Gloucester

A visit to childhood friend Myra in a very nice retirement village-St Oswalds, near the Cathedral.

We spent a lot of time catching up on five years and also explored local streets and pub restaurants. The next day we visited an an ancient crypt in the Cathedral, now a coffee shop.

Gloucester is new to me and I was taken by the number of buildings and references going back over 700 years, even to Roman AD 50. Streets are unbelievably narrow so satnav not so good. Can be very very frustrating! The cathedral is staggering in size and complexity. Outside appearances are deceptive.

Many shops and streets have petunia displays -a very attractive appearance.

A number of Harry Potter 'Diagonally' shop scenes made here here including the Wand shoppe, The courtyard building was our hotel, very very spooky and not a single right angle or straight wall or line.

On the next day we took a  somewhat overrated river  cruise on the 'Boadicea' and went to the maritime museum. The Boadicea was used in recovery of troops from the D Day landing in 1944.

The port life of Gloucester was described very well with several videos of retired wharfies describing their lives--very human, vivid,  engaging and memorable.