After a hearty breakfast, several of us joined a guided tour of central Hereford.  We started at the cathedral.

And continued around the immediate vicinity, including the last remains of the castle moat.

 I left the tour to head to the station, passing the site of yesterday’s festivities, the Town Hall.

Caught a train to Newport, then Paddington. Hammersmith and City line to Farringdon, where I discovered Thameslink was closed for engineering work.  So a bus journey past St Paul’s, and finally a fast train from London Bridge to Orpington. Phew!

A wonderful day of dancing and music.  Being in the moment, I didn’t take any photos of the dancing – they never do it justice anyway.  But the contributions were extraordinarily varied, the dinner was good and the masquerade ball in the evening was fun, with an excellent band.

We did pay our respects to Elgar during a short walk round the block:

In spite of major disruption on the railways today, my train to Hereford left Paddington on time and was a mere ten minutes late arriving.  I was able to walk to my hotel, while less fortunate passengers had to wait for transport to wherever they hadn’t been able to get to.

I had barely settled in my very elegant room when our friend Phil arrived and we went for a coffee and a good chat.  We forgot to take a photo, though…

The evening’s activity was a lecture about masquerade balls in the 18th century, with some fascinating slides.  A short walk back to the hotel and drop exhausted into bed!

This morning the weather was beautiful.  Lucy stayed in and spent time in the garden while Gemma and I went for a walk.  There was a vague plan, but it changed as the mood took us.  We paused for a swift half at The Navigation…

No pork scratchings, so we had to make do with crisps.

Then a stroll along the canal, and return via King’s Norton – on foot since the buses didn’t want to play!

We had another quiet morning and early afternoon.  A game of Carcassonne and some more art…

After a late lunch/ early supper in the Chinese quarter, we went to the Crescent Theatre to see an excellent production of “Pride and Prejudice”.  Back home for a nice cup of Horlicks…

Today there was a yellow weather warning, so we stayed indoors and did Art…

I had my first go at lino printing since secondary school:

After more thought provoking discussion last evening and this morning, I felt the need to study what Baden Powell called that other great book, nature, so I went to the Cambridge University Botanical Gardens. I walked there past colleges and cows…

The gardens were lovely. Lots of evidence of scientific enquiry!

A substantial glass house.

And a limestone garden, which was very nostalgic.

My feet were tired, so I planned to return by bus, but it was held up somewhere, so I walked back past the colleges and cows.

After a morning of theological discussion, we all went our separate ways, and three of us had a mooch around Cambridge.

More theology this evening!

While Phil and Rocco went for a walk, I looked round the Dorset County Museum in Dorchester.  I was expecting a small museum in a converted hall of some sort, but it was purpose built and comprised several galleries over four floors.  The original exhibition hall is now used for events, and is a glorious space.  The floor includes two Roman mosaics.  Stunning!

There were displays about the geology, archaeology and history of Dorset.  I was particularly taken with this sculpture depicting the geological strata – with a strata of plastic rubbish at the highest, most recent level.