Wednesday 30 July
We rose, we packed, we had breakfast, we had our photo taken by our hostess, we left. We were heading for Belval Abbey hoping for another memorable stay at a Living Abbey. We both had maps, and Tony had his GPS, but I was still nervous about not having phone communication.
We made sure that we both understood our meeting points and approximate timings of them. Meeting point number one went to pot - there was a calculation error regarding distance and time. I left the meeting point thinking that Tony must have changed his route, but it turned out that he simply hadn't yet got there. Meeting point 2 worked out fine as this was our lunch spot and since I carry all of the food ( apart from Tony carrying his own emergency snacks ) I thought it wise to wait there until he arrived whenever that might be otherwise he would have a difficult rest of day. We lunched and then parted again.
We met later close to Belval Abbey and walked in together. It was a huge complex that is now more of a commercial concern ( with shop + advertising posters ) rather than a Holy one as our last Abbey had been. The building had become an Abbey in the late 1800’s from having previously been a stately home, so there wasn't the sense of ( religious ) history that we expected. We had a very comfortable stay nevertheless, but were both inwardly disappointed I think.
We had muesli, fruit salad and biscuits for tea in our room, a perfect example of a ‘ no shops en-route’ day.
Distance - 18.20 miles
Distance since Helmsley - 578.35 miles
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