Old photos - culling and wandering

Yesterday I spent a long time thinking about  friends who lived in a tiny terraced cottage in Pucklechurch.  Tiny and narrow it was, always terribly untidy, books flowed everywhere, the two dogs sprawled on the settee and a log fire burnt beautifully and it was such a warm and friendly place.

Sybil and Roy walking the dogs

They were friends from my second marriage, and the talk was often about archaeology, the subject my ex husband taught and practiced.  I remember another person joining the conversation one afternoon, she had the 'sight' and saw things such as colours that wove round a prehistoric barrow at Avebury.  All probably a nonsense.

The narrow winding garden

Sybil's narrow long garden was beautiful, it had a bench and table in the middle  and here we would sit in summer.  Strangely I remember one afternoon we dug a grave for her big hound who had just died and the bench must have covered the site.  I can't remember the dog's name, only that Sybil had sat at the top of the stairs with the dog leaning against her as he gently died.  They adored their dogs.

The terraced cottages were miner cottages from the past the defunct colliery somewhere in the undergrowth of a wood.  The farm road down to them, brought you into a space where cars (Some old and defunct) were parked and a row of sheds.  A path wound down the front of the houses and people would pass the window, there was also a path at the back of the gardens.  There was something idyllic about these cottages lost in the valley. 

I notice from Google maps that they are building new estates further on, Bristol of course is not too far away.  Sad as the countryside is chipped away.

I took them on a camping holiday down to Solva one year.  There I was with my dog and tent and there they were with an enormous amount of stuff in their estate car.  We never left the camping field before lunchtime, things would be sorted time and time again, things lost, it all took a great deal of time and I fretted impatiently.

But it was a good holiday I took them round the sites and the weather kept clear.

Nine Wells walk down to the little bay

Carew Castle

The Bishop's Palace. St Davids.