I’m sitting in the English Countryside of Kent, in the little town of Royal Tunbridge Wells. For my wife and I, this is heaven and by far our favorite little corner of the world. We’ve been coming here for the past 14+ years. We rent the same little cottage and while we stay busy seeing some of the nearby sights, we also use this time to reflect and recharge our batteries. While we normally only travel to England every other year, we had made the journey last summer and decided to return again this year. I’m sure glad we did….
The weather has been absolutely miserable during our stay, but we’ve made the best of it. We’ve enjoyed our day trips to new places and have revisited some of our favorites. Each day we return to our cottage, take a minute to freshen up and then walk a short distance to an old 16th century pub and relax with a few glasses of wine and of course my pipe.
As I sip my pipe and sip my wine, I enjoy the reflection on those who may have set here in the 1500’s. Times in England were certainly much different than now. After all, you had King Henry VIII working through his six different wives and of course the times were certainly turbulent to say the least.
Our time is drawing to a close and soon we’ll make the long trek via British Airways aboard a majestic Queen of the Skies, Boeing 747-400 back to Colorado. But I believe as I sit in my own courtyard sipping a glass of wine and sipping my pipe, I’ll easily be able to cast my thoughts back to this moment.
Thank you for reading and sharing in my own time of reflection. After all, I believe this is what pipe smoking is all about.
Until next time…
Happy Piping!
Jerry