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Cotswolds

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

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.

Cotswolds

Life in the Variable Speed Lane

Posted on August 18, 2009

The back page of the Weekend FT’s Life & Arts sections hosts two columns of which I am a regular reader, Tyler Brûlé’s The Fast Lane and Harry Eyres’ The Slow Lane. Tyler is forever jetting off in first class to his Swedish holiday home or Tokyo or Mumbai, full of tips on the best airlines and luggage and local retail offerings. Harry is forever reading Aristotle or watching birds or listening to The Proms. Given my recent embrace of the rural life, I feel I should have more of a natural affinity for The Slow Lane. But the truth is that I am just a little bedazzled by the life of Tyler. I always read The Fast Lane first, and not just because it’s at the top of the page.

Real life of late has been a mix of both the fast lane and the slow lane. At 5pm last Thursday, the news broke that I needed to be in Boston in time for Monday morning meetings. Thanks to some surreptitious IMing with the all-knowing, all-powerful administrative assistant Iva during a four hour meeting on Friday afternoon, flights, rental car, and hotel were secured before I left the Hampshire office at 5pm. I was heading back to Gloucestershire to meet out of town guests at the wine bar at 7pm, and while I drove I perused my mental to do list and wondered how I was going to accomplish it between now and when I had to leave for Heathrow on Sunday afternoon: clean bathroom before guests arrive (a feat which would require time travel); find American adaptor for laptop and mobile phone charging; buy toothpaste, hand lotion, tampax, and shaving cream (I had already determined all food related sustenance for husband and guests would have to be provided by the fine pubs and inns of our greater local area); pay buildings insurance; transfer money to unused bank account from which husband had randomly chosen to write a check for the refrigerator repair; do laundry; enter passport details and check-in online. Thanks to the mini grocery stores that grace the UK’s motorway rest stops, I had acquired all absent toiletries before I hit the wine bar. (Is it wrong that I have become so reliant on motorway rest stop grocery shopping that I now have favorites, namely the Marks & Spencer Food at the services just after Reading on the M4 and the Waitrose just after the Oxford exit on the M40?) I did not, however, manage to remember the U.S. adaptor and therefore purchased yet another one after clearing security at Heathrow. I am now quite possibly in possession of the world’s largest adaptor collection, of which I was reminded as I schlepped over to the B Gates of Terminal 5 and wondered what was poking me in the leg. It was in fact the American adaptor I bought last time I “forgot” one, stashed safely in the side pocket of my carry-on bag so I wouldn’t ever “forget” it again.

In contrast, life in Gloucestershire has been quite literally in the slow lane. It’s harvest time and tractors are using the roads to haul crops of corn and oil rapeseed, which serves as an effective yet no doubt infuriating speed deterrent for the hordes of BMW and Range Rover drivers who usually race along the country roads with the urgency of an ambulance. I do not fall into this category (and not just because I drive a Prius), despite the fact that I am perpetually running late. My commute time is my think time, and I think better at an amble anyway. Just on the outskirts of town a corn dryer rumbles away, producing a pleasant backdrop of white noise for all my musing. The barley and wheat will keep me company in the fields for another week or so depending on the weather (there are high hopes for a dry harvest after a wet one last year), their stalks bleached the exact colour of the dry stone walls that enclose them. Sunday I took the slow way out of town en route to Heathrow, past a herd of cows recently migrated to the field just behind Ethel and George, which includes a handful of lovely mushroom coloured calves and a sole ginger coloured heifer, past the Coln River and the long, narrow sheep pasture just outside of Coln Rogers, out Winson with it’s handsome field of racehorses and the stud farm, to the intersection just before Fosse Cross, marked by the tin-roofed barn. It took me an extra fifteen minutes, but sitting on the taxiway reading Harry Eyres I was reminded that it was worth the time.

It is with no small displeasure that I find myself on the cusp of a metaphor about my life involving the M25, the London ring road that employs a variable speed limit broadcast over digital signposts to keep traffic moving. It is, after all, a distinctly unglamourous comparison to make. And yet it is apt. It would be untrue to say I didn’t derive a sort of buzzy pleasure from the stress of a short notice business trip, as untrue as saying I didn’t enjoy the contemplation of a long Cotswold ramble, or naming my favorite trees Ethel and George, or learning the name of a bird or a flower that graces the hedgerows. Life works best for me at a variable speed; it’s how I keep my mental traffic moving.

Cotswolds

Lurching Towards Mesey Hampton

Posted on August 4, 2009

We spent Sunday afternoon at a dog show, the V.W.H. Hunt Farmers & Supporters Club Terrier and Lurcher Show, at the suggestion of the local Bon Vivant who happens to be one of the aforementioned official “supporters.” Although the show would feature a dog agility competition, the first challenge of the day was to our mental agility and required that we locate the village where the show was being held, Mesey Hampton. This was not to be confused with the village of Maiseyhampton less than a mile to the north. After only one argument and a harrowing u-turn on a narrow road, husband and I found the V.W.H. Kennels.

My rural education resumed with haste. The grounds had two rings roped off, one for the Terrier classes (Jack Russell, Border Terrier, Lakeland/Fell, and Patterdale type) and one for the Lurcher classes. Much to my juvenile delight, the latter included competitions for both “rough” bitches and “smooth” bitches. Alas there were no rap video hos, only lovely greyhound-ish looking ladies. Bon Vivant Jr. ignored my guffawing and patiently explained the general principles of the proceedings. This was a dog show for country people and their working dogs. The terriers would be judged on the features that made them useful for hunting, like the ability to stick their snout down a hole, rather than the poncey stuff reserved for the world of pedigree shows. This was the anti-Crufts or, if you’ve seen the film Best in Show, the “anti-Best in Show” show. The atmosphere was relaxed, without poodles or bows or doggie blow dryers, and blissfully free of women in fringed costumes dancing with their dogs to “Achy Breaky Heart.”

The highlight of the day was when Bon Vivant Jr.’s girlfriend lent husband her smiley dog, Gypsy, a half-Collie, half-Jack Russell mix, for a spin around the agility course. Husband looked like a half-mad, oversized leprechaun, mouth pursed into an “O” and eyes agog as he coached Gypsy to jump and weave in a perky voice while running behind her in a dainty, trotting gait. Luckily Gypsy was trained in agility and completed the course with ease while more or less ignoring the strange man distracting her. At least husband didn’t climb through the tunnel as the lady before him did in an attempt to get her dog to follow (she failed). To the shock of almost everyone, husband managed to bag a second place time with Gypsy’s champion moves. He was awarded a blue rosette, which now hangs proudly in the kitchen, and Gypsy got a bag of treats.

Cotswolds

The Cotswold Show

Posted on July 6, 2009

Over the weekend we attended the granddaddy of village fetes, the Cotswold Show. It was awfully sporting of Lord Apsley to throw such a big party for the Fourth of July at his ancestral seat of Cirencester Park. It reminded me of the graceful way Britain handled a more recent defeat at the hands of America, Andy Murray’s semi-final loss to Andy Roddick on Friday night at Wimbledon.

The show thoughtfully placed a dog scurry event right next to the port-a-loos at the entrance. This gave husband something to pass the time while he waited for me to stand in the inevitably much longer ladies’ line (some things never change). Next up were a multitude of opportunities for a grown man to reclaim his lost boyhood. After posing for pictures next to the steam trains on display, husband took a crash course in archery. We made a mental note to return for the ferret races at 2:30pm and headed off in search of lunch.

Hamburgers were washed down with a beer—Cotswold Summer Lager for me, Doom Bar for husband—while a middle-aged band serenaded us with Lynyrd Skynard with a British accent. (Skynard is apparently as obligatory for British as American county fairs.) Overhead a group of parachutists floated into the main display area. Earlier there had been Evil Knievel-esque motorcycle jumps here, and later the local hunt would show off their Modern English hounds before a man with a Cockney accent and a medieval outfit did a falconry display.

I’m sure Patricia Marx could fill an entire On and Off the Avenue with the shopping on offer at the show. We got so distracted with the coracles, a traditional Welsh fishing boat, and rare breed livestock that we forgot about the ferret races. Oh how any one of these retail outlets would liven up the Pottery Barn/Banana Republic tedium of the average shopping mall (fancy an Old Spot piglet with your Martin stretch cotton trouser?). I settled for a tweed flat cap from Rydale, which was both more portable and affordable at £8.99.

We ended the afternoon at the fun fair. Husband had earlier promised to take me on a spin on the diminutive ferris wheel. Much to the amusement of the two ten-year old girls in line in front of us, he bailed just before it was our turn to ride. The ten-year-olds obligingly let me share their compartment with them. As we surveyed the grounds from atop the wheel, they briefed me on the ferris wheel scene in Southern England. Apparently the ride at Gloucester Quay is not to be missed.

Cotswolds

Notes on a Summer Landscape

Posted on July 3, 2009

The acid yellow of oil of rapeseed has long ago given way to chunky sage green foliage, threaded through with papery orange-red poppies. Deep green seas of wheat have faded to sage green too. Some are already in the throes of becoming the wheat we know, germs bleached and wispy and standing on end like a blond shot through with static electricity. Fuchsia thistles spike the hedgerows and plumes of cow parsley persist, party favors of spring.

Cotswolds

Chuck-the-Wellie

Posted on June 21, 2009

The Great British Summer is officially here. Thousands marked the summer solstice by watching the sun rise at Stonehenge, but I took my cue from a more traditional kick-off to the summer calendar: Royal Ascot. While I did not attend this year, I did catch a glimpse on television and was struck by just how anachronous the whole spectacle appeared. A BBC commentator was interviewing the aged couple who owned the horse that had just won a race. He was stiff in his stove top hat and blunt cut morning coat, showing no hint of pleasure at his victory. She was excessively coordinated: shoes, bag, dress, jacket, and lampshade hat all in shades of black and white. Both were completely lacking in the sartorial ease that characterizes our fashionable neighbors across the channel. I daresay the addiction to matching coordinates exhibited by m’lady would be enough to make mademoiselle strangle herself with her Hermès scarf or gouge her eyes out with her Chanel ballerina flats.

Still I am smitten with all forms of British tradition, and yesterday we attended a more casual yet equally important event in the summer social calendar: the first fête of the season. We cycled over to Chedworth where the weather behaved as expected—wind, drizzle, sun, and clouds in alternating cycles of approximately fifteen minutes each—while the whole village defiantly carried on with the requisite fête activities of jumble sale, Tombola, barbecue, dog show, and chuck-the-wellie competition, with tea and cakes served in the village hall. There will be one of these every weekend day in a village somewhere in the Cotswolds from now until the end of August, including our own Charter Fair next Saturday. We are, somewhat distressingly for my romantic fantasy of my quaint rural life, a town rather than a village, owing to a charter granted by King Henry III in 1227 giving us rights to hold both a weekly market and an annual fair. Thus we have a fair rather than a fête.

As such, we have to make a bit more of an effort. Rustic amusements such as chuck-the-wellie would just seem out of place amongst the grandeur of a climbing wall and vintage chair-o-plane rides and, gasp, a fire engine. (The fire engine appears twice on the official programme of events. First, we pause for its entrance, then the band plays a bit more, and then, we have a designated time slot to admire it.) Faced with such excitement the wine bar has chosen to shut its doors for the day. The memories of last year’s deluge of punters asking to use their facilities and the unseemly smells wafting in from the cricket team’s barbecue stand were just too much.

Personally, I think they’re overreacting. It reminds me of the response of Notting Hill’s posher residents to that other great British summer event, the Notting Hill Carnival. Many West London home owners board up their stucco terraces and flee the city while the rest of London floods in for three days of food, floats, and Red Stripe induced fights. More than a few of these Notting Hill refugees will be heading for the retreat of their weekend homes in the Cotswolds where they may happen upon the quaint charms of a local fête. Should they arrive at our Charter Fair next weekend they will no doubt be disappointed to find such charms are not to be enjoyed over a glass of rosé .

Cotswolds

Tramp’s Pillow

Posted on June 2, 2009

Last weekend we went to lunch hosted by the local bon vivant, M. The blue and white check cloth-covered table was set out in the front garden against the wisteria draped stone of the house. Rambling flowers to the left belied the hours of care that had gone into them. To the right was the chicken coop that has supplied us many breakfasts and a kitchen garden with neat rows of lettuces and stick tepees awaiting their runner bean linings.

The weather was behaving impeccably and it was all straw hats and sunglasses and rosé served from an earthenware pitcher. A compliment on the jug prompted M. to confess the decanting was being done to conceal that the rosé was coming from a box in the fridge. This led to a discussion on the virtues of boxed wine, a subject about which I thoughtI knew something given I had a box o’Franzia pink in residence in my closet for all four years of college. There was, however, a piece of trivia that was new to even me. The bladder in a wine box is indestructible and therefore makes a handy pillow—a tramp’s pillow—in a pinch. M. always keeps one in Châteaux Peugeot (a.k.a. his white van) in case of (presumably wine-induced) emergency camping requirements. All this musing on boxes of wine and tramps sent M. into a tailspin of melancholy. His phone had been cut off a week ago because he hadn’t paid the bill. Head in hands, he informed us that this was not where he hoped to be at the age of fifty-six.

M’s purported dissatisfaction with his life got me thinking about the nature of happiness. I didn’t really believe he was unhappy most of the time, but rather pesky intrusions like an overdue phone bill were conspiring to make him believe he was depressed. It reminded me of the nocebo effect, which works like the opposite of the placebo effect, producing symptoms by creating negative expectations. Experts blame the proliferation of public health warnings and medical information on the web. I long ago imposed a self ban on Googling anything MS related, but ever since I was nominated for membership in the chronic illness sufferers club I’ve noticed MS all around me. It’s like when you’re pregnant or engaged and it suddenly seems like everyone else is also having a baby or getting married. Just this morning there was a news story about a woman with MS who has become a member of an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland. After I hear something like this I invariably start to imagine symptoms. I have a heightened awareness of my middle spine or a tingling in my knee. It takes a few minutes to realize that’s just the belt on my wrap dress cinched a little too tight or to remember I walked through a patch of nettles earlier in the afternoon.

M.’s melancholy passed before we finished the roast chicken. By the time we were on the cheese he was busy discussing the 150+ strong guest list for his upcoming fifty-seventh birthday party which he plans to celebrate with Heinz 57 themed catering—beans on toast and boxed wine for everyone. I’ve already thought of the perfect birthday present for him: the biggest, fluffiest goose down pillow I can find.