BRITISH CAMP

Highlight of the whole trip for me - coaxing the rest of the party up onto the Iron Age fort on top of the Malverns. I am still waiting for someone to explain to me how around 2, 000 people lived their everyday lives up here with no water source. I know they didn't shower every morning, but just getting drinking water up must have been a major feat.

Our last day in Herefordshire. I have loved this sparsely populated English county and appreciated the beauty of its gentle, easy countryside, but the obvious wealth and ease caused me to reflect on the influence of our surroundings on our understanding of the world. Walled in by these hedges, peaceful among this pastoral plenty, it is hard to imagine poverty in other parts of the UK. It is easy as a woolly wet liberal woman from the Celtic fringes to be dismissive of Middle England, but I wonder where my political loyalties would have been had I never had to stir much beyond this county's borders.
Finished Bring up the Bodies this afternoon. It has been a great read for this holiday, partly because we are surrounded by all things Tudor, but also because the blood curdling events of the era keep one's feet firmly on the ( somewhat bloody) ground.

THREE GOOD THINGS:
Hop cheese pie from the Oak at Staplow
The Blue Ginger café and gallery
Waterproofs