Chester

Our Easter weekend was spent in Chester. Marita, Leanne, Maisie, Alex, Chess and Rachel. Erika is back in hospital so we had the whole house to ourselves, handy for visiting her.

We had glorious weather which allowed various walks on the wall, a paddle boat on the river Dee, and a visit to the marvellous Cathedral.

Alex and Maisie surprisingly soon bored of walking around the wall, apparently there was too much history involved. The paddle boats beckoned. I'd hoped they would go off into the boat by themselves, but my presence was requested. Looking forward to being paddled around the river, the boy who took our money informed us there was quite a current and it was harder work than usual. Maisie quickly volunteered to be in the back (the part without the pedals).

Alex and I set off with great enthusiasm, narrowly missing such obstacles as ducks and motor boats (why didn't we get one of those) , it was fun...then, after 5 minutes of furiously pedalling, we had gone about 50 meters upstream, and I was ready for oxygen. Leanne, Marita and Chess were following our (lack of) progress with enthusiasm, so we had the bright idea of picking up a passenger, dubiously Marita climbed aboard. This did not make pedalling any easier! After pedalling around aimlessly, for a while longer, legs had turned to jelly, Maisie volunteered to pedal, I was delighted - yay, time for me to sit in the back and command we go look at something, somehow, whilst I was still in fantasy land, Alex and Maisie had swopped seats and I was still expected to pedal - they don't make youth like they used to.

Time to return the boat, we somehow negotiated to the bank, a nice young man helped me onto the bank on my knees - not so bad except that Chester is particularly touristy, and on Easter Sunday, in the absence of a band in the bandstand, I was it as far as entertainment went!

The Cathedral was far more leisurely the next day, and impressive. The audio tour made it interesting enough for Maisie and Alex, and the promise of lunch at the old refectory helped.

I was disappointed that my lunch was not cooked or served by monks, but it was very satisfying eating in the refectory. Weirdly there was an older lady playing the piano in the background, we managed to sit right by the piano - not really that weird, except her choice of music…show tunes! I had 'somewhere over the rainbow' stuck in my head the the rest of the afternoon.