#68 Gloucester

The road of trying to be a capable single father didn’t start now. It started in 2015.

At the time, Janne and I were very much into making cider. She had a sensitive taste and understood the process of making it happen. She found herself a professional cider-making course near Gloucester. She was eager to take it, but with a two- and a four-year old it would be complicated.

I proposed Janne to travel together so she could be on her own while I would watch over the kids. This would be my first time fully alone with both of them, but evenings together would make it easier.

I found us a very special AirBnB which was a manor built a few hundred years before. The place had a palatial feeling, but it was so ancient that we could almost see the ghosts going by. We took the boys to sleep in our own room. We asked Trevor if he wanted to sleep in another room, but he said no, “because that’s where the grandmother is”. Another time he said, “that’s where the children are playing”. Make what you will of this.

Our routine was to drop Janne off at her training and disappear to explore around. It went mostly good. Let’s just conveniently ignore the peeing-incident-we-shall-not-talk-about at the McDonald’s at Cheltenham (sorry!).

We discovered the Cotswolds Farm Park, a place restoring old breeds of farm animals. The boys and I had a blast. It was around Halloween so they got to hold a Python, a tarantula and some other critter in their hands. We got to feed sheep and goats and jump around.

At the end of the day, we would come collect Janne wherever she was. One of those days, I stepped outside the place where she was and made a photo that I entitled, “Fire, Of The Everlasting Type”. I’m sure it still keeps burning strong.

This is one trip where I barely have photos of Janne. Not seeing her while at the same time taking care of the boys as my full-time job feels like a premonition. It was not sad though.

At the end, we explored together a bit. We saw the “real” Thomas, visited The Forest of Dean and walked through Gloucester. Janne was happy.

One day we might go back to this place. I will just make sure to skip the Macdonald’s at Cheltenham.