Friday June 18

Well, this was a fun day in most ways. Woke up to a great "Full English Breakfast" then went back to sleep until 10:30! Drove to Glastonbury, the supposed home and burial place of King Arthur...he was possibly a king in SE Britain in the 500s who united large groups of the population against the Saxon invasions. He is thought to be buried in Glastonbury abbey. Most of the medieval legends about him developed hundreds of years later when the English needed a local hero to rally the population in spirit to repel the French...didn't work! The French liked the legends also, adding a french queen (guinevere) and knight (Lancelot).

Enter William the Conqueror. Glastonbury Abbey is beautiful though only a few ruined walls exist and one complete building, the abbot's kitchen. All others were trashed in the mid 1500s when Henry VIII split from Rome to establish the Anglican church, and confiscated the Catholic lands to pay his debts and other costs agasinst the Pope.
Glastonbury is supposed to be the first spot on which Christianity established a foothold in England...approximately 70 years after the death of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea is said to have arrived carrying the chalice,some of Jesus' blood etc. The first church was built in what was then almost the coast due to high waters. Over time, the oceans receded and left a very marshy land with a few bumpy hills. Mark played monk to a group of tourists, making bread in a demonstration...

Mark says I earned a redcard today. My first foul was to catch cold and pass it to him. Then, today, I took a really bad spill. Hurt my knee, one shoulder, both palms and really bashed the side of my head on the street. Spent the rest of today trying to ignore a massive headache. Expect I'll be sore all over tomorrow. Where I fell, someone said "I don't know why they don't fix that, someone falls there every day!"
No litigation for negligence here, I guess! Asumption of risk (walking the cobbles) is alive and well here.

Next we climbed the hill where the Glastonbury Tor stands, 518 feet above sea level. A church has stood on this site for more than 1900 years. Then it was off to Wells and its magnificent cathedral. To be called a "city" you must have a cathedral,and this is the smallest city in England. Marvelously well preserved with buildings which are still being used for their original purposes; especially attractive was the "Vicar's Close" a street of homes in which the choir once lived.

We managed to get in a bit of the US game today and Mark is watching England Algeria as I type. Off to a pub to watch the finish, then to sleep, perchance to dream...