A cemetery walk

 Husband's siblings had been very complimentary towards me - his sister said I'd lost quite a bit of weight (mind you, I haven't seen her for years and I know I have indeed lost weight since then).  His brother said I looked really well....and asked "Can I say slimmer?" - he is very diplomatic, unusually for husband's family! 😂 I haven't weighed myself for months, probably not since we've moved here, so I stood on the scales yesterday, out of curiosity.  And lo and behold, I have lost weight, I'm the lowest I've been in a couple of years I think.  All without actively trying to lose weight.  I put it down to being so much happier here (so no comfort eating), and eating a much healthier diet nowadays - all those veggies and fish, although I do still eat plenty of cheese.  Whatever, it's good and I feel well, relatively speaking!

We wanted to go out for a walk with Betty yesterday, not on a beach or the popular tourist areas though, they'd be heaving as it's a half term holiday week and good weather again.  So we wanted somewhere quiet, and also fairly level, in view of my aches and pains.  We decided on Minehead cemetery in the end - it looked fairly big on Google Earth, with lots of trees and shrubs and paths, I checked that dogs were allowed (they were, on leads).  Well, it was lovely there, and completely deserted so very peaceful, apart from some distant traffic and someone mowing their lawn (houses adjacent to the cemetery).  It was interesting looking at some of the graves and headstones - one lady died at the age of 104 in 2009, what an incredibly long life, she must have seen no end of changes and survived two world wars.  There were no flowers on the grave, but it looked clean and well tended, so I assume she must have some surviving relatives.

Quite near the entrance was this memorial stone:-

The inscription at the top reads 'Sisters of Charity of St. Louis', then 'Sisters' and a list of names....meant nothing to me so I looked it up when we got home.  Apparently it was a convent founded in Minehead in 1898, it closed in 1994.  There was also this huge plot:-

It was twice as long as my photo shows.  The middle stone reads 'Westerley Eventide Homes' - again I knew nothing about them so also googled that.  It's a Christian residential care home providing mostly dementia care.  I'm assuming that some elderly residents die with no family and are buried in this large communal space.

This struck me, one of the older parts of the cemetery:-

Most of the memorials from years ago were crosses - now hardly any are crosses or have crosses on them.  Times change, I guess.  There are also many more very small memorials marking cremations rather than burials.  I liked the way the grounds around the older graves are left to grow as wildflower meadows.

Finally, an old tree cut down and carved into a couple of seats:-

Good idea, but not terribly comfortable by the look of them!

It was really interesting - well I found it so, husband not so much, Betty was happy sniffing around everywhere.  We'll go back again, possibly even when sister is here, she likes looking around cemeteries.

Off out for our anniversary carvery lunch today, although our anniversary is tomorrow.