A SEAT WITH A VIEW - THE GREEN, MARLBOROUGH

Today’s wide-angle Wednesday challenge is “Sky” so I fully intended doing this today, but when I had a wander around Marlborough because that’s where I ended up, I decided I would use today as one of my own challenges that I haven’t done for a while “A Seat With a View” - after all there isn’t very much that’s interesting just looking at wall-to-wall blue sky, unless you count the occasional plane leaving a vapour trail! 

I caught the bus to Marlborough, and have to say that the weather does make a terrific difference when taking photographs.  Today was perfect and what better place than this delightful market town in Wiltshire, which is on the old main road from London to Bath.

Mr. HCB and his friend, Keith, have gone to Bristol to watch a 50 Overs cricket match so he encouraged me to go in somewhere for lunch. However, I didn’t feel I wanted to sit in a stuffy restaurant so instead I bought a completely unhealthy, very large sausage roll from a lovely butcher’s shop, walked through the churchyard and then sat on the seat, shown at the top left of the collage, to eat it and watch the world go by.  It was delicious!

When I got home, I decided to find out about the lady to whom the seat is dedicated - Vicky Philpott, who was only 48 years old when she died in 2013.  There was an article about her in the Wiltshire Gazette & Herald, and apparently, she was well known in Marlborough, having been a teacher at primary schools in the Marlborough area and Calne and she was also involved in other community work.  Her family ran Duck’s Toyshop situated in the High Street for almost a century, and Vicky often worked there after school.  It was a shop we frequently visited when our boys were younger and we went to Marlborough;  strange to think that Vicky might even have served us.  It was a fantastic shop - one with many nooks and crannies, and it was stacked from floor to ceiling with different toys and thousands of games and puzzles.  I do remember that if you couldn’t find what you wanted in Swindon, if you went to Duck’s in Marlborough, they probably had just what you were looking for and if they didn’t, then they would offer to get it for you, because that’s what family-run businesses did!

After I taken quite a lot of photographs, and wandered in the immediate area, I decided to walk up the hill so that I could catch the bus there instead of walking back down into Marlborough. However,  although I found a bus shelter I couldn’t see a bus stop sign - all right I know the two go together but I didn’t want to sit inside this little bus shelter and then find four hours later, I was still there, so I did walk back down into Marlborough.

By this time, I was very hot, so on the way down to the bus stop in the High Street I stopped at Costa for an orange juice and some ginger biscuits. On telling the lady who served me that I’d walked all the way up the hill and then back down because I couldn’t find the bus stop she told me that the bus did actually stop at the little bus shelter!  Ah well, at least I walked over 8,000 steps today and I got my Blip too.

My meanderings made me think of the rhyme I used to sing to my boys when they were very small - I wonder if you can guess which one?

It is an absolutely glorious day today, I’ve had a wonderful time, seeing and enjoying the beauty all around and chatting with various people - I hope that Mr HCB and Keith are enjoying their cricket match, and of course, the bonus would be that their team wins.

“Happiness is letting go 
     of what you think your life 
          is supposed to look like 
and celebrating it 
     for everything that it is.”
Mandy Hale

P.S.  All the photographs were taken with my new Canon camera - I deliberately left my iPhone in my handbag!