Bath and "Constable Country"

One of the many hills in Bath

Phil’s dad, Douglas, is 80 this May. We wanted to spend part of our year off with him to celebrate his birthday as close to the actual date as possible. We were with him in Bath for two weeks. He spent his actual birthday with Helen and her family in Granada, Spain.

Douglas has become a keen painter since he retired and he particularly likes to paint in acrylic or water based oil paints. He likes to copy other paintings as a way of learning. One painting that he is particularly proud of is his copy of the “Hay Wain” by John Constable. This is one of the most famous paintings in England. It took Douglas about 3 months to complete it.

Douglas, Phil and John

He also likes many of Constable’s paintings that were painted in the south east of England between 1820 and 1850. We were trying to think what we could do to celebrate his birthday and thought that Douglas might like it if we took him to “Constable Country” and stayed there for a few days to see where Constable actually painted them. Not too far from Constable Country is Norwich. Norwich is where Douglas’s brother, John, lives. They haven’t seen each other for several years so we thought we should use the opportunity to visit John and his wife Erika and family at the same time.

Douglas's copy of the Hay Wain

How the "Hay Wain" looks today

The trip was planned and booked. First we drove to Norwich and visited John and his family in the evening. It was lovely to see them all again. The next morning we went round to their house for coffee before driving south to Dedham village to a cottage that we had rented for a couple of days. There were a lot of showers that day but it didn’t stop us walking around the area where Constable painted and to the actual spot where the Hay Wain was painted. Obviously things had changed in the 200 years since the Hay Wain was painted but it was still easy to see that it was done there.

Douglas and Iren happy in the rain

Douglas enjoying the view

There is a visitor centre and several other things to look at. Douglas really enjoyed seeing the area and so did we since none of us had been there before. The Suffolk and Essex borders are a very beautiful part of England and extremely quaint.

Out for a meal in Bath

After we got back to Bath we started to plan our next trip; to walk the “Coast to Coast”. This is a walk from the West Coast to the East coast of England and is just under 200 miles in length or 310 km. Before we started the walk we drove up to Glossop where Phil’s cousin, Julia and her husband Jim lives. We stayed with them for a night before the walk and 3 nights after the walk. We had planned to fly home from Manchester after the walk and since Glossop is very close to Manchester it was a great opportunity to visit Julia and Jim.

Visiting Phil's sister in Spain

Helen & Antonio and children

The Alhambra, Granada

We haven’t seen Phil’s sister, Helen, and her family for just over a year and that was only when our separate visits to dad at Christmas in 2010 coincided for a couple of days. So it was good to be able to spend a week with them in their flat in Granada, Spain.

It can be cold in Spain too

Eating out

We spent time just being together, wandering around the centre of Granada, going up into the Sierra Nevada and doing a half day walk with Helen. The
weather is nearly always hot in Granada but it was colder than normal. The Sierra Nevada area has snow until after Easter.

Making a snowman with the last snow

Cycling in the park

We all drove up to the Sierra Nevada for a walk around the area where one of the ski resorts is. It was over 3000 meters and there was still quite a lot of snow left. Not enough for the children to rent a sledge but enough to play around in.

The Monachil path got narrow in places

On one of the days, Helen had the day off whilst the children were at
school and Antonio was at work. Since it was a clear day we decided to
go for a walk on one of the trails from Monachil. It was hot when we left the car and Helen was a bit worried that she might get a headache as she sometimes does whilst exercising in the heat. She used the acequia water to cool her head down. Acequias are ingenious ancient water channels that the Moors built hundreds of years ago to transport mountain water down to their villages and towns. They are still fully working today.

Part of the cathedral in Grenada

Since we were going to be walking away from the acequias for the rest of the trail, Helen filled her empty water bottle with cold water for pouring over her head later. At the end of the walk we stopped in a traditional country bar for refreshments. 

Granada old town

Normally we like to visit the Alhambra when we are in Granada but this time we were unlucky. All the entry tickets for the day were sold out. Instead we spent our time wandering around parts of Granada that we haven't seen before. There are lots of narrow interessting streets to explore in the old part of town.

We tried to learn a bit of Spanish from Helen's children although they weren't too impressed with our efforts. We will be travelling to South America in a couple of months and hope to attend a Spanish language school to kick start our Spanish whilst we're there. Hopefully the children will be a bit more impressed the next time we meet.

Next we're off to Bath, England, to visit Phil's dad to celebrate his 80th birthday.