NOT QUITE WHAT WE EXPECTED!

Mr. HCB is a lovely man, but is not one for making decisions, especially when it comes to going out somewhere - and some of you may remember we often have little altercations before we go out on a Sunday because of his indecisiveness.

However, he surprised me yesterday when he said that he would take me out for lunch to a little whole food café near Cirencester - how could I refuse?  It was quite a nice morning weather-wise, so off we went, stopping in at Dobbies on the way, hopefully we thought, to have coffee.  There was such a long queue though, that we couldn’t be bothered to wait, so we carried on to the café, only to find when we got there that it was closed.  As we said “The best laid plans of mice and men…go often askew”, but as Robbie Burns said before us, “The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men, Gang aft agley”.

We decided to meander back home along some country roads, which we did and as we approached a road junction, decided to take the road to Fairford when we came across this wonderful sign - it’s the nearest to Honeycombebeach that we have ever seen, so of course, I had to have a photograph taken.  Sadly, in all the excitement and surprise that my lovely husband had actually made a decision, I had forgotten to pick up my selfie stick, so Mr. HCB took the photograph of me - so not really a selfie, but I took all the other shots.

Passing through Honeycombe Leaze, we approached Fairford, and both said that we had never come into the village this particular way.  Just along the road was a lovely little Catholic Church, dedicated to St. Thomas of Canterbury, so I tried the door, but it appeared to be locked, although the outer door was open.  

On the way back to the car, we were admiring the lovely border of flowers, when a lady appeared and asked if we were visiting.  We said we only lived in Swindon, but had been out for a drive and had come across the Church and we were admiring the wonderful border full of flowers.  She told us that she had planted this as they lived just behind the church and only had a small garden, so she had been pleased to have a bigger project.  She also told us that we could walk down the side of the Priest’s house into another garden and then into the cemetery.  She actually thought that we might be Polish, and explained that many Polish airmen buried in the cemetery as there was a Polish Camp in Fairford during the war.  We stood and chatted for a while when I said that the Church appeared to be locked, but she said that was unusual, so she managed to open the door for us, but just asked us to close it when we left.  After that we wandered around the other garden and cemetery and did indeed find many stones with Polish names on them. 

On our way out of the cemetery, looking at the various gravestones, I found a grave in the name of Margaret Cecilia Iles.  Although we don’t think she is any relation of Mr. HCB’s, I looked her up on the internet and realised that the Iles family were quite numerous in Kempsford, another village just along the road but we don’t think there is a strong family connection.  Interestingly, Mr. HCB’s Great Great Grandfather, William Brooks, was the licensee at The George Inn, Kempsford, his granddaughter, Sarah married Mr. HCB’s grandfather, Alfred Henry Iles.  Family history is so interesting - one day I will tell you about mine!  

We chose our journey back very carefully, as there are numerous road works all around Swindon and once home we sat out in the garden using our new Bistro set and enjoyed our lunch - such a shame that things didn’t work out quite as we had planned, but we wouldn’t have found this lovely church if they had.  I have also put in a couple of shots of insects collecting nectar that I took on our meanderings;  Mr. HCB is very good and stops quite often so that I can photograph things.  

“The finest of pleasures
     are always the unexpected ones.”
Erin Morgenstern