Kelvedon

We stayed a total of 6 nights in Kelvedon in an amazing B&B! It was a really beautiful old house, with big windows, a great yard, three cautious chickens, and a dog. A really lovely place. We had a few days of just sitting around being lazy, but we did get out to see a few sights. We explored the famous footpaths of Kelvedon on the 13th. It was a bit of an overcast day, but lucky the rain held off until we were just getting back to the B&B. It's a bit strange walking the footpaths becuase you feel as though you're just traipsing around peoples crops and gardens and backyards. But that's where the paths go, so it must be alright!



The next adventure was a day in Colchester. We took the 10 minute train ride there and then walked down to the center of town. After walking past a ton of different little shops and restaurants (I got a second hand shirt for 1.50 GBP!) we found Colchester Castle. We didn't bother with going into the museum that is inside the castle now and decided to wander around the gardens outside. It's a very nice garden too. There were a bunch of rose bushes all over, but sadly they weren't quite in bloom yet. They were covered with little buds that were just about to pop, but only a small few had actually gotten there. I bet it's amazing with all the bushes in bloom though.

We also saw a few spiders (one of which was eating his lunch) and a freshly dead pigeon... No clue about the pigeon, although I was really quite curious. After the gardens we had a sit-down lunch which was nice - we often get take-away food so we don't get the chance to rest our feet. But we relaxed for a bit with our drinks before heading to our next stop: the Natural History Museum. It's kind of cool because they turned an old church into the museum. The museum itself isn't particularly spectacular, but it's free so it was worth the visit.



Our next adventure was on the 15th when we walked to Tiptree to go to the jam factory. We got some good exercise that day - four miles there and back. That's eight miles!! But we needed it after the jam factory because I discovered cream tea while I was there. At first I thought cream tea was some sort of thick, creamy tea but it turns out it's a plain ole cup of tea with scones, jam, and clotted cream. I'd never heard of clotted cream before, so maybe you haven't either. It has the consistency of butter (not cold, hard butter, but kind of softened), but the flavor of heavy whipping cream. So you take your scone, split it in half, smear a big glob of clotted cream on it, and top it with the jam of your choice. It was soooo delicious! I am now in love with cream tea. But it's got to be terribly unhealthy... Why is life so unfair?? So you see why it was good that we walked eight miles. We also got some peach jam which is quite good, and came at a good price. There was also a small museum with various old jam-making machinery, jars, labels, etc.



Amongst all the site-seeing we also spent time with Chuck's Aunt Karre, her husband Simon, and her three boys Luke, Rick, and Jake. They're such a nice family! It was really nice to be around the boys especially because they're not what you would expect. You expect three boys between the ages of 14 and 18 to be at each others throats and arguing all the time, but they're not like that. They seem to genuinely like each other and just have a good time being kids. It's fun to see. And Karre and Simon were too good to us - home-cooked meals, restaurant meals, picking us up and dropping us off. It was really great to see them all again.

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