The rowing race

Out of focus, but I chose this shot because you can see the 'audience' of girls cheering the rowers on. The character of  the Mayor of Stonehouse won the race. 

The background: GG doesn't want to walk much these days, but she still wants to do fun things on a Sunday..I booked tickets to a 'ghost tour' walk along the canal, with historical  scenes played by child actors. Because the weather was predicted to be poor, the 'walk' had been shifted inside the church,with the altar as stage. No walking was required. 

We enjoyed the performance, but I don't know why it was called Ghost Tales! There were no ghost stories at all. As I particularly wanted to hear about ghosts, this was a little disappointing. 

I did hear about a strange, tall gravestone in the grounds of the Stonehouse court hotel adjacent to St Cyr's church. Afterwards we went to look for, and successfully located, the 3ft high, keaning gravestone. It is rumoured to be the burial place of a horse, but nobody knows for sure. When the hotel (formerly a manor house) was having new accommodations built, 80s-style, the grave was considered to be sufficiently important to be built around, rather than disturbed. Quite right!  Maybe I could write an alternative ghost story based on the idea of a grave being tampered with. 

When I came back, via Lidl.( where GG made me carry a litre bottle of fortified wine because she doesn't want to splash out on real sherry, and she likes other people to do stuff for her)  I packed, because I'm going to Durham tomorrow for a short break. Now that I've read about the mining gallery in Bishop Auckland, where we're staying, I'm excited!