Having rested up from my journey, I set off for Bristol, my father’s birthplace. I was surprised to be so tired after travelling, which was conducted in a sedentary position except for a few short journeys through the paperwork places at the airports. I find it odd that one can travel so far sitting down, yet still feel tired on arrival.Anna and Kieran dropped me at Richmond station. I went through the turnpike and promptly lost my ticket, which put me in a mild panic. I practised my slightly confused senior person look in case I needed it on the train, but it turns out that I had so many tickets with seemingly similar information on, that one of my other ones was okay. I still don’t understand what happened – maybe I lost my seat reservation or something.
Bristol station (Templemead) is a beautiful stone job sort of arching out to the town. I looked for my map of Bristol and directions to my cousin Stella’s place, but couldn’t find it. I bought a map of Bristol for a pound, but Stella’s street wasn’t on it – I didn’t know that before I bought the map, as it was in a slot machine. I phoned Stella and asked her which bus to get to her place, and she gave me directions to a place where she would meet me, and take me there herself. Stella is an elderly cousin of my father, and she normally gets about on a mobility scooter, so I was a bit dubious about this. Furthermore, her directions were rather perplexing. “Go outside the station and walk away from it as if you are leaving the station (um - could I be doing anything else??). Turn right and keep going until you see the Evening Post building, which is black. It’s at a roundabout. Look for some shops near the roundabout – there aren’t many shops around there, so they will be easy to find – and keep going right until you see some black gates. I’ll be waiting in there for you.”
I went outside the station and walked as if I was walking away from it. That part was quite easy. Then I turned right, and kept walking away from it, looking for the Evening Post building. Couldn’t see it, so I went back the other way. I asked a few people but none knew where it was. Then a beggar asked me for a few pence, so I said of course I would give him some money, if he would tell me where the Evening Post building is. I’m not very smart. He told me to keep walking back the way I came for at least ten minutes, and I would find it. As it turned out he was correct, but I walked away wondering if he had lied for the money. After about ten minutes I still couldn’t see the Evening Post, but found a bus with the door open, so asked the driver where it was. He was very nice and took me there for nothing. Of course there were no shops anywhere near, and it started to rain. I walked around the district for an hour or so, up and down various side streets admiring all the black gates. Eventually I took shelter in an archway not far from the roundabout and phoned Stella again. She appeared quite quickly from some gates across the road and took me to her little flat in Red Cross Mews, across the road from the old Red Cross School dad went to when he was a little boy (check out the two pictures). It was wonderful to see her. She introduced me to her grey squirrel and gave me a blue piece of glass with S.S. Great Britain on it. We took photos of each other outside her flat, and I recorded her as she talked about her child-hood 
and about my grandmother, her aunt. She also called some other cousins, Pat and Francis Gillett, who duly arrived to take me to yet more cousins, Roger and Doreen Pitman (Doreen was a Gillett) and we all pored over our family trees and asked each other questions. It was fabulous. They kindly offered me sandwiches and wine, and I accepted both, as by now the after-effects of the poisoning episode had subsided and I was finally able to contemplate food again. Sadly, the sandwiches were stuffed with ham and beef, so I had to own up to being a vegetarian, and possibly therefore, someone to treat with great suspicion, in case I launched into a series of insults about meat eaters, or worse still, performed magic spells on them. Happily for both them and me I did neither, and one of my cousins was pleased with the extra beef. They were all very kind to me and it was a wonderful thing to meet so many members of my father’s family, and to be welcomed so thoroughly. Of course I use the word 'cousin' loosely - some of them were 2nd cousins. Maybe 
3rd even. Pat even gave me a jar of marmalade, which I suspect I should have given to my mother.
After we had finished playing happy families they took me to yet anther cousin, Chrissie Bryant (nee Gillett again) who had volunteered to accommodate me in her home in Somerset, just south of Bristol. This particular cousin had stayed with my parents, and apparently been given a good time by them, as there is nothing she could have done to make me feel more welcome than she did. She even asked me from time to time, if there was anything else I either wanted or needed. In fact I was given the right royal treatment, which occasionally had me wondering if I had the wrong family, and if she had stayed with someone famous and interesting like the Queen, or Helen Clark. I checked a couple of times, but no, she had stayed with my parents, and found them kind. My parents can be quite beguiling at times. My room had not just the usual commodities such as bed and pillows, but also a tea tray in case I got thirsty in the 
night, melatonin pills to correct my jetlag, and biscuits for the night munchies. But best of all was the satin smooth Egyptian sheets. I am now saving up for some, and have contacted my bank manager to arrange a second mortgage.
Their house was a recently built stand alone house with a large garden – about half an acre at a guess. Chris said he hated gardening, and had a lot of trees and plants taken away, but it still looked beautiful. I was amused to find they had not just a conservatory (this is a new addition to English houses since I was last her in the 1970s), but also, a sitting out area. Clearly global warming has its advantages in England.
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