We are staying in the English countryside in a two story stone cottage with three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and two more bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs. We also have a kitchen, dining room and living room with fireplace. The cottage is quite spacious; it was originally built (hundreds of years ago) for two families. It has a beautiful yard off to one side inhabited by a shy wood pigeon and, in the back, a sunny stone patio next to fields, where sheep and cows graze in the distance. Above the patio, the upstairs windows (particularly when one is sitting on the toilet) have beautiful views of the Cotswold countryside.
Even the tourist book we bought admits to not being quite able to describe the Cotswolds, other than by its rolling landscapes and stone work: stone walls, stone buildings, stone roofs. Sheep are a common sight as well, grazing on the rolling hills. It is all quite beautiful. How nice to be in the country at last, after all that walking in New York London Thomas around town on my shoulders.)
There are two drawbacks to our cottage. The first is that the building is at most six feet off of the two lane road into town, just past the point where the cars coming into town must reduce their speed. The cars rarely slow down. I get used to the noise, though the thought of Thomas or Jeffrey walking out onto the road is frightening. My only other complaint is the low overhead between the kitchen and the dining room. "Duck or Grouse" is the local expression and it's 50-50 for me. When I leave after two weeks, it is with a knot on my head.
Across the road is the Folly Farm itself, a working dairy and PYO (Pick Your Own) farm with raspberries, strawberries and black and red currants. We enjoy the raspberries and strawberries but pass on the tart currants. In our own yard, the children and I discover stinging nettle plants. Even the slightest brush burns and stings the skin. We discover, however, that Fairy washing up liquid (dishwashing soap) provides some relief; it must counteract the chemical in the plant.
During our first week, we meet Vaughan and Brenda and their children, Esther and Annharagd, who are also visiting Folly Farm for the week. They are Australian, but are headed to Denmark Vaughan , a research physician, has a job. Vaughan and Brenda recommend the good sights about Tetbury. We pick berries together at the Folly Farm PYO garden. The night before they leave, we have farewell dessert at our cottage, and resolve to keep in touch. Most importantly, Vaughan
I spend our first day (Sunday) reading about the Vanagon and am impressed at all the nifty little places VW has hidden things: batteries under the seat, washer fluid under the carpet, spare tire under the front of the car. Robert admires our new car as well, remarking, with a wisdom beyond his years, "Too bad we have to trash it." We are, however, good to our new car, and happy with its ability to transport us around the countryside in relative comfort, while we listen to "Cats" and BBC 1, the rock station. There happens to be a VW dealer in town and, a day or two after our arrival, I order floor mats, which are supposed to arrive in a couple of days. On more than one occasion we visit the car wash. I have never seen so many bugs on a windscreen (windshield) before! The mats come in, they are the wrong ones and are reordered. I can't keep up with the bugs, there are too many. The mats finally come in the day we are leaving. It is only then I realize that our driver's side is on the left not the right as an English VW van would be – the mats aren't even close. I decide to pick some up when we go to France Germany
We are good tourists. I begin to stop keeping track of things in my diary, for we are nearing the end of our travels. Before the diary runs out I record visits to: Bath, a beautiful and ancient city, for shopping and sightseeing; the nearby towns of Cirencester, Malmesbury, Stroud and Minchinhampton; the farther villages of Sapperton and Duniston Abbot and towns of Stow (we have tea) and Bourton on Water (we window shop); Cheltenham for the shopping mall and, on another occasion, a cricket match; Stonehenge; a famous pottery factory run by monks called "Prinknash" (Prinach); Bibury for the trout farm and adjacent museum; another "Folly Farm" for a bird and duck farm; ancient Berekely (Barkley) Castle and its adjoining butterfly museum; Westonbirt Arboretum, close to Charles and Diana's home; Wales, across the River Severn, to Tintern Abbey, the Wye Valley and the Jubilee Maze. We drive upon four lane Motorways and highways, two lane A and B roads and one lane farming roads. We do have one near catastrophe: as we are driving through a tiny village Thomas opens the sliding door; fortunately we are crawling down the one lane road and Thomas is wearing his seat belt. We resolve never to let Thomas sit in that seat again.
In our drives we greatly admire the crops of faint blue – linseed flowers, someone says, and the bright, red-orange poppies that dot the fields. There are rivers, from the mighty Severn , more than a mile across, to smaller streams: Bibury's stream is so clear we can see the trout from the top of the bridge; Bourton has a river right through the middle of town, bordered with a grass park and shops. Even the road signs are entertaining, especially the triangular white sign picturing two stooped over pedestrians with canes: look out for elderly people! Everything is green and beautiful. My main complaint about driving is being unable to travel the beautiful country roads at a leisurely pace of 30 or 40 miles per hour. Sixty miles per hour is the norm; if I drive any slower, traffic backs up far behind me.
In between our car trips and a day off now and then, we walk around Tetbury and visit the antique stores and book shops. We grocery shop at the small Gateway and Spar markets in Tetbury and the huge Tesco in Cirencester. On Sundays we attend mass at nearby St. Michael Jeffrey who wait on the steps of the stairs, out of view, but within hearing range.
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