![My bodacious traveling companions](https://deboracoty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_0088-300x200.jpg)
As innocent and historically ignorant as spring lambs, we arrived at Glastonbury Abbey, a 7th century monastery in Somerset, England. The Abbey once boasted the richest and most powerful monastery in England, and was the hub of activity in a large swath of surrounding countryside.
Until crotchety ole Henry VIII, probably in a vile snit between marriages, decided the monastery somehow threatened his manhood (didn’t everything?) and had the abbot hanged, drawn and quartered as a traitor. Things went decidedly downhill after that.
All that remains today are ancient ruins, delightful period-true guides, and the magical possibility that the legendary King Arthur and Queen Guinevere were buried there. Two skeletons were actually discovered inside a gigantic hollowed oak trunk on the grounds, one wearing a leaden cross bearing the inscription “Here lies interred the famous King Arthur …”
![Spouse before he became a star](https://deboracoty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_0150-e1473343101105-225x300.jpg)
But that’s a story for another time.
Our beguiling Abbey guide was a buxom middle-aged “peasant” woman with an Edith Bunker voice and razor sharp wit. She astutely zeroed in on the one person in our 34-person tour group who’d rather eat poisoned cockroaches than be the center of attention.
Him she mercilessly dragged forward, front and center, to unwillingly bedeck the garb and mannerisms of a 12th century Robin Hood-era friar.
Only instead of Friar Tuck, he was Friar Chuck.
Yep, you guessed it – it was my own dearly beloved Chuck.
![Our fetching guide](https://deboracoty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_0154-e1473343085248-225x300.jpg)
He was not amused. But I surely was. To my utmost delight, our lady of the hour began dressing my highly reluctant fella piece by piece in the attire of a man of the cloth, describing his daily duties and abbey lifestyle in the process.
Friar Chuck was required to mime routine daily activities – hauling water, digging graves, hoisting stones (during which I’m pretty sure I heard him mutter, “Just shoot me now”), but was not allowed to smile – certainly not! Unforgivable for a holy man of that time period; after all, life was one long drudge and a grim and vengeful God was hovering about, ready to smite the frivolous to smithereens.
Fortuitously, for this particular friar, smiling was not a major temptation.
Poor Chuck was forced to play the part and skulk around the grounds in his hooded robe
![Spouse becomes the reluctant Chosen One](https://deboracoty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_0159-300x225.jpg)
for the lion’s share of our tour, enduring the stares and smirks of tourists far and wide.
Totally cracked me up. A memory I’ll chuckle over always.
I must say, my little mister handled his unwelcome notoriety very well, for a guy whose unsuccessful portrayal of a tree in a kindergarten play ruined all future stage aspirations.
(I know, I know – how can you botch a tree?)
![Friar Chuck and his band of merry peeps](https://deboracoty.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/IMG_0156-e1473343065486-225x300.jpg)
So stay tuned for further adventures of Friar Chuck and Maid Deberan (close as I can get to Marian) as they cavort around jolly old England. Minus an abbey robe.
Friendly reminder: Please be sure to subscribe to my blog if you haven’t already (box at top right of your screen).
My blog has recently moved; BBFFs who subscribed at my previous blog site will not receive posts directly unless they subscribe again.
Many thanks!