But, before we began, we paid a visit not to the ruins of an old religious house, but to the beautiful church and grounds of a living and thriving Benedictine community at Douai Abbey, in Upper Woolhampton, with its monastery of St Edward, King and Martyr, where we were warmly welcomed by one of the Brothers, who also took us into the chapel and prayed for us and with us, before sending us on our way with his blessings. Thus we began with the living, even though our destination was a shrine to the dead; but two of the three of us, at least, shared the conviction that St Aldhelm and King Athelstan, both commemorated at Malmesbury, are with the God of the living and, in his glory, more alive than we are.