Cirencester is another very old town dating from the Roman times, but on Saturday we were there for the Christmas craft fair. The drive over was only about a half hour. We parked in the town centre and stolled down to the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist for a look. It is beautiful with the usual stained glass and intricate stone carving. There were lots of plaques dating trom the 17th century onwards. Leaving the church we went to the Craft Fair and had a look at the various local craftspeople's work. We found one gift for Christmas and came up with another idea. Coffee time was excellent. I had a millionaire's shortbread that melted in the mouth.
We got home in time for supper and then I went by myself to a great one person play called Preparing For Elizabeth. It was an actress in her dressing room on opening night getting ready to play Elizabeth I. As the makeup amd costume went on she became more and more Elizabeth. She did a fabulous job.
The last two days have been steady, very hard, rain. We had an excellent church service at the local Baptist church. Our stay in Stroud is quickly coming to an end. We have loved every bit of it, and appreciate the kindness of our good friends here. Tomorrow we move on to London. The train pulls out at 11:04 tomorrow morning. Our next blog will be from the BIG SMOKE.

Down to the Forest of Dean

Sunshine!!! On Friday the sun shone and we took the chance. Off across country to Newnham, a place that Dorian has been pushing for a couple of years now. Specifically The Silver Fox Cafe for breakfast. There are few British restaurants that serve breakfast all day. This one is great. As we tucked in to our full English,(bacon sausage eggs toast fried tomatoes, fried mushrooms beans coffee) we had beautiful views over the River Severn. We heard from the owner how the Beatles and the Stones, Shirley Bassey and Richard Burtan, who used to pull up in his white Rolls all used to come for Breakfast when they were in the area. If you go on Youtube you can put in The Silver Fox and hear how it is haunted. Great fun.
The town of Newnham is a beautiful little place as well. Then off through the lanes to the Forest of Dean and to Tintern Abbey in Wales, a monastery that came to grief under Henry VIII. It is now a grand ruin. It was mentioned by Wordsworth in his poem. We had a good look round before moving on to the Speech House, a hunting lodge built for Charles II, and later used as a court house for the inhabitants of the Forest of Dean. In fact they still must meet 4 times a year. We met instead to have a really good cream tea.

A Vest Made By The Fairies

Gloucester is an ancient city dating from the Romans at least. I know this because there's a statue of a Roman guy in the centre of the main street. Sheelagh had a brain wave on Wednesday. She suggested that we take the bus over to Gloucester to tour the beautiful cathedral and have a look around the city.

We sat up in the top level of the double decker bus, in the front, and George didn't get sick. That was good. The station was right in the centre of the city. We easily found the tourist info place and got some suggestions for a walking tour. The first place we sought out was a nearly new store to try and find a sweater for Sheelagh as she was freezing.

Beatrix Potter visited a cousin in Gloucester and heard about a tailor in the city who thought that the vest he was making for the mayor of Gloucester had been finished by the fairies. Beatrix took that idea, replaced the fairies with mice, and wrote, The Tailor Of Gloucester. There is a quaint little shop and museum which was fun to explore.

The cathedral is so much to describe. It is magnificent. We slowly moved from room to room soaking up the grandeur of the place. The artists of the day were truly inspired and inspiring. The stained glass is everywhere and awesome, and I don't usually use that word. The cloisters was where some of Harry Potter was filmed. A highlight was attending a communion service in The Lady Chapel.

A visit to the Folk Museum ended our day.

Minchinhampton

The last couple of days have been close to home. We have enjoyed short trips to Cheltenham and Gloucester and Minchin-bloody-hampton as a friend calls this attractive little village. The bloody part, I think, has more to do with some one's poor navigational skills, however, there it is.
We had a beautiful drive over to Cheltenham to the annual German Christmas fair. The countryside is lovely with so many charming cottages and large country estates. Cheltenham is the home of two large prestigious schools, some of which were used in the Harry Potter films. The market consisted of a series of small booths along a pedestrian street. We really were not shopping but rather window shopping and looking for bratwurst and crepes. We found both, yum. We saw a spectacularly whimsical clock that performed every hour with bubbles and music.
Monday is not the day to go to Minchinhampton. It's closed. We strolled and took some pictures and enjoyed an hour of site seeing. In the evening we went down to see our friend Malcolm trounce the opposition at bowls. Yesterday we had tea at a lovely old bistro here in Stroud and had supper with another friend Derek Jowett. He showed us some wonderful pictures he had taken three weeks ago in Rome. The days are flying past. We went to Gloucester today and I don't have the pics ready, so I'll do that trip tomorrow.

Thank goodness for Innis.

Yesterday we took advantage of a brief break in the grey wetness to do a little walk around Stroud. Sheelagh had found a pamphlet with instructions and when the sun appeared we pulled on our walking boots and left.
After crossing the town, we picked up the beginning of the walk and started up, it is always up. The sun was shining, things were going well. We crossed fields, went down lanes, passed lovely old stone houses and walls, then we hit the Mount Pleasant Cemetery. Round and round three times before a kind local showed us the gate that we were to, "easily find". Sheelagh had already given up hope, and picked out her burial site among the ancient head stones.
We now passed through a beautiful wooded area and climbed a rather steep field. Then the wheels fell off. At Wasa Wasa Farm the signs deserted us completely, and we were left wandering in the wind and rain. Innis appeared. A scrawny 9 year old who was out getting fit on a road in the middle of nowhere. He appeared shadow boxing an unseen opponent. Innis didn't know any of the places on our map, but he knew that if we went past his house, and went down until it didn't go down any more, we would be on London Road. That was good enough for us. We walked with Innis for about a kilometre, during which he regaled us with his skill at cricket, his scorn of American football where they wear, CRASH HELMETS! and stories of his chicken Charlie whom we met as we parted at Innis's house.
We made it home following the directions we had received, "keep going down". We only walked about 2 1/2 miles further than we should have. I wish that I had taken a picture of Innis, but I didn't. Again we learned that we can always rely on the kindness of stangers.

We've had a wonderful few days here in the Cotswalds. Malcolm and Delyth are lovely, busy people, but they have made time to show us around and make us feel at home. Yesterday, Malcolm drove us the 40 miles, (they do miles here) to Paxford to pay the rent on our cottages which we will use in April and May. Anyone wishing to set up a holiday in the Cotswalds should check out Campden Cottages website. We wheeled through Blockley, a beautiful old stone village where we will be in the last 2 weeks in May. Then we went to Moreton In Marsh where we will be in April and the first of May. It;s classic Cotswald, antiques and tea shops. There are also walks all over the place. We shall need them as the tea shops are full of calories. We also found a shop selling goose grease which we are told is excellent for cooking roasted potatoes. Here are a few pics of the trip.

The Train That Has Just Left Platform Two

Well, we're in the Lord John Pub in Stroud. We can't, so far, get onto the internet at M&D's place so we are here. Tuesday, Sheelagh's cousin Tony arrived from Canada to take his ship into the English Cannel. It was a sunny day and we saw the front in sunshine. Yesterday, we started off from Eastbourne on a train that was about 15 minutes late. That was compounded by a Circle Line underground in London that was experiencing, "slight delays". So, we came upon the train on platform two that had just left. I was told that we were out of luck and, "That ticket is spent." After a bit of whining, we were issued replacement tickets and we went toward Swinden, then off on the train to Cheltenham Spa and then to Malcolm and Delyth's place in Stroud. We were so glad to see them. We had a lovely evening catching up. Today we are starting to see some of the many things that are here for the annual arts festival. We'll check in later. Special to Beatrix and Ngila, the picture is of Paddington station where Paddington Bear arrived in England.

Nothing like a pub after a long walk.

Greetings from blustery Eastbourne. Yesterday we were greeted by a sky full of clouds that were scudding across at breakneck speed, interspersed with flashes of sunlight. We are quickly running out of days here, so we decided to risk getting caught in a rain storm and started out on our walk to Jevington, about 4 miles along the Weald Way.
This track moves inland from the coast and continues for many many miles. The wind was howling when we reached the top of the downs about 3/4 mile from the house. The walks in England have been laid out for hundreds of years and are well marked and maintained by organizations. Each has a booklet published and sold by the group as a source of funds. We don't have a book for this one, but we are only going a short way.
It felt good to be out there. We were glad that we had chosen to go. The wind made it a bit of a slog at times, but we enjoyed the walk with its panoramic views of the south of England. We passed golfers playing in conditions that we never seem to see in Canada. There were lots of dog walkers and a jogger in shorts who apparently wasn't aware that his head was in danger of being blown to France. For our farmer friends, during the nineteenth century, farmers constructed concrete dew ponds for the many flocks of sheep that grazed the escarpment as there is no surface water on the downs. They are still very much in use today.
After about 2 hours we dropped down into the tiny village of Jevington. This is a quaint place with charm oozing from between the ancient bricks of its cottages and pubs, yes, it had two pubs. The Hungry Monk, which we had been told to visit was, sadly, closed on Mondays, but, as I said, there were two. We went instead to The Eight Bells, proudly serving its customers since 1787. We had a fine lunch, and with our recently untested legs complaining a bit we continued back up on the downs for another 2 mile walk to Willington.
Willington is suffering the fate of many of these tiny places. The large chain stores are destroying local businesses. There was only a small store, a hairdresser and another pub. We had hoped for a charming tea shoppe, but alas, no. At this point we were about 5 miles from home and decided that the old legs were not up to that, so we caught a bus that took us back to Eastbourne. We were dropped off at the train station in the down town area and with aching legs, we struggled up, yes up, to the house. We arrived home tired but very satisfied with our day.

Toasted Teacakes

We've had a fine day in blustery Eastbourne. We sent off all of our summer clothes to Dorian for safe keeping. We have been trying to walk as much as we can to build up our walking stamina. Yesterday we walked over to mail our package and since it was much less than we had expected, we stopped for toasted teacakes. We had these delightful treats as a gesture to our good friends the Grahams who, we were sure, would have wanted us to do. We then walked on a few blocks to the beginning of the South Downs Way walk. It's a 100 mile walk that we did in part with the Grahams and in part by ourselves. It brought back a very pleasant memory to see the sign and to walk up that first green hill. We just went a mile or so and looked over the seaside town and then came back.
Today was much windier and we decided not to do the 4 mile walk that we were going to do. Sunday or Monday sound better. Tonight we had a fine dinner out with the Prices. Timothy and Matthew are wonderful boys with so many skills and talents. It will be fascinating to see what they end up doing with their lives.
We happened upon the house that was home to Sir Ernest Shackleton, explorer. His son, I think, attended the school where Janet and Brian, our hosts, are presently teaching.