Lynda Sez

Today was our first wet day in the Lake District, but we spent much of it indoors anyway. We started out at the Cumbria Record Office where the archives of parish records for the area are kept. It was easy to spend several hours looking at microfilms of the baptisms and marriages of our Gradwells [...]

Today we drove to just outside Sedbergh, which is actually in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, to see the Farfield Mill, formerly a woolen mill and now an exhibition and demonstration space. We spent lots of time looking at the beautiful pieces on display (a couple of the artists were there working) and bought a [...]

Today we made like tourists (or like kids, as Mum pointed out) and went for a train ride and a boat ride. A steam train took us from the village of Haverthwaite to Lakeside at the south end of Lake Windermere. There we boarded a cruise boat for a leisurely journey about half way up [...]

Yesterday’s adventure was our trip to London, specifically to Mum’s old neighbourhood in Wandsworth. Our objective was to find the final resting places for several rellies and we did pretty well, considering that some had no headstone or marker of any kind. Both Wandsworth and Putney Vale cemeteries were fairly tranquil islands in this very [...]

Yesterday morning we left Bath to head cross-country, covering parts of Somerset, Gloucestershire, Wiltshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire. It only took about two hours, including one hilarious diversion going around in a circle repeatedly when the GPS information didn’t match the road, but the GPS Madam wouldn’t give up trying to get us on track. [...]

Today we drove from Lyme Regis to Bath, a journey that can be done in much less time than we took, no doubt, but it was a very pleasant meander through the Mendip area of Somerset. Once we located our B&B, we set off to walk to the centre of things and found the Roman [...]

Yesterday was our last full day in Lyme Regis, and I spent a great deal of it walking the roads of the town and the adjacent village, Uplyme. The parish church in Uplyme is much like the others I saw in the area, but this one was full of people, enjoying coffee after their Sunday [...]