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Cotswolds

Welcome to Americashire.com

Posted on January 20, 2013

ISBN: 978-1-938314-30-8

Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage (She Writes Press), winner of Best Travel Writing–2013 IndieReader Discovery Awards. Click here to buy the book.

When an American woman and her British husband decide to buy a two-hundred-year-old cottage in the heart of the Cotswolds, they’re hoping for an escape from their London lives. Instead, their decision about whether or not to have a child plays out against a backdrop of village fêtes, rural rambles, and a cast of eccentrics clad in corduroy and tweed.

“A fine addition to the “English country life” genre, and will thoroughly charm the Anglophilic reader, or any fan of witty slice-of-life commentary. If you like Bill Bryson’s travelogues, give this one a try.”
—Catherine Langrerh for IndieReader. Click here for full review.

“A wonderfully charming and eclectic take on Britain’s Disneyesque Cotswolds by a droll Californian.”
—Adam Edwards, Financial Times and Cotswold Life columnist, London Daily Telegraph writer, and former New York Correspondent for The London Times

“Jennifer Richardson’s beautifully written memoir of her life in a tiny town in the Cotswolds is filled with fabulously eccentric characters, charming episodes, and some serious surprises. The book perfectly captures the hilarious peculiarities of country living with the posh set as well as those of a most unusual marriage.”
—Michael Flocker, New York Times best-selling author of The Metrosexual Guide to Style and The Hedonism Handbook

“In a style reminiscent of Bill Bryson, Richardson turns her wit and keen eye to both the absurdities and the charm of British country life. But, alongside the ludicrous fruitcake auctions and Toff fashion, she also tackles the very serious topics of illness, marriage, and the motherhood decision.”
—Lisa Manterfield, author of I’m Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood and Founder, LifeWithoutbaby.com

“Richardson’s process of reproductive decision making is as genuine and as circuitous as the country walks she beautifully documents. I recommend this memoir to anyone on the fence or curious about the character and landscape of the childfree life.”
—Laura S. Scott, author of Two is Enough: A Couple’s Guide to Living Childless by Choice, and Director of the Childless by Choice Project

Set against the backdrop of English high-camp country-life, Americashire is a delight to read. A gutsy, mature and compassionate memoir that paints a moving portrait of a tricky but loving marriage, and the unexpected tough choices that life delivers us all, sooner or later.
—Jody Day, Founder, Gateway Women and author of Rocking the Life Unexpected: 12 Weeks to Your Plan B for a Meaningful and Fulfilling Life Without Children

Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage

Posted on December 7, 2012

Lately my blogging attention has been over on Baroness Barren, which makes it even more fun that I get to post this here: Americashire: A Field Guide to a Marriage, my book based in part on the Cotswolds posts of this blog, is coming out in March 2013. Read all about it in the press release here, and get in the mood with some of my favorite pictures of Cotswoldia here.

Cotswolds Random

Aspect Ratio

Posted on November 4, 2011

Last night we partook in one of our cherished Cotswold rituals for the last time (for now), a film in the private cinema at Barnsley House. We narrowed our selection down to two respectable classics, the original Italian Job or A Streetcar Named Desire. Only when the concierge could find neither did husband suggest we indulge in a reprisal of Notting Hill. Two glasses of wine and Hugh Grant at his floppiest were promptly sourced, and a few minutes later we had taken our places on the cinema’s candy pink loveseats.

Of course this ritual would be incomplete without husband deciding about five minutes into the film that there was something sub-optimal about the quality of our viewing experience. It didn’t matter we were watching a nineties romcom instead of some Blu-ray sci-fi extravaganza; husband has his standards. Hugh Grant had hardly made his way to work in his travel bookstore before husband was shoving past me to go into the projector room. A minute later he had managed to totally disable the picture and we were listening to Hugh’s amiable patter to the accompaniment of a black screen. Husband declared there was obviously something wrong with the projector and brought the lights up. I stayed seated, closed my eyes and sighed a silent sigh before offering to call down to reception to see if they could help. More flapping ensued, and before long Hugh and Julia were back, this time at the proper aspect ratio as husband took pleasure in pointing out to me.

You see husband has a full-blown obsession with aspect ratios. We are not allowed to watch anything on television or at the cinema, never mind if it is our television or cinema, without husband tinkering with the aspect ratio to ensure the image is being projected as the creator intended: strictly no stretched faces, cut off pictures, or fuzzy edges allowed. At worst this is a symptom of control freakdom; at best a sincere respect for the crafts of television and film. Most the time I can’t tell the difference, or, if I can, don’t care. A slightly distorted Hugh and Julia are good enough for me.

This is, of course, emblematic of how we both approach life. Husband is fussy and precise and under the illusion that the more he frets the more he can control. I am, well, a little sloppy and prone to let things happen to me rather than trying to ‘make things happen.’ (In my defense, the things that happen to me have worked out pretty ok so far.) Of course the truth is there are times and places more suited to one approach over the other, those times when the aspect ratio in life really does matter. And credit where credit is due: husband is the one who pushed me to force the issue of moving back to the U.S. when I was offered a new job within my current company, and it worked. I’m not so sure husband has yet taken any laissez-faire cues from me, but at least I can leave England knowing I’ve seen Notting Hill as it was meant to be.

Boston Cotswolds

Countdown to Boston

Posted on October 22, 2011

With only two weeks to go in the Cotswolds, the move to Boston is starting to feel very real. The cottage has been rented, our temporary housing in Cambridge arranged, and all but five items on my thirty-five item strong “to do” list have been crossed off. (I am starting to find new ones though, like buying that box of mini-mince pies at Waitrose yesterday so we can have a bit of England in Boston come Christmas time.)

What remains ahead are movers and farewells. I have meetings in London on Tuesday, so we will say our goodbyes to the city then. I should be doing those things I somehow never got around to doing, like visiting the Soane Museum and walking around the dome of St. Paul’s, but instead I am pretty sure we will just have a coffee at Bar Italia, a glass of prosecco at Negozio Classica, and dinner at the Electric, all things we have done tens of times before. It is, after all, the routines that you miss.

In the Cotswolds I will say my goodbyes this way. I will ride my bike to Burford one more time, stopping for awhile at the point that looks like a Turner landscape painting right by the Windrush in Sherborne. I will get irritated at how long the line is at the Abbey Home Farm café near Ciren, but wait anyway for one more delicious vegetarian lunch. We will buy drinks for the regulars at the wine bar next Saturday and the next morning we will go to church, where I will join Dorothy in asking for good health for the queen in the prayers of penitence and, if I am lucky, we will sing a rousing rendition of Christ Triumphant Ever Reigning to the tune of Guiting Power. And then, on our very last day, we will partake in the British institution of Sunday roast with close friends. Like I said, it’s the routines you miss.

Cotswolds

A Real Englishwoman

Posted on August 23, 2011

Summer in the Cotswolds happened on Sunday. After a week of decidedly undecided weather, the sun finally took control. It shone down all afternoon, including on the little garden party in Ablington where I spent a couple of pleasant hours. There were sausages on sticks and pink wine, although, since I was driving, I stuck mostly to water scented with elderflower cordial and served in a little green glass. The lawn was littered with the usual suspects, including A., who grows increasingly eccentric looking each time I see him what with the cloth Mao jacket and his ring-bedecked fingers. Waving the eccentric banner for the women was J., who is always good for a leopard-skin print accessory. This time it came in the form of her booties which had nothing to do, least of all matching, with the bright red jeans and flower print blouse she was also wearing.

The whole event was one of those quintessential English experiences, like a Sunday roast in a cozy pub or a candelabra-lit picnic on the grounds of a grand old country house. And as I notch each one up, I feel like I am having my own personal Velveteen Rabbit experience, getting closer and closer to becoming a “real” Englishwoman. Maybe one day soon the Nursery Magic Fairy will show up and make me “real” to everyone else. For now, I am pretty sure that to most of my fellow Cotswoldians I remain the loud American.

Cotswolds

The Witches’ Table

Posted on August 18, 2011

To get to the barn that houses the main retail area of the wine bar you have to cross the courtyard out back. When the weather is mild, the courtyard is also a pleasant place to sit and enjoy a glass of wine. In the far corner of the courtyard there is a large table fashioned out of an old French door painted blue and mounted on rod iron trestle legs. It is large enough to seat ten comfortably. In fact it may seat ten too comfortably, which would at least partially explain its evil influence. For when one sits at the recently christened Witches’ Table, one rarely leaves the wine bar sober.

Husband and I fell under the spell of the Witches’ Table earlier in the summer at the sardine bbq. This is the only explanation I have for the ten strips of raffle tickets (charity unknown, but I can safely assume it was for a good cause) and the small cut above my eyebrow that were in my possession when I awoke the next morning. I do recall that the occupants of the Witches’ Table that afternoon came up with an excellent outline for a panto we intended to stage at the village hall in winter: a mash-up of “Sin”-derella and Priscilla Queen of the Desert of the Cotswolds in which the struggle is to get Cinders to Pippa and Prince Harry’s wedding at the local inn (at which there was no room according to husband’s diligent BlackBerry notes and in an apparent misguided effort to weave in the Christmas story). I believe this falls safely into the category of it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time. More recently the Witches’ Table cast its evil influence on one half of doppelgänger couple when, after an evening of wine and a misjudged shot of absinthe, he forcibly ejected the contents of his digestive tract via his mouth into the adjacent well. Thus forth it has been known as Crispin’s well.

On Tuesday evening we decided to brave another session at the Witches’ Table with the fairer half of doppelgänger couple (Crispin was still hanging his head in shame from the well incident). We had dinner reservations in half an hour and so, we assumed, there was no time for anything to go too far off the rails. The table was already in session when we joined, populated by seven of the usual suspects. Things got off to a safe start with a vigorous debate about the proper use of semi-colons that swiftly moved into a vigorous debate over the etiquette of turning an empty wine bottle upside down in its ice bucket. (In the end we agreed it was ok, as long as it wasn’t in somebody’s house.) Things generally proceeded in this vein of polite banter, with the small exception of when our local Roger Moore lookalike stood up to pour some wine and I complimented his arrowhead belt buckle, causing the entire table to look in the general direction of his crotch. In the end we had an unintended second bottle of wine and were an hour late for our table, which on balance is an excellent outcome for an evening at the Witches’ Table.

Cotswolds

Rarking

Posted on July 30, 2011

That’s right, I’ve just coined a new term: rarking, as in rural parking. I thought it was in the British spirit of things, like the way they call walking in the countryside “rambling.” I noticed this British phenomenon — rarking, not giving things that already have names new special names — again today when we were out riding our bikes around the ‘Wolds. On a little country lane near Yanworth we passed a couple staring into the middle distance from inside their parked car. I like to think they were faking this zen poise having been wildly necking moments before they noticed someone was coming, but somehow I doubt it.

Such rarking seems to be a bona fide hobby of a certain demographic of Brits, mostly nearly-but-not-quite-elderly drivers of Ford Mondeos. Sometimes the rarkers are eating a sandwich or even an ice cream, but mostly they just sit. They could easily leave the car and go for a walk or even, gasp, lay a blanket outside and enjoy the fresh air. But no, they prefer sitting in the car, as if the steel is some sort of protective shield between them and the possibility of a little too much stimulation brought on by the sheer beauty of the countryside. I want to stop and tell them that stiff upper lip works best when tolerating pain rather than experiencing pleasure, but I just ride on by.

Cotswolds

Johnny Rotten is Following Me

Posted on July 4, 2011

…By which I mean John Lydon and not some euphemism for my ill-tempered husband. It started more than ten years ago in Santa Monica when I unwittingly bummed a cigarette off of him outside a now defunct record shop on Main Street. Husband put me up to it— I don’t even smoke. We were in the early days of our courtship and, despite the fact that I had no idea who I was asking for a cigarette, husband was mightily impressed with my chutzpah. And Mr. Lydon did in fact oblige me with a cigarette.

Now news has arrived through the Twittersphere that Mr. Rotten has returned, this time to a room in the inn just up the road from our cottage in the Cotswolds. It seems he is recording at the studio of our local rock star and will be in residence for the next two weeks. We are scheduled for a return visit at the tail end of his stay, and no doubt husband will be busy cultivating opportunities for another chance encounter. Guess I better take up smoking in preparation.

Cotswolds Europe

Down and Out in Paris and London

Posted on June 27, 2011

For several years now I have held the view that London is only for the very young or the very rich, and that therefore Samuel Johnson of the “…when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life” quip was full of crap. One place I never expected to tire of, however, was Paris. Thanks to the largess of a friend of my sister’s with digs on the Île Saint Louis and the ease of traveling by Eurostar, Paris has been a favorite weekend destination for husband and me since we moved to England. And we could think of no better place to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary last week.

But things did not begin well. We had flown to England for a few nights in the Cotswolds before heading to Paris, and on that first Saturday we drank too much wine at a sardine BBQ at the wine bar. I awoke on Sunday to find ten strips of raffle tickets in my purse that I only dimly remembered purchasing and had no idea in aid of what (this being the season of village fêtes, the possibilities were endless). Unfortunately this was not the worst after-effect of such indulgence; that was left for Monday when the two-day-deferred-morosity that is the mark of such excess set in on our train ride to Paris.

Upon our arrival the first thing we noticed was the traffic. The midday taxi ride from Gare du Nord to the center of Paris was painstaking, with every hundred-meter progression feeling like a major victory. Once on the the Île Saint Louis we observed the crush of humanity outside Notre Dame and remembered it was June and American kids were out of school. We pressed on, literally, stretching our legs on a jog to the Tuilieries and back. In the early evening we headed to our favorite café in the Marais for a glass of wine. The people watching from a pavement table was still the best in the world, but the man hawking jasmine garlands was more aggressive than usual. This was nothing compared to the affront I felt when we sat down for dinner at the bistro next door and discovered our waiter was Irish. Was it too much to ask to be treated rudely by an old French waiter for your anniversary?

The week continued and so did the list of irritations. The workers at the Musee d’Orsay went on strike closing the museum for the day. There was a hair in my turkey club at our favorite lunch spot on the Rue Cler. It rained. I got bit by mosquitoes. The stench of urine on the cobbled banks of the Seine marred our morning jogs. Of course there were pleasures—aside from the turkey club we ate and drank very well—but even those were suspicious given my ill-timed decision to pick up my reading of Down and Out in Paris and London on our last day. In it Orwell expounds on his life as a plongeur in the bowels of a Paris hotel kitchen; I can only the hope the filth has subsided since he worked in the city in 1928. By the time we boarded Eurostar back to London, the mutual feeling was of relief.

Yesterday the Cotswolds had its first true summer day, and we were there. We rode our bikes out through Hampnett and Turkedean, then Notgrove and Guiting Power, stopping for lunch at the Black Horse in Naunton, weaving through the day trippers in Lower Slaughter and Bourton-on-the-Water before heading back through Farmington and home. Poppies rouged the apple-green cheeks of the hills, and fields of linseed blooms in a sheer lavender hue provided the dose of Impressionism we had failed to get from the Orsay. It was by far the best day of the vacation.

Reading back over this I am aware I sound like a spoiled brat complaining about getting to spend a week in Paris. On the contrary, I count my lucky stars every day that I have the kind of life right now that affords me such whims. I know that one day before long we will be back in the U.S. where if we are lucky we will be employed, and such employment will be rewarded with a paltry ten days vacation in a currency that doesn’t go far in Europe. When we decided to go to Paris for our anniversary it was precisely because we were thinking we won’t always have Paris. What I forgot is that, God willing, we’ll always have the Cotswolds.

Cotswolds England

Royal Wedding Red Carpet

Posted on April 30, 2011

All the Cotswolds, even this folly, was decked out yesterday for the royal wedding. Well, that’s not totally true. Despite my earlier assertion that the ladies of the Cotswolds would be wearing their finest hats for the viewing at the wine bar, I was the only one (unless you count L.’s floppy straw number and a couple of men in baseball caps). In fact attendance was rather sparse when husband and I first arrived at 9:30AM. In a classic Toff display of the middle-finger-to-the-world attitude, A., one of the scariest dames of the neighboring villages, hadn’t even bothered to put in her dentures. I guess she didn’t really need them for the coffee with a snifter side car of something or other she was drinking. She did, however, seem amused by my small-pink-bird-just-exploded-on-my-head hat, quipping with a front-toothless smile that there was still time to make it to the Abbey. Vera, the eight-year old pug who had the bar stool next to me, also seemed to like my hat. Or at least my croissant.

By the time I was on to my first Bellini of the morning the place had started to fill up. This provided me with an audience for my running red carpet commentary on the guests, something the BBC broadcast was too dignified to provide. It went something like this:

Pippa the sister should have never been allowed to wear white. If it wasn’t for her spray tan she may have stolen the show.
Eugenie and Beatrice did steal the show, but not in a good way. In an ugly stepsisters in a Cinderella panto kind of way.
The Queen looked radiant in yellow. Not a hint of Big Bird despite my initial fears when I first glimpsed her in her car on the way to the Abbey.
Advice to Harry: stand up straight.
Advice to Wills: shave it off.
Advice to SamCam (PM’s wife): next time wear a hat.
I shouldn’t have liked Miriam González Durántez’s (Deputy PM’s wife) Cruella de Vil get up but I did. It takes guts to wear a floral turban to the Abbey. Very Sunset Boulevard.

and finally,

Best hat goes to Zara Phillips for her silvery-black tilted UFO.

Congratulations, William and Catherine!

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