The Cotswolds

Saturday dawned sunny and warm and with the bikes on the back of the car we took off for Bourton on the Water for a ride along country lanes to Stow on the Wold - beautiful English Cotswold scenery, the promise of the lots of thatched cottages and cobbled streets, places to have a coffee and ride through treelined countryside. Harry didn't listen to my pleas for 'slower round the corners please' well I thought he had, until almost at our destination he hung a sharp left to the music of screeching tyres. The conversation went like this (after recovering from the racing car cornering):
'I saw a sign' (there's a song with that chorus but I won't go there as we'll miss the point),
'I really didn't know it was on' said Harry 'Totally unplanned - if I had known I would have bought my camera, anyway you like spontaneity',
'Only when its mine', I retorted
'You owe me big time' I say as we pull up at the carpark at Kemble airport for the Battle of Britain air show.
Well, it was pay back time. Some girls might have chosen unlimited retail therapy, a meal out at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant, Logan Browns or the White House, a large diamond, new car, cruise, but I settled on a microlight flight. Somehow, he who can't drive in a straight line, also chose to fly in a microlight - rewarding bad behaviour? Anyway, we both enjoyed 30 minutes cruising between 1000 & 2000 feet in the open air, flying over Highgrove (we couldn't see it from the ground, so the alternative was by air), trees, harvested fields, canals etc. On our arrival home I was just waiting for our neighbour to open the door and say 'Nice bike ride was it?' - I had my statement already 'it was great we flew across the countryside'.
Anyway back to the airshow...
It actually was quite fun, a lovely warm day and as it was quite a small airshow we had a seat on the flight path, with a commentator who knew how to entertain and some planes we hadn't seen before. I had two favourites (usually I don't have any), the acrobatic glider and an Antonov - like a big slug flying in the sky (if it is windy it can actually look as though it isn't moving). Besides that there was a model aircraft display, and a real display of a Vulcan, Spitfire, Hurricane & Lancaster...
On the Sunday - there was no sleep in - but a second attempt to go biking in the Cotswolds. I was debating about whether to navigate along the same route (risk was that the airshow was on for a second day), but the alternative was there might be something else on 'he didn't know about' so I settled for going past the airshow and only noted a small quivering hesitation on the steering wheel as we passed the big yellow and black sign (no it wasn't advertising a Hurricanes game). We spent 3.5 hours riding through the English countryside, little villages made of cotswold stone (though no thatched cottages), up hill and down dale. By the end of this "interesting and fairly varied route ... that was not particularly onerous" we hated the thought of a down hill, because just round the corner there was an even steeper uphill. My gears weren't working too well, but besides that we had a great time stopping for drinks, food and a few photo opportunities along the way. Some of the little villages we rode through were:

• Lower Slaughter - awful name I thought for a cute little village lying peacefully on the side of a little brook - but apparently it was named after a Norman Knight, Philip de Sloitre, who was granted land in the area by William the Conqueror. The locals found his name a bit difficult and so anglicised it to ‘slaughter’, others say it comes from a word meaning ‘muddy or watery place’ - but the brook wasn't muddy so we'll go with the first version.
• Lower Swell - another cute little village with a down hill on one side and an uphill on the other - they say it is the highest point around the area.
  
• Guiting Power - it is quite well endowed with shops having a Post Office (which also sells plastic buckets, mops and laundry baskets if the window display is anything to go by), a village hall, a bakery (which we sat outside to have lunch - it was closed - but we didn't mind as we had muesli bars sent by Jill and Graham from NZ and sandwiches in our back pack), village shop and two pubs that advertised Sunday roasts.
  
• Notgrove - which had the cutest little wooden (and therefore rare) village hall - and the added attraction of being close to the car (only a few more hills to go).

That Sunday night, we went to Chris's for tea and celebrated our return from another eventful weekend with a Thai curry - yum. We are pleased to say that our legs were no worse for wear but Harry's arms were a bit sore from holding the steering mechanisms of the microlight (perhaps there is some justice after all!!)

Week in the life of us

• Grease - we watched the movie again on tv and were reminded of the fun times we had at the Red Bull trolley derby.

• I took my postcards to the agency post office to get stamps. The man behind the counter always gives me big and decorative stamps when he has them. I said 'Could I have 3 little ones as I have already written on the cards', 'Its o.k' he said 'I'll put them on' and he took them off me placed one stamp saying 'Rebecca won't mind if she is covered up', pasted the other one over the edge and on to the picture, and hid the airmail stamp on the other.
• Supermarket shopping on Friday - Harry wandered over to get a trolley - I waited and heard a female voice say 'Did you mean to put your bags in my trolley?' - Harry was not even right behind her.