Cotswolds

The weeks keep flying past and it is hard to believe that we have been here nearly 2 and a half years.  So after that time, we did think that we might run out of things to see around Bristol and would need to cast our net quite wide to find new things to see and do each weekend.  However, we haven't quite run out of things yet.  Only an hour away on the motorway was another day of interesting sites to look at, climb to and walk around.  This weekend after Jane and David came around on Friday night and we decided to go to our first pub quiz on Sunday night (it was just around the corner so handy for us to walk to - in a revamped pub).  Quite a nice place but the quiz left a bit to be desired - not hard but virtually impossible - the highest score being 31/60 and we got 24 - so not bad for a first go. With Harry's knowledge of planes and cars and David's knowledge of the royal family and Jane and me having a splattering of some things we didn't make a bad team - we could become full time quizzers with so much potential!!).  Anyway, I'm rambling which is what we sort of did in the weekend during our day trip in the Cotswolds.  I'd seen an advert for a fireworks evening at Bretforton at the Fleece Inn which prompted our destination - but more about that later.  On driving towards Broadway (the only one we know was the famous American one but this little town is nothing like that) we saw a sign to the Gloucestershire-Warwickshire Railway. Well, we couldn't resist the thought of a little steam train ride through the countryside on a cold Saturday morning. There was a leaflet to read about the places we would pass through and so we spent a good 30 minutes looking around, having yet another cup of tea in the car while reading the leaflet, before finding ourselves sitting comfortably in those cosy seats that only 'old' trains do. Talking about old - one of the first things we saw on our walk around was a number of beautifully covered ledger books - sitting in a ramshackled signal station with broken windows.  I've begun to realise that there is so much 'old' here that some of it is not cared for as it probably should be. Our trip left Toddington Station with a toot and puff of stream as it did back in the very early 1900's with passengers waving to those on the station and the ticket collector blowing his whistle to make sure all were on board. We steamed and chuffed our way past:

• Didbrook and Hailes - where there are some rather ancient buildings mainly in ruin, and some buzzards flying or sitting in trees - might go back there cos I didn't see the buzzard and not entirely sure if I have actually ever seen one before.
• The great tunnel that has a ghost of a rail worker, who tried to warn his friends of an oncoming train - not sure if his friends got out of the way in time but he didn't.  The tunnel is quite long and curved and as we entered and left the steam wound its way around the carriage like a ghost - or perhaps it was the ganger after all.
• Stanley Pontlarge where LTC Rolt - another English author lived.  He formed the Inland Waterways Association which encourages the restoration of canals - so we can thank him partly for the great holiday we had last year and the many walks and cycles we have done alongside the waterways.
• Gotherington where the station has been converted into a home and also a museum of railwaymania.
• Cleeve Hill which is apparently at 330 metres high and is the highest hill in the Cotswolds.  The leaflet says, and it sort of feels hard to believe, that if you flew at 330 metres high and due east you couldn't land until you were at the Ural Mountains in Russia.
• And stopped at Cheltenham Race Course before turning around (well I didn't move out of my seat but the engine went to the other end of the train).  The train takes race goers to the races regularly.  The first race took place in 1818 near the top of Cleeve Hill but I imagine the crowd might have grumbled about the weather and it moved down the hill a bit to its present site.  But not before the Parish Priest told his parish about the evils of horseracing and he managed to stir up such an anti-race feeling that the race meeting was disrupted in 1830 - and then a year later the grandstand was burnt down (accident or arson not sure).  For some reason the move seemed to dispel the anti horse racing feeling.  Steeple chasing is now the main racing on the course since 1898 as the course is one of the most popular in the country (if my reading of Dick Francis books is anything to go by).

Broadway village is nestled at the foot of Fish Hill (where apparently monks used to store fish and an 18th century ‘Fish Inn’ once stood) - it isn't really close to the sea, but given the little I know about monks diets they probably needed the fish to supplement a rather limited choice.  The inn used to be a staging post where coaches heading between Worcester and London would stop to refresh their horses before heading up Fish Hill - it is reasonably steep.  In its heyday Broadway used to have 33 inns - but today we could only find one (with a tv to watch the All Black/Wales game) but there were heaps of little restaurants in old buildings and cafes where so many people were enjoying a Saturday afternoon drink, late lunch, or snack with friends.  We wandered up and down the main street (admiring and entering a range of Tudor, Georgian and Stuart buildings, and a huge wisteria bush winding its way around a shop door.  We inspected each pub for a tv (usually the last thing on our mind) and after asking found one down a side street - they said they'd turn the rugby on later if we returned and we replied 'thanks very much' and drove along to Broadway Tower.  We were feeling a bit lazy and decided not to walk the track so cheated and drove around the longer way so that we could get to the tower before it closed at 4.00.  From the top we were told that you could see up to 14 counties (good to be told these things as we have no idea where one county finishes and the next one starts). Once we had paid our nominal entrance fee and commiserated with the sales assistant that was freezing in woollen gloves and coat we climbed the steps to some interesting exhibits.  One was the shopping list of the residents that included a tin of zebra, a packet of quaker oats, a bag of red ring, some 2 dem, a packet of lifebuoy and some bott, - all for £3 8s 8p.  There was a story about how the tower was designed with 3 distinctive towers around a central pole.  It was originally a folly built for the Earl of Coventry and the villagers who didn't like the tower blamed his wife.  How come it managed to get the name "Lady Coventry's whim"?  The story was that she liked astronomy and starring at the stars through a telescope high up on a hill was what astronomers do.  She apparently used to spend many a night staring at stars in the tower in the company of her  astronomer - think she liked the astronomer as well. We decided the tower was designed so as the Earl came up one side the astronomer could run down the other.  At the top of the tower we looked back over Broadway, which is a bit bigger than we originally thought.  It has been home to a number of artists, authors and poets (Americans seem to congregate here) and one of them was Francis Davis Millet who stated that Broadway was "quaint reflection of a long ago country village".  Francis died on the Titanic and as a tribute there is a inscription in the local graveyard - its in Latin so it would have be quite meaningless to us if we had seen it but when translated it reads
"In tribute to Francis Davis Millet a man of excellence in the arts and literature. He met his death with fortitude as the ship Titanic sank whilst still giving hope to those who feared for their lives. His dear friends sought the dedication of this memorial in fond memory of his treasured fellowship".

We decided not to go back to Broadway to watch the rugby but headed further into the Cotswolds to Chipping Campden. It was another nice town like Broadway, with lots of thatched cottages, and since we were there we found a pub to have a meal and also to watch this most important game. We sat in front of the television in the pub, surrounded by Welsh (what were they doing in England?) and felt quite outnumbered while supporting the All Blacks. All in good fun as we dissected the game at half time and analysed what would have happened if the Welsh had scored that runaway try.  The meal was nice too (decided that pub meals are nice if they don't offer hamburgers and chips) and we enjoyed a cottage pie and steak pie with Rambles the welsh cocker spaniel more interested in our food than the All Blacks triumph. (Don't wish to rub it in but couldn't resist texting my Welsh work colleague at the end of the game - he didn't wear his All Black socks to the game I had given him!!). Some of the quotes from the local papers and net were 

• "New Zealand withstood another brave performance by Wales to continue their mastery of this fixture". 
• "Victory at Cardiff gave the All Blacks their 22nd win in 25 games between these nations".
• "This time, said the optimists, hoping for a first Welsh win in the series in 56 years."
• "The New Zealanders benefitted hugely from a clear policy of exploiting South African referee Craig Joubert's naivety and generosity".

And then it was on to the Fleece Inn in Bretforton for an evening of stationery engines, lanterns and fireworks.  Not sure where I read about the fireworks but an array of stationery engines and lanterns were on display outside the Inn but there were no fireworks.  Instead we had a musical display from a group of bell players playing lots of different tunes - obviously not overly experienced because as they rang their bells and read the music all bar one was saying 1,2,3,4 and after the first few bars Harry and I were saying 1,2,3,4 as well. We had  look around the pub - which was so old (500 years) you nearly bumped your head going from one snug to another and up to the loo. It was owned by the Byrd family for a long time but given to the National Trust in 1977 by Lola who had lived in the pub for 80 years (who has been reincarnated as an owl and lives in the roof of the barn where we watched the bell ringers). It is described as a "handsome, half-timbered house with traditional low, beamed ceilings inside, there's also a frothy cottage garden and ancient apple orchard outside". It is well known for its food, though known to take a while to deliver onto the table due to the small kitchen, and if we had the patience and hadn't had our dinner at an earlier pub in front of the rugby we could have partaken of faggots and garden peas, hand-carved local ham sarnies, scampi or lasagne together with some nice beers or ciders "The unspoken motto here is for all to leave happier than when they arrived."
Sunday was a quietish day.  We decided to go to Glastonbury - Harry hadn't been and I had such a good time there many moons ago.  But on the way we went to Clarks Village which was a shopping village where Harry bought shoes and I some bought some clothes and while waiting for Harry I made our picnic lunch in the car park.  We drove back through Glastonbury in the dark with Harry none the wiser about the place.  We then went off to the pub to try out our skills on the quiz.