Sunday October 14th

On the way to Glastonbury, we decided to visit a place called Lytes Cary Manor on the way.  It is a medieval manor house, originally the family home of Henry Lyte, which was then restored in the 20^th century by Sir Walter Jenner.  We started out in the garden as the house didn't open until 11am.  As it is situated near the river, we had noticed that, although it was a bright and sunny day everywhere else, we had fairly dense fog here at Lytes Cary Manor, and near the river.  The garden was really quite spooky, and we could explore the majority of it, with the exception of a few flooded areas.  It really felt like winter today!

Eventually the doors opened and we walked into the main hall where there was a large roaring fire which was very warm and comforting.  We were even allowed to sit around the fire, which came as a surprise because most National Trust properties put those little burrs on all the seats to prevent people from sitting down!  The house, like the garden was small but fun to explore.  We then popped into the small shop, where I decided to buy some hand and nail cream.  I always have some with me, which I did today, but I only really use it on the move when I forget to put some on at home before leaving the house.  I had been noticing over the last couple of days my hands were rather unusually dry, and the only thing I could connect it to was the water in Dorset – the ground is very chalky here, and I could only really think that it was the chalk which was making my hands dry.

After our visit here, we went on our way to Glastonbury.  We thought we would use the park and ride at first after seeing the signs (especially as it was National Trust especially for the Tor), but we then discovered it stopped running in September, so we found a normal car park to use.  The thing is, we never actually found the park and ride car park anyway.....I know Glastonbury is said to be a mysterious place, but a whole car park can't disappear, surely? :)

We decided that the first thing we would do would be to visit the Tor, which we did.  It took us about half an hour to reach the foot of the Tor, and it didn't take us that long to get up the Tor itself.  Last time I came here, we took a different route, and the one we took today I'm pretty sure was the shortest or quickest way up the Tor.  We saw a couple who decided to bang their drums (!) at the top, and there were a few people meditating up there too.  Here, it was bright and sunny, and we had very clear views all the way around.  We couldn't even see the fog which we had been in earlier, so that must have lifted by the time we were up there.  We made our way down the Tor on the other side, and went into Glastonbury itself for something to eat.  We found a place called “The Orangerie” which wasn't usually open on Sundays but it was today for some reason, so we went in and had some lunch there.

After this, we visited Glastonbury Abbey, which, after walking around their 'visitors centre' which was more like a small museum with really nice medieval tiles and painted window glass, and very fine stone carving too, we went outside to explore the Abbey ruins.  I remembered last time finding some medieval floor tiles in situ which were covered by a wooden lid with a handle – only this time, it said “Medieval Floor Tiles” on the top.  Glastonbury Abbey was the earliest Christian sanctuary in Britain and has many legends attached to it, including a couple relating to Jesus and King Arthur!

After visiting the Abbey shop, we left for the car and returned back to our cottage for a nice cup of tea.