New friends

As well as catching up with the many relatives and old Uni friends, John's cousin Elaine and her husband Alan have been kind enough to share their friends with us too. Even after they told them stories about our silly antics, they were still prepared to have us come and stay. Wow, that is true friendship!
These friends, 6 in all, have been close friends for over 44 years and they let us in on it. Lucie and Graham live in Richmond, Yorkshire and Sally and Tom in Goodrich in Heredfordshire, all a good 3-4 hour drive from Fairwarp, East Sussex where Elaine and Alan live. Of course their 3-4 hour drive is a lot different from ours in Oz. It usually involves driving through many villages and towns at 30mph with built up traffic all the way and many one lane streets. Sometimes, I just want to kill someone, but road rage is not the done thing here, generally. John is the road rage king, even when I'm driving, but the other day I sounded my horn and yelled, only to be told...'Deb, you can't do that....'
Well, I did, and it felt good!
I digress.....
We went to stay the weekend with Sally and Tom in their home in Goodrich. The house built around 1540 used to be a coach house where travellers called in to change coaches, horses, feed and water themselves and perhaps spend the night. In fact, one such traveller was William Wordsworth. How about that!

The gound layer entertaining

You can see the filled-in arch here

There exists a filled-in high arch in the centre of the cottage that would have been an open archway running through the house, high enough for coaches. It has since been lowered by a recent owner, not Tom. The history is fascinating and a lot of renovation has been carried out, but all in keeping with the history. Their lounge room floor is the original stone floor of the coach house. Goose bumps at this point of the tour. Tom's cellar is the original cold storage room under the house......saw John turn green at this discovery.
We like sitting out for drinks etc, but competition is rife at Arch Cottage. They have 3 layers of garden, each with its own seating and the top layer even has a summer house for cooler nights. We did every level justice.
Tom is an accomplished musician and Sally sings in the local choir, so we sat, drank and sang the night away with many laughs.

Tom.... just an old rocker

The next day, Tom had a gig at a local pub so we went along to watch and listen, but did not partake of the group dancing.

I did my civil duty and was on dogwatch with a springer called Lottie, who gave me a right royal running around. What fun.....

Good girl Lottie....

We discovered a part of England we had not seen before and would love to return to, some of it and it's customs so old, like the Ancient Hand Ferry that crosses the River Wye. It is operated by a young man with a rope pulley arrangement, only takes 5 mins and can only carry 12 people at once, give or take a dog or two.

Filling in time waiting for the ferry

We left this group of friends on Sunday morning after brunch on the second layer, with scrambled eggs from Sally's girls (chooks) and local bacon, but we had to eat quietly so they didn't know we were eating their babies!
On route we caught this view from Symonds Yat Rock, a spectacular gorge through which the River Wye snakes, and is apparently one of the most photographed views in England.