The Nightingale Memorial

Another quiet day in this peaceful enclave.  English breakfast followed by a cycle to the convenience store once again to pick up my daily paper.  This time I managed to see the shortcut public footpath back to the fisheries, though there was some balancing negatives to the substantially reduced distance - only .4 of a mile instead of the full mile.  My foldable bike would hardly qualify as any kind of an off-road vehicle, and the narrow bumpy track hedged in by all kinds of green sprouting things caused me a few anxious moments, and I almost came off and landed in the neighbouring field.  However, I did manage to make it back to the 5 bar gate over which I heaved said bike (only to find out on our walk in the afternoon that there was a huge hole in the fence that I could have put it through right next to the gate!  I then proceeded to go too close to the owner's house, where Rocky, his dog apparently decided I was an intruder and tore up the living room barking and desperately trying to escape and probably attack me.

The afternoon settled into a much more peaceful affair, with a small blackcurrant and clotted cream ice cream and a walk through a field and up the road to St. Margaret of Antioch church in Wellow where the famous Florence Nightingale was laid to rest.  She came from a a privileged family who once owned Embley Park where LV used to work as a teacher, and brought revolutionary new treatment of patients to reduce infection as a dedicated nurse who professed her calling to be a Divine calling.  Despite being offered burial in Westminster Abbey, she had apparently opted for a humble burial in the parish church cemetry.  Not only that, her epitaph simply reads "F.N. Born 1820 died 1910."  See extra for close up of the inscription.

Lastly, I have to mention our garrulous host and owner of the Whinwhistle Fisheries.  He had even offered to have us dine with him at the barbeque by the café but his wife fell very sick this afternoon and he considerately didn't want to pass on any illness in case he too was infected.  One fun bit of his backstory we learned this afternoon, his great-uncle was the (in)famous Benny Hill.  Anyway, the other extra of Ant (the owner), driving his tractor with the fisheries manager John walking by his side.  Oh, and the weather has been very warm and enjoyable the whole time here. This has been a friendly and peaceful interlude before we head out on our last adventure of our trip with LV in France.  A demain - le voyage commence.