Last Friday we spent the day with my brother Alec, his wife Jenny (yes, two Jenny Peets in the same family), their daughter and son in law and their lovely little daughter. They were holidaying on the north Somerset coast and had never been to Glastonbury, so we decided to meet up there. We had not seen them for over a year and had a great time catching up with each other's news and doing the tourist trail. Tradition has it that Joseph of Arimathea, the uncle of the Virgin Mary, came to England several times to buy Cornish tin and Somerset copper. On one occasion he brought Jesus with him and together they established a small church in Glastonbury and planted a thorn tree, a descendant of which is still growing today. Ever since then Glastonbury has been a place of religious pilgrimage and mystical significance - its even reputed to be King Arthur's "Isle of Avalon". We visited the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey and saw the thorn tree, looked in the windows of the many shops selling mystical artefacts and books, visited the Museum of Rural Life and climbed Glastonbury Tor (or hill) where we had our photo taken trying to shelter from the wind by the old church tower. Before the Somerset levels were drained to create farmland they were flooded for much of the year and The Tor and surrounding highpoints stood out as islands in the water - no wonder people thought they were magical.
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