In Which it Rains (But there is tea, so that's OK)

I spent the weekend in Devon, staying with my parents. The past week has been a week of blazing sunshine and I was hoping, in despite of the weather forecast, that at least some of the weekend might be similar.


My hopes were unmet.

I arrived at about 7 p.m. on friday, and it started to spit with rain just as I pulled in to the gateway. I left at about 4.30 on Sunday afternoon, just as the rain started to clear. Over the weekend, there were occasional periods when it stopped raining, but never enough to make it worth while going out for a walk or to the beach, which was a shame (Last weekend, when my sister visited them, it was so sunny they were at the beach until after 8 p.m....)

However, despite disappointing weather I enjoyed the weekend. The luxury of having someone else cook meals, bring me tea in the morning, and so forth would make it worth while even without the added pleasure of, y'know, seeing the family.



And I spent some time wandering around the garden, between rain showers, looking at bumble-bees and flowers.




We went out, one evening, so my parents could do some bell-ringing. My bellringing is on hold at present, as hurty shoulder means I can only do it one-handed, and I know from experience that that doesn't end well, but I went along in anticipation of the pub-going part of the evening, and spent some time hanging around in an atmospheric graveyard, and finding a rather charming little skull on a tombstone inside the church.

I love how the stone mason has put in the anatomicly correct 'seams' on the skull, then added a little backwards ear.


The tomb it comes from is from around 1750. It's odd that you get these skulls for a (relatively) short period in the early to mid 18th Century, and not much either earlier or later. There were also some early 19th Century memorials to the local gentry, who seemed to make a habit of marrying late, and on multiple occasions (the men) and dying young (the women & children) One gentleman was married 3 times, and had 9 children, yet when he died in 1817 he was succeeded by his greatnephew, which suggests that none of the children (or at leat none of the 6 sons) could have survived.

Back at the house, it rained some more, and I watched the Goldfinches on the birdfeeder, and the rain on the flowers.

And although nothing happened over the weekend, I think it was practically perfect.