A visit to Salisbury

We had a jolly good time in Salisbury. We went down after Frannie had finished work on Friday. It was a very long trip. The roads were very busy and one of the roads was closed. Fortunately Frannie and The Builder have a device which reads maps and which told us how to get to our hotel even if one of the roads was closed. But we were all very tired when we got there.

We were staying in a pub called the Swan. It overlooks a river. And there really are swans on the river. We could see them from our room.

We were in Salisbury so The Builder and his brother could make a new patio for their mother. She is a very sweet but elderly lady and the old patio was very uneven and the little fence was falling down and it wasn't safe for her. We sat in the window and supervised proceedings to make sure the new patio was level and had no slab edges sticking up. We wouldn't want Grandmother Gwen to catch her foot and fall over. But both The Builder and Brother Peter did good work and had nearly finished laying the slabs by lunch time .

Grandmother Gwen had made us all a really lovely stew with lots of different beans and vegetables. Kept us well fed for the afternoon's supervising.

After the slabs were laid, The Builder put the fence up. And by tea time it was all finished. It looked lovely. Excellent supervising by us!!

Grandmother Gwen gave us sandwiches and cake and cups of tea to reward us.

Then we went back to the Swan for a well-earned rest. We were both very sleepy after being alert and concentrating all day.

On Sunday we took two young American students to Stonehenge in Frannie and The Builder's car. They were going to go on the buses, but there aren't any buses from the Swan on a Sunday. So Frannie and The Builder offered to take them. Stonehenge isn't very far from the pub, and we had never been there (Frannie and The Builder had). Stonehenge looked as though it might have been used for pagan rituals, so we asked Frannie if we needed to be particularly careful there. But Frannie said she didn't think hippos had ever been in danger at Stonehenge so that was all right. We didn't stay for long, though, because it was raining hard and it was a bit cold. We also saw the very tall spire of the cathedral but we couldn't get very close because of the rain. It was good that it didn't rain on Saturday. The Builder says they couldn't have laid the patio slabs if it had been raining hard.

We had lunch with Grandmother Gwen. She made us a lovely roast Sunday lunch. It was very tasty, but she gave us huge portions, too huge even for hippo appetites! We made sure there was room for the roast potatoes though. We had lots of lovely snuggles with her after lunch. She told us that she is 82 and a half and she has never had a cuddly toy of her very own, ever, not even when she was very little! We thought that was very sad. We have told Frannie that she must make sure that Grandmother Gwen gets a very soft and very cuddly toy for Christmas this year. Frannie says that we are not to worry. The matter is under control

B and SH