Tracing Roots

Denis and I decided to go out this afternoon and try to find a little bit of his past. We know that several generations ago an ancestor was the miller at Bowes. This was in the days of watermills which were commercially viable in today's parlance. So we set off under grey skies to follow the footpath along the side of the Greta towards Mill Race Falls in the hope of finding some traces of the old mill. Foolishly I didn't change from my crop trousers and walking sandals which had served me well during the morning! I walked very carefully in an effort not to catch my legs on nettles. Unfortunately, going up the hillside back to Bowes I almost tripped and stung my arm instead. A small price to pay, though, as the walk was through beautiful countryside and we did indeed find traces of the old mill. There's something rather special about standing in the spot where an ancestor worked over a hundred years ago and to know that the landscape hasn't changed all that much - more sycamore trees, a modern tractor in the distance, but nothing very much.
We wandered up to the church where some of the children in that family had been baptised before rain stopped play and we headed East again.
A pleasant use of the bank holiday, and another little holiday from politics.