July 1st (Tues) – This morning we lounged a bit in our room before breakfast. I just wanted to have a leisurely morning and as our next stop in the Cotswolds was not that far away, this was the time to do it. Breakfast was just juice and toast for me this morning but Mike had the Continental Breakfast which consisted of slices of ham and cheese on a plate. Very odd but he seemed to enjoy it. After breakfast, we walked back into town to the sweet shop (i.e. Candy Store) we’d seen the day before but which was closed just as we got to it. We were searching for a fizzy hard candy that we’d gotten down in Lyme Regis, but turns out they didn’t have anything similar at this shop. Still, I encouraged Mike to get some things because he likes to munch while he drives. I also hit the Tourist Info place again (I’d gone in the day before and met my first cranky Brit) and lo, there was the same cranky Brit. I asked her how to get from Bath to Stow – our next destination – and she rather grudgingly and not very convincingly told me how. Mike had stayed outside while I did this and when I emerged he was talking to a young man who had a big whomping row boat in the middle of the square. He was there for charity purposes but Mike discovered that this very young man had actually solo-rowed ACROSS THE ATLANTIC! 75 days all by himself. Wow.
We decided to get on the road at this point, so we walked back to our car, stopping for bottled water and Orangina for the drive. Turns out the cranky Brit’s directions were actually perfect (shame on me) and we got out of town with no trouble. Once on the road, we decided to had for Castle Combe – a little town that our innkeeper said we should see and which was described as the “prettiest village in England”. We had thought of back-tracking to Wells, which we had driven through at the end of the day before, because Mike discovered that most of the filming for the movie Hot Fuzz was done there (speaking of the “prettiest village in England”). We decided to go forward, though, so Castle Combe it was. As we entered the Cotswolds, it was clear to us that while it’s very pretty (mostly farmland and rolling hills), we’d simply been spoiled by Cornwall. Castle Combe was tiny and had beautiful yellow stone houses all around and a small stream that ran along the edge of the town, but there was nothing much to see other than this so we simply drove through.
Next on the list was a town called Burton-on-the-Water, which was described as the “Venice of the Cotswolds”. Before getting there, though, we saw a sign for “The Museum of Mechanical Music” and as Mike likes music boxes, we decided to take the turn-off into the town of Northleach. We parked in the town square, noting straight off a little wine shop. We meandered over and one of the shop keepers began trying to read Mike’s “Linguistics in Tucson” shirt. She and the other male shop keeper were very friendly, so we went in. Mike got a couple of interesting wines and I got a half-bottle of a champagne I’ve never had. We’ll have to drink these before we head home, of course. Darn.
The museum itself was something you had to pay to enter, so Mike decided he didn’t want to go in that badly. On we went to Burton-on-the-Water. It was very pretty but absolutely PACKED with tourists. We did see some very cute ducklings and had ourselves a cream tea, but the tea room was tiny and crammed with people and neither of us wanted to linger. We headed out from there to our final destination for the day: Stow-on-the-Wold. This was only a few miles up the road and we found it easily, although once we checked in I was a tad cranky because we did not get the type of room I had requested (and for which I have email confirmation). We didn’t want to be obnoxious American tourists though, so we didn’t make a fuss after inquiring, although I’m still not sure whether I was overcharged as I haven’t been able to access our email while here. Our room is actually fine and looks out on the church and its yard and cemetery. We’ve actually heard some lovely church bells, although I can’t decide whether it’s creepy to sleep with headstones out your window.
We decided to have a drink in the garden and it was very pretty there. Our beer was a local brew and it was not to my taste at all, but Mike seemed to like it. As it was too early for dinner, we decided to walk around the town, which was very nice and much less crowded than Burton-on-the-Water, thank goodness. This gave us a chance to scope out our restaurant choices and when the time came we went to the Kings Arms for fish and chips. When we got there, there were just some locals in the bar and so we sat and soaked up the local atmosphere. Sadly, about half-way through our meal, an American family came in and basically took over the entire room. Geez, they were so loud – as if everyone wanted to hear what they were talking about. I hope we aren’t like that. It certainly put a damper on the end of our meal, so we settled up and went back to our room. At this time, church bells have been ringing and our windows are open to a pleasant breeze. A little relaxing will be just the thing - “Ta” for now!
July 2nd (Wed) – We woke up to colder, wetter weather this morning. And I have to say I’m getting a bit tired of the B&B breakfasts; there’s not much variety particularly if you are not a cereal eater like myself and short of an egg every day, there’s toast, and toast...and, oh! there’s toast. Guess what I had? Toast! After breakfast, we strolled around the church yard that we could see from our room (and no, it’s not creepy sleeping next to the old cemetery). On one side of the church there is a little dark wooden door flanked by two yew trees – said to be the inspiration for Tolkien’s Door to Moria. He was apparently known to have spent a lot of time walking around the Cotswolds and sketching things he saw there. The inside of the church itself was impressive as many churches here seem to be. Parts of it dated back to the 12th century and there were some very old tomb markers on the floor (although none as old as the 12th century). Apparently, during the Civil War here, 1000 soldiers were imprisoned in the church. A disturbing thing to imagine.
After this, we stopped at the New England Coffee House which we had spotted the night before as a place for hot chocolate. The barrista and another woman in the shop were really nice and asked where we were from. We spent a little time chatting with them and left with heavenly hot chocolate (the thicker kind, like European drinking chocolate) and recommendations for the route to Aberystwyth from Stow – our next port of call for the following day – and also the names of places to eat that night that would be off the beaten path for other tourists (so as to avoid a repeat performance of the night before).
Our first outing of the day took us to a Falconry Center for which I had spotted a flier the day before in the Tourist Information place in Bourton-on-the-Water. Mike was also interested so we decided to go ahead and see what it was like. Let me just say, it was a really well-spent several hours. We learned so much about birds of prey and saw a lot of really beautiful birds. The Center is apparently involved in conservation and breeding and so have quite a few breeding pairs of different species. Entering the initial courtyard, there were lots of uncaged birds right out in the open (tethered to roosts), identified by species but also by the names given to them by the Center. These are the birds that must and do get flown every day. Did our mouths drop open when we saw two Bald Eagles just hanging out so close we could have reached out and touched them? Yes, indeed! The bigger one was Gladys – apparently the females are bigger – and the smaller was Wutan. We have never seen a Bald Eagle this close – or any other birds of prey – and the whole experience was simply amazing. We saw all kind of eagles, falcons, hawks, kites, owls, kestrels, and vultures as close as the hand in front of your face. Some were in cages (mostly the breeding pairs) but many were not. At one point, I sat next to Desmond – a horned owl – who was sitting on a young trainee’s (gloved) arm. He was actually a pretty chatty bird and very large. The young man said he was really heavy but part of his training was to hold all the birds so they could get used to each other. I told him I had approached one cage with owls in it and one of them did this weird sort of head wiggle – back and forth, up and down – and I didn’t know what that meant. He said they do that because they have binocular vision so they have to wiggle their head like that to focus. Eventually we left Desmond because the young man’s arm had gone numb from holding him – even though he had his arm braced against the bench. Yikes!
At about that time, they had a flying demonstration. The falconer was the most enthusiastic and engaging man and we learned so much about birds of prey. The first thing we learned as that they are apparently “bone idle” – meaning they are lazy! He said they’re not actually made for flying (that is, flapping their wings) but for gliding and soaring. This means they don’t have the muscle for sustained flying so on days when the weather is not good for flying (no wind, no good thermals, etc.), they simply won’t; they won’t expend the extra effort and will instead go hungry and wait for a better opportunity. The day we were there it was overcast with very little wind, so he warned us that the birds he took out for us might not fly. We also learned that birds basically have three weights: hunting weight, opportunity weight, and fed-up. The latter is where we get that term and means that they are too full of food to fly. They fly the best, apparently, when they are at hunting weight, but that is a tricky thing to determine and it’s different for every bird. They keep most of their birds at opportunity weight, which I think means that if the weather is good and they’re hungry they’ll fly.
He took out two types of vultures, one pair was called Rosie and Ripper, four black kites, and a Chilean Eagle named Lulu. None of them really felt like flying but they were all magnificent and he got the kites, Rosie, and Lulu to fly a little bit. The two smaller turkey vultures that he took out first, followed him out of their cage on foot, gave the sky a look, hung around the falconer for a nibble or two, hopped on his arm, and then walked back to their cage! He did try to coax them nearer to people by tossing food close to us. They are skittish and so Mike and I kept quiet and very still and then one come cautiously over to get the nibblet – approaching it sort of obliquely, dashing in low, and getting out quick. The other two vultures, Rosie and Ripper, we got to see up close for longer because they were not shy at all (they were HUGE). Rosie basically sat right in front of us for quite a while. The falconer kept trying to encourage them to fly and they were so funny! They walked at every opportunity, waddling along behind him. He tried to trick them at one point by calling them out into a field and locking a gate behind them so they’d have to fly over the fence to come back – but Ripper decided going under the fence would be preferable. Heehee!
Anyway, we had a really great time and the falconer himself was a hoot, clearly loves what he does, and loves his birds. He also was very firm that they do not MAKE their birds fly and do tricks for an audience; the center’s philosophy is that the birds should be able to behave as naturally as possible. If this means that the day is crap and they don’t want to fly, they won’t make them do so – as we saw. It was an entertaining and informative visit even so, and if we’d have had time to stick around for the next flying demonstration, I would have. Instead we left there and did a little back roads driving in the Cotswolds to get a feel for the area. It really is very pretty there – not as dramatic as the coast of Cornwall – but beautiful in its own way. Low hills, green and gold fields, tree “tunnels” over the narrow roads – very pastoral. We stopped in the village of Chipping Campden for tea and to see the 17th century stone Market Hall that still stands in the village center. Our cream tea was perfectly timed as it started to really rain as soon as we got inside. We were nice and cozy with our scones and tea but then we decided to forge ahead to Warwick Castle, as we had originally planned. Turns out that once you enter the parking area, you can’t get out again without a parking token that you get in the castle forecourt. Mike was ambivalent about doing anything more than going to get the token since it was looking a bit like Disneyland and not the experience we were hoping for. It had really started to rain by then and I discovered that my jacket was really not all the waterproof (i.e., I got soaked). After all that to get the stupid parking token, I was damn well not going to leave without seeing the castle, Disneyland, drenched or no. I’m sure that’s exactly what they hope you’ll do and we had to pay quite a lot to get in. But it was fun even though the rain made us a tad miserable (Mike had an umbrella and a better coat so he was less miserable). At one point, we were in the basement walking through an exhibit called “The King’s Arms” or something like that, where there were all these wax, life-size figures set up in various rooms doing things that would be required if there were a call to arms – when suddenly one of the figures spoke to us! Turns out there was a real guy (dressed period appropriately) sitting among the wax figures. He said he thought we realized, as he was sitting there hand-sewing some thingamabobs for holding armor together (I forget what he called them). He hadn’t mean to startle us, but he sure did! We found out that he’s a “white smith” or a cold metal worker and as he put it “he gets paid to play”. Goes around to where they do battle reenactments and the like.
After this, we left the castle and thankfully the rain had let up a bit so I didn’t get any wetter than I already was. On our drive back toward Stow, we hit a bit of traffic so I read Mike “The Mousehole Cat” book that I had picked up in Bath. It was a really sweet story with great illustrations and Mike liked it, too. Once back in the Stow area, we head for a town called Bledington, the first pub that our coffee-shop acquaintance had told us about. It was a very small town and the pub was actually very pretty and situated on a small village green. We got there about 6 only to learn that pubs typically don’t open for food until 7. Rather than drive around some more looking for someplace else, we decided to stay there, have a beer, and just relax until we could order food. The pub had very low ceilings and we were seated at a “settle” in front of a huge (big enough to have a party in) fireplace – unlit of course at this time of year. It was very pleasant and 99% of the people that eventually came in were Brits, so we got to soak up some local culture. The food was actually more of what they call “gastro pub” quality, which from the look and taste of things means that it’s a bit upscale. We were “fed up” from the main meal (heehee, get it!), so we opted out of dessert. When we got back to our room in Stow, I filled up the bath with very hot water and finally got the chill off from having been in damp clothes most of the day. It was lovely! I also made decent headway on my Aberystwyth detective story, which was a strangely obsessive read despite being pretty odd and a bit too gritty for my taste. It’s of the “noir” genre, which I hadn’t realized. In any case, we fell asleep to church bells this night.
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