Sittin' in the rain at Gloucester Cathedral

The two nieces again made a beeline for CleanSteve's toy brick set (see his blip for today) and the grown ups tried to breakfast and pack. Then we set off to Gloucester in the pouring rain. First stop, the Chinese wholesaler inside the former match factory for fresh tofu, green tea, jasmine tea, and Natty's choice of coconut wafer biscuits. Then we parked up and walked to the Folk Museum, which was shut. It seems hardly ever open, alas. So we went round the 9th century AD ruins of St Oswald's priory, and tried to find the graves of important Saxons who founded the kingdom of Mercia. Most of the stones are pretty worn now....

Next came the Tailor of Gloucester's house museum, which the little girls seemed to like, although they had been expecting a whole house, and three rooms didn't seem enough! After that we went round the cathedral: there is a new stained glass window by Thomas Denny in the chapel that commemorates Ivor Gurney, the Gloucestershire war poet. Well worth a visit! There was also an exhibition of contemporary sculptures, Crucible 2, which no one in our party seemed to like! I'd been to Crucible 1 in 2010, so wasn't as shocked. I liked these Lyn Chadwick figures seated outside the cathedral, in marked contrast to the old stones.

After finding somewhere to eat, we rushed back to the car before we got locked into the retail park, and whizzed off home for a final cuppa before Kate and the children left for Preston, Lancs via Fairford, Glos, where they were to drop off Zina. They have said they'll come back in four weeks' time for the top-notch travelling circus, because Jezreel has never seen it.

My back had been playing up for days, after lifting children/mattresses, and following a trip to our local with my friend Kitty, it totally seized up and went into spasm. I had a bath and went to bed, hardly able to move. If morphine had been on offer, I'd have taken it willingly.

Fortunately, dear reader, I survived the night to post yet another back-blip!