Today is the last of a quartet of days spent in this southwest English county. It has all been a little phantasmagoric, because our prime objective was to visit friends, so we have radiated out in a variety of directions from our base in Bridgwater.

I was reminded, as I was during our last stay in Somerset (in 2023), of two things: First, how precious friendship is, every year more so; and second, how BIG Somerset is, and how surprisingly little we know it, given that we lived for many years next door in Dorset. These days, we would have day-tripped the hell out of a neighbouring county. But back then? Well, we had demanding full-time jobs, and commuting, and cats, and all kinds of other commitments. There were trips, and they were definitely fun. But a whole lot else had to be fitted into every 24 hours.

Anyway, this post focuses on six places:

First, Bridgwater, where we stayed. At the Premier Inn, to be precise (the one by the A38). Featuring a big room, a good breakfast, and a handy shop, this was actually a great place to bunk down. We were initially disconcerted to find that the temperature in our big room was 28 degrees, and you can't open the windows more than a couple of inches (this is a health and safety regulation, and it seems weird to me that you're stopped from falling out of your window, but the H&S people don't care if you expire of heat stress...). But by a judicious combo of fan-swinging and curtain-closing over subsequent days, we eventually managed to bring the temperature down to a more bearable 25/26...

Second, five other places we spent short amounts of time in on our way up and down the county. There's certainly lots more to come back for (aside from friends, who are always to come back for).

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BRIDGWATER

A lot of people are a bit lukewarm about Bridgwater. But as a touring base, it's really quite good.





















In the early 1990s, we kayaked from Taunton to Bridgwater in two stages. We're pretty sure this is where we'd have ended up:


We walked a little way back down the canal, which doesn't seem much used these days:






All in all, a good place to stay. Would repeat.

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CLEVEDON

This was a great stop between North Bristol and Bleadon, our first destination, and if you follow this rather cool history trail, you can really maximize your hour or so's stop-off.










So that was all good. The only downside to Clevedon was that its toilets' all-in-one handwash facility completely destroyed my shirt... Don't ask. All I'll say is that it was a green and gunky experience...

BLEADON







CHARD

We'd arranged to meet up with a friend at Barleymow's Farm Shop and Restaurant. Good choice. I loved my roast beef and Stilton wrap. And my cider... (Second day in a row for cider, so a-cider-a-day then became a Somerset tradition. But you can get very good no- or low-alcohol cider these days, so not too much harm done.)


After our lunch and catch-up, our friend headed home to Weymouth, and we went on into Chard to do our laundry. Like you do... Once the clothes had been dealt with, we had a quick wander round the town.

First surprise: Chard claims, kind of credibly, to be "the birthplace of powered flight". Steam-powered flight at that.


But there's lots else that's of interest:






MINEHEAD

Last time, Minehead gave us rain. Lots of it. This time, it offered us full-on summery sun. We lunched at the same place, though. The Toucan. As good as ever.







PORLOCK AND PORLOCK WEIR

I bet if I say "Porlock" to you, you'll think of Kubla Khan: "Coleridge wrote this poem in 1797, but it wasn't published until 1816. Was it inspired by an opium dream? Maybe. Was Coleridge really interrupted by a knock at the door from the 'person from Porlock', who destroyed his train of thought so the poem remained unfinished? We'll probably never know for sure."

Anyway, Porlock is delightful.











Porlock Weir, just down the road and on the coast, is bright, breezy, and everything you could want from a seaside spot. Even the ice creams were good (mine was blackberry):






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A lovely few days. I can't see why we won't be back.