Knights of Camelot:
[singing] We're knights of the Round Table,
We dance whene'er we're able .
We do routines and chorus scenes with footwork impec-cable,
We dine well here in Camelot, we eat ham and jam and Spam a lot.
We're knights of the Round Table,
Our shows are for-mi-dable.
But many times we're given rhymes that are quite un-sing-able,
We're opera mad in Camelot, we sing from the diaphragm a lot.
In war we're tough and able,
Quite in-de-fa-ti-gable.
Between our quests we sequin vests and impersonate Clark Gable
It's a busy life in Camelot

[solo]
Knight of Camelot:
I have to push the pram a lot.
                                               --Monty Python and the Holy Grail

We found the holy grail! All you mystics and religious historians can quit looking. When the living history interpreters told Andy and Liam that it was rumored to be somewhere around Glastonbury, they got really busy excavating and found it right off. Whew! Centuries of work completed.

We went south and west for this weekend--first to Chesil Beach, then to Lyme Regis, then to Tintagel, and finally to Glastonbury--it was a whirlwind around Devon, Dorset, Cornwall, and Somerset .
Chesil Beach is a very loud, very scary surf--there is no real beach, and definitely no swimming. It's a pebble strand 18 meters high--and the surf blasts against it, rolling the rocks so that it is very loud. We spent just long enough to walk a bit, then we went on to Lyme Regis--to hunt for dinosaur and ammonite fossils. And we found some! Now we've got to figure out how to get 50 pounds of fossilized material home to Colorado--Liam said we could just take it all in our suitcases!
There is a small sandy beach at Lyme Regis, the famous Cobb seawall (and the surf batters it--I walked out to the end and the waves splashed up over the top--and it was calm day. I couldn't imagine being out there during bad weather). We walked west of the town along the shore at low tide the next morning--the famous eroding cliff made famous in the French Lieutenant's Woman. The kids were so excited to find fossilized bones, teeth, and ammonites! We loaded them in the back of the car and then took off for an afternoon at Tintagel--said to be the birthplace of King Arthur . We've been talking about him and the knights all summer long. Liam fancies himself Sir Lancelot, but Andy is more modestly Sir Lucan.
Another seaside cliff area, another hundred or two steps up! The difference is that the English have made it completely safe--broad, stable steps, wooden railings--if you wanted to fall into the sea, you'd have to work at it.
We had a late evening drive through Exmoor to Minehead, on the north Somerset coast. No particular reason, just that it was a reasonable-sized town to have an available hotel room. The next day, on to Dunster village--not much changed from the middle ages, and then to Glastonbury, where King Arthur is said to have been buried--twice!
I imagined that we would spend an hour or so at Glastonbury Abbey, but the living history interpreters made the afternoon so wonderful that we stayed much longer than we should have. Liam doesn't really understand or care, but the main reason we're here is for my studies--which means that the 12-page paper due Monday (tomorrow), needs some attention tonight!
The monks at Glastonbury had a fabulous abbey which drew pilgrims for centuries . Then a horrible fire burnt all the relics and buildings. Funds were low when, behold, in a vision the monks were told that King Arthur was buried in the cemetery grounds. They dug 18 meters deep and found a man and a woman buried together--King Arthur and Queen Guinevere! They reburied them inside the alter area of the abbey, and then the visitors began coming again! Things went well until rotten old King Henry VIII burned the abbey and somehow the tomb of King Arthur went missing--along with the holy grail. The interpreters believe the grail is still somewhere around--just either misplaced or hidden and forgotten.