UK Diary, Days 7-10

In which we leave London, head to our cottage in Shropshire (via Wales), and experience heavy, holy things

Hello everyone! Long time, no post—which, as I hoped came across in yesterday’s brief note, was due to technology. Specifically, where we are staying in Shropshire has no wi-fi. And that is what I need to do a proper post. Without wi-fi, I am left with thumb-typing a post on my cell phone. And that . . . gets old quick. In other words, not grounding!

But the local pub does have wi-fi, and today was set aside in our family schedule for me to write. Not sure how often I will be able to post whilst we are in Shropshire. Maybe every two or three days, if we can swing it.

I forgot my Evelyn Underhill text back at the cottage. So, immediately to the diary recap . . .

On Tuesday, we got up early to pack our luggage and bags for the trip north. From the St Paul’s Cathedral district of London, we took the Tube to Euston station, and from Euston we boarded the train to Manchester. We got onboard our train, but it was completely full! We use Britrail Passes for our train travel. This works out very well most times. But the only time it does not work well is when the train is fully booked. Our Britrail passes allow us to board any train, for as many days as we purchase. But the passes do not come with seat reservations. Anyway, what this meant is that once we got on the train, there were no seats for us anywhere.

What did we do? We got off the train! Sitting on the platform, an angel visited us. The angel told us another train was soon to come, and the angel told us which carriages on the train would have unreserved seats. Thank God for this angel! We got on the next train, found plenty of seats next to each other, and made our way to Manchester.

We got there, safe and sound—to Manchester Airport, to be precise. There, we rented a car from Alamo. We rent what in the US is called a mini-van, but in the UK is called a “people-mover.” It is a 9-seater, a Ford Tourneo. Quite nice.

Of course, there were problems renting it. But we were able to embark, with me at the wheel. This was the first time driving on the “wrong side of the road, on the wrong side of the car.”

What is difficult? Not exactly, but it was disorienting, to be sure. You see me clutching the wheel above! The motorway (what the Brits call the expressway) was pretty straightforward. But it got hairy once we got off the motorway and onto more rural roads.

This we did because we were invited to dinner by a colleague of mine in the Church of England. Father George Westhaver is the Principal of Pusey House in Oxford, and he graciously invited my family to join him and three interns at his house in Wales, in the town of Llangollen, Wales. We had a wonderful time, owing to Fr Westhaver’s hospitality, the very cool interns who were with him, the food they served us, as well as the locality. His place is in the Welsh mountains with breathtaking views. Such as:

That’s Fr Westhaver, third from the left. Here is the whole group later that evening as we sat down for homemade supper:

We were so blessed to share a meal and fellowship with them. I have known Fr Westhaver since 2014, and we have kept in touch since then. This was the first time be had a chance to meet my family. We all felt very comfortable and in good spirits. His interns, David, Daniel, and Ruth are all students at Oxford. Our conversations were lovely and often hilarious. The Holy Spirit was among us, Deo gratias.

From there, we drove to our cottage in Shropshire. We arrived around 10:30 pm, maybe later. It was, obviously, pitch dark. The stars were amazing! Where we are staying is Walcot Hall, in Lydbury North. What follows are two generic photographs I found on the internet. First, much of the estate:

The estate is actually larger than this. There are large wooded areas which are wonderful to hike. What follows is our cottage:

An American style, we all agreed. And this is the first story of the interior, which also has two bedrooms and a full bathroom.

The second story has another bedroom and bathroom. Plenty of space for us. Here is the view from our porch:

Here are two more:

Here’s one from the interior:

And one of me preparing food:

The local pub, a 15-minute walk from our cottage, looks like this from the table we sat at the other night:

Here is one of the odd lodging on the estate:

Here is a view of me being grounded:

Another photograph of Isadora in her element:

And more of us, on a hike, in the same:

Here is something we discovered was here:

All the kids took turns paddling on the small pond on the estate.

So the first full day was devoted to hiking the grounds. It is a food forest, as well: blackberries, apples, and more berries are growing on the grounds and available to be picked. Tasty, too!

The second day was given over to travelling to Somerset, a county to the south of Shropshire. We left early in the morning, headed first to two towns: Crewkerne, and then to Frome.

Crewkerne was to visit the gravesite of Fr Martin Thornton and his wife Monica Thornton. If you have known me for some time, likely you know how important these people are to me. I do not have time to properly explain from the beginning why these two are so important to me. I will do that in a future post, perhaps next week. Sufficed to say, visiting the cemetery was something I had been planning for fourteen years. We arrived and our experience unfolded:

I was a weeping wreck.

Also, Martin and Hilda offered to polish the gravestone, which was mucked up from lawnmowing. Here is Hilda at work:

Monica Thornton died a year ago, and the gravestone for her is not yet ready.

All of this was holy and wordless for all of us. My family has a devotion to Martin and Monica by virtue of me talking about them for over 14 years.

There is A WHOLE LOT MORE I could say, and perhaps will say next week. But for now, we headed to Frome, a town about 45 minutes away. The main thing was to visit the bookshop Sherlock and Pages, which we found out about through . . . Instagram, ha!

Many of my family purchased books. The shoppy part of the town was super cute, and a place we would like to visit again.

As the shop district basically closed up at 5 pm, we headed back, taking an absolutely glorious drive through the Somerset countryside. Sorry, no photographs!

That leaves yesterday, which we given over to hosting Magdalen Smith for lunch and fellowship. She is the daughter of Martin and Monica Thornton. She and I have known each other since 2014. We had a lovely lunch with tea, and then she gave me the effects of her father, who died in 1986. These effects I had seen back in 2014 when I visited Wales and met with Monica; she brought them to the library I was staying at, and I spent eight days going through them. With the death of Monica one year ago, Magdalen graciously agreed to give me many of her father’s effects. Here are the photographs:

The gem was the original, handwritten manuscript of Fr Thornton’s second book, Pastoral Theology: A Reorientation.

Needless to say, receiving Fr Thornton’s effects, and visiting the Thorntons’ grave, and meeting again with Magdalen, were very heavy things for me. There is much to unpack from all this. I am still coming to terms with the hugeness of all this. I will do so at some point, perhaps soon. So stayed tuned in!