That Church

The best parts of England are unplanned, the parts where you just live your normal life, but in a different place. Any travel book will say as much, but it seems we had to have that lesson burned into our very being. Today we went to service at Bidford upon Avon Church of England (the 800 year old church across the street from us). Have you seen Mr. Bean trying to partake in a Church of England service? That was us. Well John mostly. I’m a blender, I blend. John recites the church passages at the wrong times and goes up front to take a strange and formal communion he’s totally unfamiliar with. John has more fun.

The congregation is mostly made up of older people, a few young families and, strangely, no one in between. I think that being there has finally warmed us to a few of the residents in Bidford, which is nice. At the end of the service one of the Sunday School teachers (who taught the kids about Fair Trade and Malawi- awesome!) got up and welcomed us, giving the kids each a little postcard of the church signed, “Your friends at the Bidford Church”. We were then invited for tea and biscuits at the adjoining hall where everyone asked us different versions of the same question, “Why are you here?” We tried to assure them that Bidford is absolutely beautiful and, yes, we did mean to make it a part of our trip. On purpose. They told us about distant relatives living in Canada- they all knew about Calgary, but no one was familiar with Alberta. Hm.

We were informed of the Jolly Teapot, a time where people gather for a “good old chat” every Thursday morning and someone invited us to pick apples from their full tree. We were given directions to some “lovely walking paths” past our cottage, but before heading out we had a true English lunch at the Bull’s Head, our local pub. Pretty delicious actually. Lamb, roast beef, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes- all the healthy stuff. We tried to tell the kids to order bangers and mash, but they disappointingly opted for burgers. I asked them if they knew how to spell boring, but they still ordered burgers. Oh well.

Then we headed out past the sheep, a really old sanatorium, a farm and finally, to the canal. I think it’s called a canal, but I’m sure that there’s some boat expert reading this and shaking their heads in disappointment. Maybe bypass this paragraph, boat expert. Just as we were watching, two canal boats came up and opened the gates (?), asking the kids if they wanted to come and help. Of course they did, who doesn’t want to open huge underwater doors and flood an area the size of a small house? He explained to the kids how it all worked (I should have let them write this blog!) and took them through the whole process before jumping back on his little water home and waving goodbye.

Now we’re back in our cozy cottage, with a fire and some coffee, getting ready for a good night’s sleep before we head out to another London day, our last. Which means less strolling and meeting people and more crazy tours and galloping herds of people. Maybe we didn’t learn that lesson after all…

Angie