To tell you the truth, it was nice to have five days away from blogging.
The rental house was perfect - clean and well-maintained and peacefully located on the site of what was once Park Farm - connected with the Hungerford Park Estate. Once a grand house was at the heart of the parkland but that was demolished in the fifties I believe. An interesting remaining feature is the old walled kitchen garden that is surprisingly still cultivated and contains a wide range of healthy plants.
One day I came across the Polish gardener who has put his heart and soul into the garden over the last five years. It now operates as a wedding venue. There are tables and chairs and a sail-like awning where the hot houses once stood.
Hungerford was just a mile away. Perhaps I am a little ghoulish but I hoped to pay homage to the dead. Sixteen people killed on a bright August day in 1987. Surely there would be a fitting memorial and evidence of continuing condolences.
In the parish church the names of the dead were on a modern glass partition beside the vestry door but you could have easily peeled those names off. It was nothing special. Then in another neighbourhood, we parked Butch near Hungerford Town football ground in order to visit the memorial garden.
To my surprise, the remembrance of the slaughtered sixteen was incidental - tagged on to a brick gatepost with the flower-less garden beyond principally being a tribute to townsfolk who died in World War II.
We looked after Zach for three nights as the wedding celebrations proceeded. He seemed magnetised by his grandma but suspicious of the monster known as "Grandpa". Still, he was as good as gold.
Zach and his parents returned to London on Sunday afternoon, leaving Shirley and I with two nights and one and a half days to ourselves. We had Sunday dinner in "The Dundas Arms" in Kintbury and Monday lunch in "The Cobrizo Lounge" in Newbury. Monday evening's dinner was in "The John O'Gaunt Inn" back in Hungerford.
We also got to visit the church where the wedding had taken place and climbed to Combe Gibbet on Gallows Down where a tall wooden gibbet reminds all passers-by of capital punishment. Near there, I also climbed over a field gate to reach the highest point in southeastern England - Walbury Hill.
More of this kind of stuff tomorrow.
Combe Gibbet
