Painswick & Cheltenham
John's good friend Judith Munro and her husband Ross live in Painswick, which is only about 35 minuted from Cirencester, so we arranged to meet up with them for morning tea at their place. In usual style we allowed plenty of time to get there and just as well we did as John missed a turn and ended up going via Stroud (about 20 minute diversion). Eventually we got there and still a minute or two early!
Judith and Ross had just returned from a trip on their canal boat. They love to get away on their boat whenever they can and now Ross does the locks while Judith does the steering due to Judith's CCF.
She had had a defibrillator inserted after they discovered after doing an Echocardiogram that her Ejection Fraction was 10!!! It is UP to 24 now after treatment and she's been told that's as good as she can expect. She continues to do what she can, but any kind of walking or walking more than 200 metres is out.
She and Ross were in good form otherwise and we caught up on all their family news, chatted about books and a whole range of topics. So glad we got the chance to see them.
Ross gave John very detailed instructions on how to get to Cheltenham (our GPS not working). Of course he took a wrong turn almost immediately and we did another vast detour down winding steep roads until we met up with the road we should've been on 20 minutes later. Well we're getting to see the countryside and it's really quite lovely round here.
We found a parking station at Cheltenham and went inside a big shopping plaza to find somewhere to have lunch. We ended up finding a very nice Italian restaurant and with a belly full of pasta all thoughts of getting lost were overcome.
The shopping centre had a rather magnificent clock that featured a mechanical fish. When the hour chimed it played the tune "I'm forever blowing bubbles" whilst the fish blew real bubbles out its mouth. The kids loved it!
We spent a couple of hours in Cheltenham trawling through some shops. John even bought two pairs of shoes in the Clarkes Store (it's very hard to find shoes to fit his small feet in Australia) and also bought another bag.
We got home by 4pm and have been chilling out at Pat's house. We have to pack up to go to Wales tomorrow. It's been so lovely staying here and we're grateful for Pat's generosity.
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