really called Cathy and who knows Sandra well from previous visits), there was a window of drier weather so we made our way along the front to the pier. 

Looking in the opposite direction, we could see an interesting little coronet of cloud over Flat Holm, which is probably impossible to make out in this photo and which dissipated very quickly.

Of course, there had to be a photo call. Here's Cathy and Sandra ... 

... me and Sandra ... 

... Cwtch, Son the Younger, me and Sandra ... 

... me, Sandra, Cwtch and Cathy ... 

... and Cathy, Sandra, Cwtch, me, Sarah and Foxy.

Sarah pointed out the house where our grandfather, Jack Hill, lived before his family moved to Bristol, property prices being comparatively much cheaper in those days.

Clevedon Pier

Me, Cathy, Cwtch doing dressage, Sarah and Foxy

Mist on the Severn estuary at Sand Point, Flat Holm and Worlebury Hill 

And then the week, and Sandra's visit, was over. Thank goodness for keeping in touch on social media. 

Ticking boxes in Weston-Super-Mare

Like - I should imagine - most people who believe it exists, I'm not convinced the pandemic's done with us yet, so it's a question of ticking the mother box while we can. Last week it was a trip to Nottingham with my children; this week, as she's in Weston for a few days with my niece and her fiancé, I drove down my aunties, Mollie and Janice. 

Except the trickle of relatives became a tsunami, with the two locally-based brothers and their wives joining us. Which meant that by the time I arrived in Weston with the aunts, having diverted to an industrial estate on the outskirts of the town to try to find an emergency toilet for one of them, there were six elderly people, with a combined age of 496, and my rather nonplussed niece and nephew-in-law, who weren't actually nonplussed at all for long, hooray, as they are a nurse and an OT respectively, and, although working in paediatrics, very capable indeed. 

Luckily, it wasn't raining and there was a park two minutes' walk from the rented flat, so we got everyone there by a mixture of car, wheelchair and walking stick, and my niece and her fiancé went off to get fish and chips, fruit juice and compostable plates and cutlery, while I organised another toilet run. And the fish and chips were deemed Very Good Indeed, as were the views from the park and the flat, and they all caught up with each other (with the exception of my aunts and uncle in Devon and Cornwall). And it felt good to facilitate that during this horrible Time of Separation. 

Birnbeck Pier in dire need of some love

Beach, mud, Grand pier, marine lake from the flat

Pier, mud, Brent Knoll, Brean Down

Brean Down and Steep Holm

Steep Holm, Flat Holm hidden behind the trees, and the coast of Wales

Climbing Twmbarlwm

I've wanted to climb Twmbarlwm in South Wales for some time - ever since its distinctive outline, which you can see from many places on our side of the Severn, was pointed out to me. Ideally, I would have gone with Dru Marland, as it is deep in Dru Marland Country, but these days she's headed east on the Kennet and Avon and somewhere in the Vale of Pewsey, so I went with my boys and our dogs instead. (And fine companions they were.)

First, though, we made a return visit to Caerleon - not to follow the whole route we walked three weeks ago, but just to see if the bluebells that grow all over the hill fort on the ridge at the back of the town were out yet. 

This has been a difficult spring to predict, what with the effect of all that late snow, but in this, our timing was spot on. 

Great waves of bluebells rolling over the ramparts of the hill fort ...

... and so beautiful. 

But we had a mountain - or at least, a sizeable hill - to climb, so after three quarters of an hour or so we headed west to our starting point at Cwmcarn Visitor Centre. 

I have to say, it was hard going, but fortunately for me, there were plenty of reasons to pause and take photos. 

On the way up we bumped into David Hockney. (Not really.) 

It was getting really tough now. Luckily, there was a raven overhead, chiding me into keeping going.

Bilberries - or whinberries - and very shouty larks

Eventually we reached the outer ramparts of the hill fort, which - like the one at Caerleon - is believed to have been constructed between 500 and 150BC by the Silures, a fierce Celtic tribe ...

... and then - with much relief - the trig point on the summit.

Brean Down, Steep Holm and Flat Holm in the far distance

There's a rather prominent tump on top of Twmbarlwm. 

Its origin is something of a mystery. It might have been built by the Romans as a signal tower after they defeated the Silures in the area ... 

... or possibly by the Normans during the invasion of South Wales in 1070, as a temporary motte and bailey structure. 

A small shrine to another mother and grandmother reminded us of a Welsh nanna who might have been celebrating her 97th birthday at that very moment in whichever place she is now. (Another mystery.)

Too soon it was time to go. We took in the last of the views, over to the River Severn and the two Severn bridges in the distance ... 

... and Ted had a final puddle about.

Then it was all the way back down, far quicker, admittedly, than the ascent but - in my case - on jelly legs with toes crunched against the toecaps of my boots.

Loquacious raven alert 

Next time I might just take advantage of the car park near the summit, the existence of which we only realised once we were up there ... 

... because, in the words of Son the Younger, You've done it now, Mum.