6. Touring the Cotswolds

18 July, Thursday, 4:30 pm, Folly Cottage.  The boys are playing Scrabble, Thomas watching Popeye.  It rained last night, I thought the window creaking was a burglar, a child, then a ghost -- what else?  The breeze has been strong everyday, almost windy.  It seems most places here get a good breeze.

Thinking about the importance of direction.  We drove east across the U.S. and north from Florida to New York.  Then an airline pilot took us over the ocean.  Finally, we found ourselves a new car and have been navigating our way around southwestern England.  Throughout all of this, direction and location is key to our mental health: to know that we are somewhere in relation to somewhere else, the latter being our base, the important somewhere.

I  felt an enormous depression after I finished The Killer Angels about the battle of Gettysburg.  Our trip was fine and on target, according to plans, etc, but the last part of the book reminded me that we are never really that far from death and stupidity of war, human folly, etc.

21 July, Sunday, 8:15 am, Folly Cottage.  It is a beautiful morning at Folly Farm!  Lovely blue sky with a bunch of clouds off to the south, past our back yard.  The air is warm, like yesterday, and, since about 8:30 or so last night, the wind has gone.  There is barely the slightest hint of breeze.

To our statement that we were going to the Cotswolds, the usual English response was, "Oh, how lovely. I hope you have good weather!"  Everyone seemed to recognize the beauty of the area, but it was hard to figure out what all the fuss was about.

 Now that we are here, we know.  Such lovely stone work, so many hills.  The land will surprise you at times, as you come through a dark, tree lined portion of the road to a flat land with farms or sheep, or perhaps the top of a hill with marvelous views.  The towns are often built on the slopes of a hillside, so that the streets are steep.  Sometimes towns are on top of the hills.  Tetbury, for example, has a steep hill up to the town, which suddenly becomes a flat marketplace.  Bibury is reached from a downward sloping road and seems to be built up against the hill.  Minchinhampton seems to be in the middle of the hill, with the side streets all angling up the hill from the through road.

Folly Farm Cottage

Evening Entertainment

We saw a marvelous field of blue flowers yesterday on the way to Berekely Castle.  In the midst of the small blue flowers were scattered three red poppies.

Butterfly Garden

Stonehenge

Nothing is static here, everything seems to change from different angles, and there is green, green, green, right down to ferns and other small plants growing out of the walls and roofs.  There are plenty of flowers and, in the towns especially, one notices the cultivated gardens with their roses and other garden plants.

Stonehenge Lunch

11:30 pm.  First sense tonight of what Jeffrey explains as: "Hold it! I'm in England."

The Cotswolds

The van

Bibury

23 July, Tuesday, 8:30 am, Folly Cottage.  One thing we mustn't forget is our close connection with my mother and father, because of what we are doing.  I'm not sure Cathy realizes this, but it's true and Bob positively has tears in his eyes when he thinks of our trip. 

Bath

I honestly do not know what I will write, other than my commitment to write.  I do not know, however, where I fit in.

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27 July, Saturday.  Tetbury, Gloucs., to Saffron Walden, Essex. 

Calcot Manor

We have two lovely meals in Tetbury.  The first is at The Close Hotel, just Cathy and me.  The Close, in the middle of town in Tetbury, is a deluxe inn, the kind you think of running away to for long weekends in the country.  Cathy is shown a room.  The hotel oozes country elegance.  The gardens are beautiful.  We experience for the first time the custom of sitting in the lounge with our cocktails, reviewing the menu and ordering before we sit down at the table.  The wine list is an incomprehensible selection of French wines.  Somehow (without much difficulty) we manage to do quite well.

Our second evening out is the night before we leave, Friday, 26 July, when the six of us go to the Calcot Manor.  Dinner reservations are for 8:30.  Unlike The Close, Calcot is all by itself, across the road from the beautiful blue linseed fields.  We have again chosen well.  This time we sit outside before dinner, conscious of the unlikely ability of our group to sit still in the charming lounge.  At our table, in the middle of the restaurant, the long wait for a wonderful meal passes with much less trouble than expected when the owner provides books for each of the children to read, and engages the children in conversation.  It is a memorable evening.  Cathy and I vow to return sometime to the Close or Calcot for a long weekend by ourselves.

Calcot Manor

 On the 27th it is time to uproot ourselves once again.  We love the country, and have been very comfortable for the past two weeks.  We've had a chance to catch our breaths after all the running about we have done since leaving home five weeks before.

Prior to departure I spend hours trying to plot the route to Saffron Walden, but it is a difficult task.  All direct routes lead to and from London, like spokes from the hub of a wheel.  There is no easy way across the country in the direction we want to go, from Tetbury, 100 miles west of London at the nine o'clock position, to Cambridge, 60 miles north of London, at the one o'clock position.  The easiest route is to go back on the M4, circle the M25 ring road to the M11, then head north on that Motorway.  It would be very simple.  Too simple!  I refuse to believe it is better to go all the way back toward London; it must be more economical to cut across the country toward Saffron Walden, angling in a northeasterly direction on country roads.  Later I will learn better.

We are finally on the road at noon.  It is one of the hottest days of the year.  The BBC 1 disc jockey can't stop talking about the heat: it is in the mid 80's and lovely!  We eat peanut butter and jam sandwiches en route ("jelly" means Jello), and I am secretly ecstatic at our plight on such a terrible day. 

Our drive is complicated and more than once I go the wrong way.  The mistake I usually make is taking the turn ahead of the time I should, not yet having learned that it is both the road number and the next big city I must look for.  Perhaps the most frustrating thing is that I am never really lost (there are direction signs everywhere): I'm just going the wrong (long) way.  Our 160 mile trip takes over four hours.  We arrive at Westfields House at 4:15.  We even have mail.

It is late Saturday, however, and, in a near panic at our lack of groceries, I quickly unload the car and look for a grocery store, realizing that nothing will be open on Sunday.  There is a co-op in town, but I can't figure out where to park.  (There appears to be something down a narrow alley, but I am afraid the van is too large for comfort).  In my panic and because of the one way street system, I do not discover the Waitrose grocery store (open till eight on Saturdays!), three blocks from our house.  (Waitrose will become our regular market.)  Instead I drive ten miles to Bishops Stortford, a bigger town than Saffron Walden.  I find a Sainsbury's.  The store is deserted and the shelves are deserted: little milk, no fresh meat or vegetables, no bread, no orange juice.  It looks like they've just had a run on food.  I learn the stores do not restock on Saturdays.  I am the last customer to leave at 5:30, and proudly bring our precious groceries back to Westfields House.