To Malmesbury

August 21, 2022

We’re both groggy this morning from our restless night when we head downstairs for breakfast. Our server, a down-to-earth middle ager, chats with us about our travels and lifestyle, comments approvingly of our living the moment while we still have our health. She feels the same - she’s suffered a string of personal losses in recent years and knows how quickly it can all change. She surprises us by relating how much walking she does, because she doesn’t really look it - she walks about ten miles every other day, and put in a thirty miler on a charity event once. People so often will surprise you once they get to talking.

Then she takes our orders. We both opt for the Full English, minus the beans and black pudding; scrambled eggs, brown toast - the standard. We’ve gotten accustomed to this start to the days and it will take some adjustment when we hit Brittany in three weeks and are back on croissants, cold cuts and an egg if we’re lucky.

Then she surprises us again, asking what size breakfast we’d like - small, medium, or large? That’s a first on me; I don’t remember ever having to quantify my breakfast order before. I’m mulling this over when she quickly adds that the large is really large - so we both pick the medium, which proves to be more or less the standard we’re served up everywhere.

Later, she’ll elaborate on the large option. It really is a heap, she says - 3 eggs, 3 sausage links, three slices of ham, two wedges of potatoes - and then comments with amazement that one of her regulars is a construction worker who comes in every Friday and orders the large, polishes that off, and orders another of the same. Belch!

We’re on the road at 10:30, the latest check out time, and shortly are climbing through another tunnel of green. Not much to be seen until we come to a clearing and I spot a small herd of Belted Galloways, the first I’ve seen in at least a month. This counts for excitement in this modest landscape, so I stop to snap them and then chase after Rachael to catch up.

Most Belted Galloways are black, but reds and duns also happen.

When I do catch up, she’s stopped by some cows herself. There’s a largish herd that’s held her up by ambling across the road just in front of her, popping through the hedgerow in ones and twos and moving as slowly as they please. They’ve just competed their crossing as I arrive, but I get behind again as I stop to watch and listen to a line of them hooverign up the grass beside the road not far from me.

The parade is over, she can proceed again.

The whole last month has been an amazing immersion in breathtaking scenery, traversing one exceptional landscape or national park after another: the North York Moors, the Yorkshire Dales, the Lake District, Snowdonia, the Brecon Beacons. Any one of them would be a good reason to return to Britain someday, as long as we think we could still cope with the slopes.

It won’t be like that for awhile gain though. The terrain and the sights will be more modest for at least the next week or so until we near the coast and the more dramatic terrain of Devon and Cornwall. Cattle drives count for excitement now, as does happening across a Tough Mudder event. We’re ready - after the last month’s challenges we’re ready for some easier days. We have a few climbs in the front half of our short day, the worst a 400 footer topping out at 17%; but after that it’s a relaxed gradual descent the last fifteen miles to Malmesbury.

At the high point of the ride we stop to catch our breaths and take in the Somerset Monument, built to honor Lord Robert Edward Somerset, a British soldier in the Peninsular Wars and former MP.

The coat of arms of the Somerset family.

In Hawkesbury Upton. Check your Wellingtons at the door, please.

A Tough Mudder event! I’ve heard and read of these but never seen one first hand.

Yes, this does look like great fun. There are hundreds, maybe even a thousand folks out here on the Badminton estate. If only we had known we could have set aside £85 each and spent our weekend wallowing in the mud, freezing in icy water and subjecting ourselves to the occasional 10,000 volt zap.

Some others. For your £85 you get to take home a very nice tee, a head band, a bottle of water, and bragging rights.

We think we’ll take away memories like this instead, as we cruise through the Badminton estate. And yes, it’s that Badminton - the game as it’s known now was first played here in 1873.

We’re only about seven easy miles from Malmesbury when we come to Sherston, but it’s time. We stop in at Holy Cross Church and enjoy our lunch sitting on a bench inside the church entryway, out of the sun. As we sit we look with interest at the board opposite, learning that we’re in a pocket wildlife conservation area, a Living Churchyard. What an appealing concept!

If I were to be buried in a cemetery I’d sleep better knowing it would become a wildlife conservation area someday.

Gravestones and walls are left untouched to preserve the mosses and lichens that grow on them.

We check in to our hotel in Malmesbury about 2:30, and Rachael immediately heads off for a walk while I take a shower and then head downstairs to grab a pint at the bar and take it to a table out in the sun. Afterwards the Panasonic and I prowl the hotel, an exceptional place. We didn’t know it when we booked here - as usual, we were just looking for a reasonably priced spot in the heart of town. We didn’t know at the time that the Old Bell Hotel is a highlight in its own right. The town’s tourism website lists it as the second essential sight in the village, right after the abbey that stands immediately beside it. It’s mentioned because the Old Bell claims to be the oldest hotel in England, dating back to its origin in 1220 when it was built as a guest house for visitors to the abbey.

The heavily ivied Old Bell Hotel, built in 1220 as a guest house for the abbey next door.

In the Old Bell Hotel. It was bought recently by a Texan couple with roots in Malmesbury, and I think much of the decor is recent.

To describe the decor as eclectic is an understatement. These are three panels of an exotic insect collection. The giant stick in the middle must be nearly a foot long.

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Ride stats today: 24 Miles, 1,500’; for the tour: 2,030 miles, 121,400’

Today's ride: 24 miles (39 km)
Total: 2,029 miles (3,265 km)

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Jen RahnLove the cow video!!
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2 years ago