April Showers, May Flowers, JUNE HAIL

If you make enough derogatory comments about the weather, you will face the wrath. Got home from church today and we were in the process of putting cold weather clothes in the attic when the sky decided to open up. It was a strange site as the sky was about as blue as... well... Sky Blue.

You can see a little ice bomb in the top right corner of this shot. If you turn to the hail size designation charts, we'd land somewhere between pea size and dime size. Even had some nice thunder along with the whole episode.

We'll check the damage assessment later.

May Half-term trip: Bath

While Wookey Hole was a big hit, mom and dad found one of their favorite places, Bath. The Romans stumbled on this site a couple thousand years ago and realized with some plumbing and some tile, they would have a nice little spa. The Romans ultimately vacated and the English nobility continued until it fell into disrepair. There have been extensive excavations and it is quite a tour. There is even a spa that has opened adjacent to the old site that we might have enjoyed. I am not sure the clientele would enjoy a John Cannonball in the spa pool.

We met a very nice Roman lady and her slave girl while we were on tour. She was drawn to us

because of John's hair. She had quite a mop on top of her head and she was asking if she could have a little of John's curls. In her hand are shells with frankincense and myrrh. Very colorful story of how they got it and how she used it. It was very valuable to the Romans in those days and there just happened to be a group of Magi that thought this would make a nice gift for a baby shower.

It is amazing how the stories in the bible and history

really do wrap all around each other. We are loving the first hand look at these details. We found

a nice little cafe on the river to eat. We sat the farthest to the left at the top of the stairs and enjoyed

the waterfall and the sunshine. The Royal Crescent was where we decided to take an afternoon siesta in the sun along with hundreds of locals. This is the largest open park in the city and is capped by a wonderful arc of 30 houses that were completed in 1774.

Wookey Hole, Wells, Glastonbury, and Castle Combe

The Wookey Hole ranks up there as one of our top spots.  The name alone makes it a keeper.  This is an awesome cave with a nice legend that involves a pretty lady, acting kind of mean, turned ugly...accused of being a witch.  Church sent the holy man to take care of the situation and he chased her into a cave and she was never seen again.  All that is left is a rock formation that looks like the Wookey witch.  Regardless, this was a very cool cave.  Divers have been a mile into the underground river that carved the whole thing and we got to see a cool movie.    

From there, it was lunch on a bench outside the Bishop's Palace in Wells.

The cathedral in the background is Well's cathedral.  We are really starting to enjoy the English spring time.  The weather is 

excellent and the sun is up at 5:30 and as I type, it is just getting dark and it is past 9:30.   Makes for long days and the kids are not loving it when they have to go to bed 

and the sun is still in the sky.  

Glastonbury Abbey has an incredible history.  It is most noted for the fact that MJ can do a back flip off the walls of the ruins of the cloister.  I am sure they will write about it in the brochure at the next printing.  If you

 look behind this, you can get a glimpse of the purported resting place of King Arthur.  There is a lot of Arthur legend in this area.  The other story surrounds the thorn tree that is a cutting from the Glastonbury Thorn that supposedly came to the area via Joseph of Arimathea, when he came this way to convert England to Christianity in AD60.  In case you wonder about Joseph, he is the one that buried Jesus in his tomb.  

Little side trip to Castle Combe provided a nice venue to relax and enjoy some ice cream.  This little spot was voted one of the prettiest villages in the UK.  If you happen to be a person that talks to animals, you may even recognize this as the village from the original Dr. Doolittle with Rex Harrison.  When we started telling the kids the story, we realized that the generation gap is quite wide.  The only Dr. D story they knew starred Eddie Murphy and a tiger.   We had to go home and add the original to our movie queue.