Devizes and around

After Jill, Rod and the kids had gone on Sunday (the kids having been delayed a couple of hours because Steve's car wouldn't start, and he had to call out the AA), Grace and I postponed our exploratory walk around Devizes. The weather wasn't good, and we were feeling tired from late nights and early mornings over the past few days, so we stayed in and watched "Girl with a pearl earring", a really good film from the stock of DVDs in this house, AND "The men who stare at goats", which we brought with us and was really quite awful.

We awoke on Monday morning to a cold house, with the central heating boiler registering a fault, and this delayed our stroll around Devizes. When we did get out, the weather was cold and damp, and we were glad to find a number of shops, ranging from interesting to fascinating, through which to browse. We bought ourselves a beautiful mirror to add to the small collection we have in the house.

In the same shop, I was much amused by one particular key fob. Amongst dozens, each of which bore one of the "Keep calm" slogans which have found their way onto so many items over the past few years...

...I found one which summed up perfectly my feeling about these mottos!

Unfortunately, St John's church, next door to our house and said to be rather beautiful inside, was locked. We'll have to try again another day. 

We walked out to the canal down by the Devizes Wharf and Canal Centre. It was all deserted, so we walked down the towing path to the next bridge, and made our way back to the house from there.

After lunch, we went for a drive, first of all to the Caen Hill flight of locks on the outskirts of the town, then on a scenic tour around the nearby countryside, returning across Salisbury Plain. The weather was dismal, the scene devoid of other people, and the locks forbidding. We're looking forward to navigating them one day, though, in good weather and with other people about.

In the evening, we watched only part of "Cruel Intentions" because it was such an awful film!