Off to visit Polly and Paul Triggol. Hammered along the M4 towards Bristol, then joined the M5 South into Somerset . At a motorway stop, we found an interesting literary innovation.
Lunch was taken at the Quantock pub on the edge of Bridgwater, where a chance conversation with the pub cat introduced us to a couple of locals who are frequent visitors to Oz, checking the growth of their grandchildren in Manly. They urged us to have a walk around Bridgwater, and we found it strange indeed. There are individual ancient and beautiful buildings interspersed between drack. There's a statue of the local hero, Admiral Robert Blake, one of Oliver Cromwell's appointees who made the British Navy a modern fighting force, then had his body booted out of Westminster Abbey by the reinstated monarchy.
The GPS was given the postcode for Wood Farm, and took us straight there, after a 30 minute wait to get through a local roundabout undergoing maintenace. The council sign reassured us that the work would be finished in 6 months.
Polly and Paul are looking healthy and happy, and the farm is lush and green. Saturday
Another literary pilgrimage took us to the local village of Nether Stowey, where Coleridge brought his family to live in 1797. His wife had the hard time cooking and cleaning in the miserable hovel now known as "Coleridge's Cottage", while Sam enjoyed walks and visiting his friend Tom Poole at the bottom of the garden. In 1798 Dorothy and William Wordsworth rented Alfoxden, three miles away, to be near to Coleridge, and they collaborated on the revolutionary Lyrical Ballads. Then the three of them went off to Germany to write, leaving Mrs Coleridge to look after the hearth and home and the kid. What a marriage!
Dinner at the Lamb Inn at Spaxton Three pork loins and my magnificent Venison and Stilton Pie.
Sunday
Cheese from Cricketers Farm Shop, then back to London
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