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Cycling England Europe

London to Paris sur une Bicyclette Day 2: Calais to Abbeville

Posted on May 27, 2010

Day 2 and I use every piece of advice, from trite euphemism to true wisdom, to get me through the 78 hilly miles. There’s Larry, my L.A. yoga teacher and former zen priest telling me “so what,” when I complain my feet fall asleep during zazen (and, as it happens, when cycling excessive distances). Richard, the ex-Navy Seal/zen priest in training/workout instructor/and, more recently, cable television host of a program about the weapons of war for which he gave himself the nickname Mack, is also there. He’s shouting “not dead, can’t quit,” at me just like he did when I was doing push ups at 6:30am in the Santa Monica zendo. My colleague Ian is also on hand, nodding approvingly as I wash down my sixth Nurofen of the day with a dose of neat black currant cordial. Ian had advised me painkillers and a slow and steady pace would be my best friends for this bike ride, and so far he’s been right on both counts. The cordial and jelly babies are also reliable acquaintances.

The terrain today is punishing and scenic, and seems to be populated solely by lazy, white French cows who sleep in the meadows like dogs in the shade. The villages we ride through are ghost towns, with broke down mini-chateaus and those concrete bungalows with brightly painted shutters the French seem to favor. Later there are American scale stretches of agricultural land, so vast they make the Cotswolds seem like it’s engaged in boutique farming. Despite all the greenery it somehow feels desolate in these parts.

Over dinner at our hotel we are joined by a man and his friend who are riding for the same charity, the MS Society, that I am. We get to talking and I learn that he suffers from MS and was previously in a wheel chair. His story should be inspirational, but the more he talks the more I dislike him. I find him narcissistic and feel guilty about it, despite reminding myself that disease doesn’t discriminate when it comes to the likability of its victims. When we are back in our hotel room, I ask husband if he had the same reaction and am surprised when he tells me he liked the guy. Husband suggests my reaction might be more about my discomfort with confronting MS rather than the man’s arrogance. I decide to sleep on it.

Cycling England Europe

London to Paris sur une Bicyclette Day 1: Crystal Palace to the White Cliffs of Dover

Posted on May 26, 2010

An inauspicious start to the day when our mini cab driver arrives at our flat early, aborting my attempt to make coffee, then drops us at the wrong end of Crystal Palace park, leaving us roaming for 30 minutes looking for the starting line. Lose luggage tag and woman-from-the-future special bicycling sunglasses (later retrieved in the parking lot) in the process. When we finally do arrive at the check-in point I suggest to support staff they invest in some signage for future events in a tone verging on shouting. None of them gets hooked, which is a good sign: clearly they are well versed in dealing with drama queens, a skill that will come in handy over the next few days.

The whole thing reminds me of the time husband ran the Napa Valley marathon and we drove 26 miles from our hotel in Calistoga at 6am wondering why there was so much traffic going in the opposite direction so early in the morning. When we arrived in Napa we learned we were at the Finish line, so we stormed back up the highway to Calistoga arriving just as they were disassembling the Start line bunting. Support staff telephoned ahead to their colleagues to keep the first water stop open, and husband ran off into the morning mist like Forest Gump. He was so freaked out he finished in his fastest time ever, just over four hours.

Our late start doesn’t inspire such speed on the first day of our cycle ride. 90 miles later we arrive in Dover in the bottom 3 of our group of 70-odd, not counting the handful of people who got a lift in the van. The other laggard is someone I will come to know as smoking man thanks to his habit of lighting up at the top of hills. He and a rotund chap who wears his sweatpants tucked into his tube socks will become my frequent companions at the back of the pack on day 2.

90 minutes later we arrive by ferry in Calais and convoy the 1o or some unwelcome additional miles to the Holiday Inn on the outskirts of town. Young men with long hair and earrings step out from bars with names like Le Crypte, whistling at us and inviting us for a drink in accented English. This is the closest I will come to knowing what it feels like to ride through a French town on the Tour de France, so I savour the moment.

Cotswolds

Seven Signs of May

Posted on May 15, 2010

It is mid-May and although the sun is refusing to acknowledge this, other elements of nature and man are playing along. On today’s bike ride, the last big training ride before the London to Paris charity venture, I catalogued these seven signs of May in the Cotswolds:

1. Horse chestnut petals floating in the birdbath.
2. French’s yellow mustard smears of rapeseed across the hillside landscape.
3. Cow parsley lining the lanes, innocuous but for the carpet of nettles at its base.
4. A gypsy encampment along a grassy verge, complete with painted wagon, solar panels, tinny sounding radio at full blast, lethargic dog, and bell-bottomed Cob horses grazing in a makeshift, roped off pasture.
5. Kamikaze insects, chartreuse pellets with translucent wings, turning my arms and legs into a human bug screen.
6. The arrival of the Italian tourists at Daylesford, wearing white jeans and “H” buckle Hermès belts and highlighted tips in their hair, and making the lunchtime viewing at the café as spectacular as the surrounding countryside — from which the Italians will stay safely ensconced in this pristine, retail-enabled, meta-Cotswolds. I can hardly blame them.
7. Swags of wisteria draped across stone cottages like bunting for a fête. It’s so picturesque I feel suspicious, like my senses have duped me into admiring a Thomas Kingkade painting.

Cotswolds

The Houseguest and the Happy Ending

Posted on May 3, 2010

This bank holiday weekend we hosted husband’s brother who, on the heels of the breakup of his long term romance, was in need of some country R&R. Several hours into his visit he lost his mobile phone while out on a ramble with husband. We scoured the presumed area where it was dropped before giving up and heading for the pub. Even securing the phone number of the lady working behind the wine bar failed to dispel the gloom of the lost mobile phone that enveloped him that evening.

The next morning while our house guest was taking a shower I noticed he had left his bath towel in the bedroom. I shouted through the bathroom door that I had left it over the stair railing for him, only for him to shout back that he had brought his own towel. Unsure whether to be insulted by this, I went back downstairs to make coffee. A few minutes later I heard the whir of a blowdryer and realized our houseguest had also brought his own small appliances with him. Distracted by trying to remember if I had ever met another man who blow dried his hair, I forgot about being insulted by the towel incident. I recalled that our house guest had arrived yesterday with only a compact black satchel, which at the time struck me as fastidious. No wonder this very prepared man was so disturbed by losing his mobile phone. I suspect the fact that he was capable of losing his phone was as disturbing to him as the loss of the phone itself.

After breakfast we set out to retrace the steps of the previous day’s ramble in a last ditch attempt to locate the phone. It was a beautiful day and the route was through the Chedworth wood, now lined with bluebells so hardly a hassle. At the top of the woods husband rang the lost phone one last time and, to his surprise, someone answered. A local man had picked it up the day before while out walking his dog. He had also put it on his own charger at home in case the owner called it and made several calls to people in the recently dialed list in an attempt to find the owner. We had assured our houseguest that if someone local found the phone this was likely to be the outcome. Needless to say it was a rather different result than our London-based houseguest expected. In ten minutes we were at the house of the man who had found the phone, thanking him for his kindness and for providing our houseguest with a much needed happy ending.

England

The Lady Daydreams

Posted on May 3, 2010

So I finally picked up a copy of The Lady, A Journal for Gentlewomen, which I blogged about back in January. I was grocery shopping and, being short of bathtub reading, susceptible to such impulse purchases. It contained some entertaining light reading, including a dissection of the seven tribes of incomers to the countryside. (After some consideration husband and I both concluded we were closest to the description proffered for the group of incomers called The Realists; we certainly weren’t The Hassled Parents or The Bling Brigade, although I am guilty of wearing “witty Wellingtons” à la the Cath Kidston Weekenders.)

The Lady also came in handy in aiding the escapist fantasies I am prone to have when work starts to get too stressful. This class of fantasy tends to involve quitting my job to become a chef or a wedding planner or to take over the local post office and add on a tea shop selling tasteful tat. My last few weeks in my real life office have included several crises, a volcano ash cloud stranded manager (without whom I had to handle the crises alone), a launch in India, and a narrowly averted business trip to Beijing this week on impossibly short notice. In short, I was primed for escapist fantasy when I starting skimming the classified pages of The Lady and found this advertisement under the cryptically named section, Situations & Appointments:
Opportunity for semi-retired couple: Part-time housekeeper/lady’s companion and gardener/handyperson required. Excellent accommodation in detached, two-bedroom cottage; own garden, parking, rural views to sea. Terms and conditions negotiable. Near Whitby in North York Moors National Park. Visions of Emma Thompson and Anthony Hopkins and the tragic romance of Remains of the Day flashed through my head providing just enough escapist fantasy to propel me through the remains of this week.

Cotswolds Cycling

Cycling the Hollywold Hills

Posted on April 18, 2010

Before I moved to England I lived in Los Angeles for ten years. Despite my residence in the capital city of celebrity, I rarely encountered one. In fact, I can think of only three times when I did, and one of those happened before I even lived there. I was thirteen and visiting my grandmother, which always involved a lunch outing to Canter’s Deli on Fairfax Avenue. On this occasion our elderly and insistent waitress pointed out Whoopi Goldberg at the deli counter and ushered me over to ask for her autograph, which Ms. Goldberg obligingly provided. Later, when I actually lived in L.A., I worked at Capitol Records for a few years. One day Bonnie Raitt was wandering around our floor with her hair in rollers before a video shoot. I didn’t see her though; I was out to lunch at the time of her reported appearance. My penchant for going out to lunch was rewarded when I later saw Quentin Tarantino in a booth at Birds, a chicken restaurant near the Capitol Tower.

Five years ago I moved to London from Los Angeles and then, three years later, to the Cotswolds. I went rural for the same reason I imagine many people in their thirties and forties leave London: that intangible oft described as quality of life. The last thing I expected to find amongst the honey-colored stone and rolling hills was a profusion of celebrity, but in the past two years I’ve had more star sightings than during my decade in Hollywood. I chalk this up to two factors. One is the pervasive car culture in L.A. Given the proportion of time most people spend in their cars there, it’s amazing you ever meet anyone in the flesh. The other is that neither my budget nor social stature in California supported frequenting the haunts where celebrities like to spend their time when they are not in their cars, Quentin Tarantino’s taste for budget chicken restaurants aside.

In the Cotswolds there is a distinct absence of establishments with velvet ropes and twenty dollar cocktails. No bouncer in a headset is going to ask you if you are “on the list,” although I do know somebody who managed to get banned from our local wine bar due to non-payment of his tab and the general indiscretion of being, in the words of the proprietor, an ass. The point is that the celebrities here have to mingle with the regular folk because pubs and inns and the odd wine bar are the only places to go if you want to have a drink out.

The other notable change in my lifestyle in the Cotswolds versus Los Angeles is that my preferred method of transportation is, weather allowing, my bicycle. There are endless country roads where you are more likely to come across a tractor than a car, and travelling them by bike puts you in touch with the landscape — the patterns of the hills and valleys, the flora and fauna — in an up close, visceral way inaccessible by car. It also happens that most of my Cotswold celebrity encounters have happened on cycling outings. And so in the spirit of the Hollywood star map I offer up the Hollywold map, two intermediate, all-day (thirty to forty mile) cycling routes with celebrity spotting potential. Even if you don’t bump into someone famous, you’re sure to encounter the real stars of this place: chocolate box cottages and stately manor homes, all in quintessential Cotswold stone; a cast list of snowdrops, daffodils, rapeseed, May blossom, elderflower, and blackberries in roughly seasonal order of appearance; and of course the sheep, cows, odd pheasant, race horse farms, and, if you’re lucky, a Gloucester Old Spot pig or two.

Route 1
Northleach – Daylesford loop
http://www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk/?key=u6JE9qec8dNZil119UKoHQ2

Both rides start in Northleach, a market town near the center of the Cotswolds whose local inn has fed and watered several music superstars. Recently spotted: a member of the Rolling Stones.

1. Head out of Northleach on Farmington Road, just northeast of the market square. The ride starts with two climbs in rapid succession before you freewheel through Farmington and into Sherborne.

2. Past the Sherborne Social Club, take a left following the sign for the National Trust Water Meadows parking lot. It’s up another hill before you hit a stretch of semi- desolate plateau with sweeping views of the valleys to either side. On the left you can look down over some of the most famous Cotswold villages, Bourton-on-the-Water, and farther west, the Slaughters.

3. Take the first road on your right (if you get to Clapton, you’ve gone too far). Head down the steep hill, taking care along this weather damaged stretch of road. Follow the road into Great Rissington, then up past the Lamb Inn. At the next junction go left, past the airfield into Upper Rissington.

4. Church Westcote, reportedly Kate Winslet’s neck of the woods, is just to the east, but avoid the busy A road and, at the top of Upper Rissington, jog left then right towards Icomb. Follow the signs to Bledington then Kingham where you can make a pit stop at the Kingham Plough. You may not bump into Blur bassist Alex James here, but you can do the next best thing and eat his goat’s cheese. Better yet, take the left fork out of Kingham and in a short while you’ll be at the Daylesford Organic retail complex.

5. Daylesford has outposts around London, including Notting Hill, Pimlico and Harvey Nichols, but this is the mother ship, boasting a spa, yoga studio, garden and kitchen boutiques, butcher and food store/cafe. It’s no wonder celebs feel at home here; even the vegetable displays look set designed. During my last few lunches in the cafe I spotted a member of resurgent British boy (now middle aged man) band, Take That, on an outing with his kids and a British actor best known, according to Wikipedia, for playing “assertive bureaucrats or villains.” Should you wish for more bucolic company, pick up some goodies from the deli and enjoy a picnic on the estate.

6. Leave Daylesford and retrace your route through Kingham. Instead of heading right to Bledington, head left for Foscot, where you will fork left for Milton under Wychwood. Fork left again off the High Street then take your second right, crossing the A424 and heading into Taynton, then Great Barrington and right into Windrush. Follow the road into Sherborne where you’ll recognize your turn off from the morning by the National Trust Water Meadows sign post. Continue straight, taking the second left where this time you’ll see National Trust signs for Ewe Pen parking. It’s uphill to the A40 where you should take care crossing.

7. Once over the A40 you’ll cycle past another National Trust property, Lodge Park, which was used for deer coursing, gambling, and drinking in the 17th century. In other words it was a rural version of Vegas which the celebrities of the day may have enjoyed. Take your first right towards Eastington, which leads you back into Northleach.

Route 2
Northleach – Eastleach – Barnsley loop (a.k.a. The Supermodel Circuit)
http://www.getamap.ordnancesurveyleisure.co.uk/?key=qAlarUYnQbjDwAItzxj8Ig2

1. As with the first route, leave Northleach via the Farmington Road and continue through Farmington into Sherborne. Instead of turning left at the sign for the Water Meadows parking lot, continue on into Windrush then little Barrington, all the way into Burford, about ten miles in total. There are many options for refreshment on and around the handsome Burford high street, but you may wish to wait for the more secluded pub in Eastington, seven miles away.

2. After you’ve had your fill of Burford, head out the same way you came in, on Sheep Street, and take your first left on to Tanner’s Lane. Head up the hill to the A40, where you jog right along a pavement before crossing with care at the next left.

3. Follow the road through Westwell all the way to Eastleach where, just to the left as you enter the village, the Victoria Inn is perched on a hill. The star offering on the menu is pork from the nearby Eastleach Downs farm, but the first time I went to this pub I had a star sighting of another type: Kate Moss made an appearance, wearing wellies and a mud splotched cardigan. As she drove off in her vintage Roller, she tooted the horn and gave a wave to the bemused patrons sitting at the picnic tables on the front lawn.

4. Leave Eastleach the way you came in, then head left briefly before turning right for Hatherop and then on to Coln St. Aldwyns. From here you could go right into Bibury, site of Bibury Court, a fine Jacobean mansion converted into a hotel, as well as the oft photographed series of cottages known as Arlington Row. Alternatively go left out of Coln St. Aldwyns towards Quenington, taking the first right onto the Welsh Way before you hit the center of Quenington. This takes you all the way into Barnsley along a less busy road than the B4425, which you’ll have to brave if you choose to get to Barnsley via Bibury.

5. Barnsley’s most famous resident is yet another supermodel/actress, Liz Hurley. I’ve never seen her there, but I have enjoyed the fine gardens at Barnsley House, which are open to the public for a small admission charge. Barnsley House also owns the Village Pub across the street, a good place to stop for refreshment before the last leg of the journey back to Northleach.

6. Leaving Barnsley House or the Village Pub, take the second right off the B4425 and follow it all the way back, through Coln Rogers, Coln St Dennis, and into Northleach.

The Details
The Wheatsheaf Inn
West End
Northleach
Gloucestershire GL5 3EZ
01451 860244
http://www.cotswoldswheatsheaf.com/

Kingham Plough
The Green
Kingham
Chipping Norton
Oxfordshire OX7 6YD01608 658 327
http://www.thekinghamplough.co.uk/

Daylesford Organic
Daylesford
Gloucestershire GL56 OYG
01608 731 700
http://www.daylesfordorganic.com/scat/daylesfordfarmshop

Lodge Park
Aldsworth
Nr Cheltenham
Gloucestershire GL54 3PP
01451 844130 (Lodge Park)
01451 844257 (Estate office)
http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-lodgeparksherborneestate

The Victoria Inn
Eastleach
Nr Cirencester
Gloucestershire GL7 3NQ
01367 850277
http://www.arkells.com/pubs_more2.php?id=663

Bibury Court
Bibury
Gloucestershire GL7 5NT
01285 740324
http://www.biburycourt.co.uk/

Barnsley House/The Village Pub
Barnsley
Cirencester GL7 5EET
01285 740 000
http://www.barnsleyhouse.com/
http://www.thevillagepub.co.uk/

England

Stranger than Fiction

Posted on April 15, 2010

Would you believe me if I told you:
1. UK airspace is shut down due to a cloud of Icelandic volcanic ash?
2. The UK’s Transport Minister is named Lord Adonis?
3. The UK held its first ever televised Prime Ministerial debates tonite?
4. A Welsh political party running in the upcoming general election is called Plaid?

What a queer little country I live in…

Cotswolds

Blue 57

Posted on April 8, 2010

Lord and Lady Glebe, the lambs whose birth we witnessed a couple weekends ago, are now known as the gender appropriate Glebe sisters or the prosaic Blue 57. The latter sounds like I’m trying to sink your Battleship, but it’s just a reference to the spray painted number that now graces theirs and their mother’s sides so the shepherds can make sure they stay together in the pasture. Henry has managed to swing a trade with his boss so the Blue 57 trio join his flock and husband stays that much closer to realizing his dream of lamb chop liberation for the Glebe sisters.

We learned all this last night when we bumped into Henry at the local inn. There, over cider and red wine, a cunning plan was hatched to realize our dream of a pet sheep syndicate of which the Glebe sisters will be the inaugural members. We’ve identified a regular at the wine bar who has a few unused acres just out of town. It’s a perfect plan if we can convince the land owner, who I just happen to know is partial to the Ox House white…