We've shifted gears a bit due to unavoidable circumstances which I'll go over in a bit, but first, to continue on where we left off....
Our last couple of days in Chester was spent visiting a few more of the sights in this interesting city.
Walking the wall each day took us past the riverfront and a restaurant there that was giving off these delightfully smoky aromas. So we took a walk along the wall and made a detour for an early supper. The ribs, while tender and tasty, just can't hold a candle to real US barbeque.
Leaving there we stopped by St Johns the Baptist Church. Built in the 8th century, and once a proud cathedral, it suffered under Henry VIII and the oldest part of the church is now a ruin.
We walked along the vibrant waterfront.
And finally visited Chester Cathedral. Most Cathedrals are built in the shape of a crucifix but this one has a large added area with courtyards and passageways.
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| One wall had paintings & mosaics depicting the lives of various figures in religious history. |
This is the 250th anniversary of English Railroads and a large model train display was being held in a section of the cathedral. It was not your average train set. Probably a couple of hundred rail cars of all types, automated switching gear with a central control. It was a pretty impressive and hi-tech set up.
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| A quilt of Chester Center |
The cathedral was dog friendly as are many in the UK.
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| The Choir |
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Finally, we swung by the old Roman Amphitheater.
Our departure from Chester was Saturday, and after our long walk Thursday, Phoebe had developed a limp. Touching her "knee area" was giving her discomfort. So I went into my traveling dog pharmacy and broke out the Metacam. The dog version of Meloxicam - an NSAID.
That combined with a mild doggie downer, we kept her mellowed out for Friday to give her some rest.
By Saturday morning we was walking limp free, but was still tender in the joint area so we continued the protocol and decided to wait on a vet to see how things developed.
We moved on to our next stop, a lovely home on a hill overlooking the town of Bakewell in the Peak District.
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| Doggies in the window |
Meanwhile, news from Arizona arrived that we'd had a bad Monsoon Storm and I had a tree down in the front yard. Chatting with our neighbors I was able to find a landscaper who could get out there quickly to cut it up and remove it. Our next door neighbor also had a water leak in their roof so our friend Deanie went inside to check for us and lo and behold there was water on the floor as well!
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| Tree Down |
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| View from our Ring Cam of the tree being removed |
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| Within a few hours the damage was all cleared up. |
So, trying to get to the bottom of the water leak in the house... We narrowed it down to inside a linnen closet. More searching was coming up fruitless as there was no water stain on the closed ceiling, but as Deanie moved some towels she found the culprit.... Kate had put a box of "damp rid" in the closet, but never bothered to read the instructions. The box has a type of desiccant inside and it released moisture captured into a metal pan in the box. Since the box was laying on its side, the desiccant was dripping the moisture captured onto the floor.
At least there was no roof leak to deal with and by the end of the day over here all the problems had been solved.... Except for Phoebe...
Almost a week had gone by and while she was 80% better, she would still let out a yelp once a day and so it was time to find a vet to take a look at her.
The long and short of it is the vet said to continue what I was doing for another fortnight as she thought it was a soft tissue injury and could take some time to heal.
We did take the dogs to Sunday Roast to a nice country pub.
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| At the vet |
So, for the last 2.5 weeks or so, we've had her on limited duty which also means we are on limited duty.
No long walks. I carry her up and down the stairs each morning and night.
A week gone by in Bakewell and I did almost nothing. It was a very cute town and I got to see it going for groceries but that was about it. I never did get any photos of the town either.
Saturday - we moved onward, heading south to the town of Broadway in The Cotswolds area of the UK.
Long time followers might remember The Cotswolds as we've been here several times. Last trip we were here for 3 weeks. The prior times we stayed in Winchcombe, and this time we decided to stay in this quaint village of Broadway.
This young girl came over and fell in love with the dogs. Her parents were so trusting that they went out into the garden and left the girl with us. I was getting worried that perhaps Kate had picked up another "stray".
Our place here in Broadway is a nice, compact 1 bedroom apartment in a quiet neighborhood just a 2 minute walk to the high street.
We also have a nice "garden". We call it a "backyard". They call it a 'Garden" here.
Broadway is the quintessential Cotswold Village.
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| High Street Broadway |
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| High Street Broadway |
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| Thatched roof High Street Broadway |
They are housing created for the poor and their origin goes back to the middle ages.
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| Almshouses Winchcombe |
The photo below is the place we stayed at last time for 3 weeks. Just off of the High St.
And below - the Sudeley Castle Gatehouse. We stayed here in 2018. A truly unique property located on the castle grounds.
They got onto my shitlist however in 2020 when I had to cancel our trip due to covid and they turned out to be the only accomodation who would not refund my rent, nor even agree to some sort of partial credit toward a future stay.
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| Sudeley Castle Gatehouse |
A view across the fields towards Winchcombe.
Well we are down to 16 days till we board the Queen Mary2 for our crossing to NYC.
It's hard to believe that we landed in Paris 5 1/2 months ago!
Phoebe seems to be getting better. We'll go 1 or 2 days with no yelp and then (today) she jumps off the couch (like she does many times) and she'll let out a quick yelp.
So I'll just keep an eye on it and keep waiting to see if we get 3... then 4... then more days with no complaints. I think right now its enough of a non issue to wait and if it continues when we get back to the states I'll take her to our old vet in Saratoga Springs for a look see. Hopefully by then we'll have it all behind us.
Till then, we are all on limited duty.
Saturday we head down to the coast. A condo on the waterfront for 6 nights, then a place near Bath for 5 nights.... then 2 nights in a hotel in Southampton where I'll turn the car back in and 2 weeks from this Friday we'll be back onboard.
See you down the road.
PS
If you receive email notifications for new blog posts - you noticed this time the email looked different and came from a different email address: talesfromthehighway@gmail.com
I've decided to take over the job of managing the email list and sending out the notifications myself.
Intuit bought out MailChimp who was handling the automations for me and they have really jacked up the price.
The good thing is that you can now reply to that email and I will get it and can easily reply back to you. It will greatly enhance our ability to engage back and forth.
The bad thing is that there is no longer an automated "unsubscribe" function. If you want to stop receiving these emails, just reply to one of them and ask me to take you off the list and I will do so.
