The second day of the first weekend event of Baobab in England was very special. Yes, it was the 21st of March – the 1st day of spring and the 1st anniversary of foundation of Baobab.
Jiri: I had a day off - I didn´t have to work all day. We woke up early, had breakfeast and went for bus to Gloucester. The weather was good sunny and warm. First we went to Gloucester cathedral. It is a huge and wonderful building from the 12th century. Even some kings of England are burried inside and the rest of a flag from the battle of Hastings is hanging here. In front of the cathedral we met an interesting man. He sat on the bench with a bottle of whisky and began to speak to us. He talked about world nowadays, about good and evil, about world nowadays and coming end of time. We listened him carefully, shook his hand and went into the cathedral. Inside the cathedral we walked around and watched everything, than we lit some candles for our friends in the Czech Republic and prayed a little (I meditated - John:).
After that we decided to visit a folk museum. It was John´s idea, I wasn´t excited by that. John likes old tools and artifacts, so you can imagine how he was happy there! But I had to admit it was very interesting even for me. I remember very well one room – it was a school class from Victorian era (it means 19th century). „Honesty is the best policy“ was written with big letters on the front wall of the class.
Jan: George is right about me liking old things of any kind. We entered the museum and there was one absolutely wonderful room. (Well, actually two, one for George - the classroom, and one for me...) It was a carpenter`s wood-workshop. All the tools and equipement were lying there as if He just left for lunch. But I knew there was nobody coming back. It wasn`t complete and the Someone I was missing most. (Well, I still am missing Him...)
Jiri: Then we walked into docks. Gloucester is not situated on the coast, but due to river Severn it´s possible to have docks in the city 100 km inland. What is interesting in Gloucester docks is a Czech sprayer writing on one of the huge buildings. We walked and I showed John my boat.
The last stop of our Gloucester city tour was in a supermarket at last! We bought some muesli (Old farmer´s), hot crossbuns, something to drink (no alcohol of course) and we run to catch the bus to Mitcheldean. It was afternoon already. In Mitcheldean we didn´t go home, although (or because..:-) our backpacks were full of food and drink. We went into the forest to have Baobab birthday party!
Jan: The forests in England are nothing like ours. We walked for some time and it looked like if we were somewhere deep in the woodlands and you would expect The Maxovka there, or some old church ruins. But none of them appeared. Instead, a huge building... a factory or a powerplant. It felt a bit strange. Lap of a way next we saw another interesting thing. There was a piece of wood hanging on a tree! But it wasn`t just a piece of wood. I picked it up and showed it to George. It was an old beautiful, naturally grown, but definitelly magic druid crook, that must had been left behind during some rituals. George tried it and it suited him, but we rather left it there as we did not dare to take it with us - its real owner may come back for it :)
Finally, we found a nice place to sit down. Actually, George must already had been there before, because he told me he would show me his home. We sat down, made the table and remembering all that were not with us, we started eating. Old Farmer`s muesli as a main course and hot cross buns as a dessert. ...
Jiri: We had also lighted a special candle that we had bought that morning in Gloucester. It was very nice and cheap because made in China. After our return to Jeseník the candle was a long time of service on Honza´s hut. Yes, it became very well-known and famous candle. Maybe the most famous candle in history of Baobab at all.
Jan: We came back home. Usuall questions where we were was answered somehow indefinitelly, because telling Trisha and Nigel we were in the forest again, would mean a lot of another explaining and a little of real understanding. The dinner was ready, so we sat down to the table and started eating. It was roasted lamb, but a really big piece of meat which was quite uncooked in the middle. Little vegetables as a side dish but no potatoes, no rice, no dumpling, nothing! We looked at each other with George (I looked at John to find out his reaction. I was used to such meal) but as both being very polite and me, being a guest, it wouldn`t be smart to say: Hey, the meat is raw and there are no potatoes, so what`s up? The wine was nice and enough of : ) Strenghtened up by the drink, we talked about various things and it seemed to us that our English improved too... :)
Jiri: Well, John is right, the dinner was excellent and conversation very fluent – Trisha and Nigel talked a lot and I with John listened a lot. It was quite a long evening and in the end we were completely tired from the conversation. We were so tired from listening my host parents that we weren´t able to talk to each other anymore… But it was late anyway and we fell asleep very quickly.
Jesen - bøezen 2005