Coventry and on to Launton : July 21-23

We were welcomed with some sunshine in Coventry, and a little warm wind, so Alison quickly used the opportunity to do a load of laundry and hang clothes out on the line to dry. Angela was doing a shift at one of the local libraries where she works “substitute”, and we enjoyed a nice cold lunch at home with Ivor. We then took a walk to the local shops and got some cash from the ATM to keep us going for a few more days, and after that we spent some time preparing another “posting” for this blog. Soon after Angela was home we all drove to another part of Coventry, Earlsdon, where Angela’s daughter, our niece Ridanne, lives. She was waiting and we picked her up and drove to a village outside of Coventry, to the White Lion pub, which is a favorite of Ridanne’s, and the five of us enjoyed a very nice dinner and drinks there. (Bob was the designated driver, so he only had one beer, but Angela and Ridanne especially enjoyed being able to relax and have more than one drink!) Back at A&I’s home, Bob and Ivor spent time working on some Sudokus, and the three “girls” sat chatting until tiredness overcame the older two, and Ridanne took a taxi home. It was lovely to have been able to spend time with Ridanne again, because she was out of town when we stayed with A&I before we had the timeshare week with Dianne and Peter.
The next day Bob took the opportunity of using the gym facility at Angela’s fitness club one last time, and then in the afternoon we drove to visit another cousin of Bob’s (his dad’s sister’s son), Peter Houghton, and his wife Janet. They live near Hinckley in Leicestershire, about 40 minutes drive from Coventry. We’d never before been to their home, and hadn’t seen Peter & Janet for very many years (we think not since the wedding of Bob’s sister Rosemarie’s daughter some 18-19 years ago). However, we’ve kept in touch every Christmas, and more recently via email as well. P&J love their garden and it was a lovely sight to see with so many flowers in bloom, and loads of fish in their fish pond. They also love travelling the world, and we enjoyed sharing lots of our travel experiences with each other. We ate an early dinner with them in their home (many thanks, Janet, for preparing such a delicious meal) and then were off and back to A&I’s before dark, and spent a quiet last evening relaxing with them. Wednesday, 23rd was our final “move” before our return to the USA. While were packing, Angela took Ivor to a doctor appointment, and Ridanne stopped by to give us a gift to take back to the USA with us for Indigo. That was another enjoyable short visit. On A&I's return, we loaded up the car, bade them our fond farewells and then we were on the road south to Rosemarie and Ian’s home for our final week. (See our post for July 7th-8th regarding our first stopover with R&I.) The drive was less than an hour, and we arrived at R&I’s in good time to walk with them to the village church, through the churchyard to fields behind, and through the fields for lunch at one of the two pubs in the village.This pub is named The Black Bull, the other pub is merely TheBull, and folks can get confused sometimes as to which pub is being referred to, so locally they talk about the “bottom” Bull and the “top” Bull, referring to the pubs’ location in the village! They are both very old and very popular pubs. We walked through a couple more fields and some woods after lunch, and were (apart from Bob) quite weary when we got back to R&I’s home. We relaxed for the remainder of the day, had a simple evening meal, and were quite early to bed, as we had to be up bright and early the next day for our rendezvous with Jerry Hodgins and the start of his and Bob’s walk on the Thames Path.