Day 27 Hot, hot, hot (again)

The Hotel Mercure in Bridgwater, does, I am pleased to report, start breakfast at 7am. We had ours at 7.30, a full two hours earlier than yesterday. It was pretty speedy too. The Hotel Mercure also does a pretty good line in Japanese airforce personnel. When we arrived in the breakfast room it was full of them, not really something you expect to find on a summer Saturday morning in Somerset. We assumed they were related to the G7 summit.

We headed off after a quick stop at Gregg’s for a sandwich (cheese salad baguette, the only one they had at 8.30 on a Sunday ) stopping only to take a photo of the old Bridgwater Infirmary

Our route took us along a cycle route along the River Parret, which was flat and we made good progress for the first few miles to Chedzoy. It was already pretty hot and what should we see in Chedzoy but a sign for ice cream. Our hearts lifted only to sink again when we realised the farm shop that sold it didn’t open on Sunday.

We carried on along the roads, which were very quiet (not many cars but a lot of cyclists) pausing only to take a photo of the carving over the church in Chedzoy because it had my initials on it

We crossed over King’s Sedgemoor drain which is the picture at the top and I’ve added another drain photo for those people in Cambridgeshire and those who miss Cambridgeshire. You know who you are.

By midday we were seriously hot. We stopped at a churchyard for lunch and found a bench in the shade donated by the BBC to sit on. They filmed the Monocled Mutineer locally in 1986, apparently.

Our walk after lunch depended heavily on footpaths and byways. We had successfully negotiated a footpath shortcut before lunch so were feeling confident. Our confidence was not misplaced. The path took us to Moorlinch and despite our not having noticed we were walking uphill we found we had pretty good views.

We saw a deer bounding through the cornfield, as well as a couple of partridges. After a few difficult stiles, our footpath experience got better and better, ending with a path mown only minutes before we used it.

It was a very hot day without much breeze so we were glad to arrive at our B&B which is also a tearoom.

We had booked dinner in the local pub, which turned out to be only about a minute’s walk from the B&B. We had dinner outside-a good ending to a rather hot day.