No. 47: Yeovil

It was two and a half years ago that I last saw my aunty Debs and Allen at my cousins wedding, which ended for me in an outdoor swimming pool party (unheated and unsanctioned) in a strangers garden at 2am.

So I gave myself a pep-talk to behave better and set off on the train to Yeovil after work on Friday.

It’s about 3 hours out to Yeovil from London, the train pulled in at 10pm and I was welcomed with a big hug from Debs who was waiting at the station. We headed back to their house and had a lovely catch up with Allen (and some wine) before deciding to take on part of the ‘Wessex Ridgeway Walk’ the next day.

We started from Win Green – I went on a little recce mission around the car park while the other two were layering up.

The recce mission was to see if I could get any good photo’s in the mist but I was too distracted by all the litter in the car park – I was tutting away and cursing the youth these days when I spotted a chunk of gold…

Someone had clearly been through a break-up and taken advantage of this remote location to ‘discretely’ dispose of the evidence of a love lived and lost, never to be seen or talked of again – in this life or the next.

Except… They littered and It’s a pretty weird photo to have had taken in the first place, so I’m going to frame the picture and call it ‘Yeovil Always Be Remembered’.

So off we went, it’s hard to summarise because 10-11 miles disappeared in a flash of catching up and talking about all sorts of things – everything from how my wonderful cousins are doing with their young children through to bread-baking and alternative uses for water melon rind! – it’s rare to take a ‘quick’ long walk with people and I don’t under-rate how much of a treat it was to have this time with my family.

Finishing the walk, we headed for home and I was fed a slap up meal (and wine) before we tucked into the past with some home videos of old family get-togethers – which all looked and sounded like an 80’s/90’s ‘fly on the wall’ BBC documentary.

I did a double take when when my brothers angel-face popped up

So handsome!!

A well timed apple brandy knocked me out for the night (thank you Allen) and I congratulated myself on not throwing myself into any swimming pools as I drifted off.

Until the next morning, when I did…

Thank you to these two for a lovely weekend!