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Cotswolds

California Cotswolds

Gone to California in my Mind

Posted on February 5, 2010

It may just be down to the fact that we are having the worst winter the UK has seen for thirty years, but I think it could be time to start making a plan to move back to Los Angeles. It’s an idea husband has been dropping into conversation on and off for at least six months now. I’ve been resistant, not least because I’m liking my job at the moment. But a few weeks ago, something shifted. I’ve noticed that I’ve started making mental lists of things I want to do before I leave. There’s the Trouble House and the Kilkenny, pubs I drive by most days but have never made the time to stop in to. And I need to eat at the Plough at Kingham so I can taste Alex James’ goat cheese. In London there’s the Soanes museum and that Eritrean restaurant on the Harrow Road I’ve been meaning to try. Will I make it to the longest running show in the world, The Mousetrap, before it closes? What about the Louisana museum in Copenhagen and the new Magritte one in Brussels, not to mention Stockholm and a return cycling trip to Alsace? All of a sudden it seems like there is so much to do, and that doesn’t even include finding a job in California or any of the two thousand other practicalities associated with hopping the Atlantic.

Worst of all I feel like some kind of fraud. I’ve spent close to two years blogging about the charms of rural Britain and yet, faced with a little snow, I’m ready to turncoat on the market square wine bar and settle into a booth at Gilbert’s on Pico with a carafe of margaritas. Despite the fact that there’s a red passport snuggled up to the blue one in my sock drawer, I guess at heart I’m still an American in the Cotswolds.

Books Cotswolds

The Printed Page

Posted on January 23, 2010

My Kindle conversion is incomplete. I’m still trudging through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (my choice of verb reflects the writing more than the digital experience), but I only made it through two Saturdays of downloading the Weekend FT before returning to the pink printed page. Dividing up the sections with husband for consumption over lunch at the farm shop only works in analog form. And I proved to myself today that the allure of paper still extends to books when I wondered into a second hand book shop in Cheltenham to kill time while husband shopped for Blu-Rays.

I was drawn in by the well curated shelf facing the sidewalk, tempting me with Ian McEwan and Jonathan Safran Foer and Patrick Gale. In the end I sprang for the 1949 Gloucestershire edition of The Little Guides. How could I not? I was taken in by the back cover which informed me that The Little Guides were banned from publication in 1940 for reasons of national security. And that was before I noticed that the tattered cover features a print of our Cotswold town, captured from the vantage point of the hill behind our house looking down over our curved lane and the clock tower side of the church. I know the vista well—there’s a bench at the top of the hill today that makes it a good spot to sit and gaze. Apart from the missing primary school, little has changed in the last sixty years. Even the text still applies. The description of our town starts with, “…a good place with good stone buildings dating from medieval times to early 19th cent. The later buildings are not so happy,” as if prescient of the 1980s developments that would eventually bookend the town.

Attached to the back cover is a fold out map in perfect condition save for one tear at the seam. Here one major change to the Cotswolds is marked out by black squares, indicating railway stations in nearby Cirencester and Chedworth and Withington that are long gone. One day books may go the way of the railroads courtesy of Amazon and Google and Apple, but for now I’m still capable of being smitten with the printed page.

Cotswolds

Consumption Cottage

Posted on January 16, 2010

While I feel fine in all other respects, I have developed husband’s kidney ejecting cough and spent the better part of the week annoying my co-workers with it. My own father seemed utterly exasperated by the racket, and he was on the other end of a phone a few thousand miles and an ocean away. I’ve grown bored of catering to the cough, so a glass or two of pink prosecco at the wine bar with R&R last night seemed a good idea. Afterwards we lured them to our cottage to watch Celebrity Big Brother eviction night in the recently renovated loft, which has distressingly become known as the man cave. (With its exposed stone gable walls and light pouring in from the roof window, I had once imagined it as a cosy reading and writing room. One gable is now dominated by a fifty-four inch telly and ever since the Blu-Ray player arrived at Christmas, I’ve stopped fighting the inevitable.)

Within half an hour of Davina, a previously healthy R. was hacking away too. Now Drovers Cottage on College Row is known as Consumption Cottage on Consumption Row, and I have acquired the Dickensian moniker of Consumption Lil. I am afraid the labels might stick, providing yet more ammunition for husband in his campaign to return to California.

Cotswolds

Falling Apart

Posted on December 12, 2009

Our Cotswold town appears to be falling to bits, and just before Christmas! It’s almost as bad as when the Chinese takeaway shut down for six weeks back in February. It all started about a month ago when the town sign—a lovely oval, hand-painted affair detailing scenes from the town—disappeared from its perch on the edge of the market square. Weeks ago we were assured by the town artist that it was just away for repairs, but it has yet to materialize again. Then, a week ago the bells stopped ringing. I’d go as far as to say the church bells are the most distinguishing feature of the town. They ring all throughout the day and night, marking the hour and sometimes the quarter hour too. Every new resident has a story of how it took them some time to get used to sleeping through the night with the bells banging on, but it invariably ends with a profession of fondness for said bells. Tuesday night the bells starting clanging like they would for a wedding or christening, and I thought we were back in business. But they stopped after an hour or so and haven’t been heard from again, so the mystery of the bells continues. Tonite we go for Christmas drinks at Glebe House. It’s right next to the vicarage so I expect the vicar will be there. He has some explaining to do.

Cotswolds

Happy Birthday Dorothy!

Posted on November 23, 2009

Sunday we celebrated the ninetieth birthday of Dorothy Watson, owner of the village bakery and matriarch of St. Michael’s in Guiting Power, a title for which she has some competition given the regular church congregation consists of about six other little old ladies. She had indicated in her birthday party invitation (cover of which is pictured) that she hoped her guests would join her at church before the celebratory luncheon, and her request was heeded. The church was fuller than I had ever seen it before, including the harvest and Christmas carol services. Much to the amusement of the crowd, Dorothy heckled her grandson for failing to partake in communion, jokingly calling him a heathen. Thinking out loud in church is a specialty of Dorothy’s, often directed at the vicar and part of the reason I find it so enjoyable.

Afterwards we adjourned to the village hall for champagne and cocktail sausages, fishcakes, cold roast beef, swiss roll and banoffee pie. Dorothy’s grandson made a speech and Dorothy heckled him again. She was toasted by her friends in the Women’s Institute and by her daughter, who barely made it through her salute before bursting into tears. Dorothy looked radiant throughout in her bright red dress, working the crowd and enjoying her day. May we all be so lucky at ninety.

Cotswolds

A Quiet Weekend in the Country

Posted on November 9, 2009

Saturday we went to the hardware superstore in Cheltenham where we picked out kitchen cabinets for our new London shoebox and “flame” winter violas for the hanging baskets at Drovers Cottage. On our way home we stopped in to the Wheatsheaf where our local bon vivant, M., was hosting the opening of his new food-themed exhibit, including a print of his personal gastronomic map of Britain. There husband met Giles, owner of the animal crematorium at Fosse Cross, the last stop for beloved local equine pets. Giles told the story of how an Irishman tried to buy the horsetails for use in his rocking horse business. Giles declined, explaining the owners of the horses expected every last bit of them to end up in the urn, although I rather like the idea of a tail being used on a rocking horse as a tribute to a cherished pet.

We acknowledged Remembrance Sunday by attending the local church service. Two plaques commemorating the dead of our town from WWI and WWII are mounted on the wall to the right as you enter the sanctuary. Above them hangs a vintage British Legion flag, and below, a wreath of paper poppies was laid by two elderly gentlemen wearing medals on their lapels.

Afterwards, Jacques, our resident Frenchman (something I highly recommend for every community) approached husband to discuss the upcoming Court Leet seating plan for which Jacques is responsible like some kind of unlikely bride. The all-male Court Leet dinner has been held annually since the thirteenth century in our Cotswold town, and husband is flattered to have been invited back this year. While we talked Jacques bemoaned the very un-French habit the men have of buying a bottle of wine which is jealously guarded at each man’s place, unshared with others, and sometimes swigged straight from the bottle. I suspect it’s a habit that might date back as far as the Leet itself.

Cotswolds Random

Falling Off Your Platforms

Posted on October 18, 2009

The Cotswolds continues to deliver up the fabulous. To be fair, the man I have in mind is a resident of Jersey over visiting friends of ours for a long weekend, which is how we came to make his acquaintance at a dinner party last night. Adrian is a hairstylist with more than a passing resemblance to David Byrne—lanky, NBA-height, and a deliberate dresser (last night’s ensemble featured a plaid shirt of earth tones accessorised with a woolen waistcoat, chunky silver bracelet, matching cuff links, and collar pin). I knew the dinner party was going to be a success early on when he responded to my question of how he ended up in Jersey with a story that covered his first job in London styling wigs for Barbara Windsor, moving on to being David Bowie’s Chelsea neighbor, and culminating in a fateful evening in 1973 at Sombrero’s nightclub in Ken High Street (where he used to dance with Jerry Hall and Barbara Hulanicki of Biba) when he fell off his platforms and ended up in St. George’s hospital on New Year’s Eve, after which he decided his love affair with London was over and headed for the Channel Islands. He has lived there happily ever since with a pointer and a pussy for company. Somehow my own retreat to the rural life seems the most loathsome bourgeois, vanilla, pedestrian odyssey ever, except for the part where I get to meet the Adrians of the world.

Cotswolds

Man Creche

Posted on October 5, 2009

…Or the latest reason I love my town.
This sign appeared in the window of the wine bar last week:

Ladies are you tired of trying to entertain the man in your life?
Do you need some free time without him getting in the way?
The answer’s easy: The Man Creche
 
Simply drop the little rascal off with us. Here he can play with friends in a secure and encouraging environment until you are ready to collect him.
We’ll keep him warm and fed and, don’t worry, he won’t go thirsty.
Cotswolds

French Women (and Toffs) Don’t Get Fat

Posted on September 12, 2009

Since taking up residence in the Cotswolds one of the things I’ve observed about the local species of Toff is that they do not engage in anything an Angeleno would recognize as cardio exercise. They drink and smoke in copious amounts and, like a Parisian woman, stay infuriatingly thin. No Toff would be caught dead in lycra or running shoes, their idea of sporting clothes extending only to jodhpurs or plus fours in a nice, understated tweed.

I know all this because as a frequent wearer of lycra and running shoes on weekends, sometimes even in the polite company of the wine bar where I might stop in to fuel up with a morning coffee before a jog, I appear to be the source of much mirth. Such was the case on Saturday morning when Boot (all male Toffs of a certain age have a schoolboy nickname that is totally inappropriate for their current age and standing) took time out from selecting half a case of wine to mock my apparel. I am fairly certain it is all in good fun as he finished his roasting with an invitation for drinks that evening. Husband and I accepted, with a promise to bathe and remove any trace of lycra or Asics before our arrival.

Cotswolds

Make Hay While the Sun Shines

Posted on August 25, 2009

The past three days have been sunny and dry, which means combine harvesters in the fields and tractors on the road well into the twilight. Over the next week the fields will transform from seas of grain to blond buzz cuts stacked with oversized sugar cubes of straw to the ploughed under rubble of earth and sticks and stone. Along with the early dusk—8pm I mournfully noted on my drive home tonite—this reconfiguration of the landscape is one of the more dramatic reminders that summer is nearly through.

Taking my example from the farmers, I will make hay while the sun shines, an attitude to which the late summer social calendar is being particularly accommodating. Friday night will be spent with Chloe the Midnight Story Teller, one of our many local eccentrics, on the grounds of the nearby 17th century Lodge Park. On Saturday husband and I are off to experience the giant marrow, damson wine, and homemade chutney marvels of what will be our fifth consecutive Annual Boylestone Show in Derbyshire. And on the holiday Monday, the Jacobean mansion turned hotel, Bibury Court, will host the local fête—the last of the season—which promises to reveal the mystery of the coconut shy, which I in turn will reveal on the pages of this blog for the benefit of other readers like me who are ignorant of the curious customs of the English at play.