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.