Cotswolder Travel Guide

I have a lot more time to spend at the computer now that we don’t have to spend the day getting ready for a hike, doing a hike, recovering from a hike, planning the next day’s hike. Plus we have about 1 1/2 hours more daylight now than when we arrived. In early January it was dark by 5pm, now it is light until after 6pm.

Today was beautiful and sunny, so I took photos of the plants blooming in the garden. Have a look - Eastview Cottage Garden. I included a couple of photos of Whiz, the cat next door, who has finally got used to us and comes for regular visits.

We did our last visit (for this trip) to Cirencester and saw something we had never noticed before. Some of the older houses, at the end of Black Jack Street on the way to Cecily Hill and Cirencester Park, have built-in boot scrapers by the front door.

House in Cirencester. Notice the built-in boot scrapers.

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I can’t remember when they brought in the One Bag Rule in UK airports, but it was in response to some terrorist incident. It is always difficult to work out the rational that airport security uses these days, but I think this is to make the security lines move faster.

The first time we had to deal with this was last summer, flying through Gatwick to Geneva. At that time, if you were connecting in any UK airport, you were allowed only one carryon bag. If you flew to the UK and did not connect to another flight, you could have the normal two bags, but could only have one bag when returning via the UK airport.

I am a disorganized mess when I fly. Anyone looking at me would assume it was my first international flight because I obviously don’t know what I am doing. I get on the plane with computer equipment, piles of books and magazine, iPods, DVDs, a knitting project (heaven forbid that I be bored for one minute!), extra sweaters (what if I get cold?), a change of clothes (our luggage gets delayed one time in three when flying to Europe), a packed lunch in case they forget our vegetarian meals, and usually a work project that I am convinced I will do on the flight (I never do). Since December 2006, when those planes were kept on the runways for 8 - 10 hours and passangers had no food or water, I also carry a big bottle of water (purchased in the airport) and enough Granola bars to feed a large family.

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The last week of a long trip is always a strange time for me. When we first started taking yearly trips to Europe in 1996, they were eight to ten weeks long. A few years later, when we were both busy with work, we shortened our travel time and took four to five week trips. This year I wanted a long trip, a mini “moving there” experience, so we did a nine week trip. Instead of moving around in one or two week increments like we used to do, we spent eight weeks in one cottage.

Nine weeks is a long time. I miss my cat. We had thought of bringing Buddy with us, but only if we were going to stay here for the year. I miss my house. And my friends in Santa Fe. And being able to pick up the phone and call friends in the same (or close to) time zone. I didn’t vote in the New Mexico primary. I didn’t watch the Academy Awards.

Then there is the other component. “I can’t have been here for 8 weeks already! I still have not done x, y and z.” I wanted to meet Felicity for tea in Chipping Campden, drive to north London for Sunday lunch with Beebee. At least we went to a GTG lunch in London our first week, met up with Amy and Larry in London another time, spent the weekend with Valerie and Bryan who flew up from Italy, spent a day with Wendy and Richard, and have had several visits with Jonathan and Philippa (all friends from the Slow Travel community).

It has been a wonderful trip and we have had a great time. This photo is from our one trip to the Northern Cotswolds, when Valerie and Byran came for the weekend.

Snowdrops in Adelstrop, near Stow-on-the-Wold. February 2008.

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I travel with my iPod loaded up with TV shows and movies that I watch on the iPod or with the iPod hooked up to aTV set using a Monster cable (takes output from the iPod and displays it on a TV set). * Blog entry updated Feb 24 with new info on this cable. The image quality of the TV shows is very good and it is convenient watching them this way. If you travel with DVDs, you have to watch them on your computer because they will not play on European DVD players. North America is a different “region” from Europe and most DVD players play one region only. You can find software for your computer that lets it play both regions.

In Europe, the connectors on the back of a TV set are different than in the US. They use SCART connectors to attach DVD players, Video, Satellite boxes, etc. to the TV. My Monster Cable came with a SCART adapter, but if yours doesn’t, these adapters are easy to find.

We just finished the first season of “Mad Men” from AMC. I bought it at home on iTunes and put it on my iPod, then connected it to the TV set in the vacation rental to watch the episodes. (Great show!)

BBC has announced that it is going to sell its TV shows on iTunes, but only in the UK. The iTunes software is the same in North America and the UK, but your account determines what you can purchase. If you have a US address and credit card, you only see the things sold in the US. Recently iTunes brought US TV shows to the UK, but they more expensive in the UK. We pay $1.99 per episode, but in the UK it is £1.89 - almost double the price.

Read more on the BBC website: BBC TV programmes put on iTunes. BBC shows including Life on Mars and Little Britain have been made available to download from digital store iTunes.

I hope that they bring the BBC TV shows to the US iTunes, but until then I am going to see if I can do something with my current UK address and my UK credit card to get a UK iTunes account and download the last version of Spooks (which is not out on DVD until October).

One would think that I only came to England to watch TV and movies. I assure you this is not the case, but these winter evenings are long! Hiking and exploring during the day, vegging out in front of the TV or reading books at night.

* Note: The Monster Cable (Monster AI ITV IP-10 iTV Link for iPod) that I use only works with older iPods (the iPod Video and iPod Photo). Steve has the iPod Classic (the new one - confusing name) and it does not work with that. Specs from Monster.

Apple now sells a cable to connect both the new iPod (iPod Classic) and the older iPods (iPod Video) to a TV set.

A quick post to say what a great trip we are having! We had a week of sunshine and mild weather, but now it has turned colder. Today was sunny, but cold.

Our friends Valerie and Bryan, who used to live near us in Albuquerque but now live in Italy, came for the weekend during the great weather. We spent a day touring this area, a day up to Stow-on-the-Wold exploring that area, and a day in Bath. This was their first trip to England and will now think of it as muddy, but sunny and mild!

Steve pranged the car!! In 12 years of trips to Europe, this is the first time we hit something. It was only a grassy side of the road, but the car is low slung and apparently made of plastic, so we broke a fog light and the whole nose of the car. A guy from AA came out and fixed it with cable ties (really!!) and we were back on the road. I had an interesting conversation with National Car Rental at Gatwick where they told me we could bring the car in but they would not refund any money (we have two weeks left on the prepaid rental) and would not give us a new car because, since we had caused this damage, we were deemed bad drivers. We got insurance on this rental, but did not get the extra insurance they try to sell you (so we have a large deductible), and they treat you like you did not insure anything. Interesting!

I know I said this would be a short post, but now that I am typing …. I have been driving! I can drive in England!! We found some quiet country roads and I drove. The next time I was over confident and in busier traffic. I bounced off a curb (these roads are narrow!) and did a left turn into the wrong lane (but there was no traffic). I was shaking when I finished the drive. Since then I have driven several times.

My mission was to drive from the cottage to the Waitrose in Stroud and back. I figured if I can drive out to do the grocery shopping, then I am set. It went well. I don’t feel relaxed when driving, because of the whole “other side of the road” thing and the narrow lanes, but I feel like I can do the driving. After all, I love to drive in the US where we have a thing called a “shoulder” so if you drift for six inches, you don’t hit a curb or a stone wall (or on-coming traffic). Driving here has an extra dimension of intensity.

If you saw the lane our cottage is on, you would be very proud of me for driving. The lane is very steep - seems like a 45 degree angle, but I know it can’t be. It is also narrow with a nice stone wall on the edge. When you get to the top, you have about a mile on a one lane road where one car barely fits, let alone two passing each other. But, there are pullouts.

We have decided to go home as planned in just over two weeks. We had thought of staying longer, but I am missing the cat (Buddy) and other Santa Fe things. Plus we have a trip in the first week of April to Savannah for the SlowTrav GTG, then to Atlanta and after that will probably spend a few days up in North Carolina.

Today we went to the Stroud Saturday Farmers’ Market to get our vegetables for the week, then up to Miserden, a small village north of Stroud and Bisley that we had never been to. There are some good hikes from the village. It was beautiful with lovely woods and lakes and a charming village. The church is Norman and the churchyard was full of snowdrops (which are blooming everywhere this month). We did a short walk because we lost a couple of hours dealing with the car “accident”.

More later because this was just a short post to let our friends know we are still here! :)

The towns of Stroud and Nailsworth are in steep river valleys. Two hundred years ago this was an industrial area with many mills on the rivers. They made cloth, walking sticks, umbrellas. The mills used the rivers for power. Villages formed on the steep hillsides above the mills.

Part of the Cotswold Canals runs down the Stroud valley, at one time connecting the River Severn and the River Thames. The canal was a main transporation link for this industrial area. It is being restored, but British Waterways just pulled their funding, so the restoration which was planed to be completed in ten years will take longer. There is a canal tunnel that runs from Sapperton to Coates for over two miles (3817 yards, 2.16 miles). The tunnel has collapsed in parts, but each end of it has been restored. There are good pubs at each end (The Bell in Sapperton and Tunnel House Inn near Coates) and good trails along the canal. Perfect for a hike and then a pub lunch.

But how did I get onto canals? This post is about donkeys!

Many of the mills are still here, but now they are apartments, offices, workshops. The steep river valleys still have steep walking paths connecting the villages with the valley floor.

Tonight on the BBC news there was a story about people in Chalford, a small town just up the valley from Stroud, where the hill is so steep that many residents can only get to their houses by a walking path - Shoppers seek donkey for bag help.

Residents of Chalford on Rack Hill have to carry their groceries on foot up the 100 meter path (that does not sound that long to me, but I guess if it is steep and you are carrying stuff, it is a hike). They have decided to get a donkey from a donkey sanctuary and use it for village transport.

In Bradford-on-Avon, on the River Avon a few miles from Bath, the weavers’ cottages are on a hillside overlooking the town. Small pedestrial lanes connect the rows of cottages. When Steve and I first saw this area - we were having lunch in the tea room and the man at the next table told us about the weavers’ cottages and how to find them - we decided we had to live in Bradford-on-Avon, in a weavers cottage. I watched the Bradford rental listings for a year and never saw one of them for rent.

Bradford-on-Avon Weavers’ Cottages

Since then we have found similar hillside weavers’ cottages in other areas. There is a small area in Nailsworth, on the hillside above Egypt Mill. And I guess there is one in Chalford (we will go check it out and report back).

In other news, there is a cycle/walking path connecting Bristol and Bath, but the city council wants to run busses on part of it. There was a big protest recently because people feel this will drastically change the nature of this path. Walkers and bikers will have to dodge buses. But the traffic is very thick and the council sees this as a way of making the bus system work.

Maybe they could take a lesson from Chalford and try carts pulled by donkeys?

Eight weeks seems like a long time when you are booking it, but now that we are here the time is going by in a flash. We are already past the half way point and I don’t even know Nailsworth yet, let alone the Cotswolds. On Saturday we walked across town to the Ruskin and Horsley Mills on the south side of town. They are in a narrow river valley with pretty neighborhoods of old cottages.

It was bright and sunny this morning, so we walked into town for bread from Hobbs Bakery and a newspaper. We took the short route into town, but the longer route back on the Cycle Trail. When we were close to home, it started to rain. After we got in, it started pouring. A nice rainy day! I celebrated by adding a small Google Map to the home page.

There is detailed coverage of the American primaries in the newspapers, on the radio and on TV. The Guardian had a special section today about “Super Tuesday”. We are probably hearing as much about the primaries here as we would in the US, but we have to wait until tomorrow to learn today’s results.

No will power - I promised myself that I would NOT watch season five of Spooks, because once that is watched we have to wait until October for season six on DVD. We waited one day after the end of season four, then plunked in season five. Now I know what happened to Ruth!

Our friends Valerie and Bryan from Italy (and from Albuquerque before that) are coming to visit this weekend! I have been trying to prepare them for the actual quantities of mud they are going to encounter.

I have already contacted our “landlord” to see if we can stay later, and we can. But we have not decided yet. I miss Buddy (the cat), but he is being well looked after at home. It would be nice to be here as the days get longer. The only “bad” thing about being here in winter is the short days, but then you get the long cozy evenings.