A couple of shots

Camera Club was good to me last night, I came third in our monthly competition with this shot of 'phone boxes in Broadway on the theme, 'Windows'.  I took this on the first day of my Cotswold Way walk last year, just as it was starting to rain.

Afterwards I popped down to the beach as the sunset coincided with high tide.  Watching the sun go down, a nice way to end the day.

 

Finished! Cotswold Way - Day 10 - Pennsylvania to Bath

It seems a long time ago that I started to walk the Cotswold Way, the 102 mile route that starts in beautiful Chipping Campden, ends in beautiful Bath and takes in some pretty special scenery en route as well.  The plan was to finish this last leg three and half months ago but for reasons that are explained here that didn’t happen.  Since then some time-consuming work situations and terrible weather have kept me waiting for that elusive drier weather when I could enjoy the last ten miles or so. 

Eventually my game of chicken with the weather came to an end.  I lost.  On a Tuesday two weeks ago it was a case of either walking regardless of the weather or face the possibility that it wouldn’t happen this year, especially with the clocks changing at the weekend.  Despite seeing the forecast as foggy with very poor visibility (and they weren’t too far wrong on that score) I set out on my last leg. 

I parked up outside an old disused pub in Cold Ashton and the first thing that I did was retrace my steps to Pennsylvania the hamlet that I reached to get to my B&B last time.  It meant crossing a couple of muddy fields and pausing at the B&B a moment, reflecting how I had been there when I heard the news of my Dad being rushed into hospital.  A silent prayer of thanks before turning to re-cross those ploughed fields.

As the (boring) picture shows, it was wet and slippery and grey on the last day of the Cotswold Way, much like the first day!

    

On getting back to Cold Ashton I revisited Sarah at Folly Farm cafe for a great cooked breakfast and an interesting chat with a man who told me all about how he had once introduced his companions to someone: "This is my ex-wife, this is my wife and this is my girlfriend."  You do meet some interesting people on this walk. 

Cold Ashton boasts the second most impressive door that I will see on the day and because of the conditions there isn't a great deal to see and admire on the leg.  At one point, near the Lansdown Battlefield, the guide book says that I should be able to see both Severn Crossings from my vantage point but I can't even see the Severn.  Likewise, the much remarked on view over Bath from Prospect Stile is a bit non-descript in this weather. 

The weather is very still though and it's pretty good walking weather, certainly was colder some days in June and July than I was here, at the end of October.  Weston brings the surprise of some serious climbing up steep steps (always hard) just when you think that's it on the climbing stakes but they are worth it for the joy of walking through the last mile or so in Bath itself.  The city is so beautiful that you don't notice the walk. 

By the time I have detoured very slightly to be at the Royal Crescent I have, in truth, finished walking the Cotswold Way.  I did the rest without trying on the night of my stay in the city a couple of months back.  So, it's past the B&B we stayed in and through to The Circus. 

The signage for the Cotswold Way becomes much more discreet in Bath (after all, this is Bath) and consequently is a little harder to follow.  The guide book comes in handy though and before you know it you are face to face with  the place you have been aiming for all this time, Bath Abbey.   

The door is the traditional finishing point but now they have a wonderful finishing point in the pavement just before the door.  When I get there it is so new that they are still due to dedicate it two days later - with a peel of bells or something.   

The woman at the Cathedral Shop is very patient with me when I ask her where the new finish point is and takes me out to show me after signing my sheet as proof of finishing the Cotswold Way.  It's a slightly odd feeling finishing, a bit of an anti-climax, in part because I planned it differently, with friends and a hearty meal.  I hang around for a bit and then go to Costa to celebrate with a spot of tiffin - I know how to party!  I text some friends and family to tell them I have finished and it's good to get their texts and calls in response, I don't feel quite so alone.   

Afterwards I try to catch a bus that is listed but no longer seems to exist and so it's late when I finally get back to Pennsylvania.  To fill in time in Bath I have my hearty meal - Big Mac, fries, coke.  Not quite what I had in mind but nevermind. 

I'm really glad to have done this walk.  I did it as a Cotswold boy and it has always been an ambition.  In the process of walking I found out that I didn't really know the Cotswolds at all, and that I have a bit of a love / hate relationship with walking.  At it's best it was joyous and inspiring, at it's worst dour and drab.  I discovered that I prefer to walk with others but that I can cope with walking alone.   

Now, I wonder what route I will be walking next?

The Cotswold Way - Day 9 - Old Sodbury to Pennsylvania

This old tree makes for great shelter in Doddington Park.

There are amber weather warnings issued for the day that I am due to walk Day 9 of my route but the plan is for completion on the last Friday/Saturday of my sabbatical, so there's no wriggle room.  My game of chicken with the weather is well and truly lost and I must carry on regardless.  My sister, under no such constraint bails out of walking with me but I don't blame her, and actually, it turns out for the best.

The original plan was to walk to Cold Ashton but the B&B is booked up and so I will be finishing a little earlier in Pennsylvania.  It makes for a short walk.   I could now complain about the conditions and research the rainfall but if you're living in Britain in 2012 you know what sort of a summer we're having.  Suffice to say that it was wetter under foot here on Leg 9 than when I was walking back in April.  I finished soaked through. 

A couple of shots taken in light drizzle rather than steady rain.  Both in Doddington Park.

 

The church building in Tormorton was a good place to repack my bag and eat an energy bar, say a prayer and resolve to move on and keep walking.  They had a lovely carpet and I already have wet muddy boots so no chance to explore.   

This is the last shot I took today, note the car headlights, windscreen wipers on, plenty of spray and gloom.  All at lunchtime in July.

There is, however, a definate highlight that will stick with me long into the future.  Shortly after walking over the bridge crossing the M4 motorway and walking the width of a field from it's traffic, I look up from the path to see a deer standing watching me not more than 25 or 30 yards away.  We meet each others gaze for a few moments before he bounds off ahead of me and then crosses my path and takes off towards the motorway.  It is a magical moment.  I have no prove of this encounter, my camera deep in my dry rucksack but it was a magnificent sight.

The B&B is reached quite early in the day as the weather encouraged just putting your head down and stepping up the pace.  There was no-one to talk to all day except a woman cutting the grass outside Dryham Park, and in that wonderfully English way of ours we joke about the weather and move on.  I finally give in to the iPod for the first time on my walk and remember a "Rain" playlist that I'd put together for a recent family barbeque.  It does the trick and raises my spirirts.   

There is no pub in Pennsylvania anymore.  There is no pub in Cold Ashton anymore either.  But there is a wonderful woman in Cold Ashton called Sarah who does meals for walkers in the evening if they pre-book.  When I get there I discover that I am the only one to have prebooked and so I feel like royalty as I dine on wonderful garlic mushrooms and chicken curry, all washed down with selections of Bath Ales afterwards.  It really is a terrific meal and she's a great host.  All this and photography magazines to read as well.  I feel very local signing her visitors book amongst the Norwegians, Dutch and Americans - sometimes it feels like the rest of the world are more interested than the Brits in the Cotswold Way.

I feel ready for the last day of the walk tomorrow, where I am to be walking with Andy again and we'll be meeting our wives in Bath for a meal to celebrate.

The B&B that I almost stay in, is an oddity.  Very friendly people but I am a little troubled that virtually the first thing I notice is the UKIP tea-towel, something I've never seen anywhere before (I do lead a very sheltered life).  My discomfort is heightened further when I check out and ask them to order me a taxi, which they do in super quick time, but they tell me they have ordered me an English driver rather than all the Poles that are working round here at the moment.  It's odd - to say the very least - to be saying such things when your business relies on entertaining so many walkers from overseas. 

I've had to check out though because I've had a phone call.  My Dad has suddenly been taken ill and I am in that taxi to get to his hospital bedside late at night.  For a few days it all looks touch and go but mercifully he seems on the road to recovery now four weeks later; out of hospital and just beginning to get out and about.  This is why I've not blogged a lot or updated my Cotswold Way progress.  It's also why I have yet to complete the walk.  In the last month we've had some glorious weather and sometime soon I will complete the leg from Pennsylvania to Bath.  But in the meantime some things are a lot more important.   

On my last legs

And in a couple of days time I probably will be because tomorrow I start the final two days of my Cotswold Way walk.  I walk from Old Sodbury to Pennsylvania tomorrow and then on into Bath on Saturday.  My walking companion has dropped out for tomorrow and I wouldn't blame them if my finalist decided against it for Saturday either. 

Why?  Well, the BBC weather forecasts on TV tonight (both local and national) show a great deal of rain due in the next 48 hours, with some areas (north of here) due to get a month's worth of rain in a morning.  The forecast is for a lot of heavy rain in the region I am walking.

Until you check the Met Office report online as I did less than an hour later.  It forecasts cloud all day.  And the BBC website shows rain at around 2pm but for it to be cloudy and nothing worse for the rest of the day.  As a precaution I have decided not to pack sun cream but I will pack a raincoat, just in case.   Saturday, on the other hand, is a different story.  All four reports are currently for heavy rain from early afternoon onwards. 

I am resolved to continue, as these are my last two walking days before the end of sabbatical.  My three month wait for better weather is over, I've run out of options.  I may be gone for some time...

The Cotswold Way - Day 8 - Wotton under Edge to Old Sodbury

Today's adventure starts early in the hope that I can get back in time for the glamour tie of Holland v Germany in the Euros and so I catch a bus from Chipping Sodbury (where I have parked) to the start point of Wotton under Edge.  The bus goes all round the houses to get there but it gives me the chance to survey the general landscape and it's pretty apparent that it's a lot flatter than I am used to on the Cotswold Way so far.  It's isn't the sort of thing that I would normally pay much attention to but here on the walk this sort of thing takes on a greater significance!  The bus terminates yards from where I need to start walking and, after a brief detour to see the almshouses that were locked for the night when I finished here last time, I am on my way. 

The route through Wotton is easy enough and pretty clearly marked.  In fact they have bright blue signs which boldly and proudly proclaim the route and it's the best signage I've come across so far.  Through the church yard at Wotton and then along a path beside a stream and it makes for a very gentle start to the day before heading steeply uphill though a narrow path lined with tall stinging nettles.  Time to retreat and zip the bottom half of my trousers on. 

This hill, which becomes less severe once I hit the road, is the worst of it today and while it's hard work, it's also the start of a stage, which makes a difference.  It's here that I meet a great Canadian couple who have started from Wotton and are aiming to get to Little Sodbury.  Ken and Karen are walking the section from Painswick to Bath and are even newer to this walking game than I am.  I have to smile at Karen's distress at having to walk through mud and her glee at finding a puddle to wash her boots off a little.  With about ten miles still to walk it seems a little early to worry about such things.  I walk with them a little of the way and then they head off as I stop to take yet more photographs.  The views at the top are excellent and the sun is out and I've taken off a layer and just wearing two tee-shirts, which is how it stays for the rest of the day. 

Further proof of their inexperience follows as they miss a sign about a hundred yards from where I am taking pictures and they end up walking down a hill that they then have to walk back up again.  I manage to wave them back to where they need to be and they are following me at a distance.  They are probably the only two walkers I have encountered who walk more slowly than me (though I do feel that I am quicker than when I started this) and so I fgure I won't be seeing them again. 

There is a long, steep descent through woodland after this, which makes me glad that I am walking south rather than north but it is still very beautiful.  Then over open fields and looking back there is a great view of Wortley Hill and even more impressively, given the summer we have had, glorious blue sky. 

By the time I reach Hawkesbury Upton I am ready for a brief detour to the local hostelry having eaten my sandwiches up near the Somerset Memorial.  The Beaufort Arms serves a good pint and I end up on a table next to an Australian couple who are, rather heroically, doing the whole of the Cotswold Way in seven days.  They leave and their table is taken by Ken and Karen who have loved their walk but are calling it a day.  And why not?  It's all about enjoying the journey.  They are happy to enjoy a couple of drinks and enthuse about the walk and give themselves extra time before they walk again tomorrow.  Or they won't, depending on how they feel.

On hearing their story, I am surprised to find that they booked the walking holiday on a whim, just two weeks ago to the day.  They hadn't done any training for it and they aren't walkers.  She is 58 and he is 72 and they play some golf so figured, how hard can it be?  So they booked plane tickets and joined up with a company that arranges bag transfer along the route and stepped out.  Respect is due.  No wonder I walk a bit faster than them. 

After a couple of pints I know that if I don't get up and walk soon I won't feel like starting again so I wish them well and retrace my steps to where I left the trail.  The walking is very easy at this point and it is the terrain rather than the effects of the very good Spa ale, though beer tastes so much better if you have walked nearly eight miles to get to the pub.  There are poppies poking through, a sight that I always love. 

Past Horton Court and the lovely views from there and I am very soon in Little Sodbury.  It's here that I visit my second church because this is where William Tyndale attended church (although the building was elsewhere in the village then) and decided that he was going to translate the Bible into English.  I wonder if it was because the priest was doing such a good job or a bad one of preaching the Bible?

I promise that I won't go off on another one about Tynedale.  The church is quite pretty and there is a great sentiment on the lectern in the pulpit.  Tynedale is remembered with some strained glass, a little booklet, his figure is carved into the pulpit, there's a page of his translation framed on the wall and there's a great big sign about him outside too.  All well and good.     

However.  Bizarrely, and I promise that I didn't know this when I wrote up day 7, they appear to use the Tynedale translation (with original spellings) in their worship still today, nearly 500 years later.  Why?  I'll leave it at that.  New readers are referred to my previous rant / post about Day 7

A short sharp climb follows, up to Sodbury Camp, which is the site of an old Iron Age fort, covering 10 acres.  High on the hill it is the perfect vantage point for spotting potential enemies as they approached on the A46.  From there it's an easy walk down into Old Sodbury.  There's a moment or two of confusion as I try and follow the instruction about what to do when I reach the tall sycamore, all the time not having a clue what a sycamore looks like.  Just as I am in danger of missing the path by no more than 50 yards, a woman tending to her horses puts me right and I am soon at the point in Old Sodbury where the route crosses the main road.  

Here I must leave the Cotswold Way to turn right and walk another couple of miles into Chipping Sodbury.  I note that the bus into Chipping Sodbury is on this junction and more by accident than design I see that the last bus is due in two minutes.  I wait fifteen before giving up.  It races past three minutes later.  Nevermind.  The terrain is flat and it's still dry.  It doesn't take too long to walk and I manage to get home in time to watch the whole of the Germany v Holland game.  I can now look forward to two more days walking before I reach my goal, Bath Abbey.  They are walks of 9 miles and 10 miles and I plan to do them consecutively in early July.  Can't wait!    

Cotswold Way - Day 7 - Coldharbour Farm to Wotton-under-Edge

Today Dursley is internationally famous in a way that no-one would have believed twenty years ago.  Sure it has had the odd brush with fame before - Listers produced machines from here, and Mikael Pedersen came from Denmark to produce his bicycle here.  Shakespeare, it is claimed, may have taught here for a while and there's a pub, The Old Spot, which was CAMRA 'Pub of the Year' a few years ago.  

None of these, however, are the reason that people know about Dursley.  Harry Potter fans know the Dursleys from JK Rowling's novels; she was born just down the road from here.  Due to her phenomenal her sales and the almost obsessive devotion of her fans, Dursley has become world famous.  Yet, for all great things about the Harry Potter novels (and I've read each one, seen all the films and will be taking the studio tour later this summer) JK Rowling isn't the most important literary figure we'll encounter on the Cotswold Way today.  Far, far, from it. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I park in Wotton-under-Edge and get a bus to Dursley, delaying my start for the day because the weather forecast is lousy for the day.  The worst of it is a heavy downpour with some thunder at lunchtime.  So I plan my journey to start in the early afternoon.  And, of course, it's perfectly dry all morning and only begins to rain as I step off the bus at Dursley.  

The first twenty five minutes is spent walking in light rain back to where I left the trail last week.  It's easy walking and, making sure I touch the stile I climbed over at the end of the previous leg, I turn around and start Day 7 proper.  At the same time the rain stops and despite some threatening black clouds that have locals predicting a downpour, it's dry for the rest of the walk.   Dursley is pretty uneventful (sorry Potter fans) but the steep climb out of the village up Stinchcombe is more memorable - why did Pedersen think that producing a bicycle here in the hills was a good idea? 

The whole of this leg is well signposted with the slightly panic inducing waymark near the top of the hill which gives two options, neither of which is marked with the magic words 'Cotswold Way'.  It's only a few yards on from here though that I come across the Golf Club, just where the map says it should be.      

Stinchcombe is golf course number 3 on this walk and is doing good business.  There's a choice of walking across the course or walking a couple of miles around it.  Both are recognised routes and neither will have the good people who regulate the Cotswold Way thinking any the worse of you.  But my internal policeman won't even counter the shorter route, even though the guidebook says the longer route isn't worth taking.  And they were probably right.  But the walking was easy and no-one can take my badge off of me at the end on a technicality.  (You do know there is a badge in this, don't you?)

I step on it over the second part of the golf course as I head to North Nibley not just for fear of rain but also wanting to get to the village shop before it closes.   

It's lovely walking, through fields and crops and even making the brief acquaintance of a couple of horses. 

Then, one of those lovely little moments that make walking the Cotswold Way such a joy.  A fridge just on the side of the road, advertising chilled bottled water for walkers.  There's an honesty box in the fridge along with the bottled water and a rather charming notice saying that the price has been held for six years at 50p a bottle.  It was a great investment, which refreshed body and soul.     

I make it to the Village Shop in North Nibley with 10 minutes to spare.  I'd upped my pace not to buy a pork pie, but because I had read in a guidebook that this was the place to pick up the key for the next destination on my walk.  It would mean walking up the hill twice, but I was prepared to do so for what lay ahead.  Turned out that I had need not have worried, the shop assistant tells me that it was open and would be left that way.  Still, as a result of  being there I was a pork pie up.  It felt like it would be rude not to have bought one.    

I'm shortly at the bottom of some very steep steps where I have a quiet smile at the written notice at the bottom.  After several stops on the way up to catch my breath my attitude changes from one of being sniffy about his writing skills to being grateful for the work he must have put in to do this cleaning.  Well done Raymond!  This is seriously steep and very hard work. 

Then, here it is, through the trees.  I find myself looking up at the Tynedale monument, perched high above North Nibley.  With all due respect  to JK Rowling, William Tynedale is an even more important literary figure in the life of the English speaking world than even her.  

He was born in North Nibley and is the man who gave us the Bible in English.  He asked his Bishop for permission to do this and was denied, but driven by a desire to make the Scriptures available for "the boy that driveth the plow", he carried on anyway.  He was labelled a heretic, because the position of the church was that the Scriptures should not be translated into English.  It seems ridiculous to even type those words today.   

He took to the continent and finished his translations in Germany and Belgium.  They were printed up and then smuggled back into Britain.  For this he was betrayed, arrested, and then strangled before being burnt at the stake in Belgium.  His dying words were reported as being ""Lord! Open the King of England's eyes", and it seems like his prayer was answered.  Just four years later the King approved the publication of English translations of the Bible, based on Tynedale's work.  It is calculated that about three quarters the King James or Authorised Version of the Bible is Tynedale's work.  

Thanks to him, you and I can read the Bible.  We may not choose to, but it's there for all of us.  Driven by one man's desire to make it accessible to all who wish to read it.  Now 'the boy that driveth the plow' could read it for himself.  Here he could read that he could only be put right by faith in God alone, all the good works in the world weren't going to save him.  No wonder the church at the time were so cross.

It's ironic, of course, that there are still some people who insist on using the work of Tynedale today and who refuse to accept any other translation of the Scriptures, even though it's so dated now.  Some love the beauty of the language, others are tied to tradition.  I have a degree in Religious Studies with some English Literature modules thrown in for good measure and I have a hard time reading the KJV.  Fair play to those who don't but don't make it a requirement unless you want to hide the Scriptures from people today.   Michael Gove, a Conservative minister here, has just sent a KJV to all schools, marking it's 400 year anniversary.  I'm sure the kids will be delighted.  Richard Dawkins supports the move and if I didn't want kids to read the Bible, so would I.   

I reckon that today Tynedale would be coding the Scriptures to produce versions for the iPad, or producing it in cartoon form for YouTube, or doing something digital and ingenious for something on the cutting edge of new technology so that the boy that driveth the X Box might be able to engage with the Bible.

I seem to have gone off on one.  Suffice to say, "Hats off to Tynedale!"  And there's a great view from the top of the tower that commemorates and celebrates his life.         

From the monument, it's a gentle couple of miles to Wotton.  Unlike most of the woodlands that I have walked on the Cotswold Way, this is pretty level and easy walking in evening sunlight before a sharp downhill section into the town. 

Normally, I'd be walking the following day as well but there are long bouts of heavy rain, high winds, and warnings about severe damage across the south west for the next couple of days.  Turned out that they were right enough about that.  Day 8 will need to be rearranged. 

Cotswold Way - Day 6 - Haresfield Beacon to Uley - sort of

Having sweated it out yesterday, today is fleece weather, albeit with shorts.  It's the kind of day where it isn't too bad if you keep moving but when you stop to admire the scenery in an exposed spot, you don't stop for long.  I prefer it to the heat of yesterday, but Dave, my brother-in-law and walking companion, isn't so sure.

Like yesterday, the first part is easy walking and downhill, first through woods and then across fields as we head towards Stroud, in particular Ebley.  Today we are faced with a choice.  At the bridge pictured below we can carry on across and take a shorter route, or we can turn left once we have crossed the bridge and walk along the Stroudwater Canal.  (If you are using this blog to pick up anything practical for your own walk (heaven forbid!) then it will be useful for you to know that the picture is taken once you have crossed the bridge, looking back to your right.)  Do note that neither of the two options are signed as the Cotswold Way and, unusually, there is no signage on the longer route until we reach the A419.   

Both routes are equally valid and recognised and official but I don't want to feel I have taken any shortcuts.  I am so obsessive about this that I even walked an extra fifty yards to the end of the car park yesterday in case I parked closer to the entrance to the woods this morning and missed twenty yards somewhere.  So it's the longer option for us. Along the canal and over Selsey Common.   

Now, of course I don't know what we missed on the other route but I strongly suspect we made the right decision.  For a start we had some flat walking alongside the Stroudwater Canal and the team who are devoting their efforts to it's restoration are clearly seeing some great results.   Unknown to us, just up (or down) stream at Stonehouse, the first of the boats for the Jubilee celebrations is being lowered down the slipway today.  I didn't realise the significance of this until I later read that the boats taking part in these celebrations were the first to take to the water in a hundred years.  This also explains the big voluntary work party, out in force, busy making final preparations. 

They have done a terrific job, the canal is beautiful and the new housing that has sprung up alongside is in keeping with it.  If they could just add a Cotswold Way sign or two, it will be perfect.  As it is our guidebook says to turn right down a footpath opposite the houses and I suspect there are a few more houses there now than when it was written.  There is an element of going back and forth before we work out where we turn off, cross the mill stream and walk across a fairly unpromising looking field before going through the tunnel to the A419.  It is only when we find the tunnel that we are sure we are on the right route and again, a sign or two wouldn't go amiss. 

The climb up to Selsey is across a field and as well as pausing to work out how the village plays on such a hilly cricket pitch, we call in at Selsey Church to admire the windows.  It's a Victorian building with windows by some of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris designed some of the windows. 

The climb up to Selsey Common is a longish and steady one and, with a few breaks to take in the scenery, not too taxing.  Not bad considering we have climbed from around 30 metres at canal level to over 200 metres.   The views are great across Selsey and the church, and the Stroud Valley beyond it. 

Once over the common we seem to spend a lot of time in woods, going down and up.  I don't like the thought of the height I am giving away after the ascent of Selsey Common, knowing we'll only have to climb again.  Those hills, they make you pay!   Eventually we emerge at the Nympesfield Long Barrow and soon after that to Coaley Peak.  It's very windy up there today and the last of the fruit (or food of any kind) that we have is consumed in haste so as to move on. 

And now for my confession.  We made two mistakes today.  One was to use an old OS map that showed us a Car Park that isn't on the current map and I can't see exists anymore.  This was especially dumb as I had the newer version as well, tucked away in my glove compartment.  Why?  Instead of parking there as planned, Dave (and this will be no surprise to anyone who knows him) suggested that we parked opposite the pub in Uley, leaving us a walk of about a mile downhill to get there but with a great incentive.  

The second mistake was a shared one.  We were both so excited (in a, 'Well, we've come this far, let's take this hill as well' sort of way) that we see Cam Long Down and it's short sharp climb as a challenge.  It's hard work this late  in the walk but the views are good.  What we don't realise (and Dave doesn't know yet) is that we didn't need to climb it at all.  I needed to on Day 7, but he got to climb it in what I like to consider a bonus.  Time will tell if he agrees.  I may not tell him yet as he is considering walking another leg with me.  maybe later.

 

Coming down the other side we meet a runner who tells us, without breaking stride, that we need to leave the trail here and head back down the road.  Particularly impressive as earlier we saw him run up the hill we have just laboured up.  It's a longer walk than is necessary to get to Uley village (we are on the edge of Dursley when we turn back) and we have walked further than planned today.  But the Uley Ale, brewed in the same village, is fantastic and Dave's decision to park opposite the pub is more than vindicated.  Next time I am faced with the choice of parking in Dursley and walking back to where we left the trail before we turned back or starting in Uley, parking outside the pub again.  It's a tough choice.    

Cotswold Way - Day 5 - Birdlip to Haresfield Beacon

After a couple of weeks off, back on the Cotswold Way trail.  It's a beautiful day as I leave Birdlip, stopping only to apply sun lotion because it's a hot sunny day today.  The start of the walk is through Witcombe Wood and it's a lovely area.  There's isn't much to look at but there is plenty to hear.  The birdsong seems to be amplified by the lack of other people in the wood, and there are squirrels aplenty, along with a few rabbits.   It's easy walking and I don't see anyone for a couple of miles.  When I do, there's a couple of older men, then a single walker, then a group of five women, all within a few minutes. 

At a distance the five women all seem to be older, retired women, resting up ahead and taking in the view, a bit of a rare thing in these woods.  It's only as I get closer that I realise that four of them are older retired women and one is younger and blind.  They have stopped to rest and are sorting out who's turn it is to lend a guiding arm to the blind woman.  The light tone of the conversation makes it clear that they each want to be of help and that they are in no way reluctant to help.  It's a very beautiful thing to have witnessed.

Cooper's Hill soon follows, famous for the annual cheese rolling event that takes place there each May Day Bank Holiday, though in this Jubilee year it will be taking place a week later.  Which means next week people will be running down this slope chasing a Double Gloucester cheese.  Look at the slope and how steep it looks from the bottom.

However steep you reckon it is, it's even steeper when you look at it from the top, a gradient of 1 in 2.  My climb up to the top is less direct than that but it's plenty steep enough.  The path just below the cottage in the picture is where I took the other shot from.  I wouldn't even want to walk down this slope, let alone pursue dairy produce down it.  I sit at the top, a little breathless, and treat myself to an orange and more water.  It's recorded as 100% humidity today, so even without being in direct sunlight the whole time, it's energy sapping.   

More woods which, in all honesty get a bit dull after a while, views being occasional but then out to Painswick Beacon.  This was a picnic spot of choice when I was a kid (though the choice of my parents rather than me, to be honest).  Fond memories though, yet I don't remember very much of it.  I remember the spot we picnicked in, which turns out to be very close to the Beacon, so I must have seen a great deal more of it today than ever before.  What I don't see is many people on the golf course.  Whereas Cleeve Common was heaving in very windy weather, Painswick has two lone golfers to offer in all, despite the sunshine.   A great view from the Beacon though, and the showers that were promised, threatened but came to nothing. 

Painswick itself brings the chance to sit in the churchyard with another bottle of water, a sandwich and a well-deserved (according to me) Twix.  The churchyard is said to possibly have the finest collection of table top tombs in Britain and these are surrounded by 99 yew trees.  All very well, but it plays havoc with your sight lines when you are trying to photograph the place. 



There's a lovely descent from Painswick but you pay for it with a long tough climb up to the top of Scottsquar Hill.  I sit at the road having climbed the best part of a hundred metres and contemplate whether I am goimng to be sick or not.  As I sit in the low stone wall of the Edgemoor Arms I wonder if I am going to throw up.  A van driver, waiting at the junction looks like he thinks something much more serious might happen but in that English way we both have I roll my eyes, he smiles sympathetically and then he drives on to leave me to it.  Both of us are probably glad that no fuss was made.  Even then, after crossing the road, there is more climbing to be done and I use the last of my water, save a mouthful, to get there.

There are a few more ups and downs to get through but that's the worst of it.  Haresfield Beacon is a welcome sight and the topograph (I'm a sucker for those things), and the great view a bonus.  It's been a tough day, the toughest by far, but I am now half way through my journey.  For now, an easy amble (a little further along the Cotswold Way to the National Trust car park at the edge of Standish Wood, tomorrow on to Uley Bury.   

Why walk?

Found Stuart Maconie's latest book while browsing the map section of a bookshop and have very much enjoyed it.  It is a collection of his articles for a magazine called Country Walking and is largely about walking his beloved Lake District.  Opening at random, the first thing I read was his article 'Strides and Sweat Patches'.  It's a lovely piece of writing that expresses something I think I have discovered after a few days of gentle walking but couldn't have begun to put into words.  The best part of a good book in my opinion. 

Here's most of it, see what you think:

“Well, the other day I decided to walk to the pub.  I’d been writing all day in my Lakes lair and decided that a brisk four miles down country lanes to my ‘local’ would set me up for a pint of Black Sheep and a low-cal, high fibre feast of curry and chips.  It’s a route I’ve taken hundreds of times by car but I’ve never walked it before. The difference was a revelation.

For one, I saw things I’ve never seen.  Little coppices and mysterious hollows and clearings in the woodland to the right, a fine crag formation in a nearby farmer’s field, a lonely house with high windows up a hidden driveway.  I’d passed these by often but always as a car passenger where, even at a conservative and law-abiding 30mph, such details are gone in a blink and a blur. 

The journey even felt different.  I could feel the shifts of gradients in my calves and my lungs.  The distances began to take shape in my mind in a way that they never had previously. A village that I’d always thought of as roughly halfway between my place and the pub in fact turned out to be much, much nearer the latter.  When the journey takes six or seven minutes in air-conditioned containment, facts like that don’t mean anything.   But when the journey takes an hour and a quarter and is on foot, distance takes on new meanings as do every contour, vista and curve in the road.

It occurred to me that this is why we walk, to root ourselves in real human experience and real human scope.  The internal combustion engine has had many benefits, it has brought friends and family and the cultural and geographical treasures of many nations closer.  But it has also distorted our perspective of the world, made us lose sight (and sense, smell and touch) of the real physical world.  Walking lets you know how the world really feels again, a world measured in strides and sweat patches.  You literally get your feet back on the ground in a way that recharges the batteries and re-aligns your view of the world to a healthier perspective. 

And of course, the pint and the chips and the curry taste even better for the effort expended in getting to them.”   (p.73-75)      

Two more legs of the Cotswold Way start tomorrow!

Cotswold Way - Day 4 - Dowdeswell to Birdlip

Today's guest walker is my good friend Andy and after a hearty breakfast and the necessary juggling of getting a car to the finish point and a car to the start, we are away at 10am.  Some peering at maps has shown we have two short sharp climbs in the first mile or two and then we should be fine for the rest of the day.  And that's pretty much how it proves to be.  The anticipated climbs turn out to be pretty straight forward actually and we pretty much take them in our stride.  This is probably helped by the brand new route to Ravensgate Common that was opened only two days before, and is described on the Cotswold Way website as the first major route change on the Cotswold Way in the last three years.  We didn't realize it at the time but we must be some of the very first to be taking the new route.  Well, it works and as you can see below, it's a great view from the top.   

Whilst there are still some slopes and hills to come today, this 10.5 mile stretch is reasonably easy walking.  There are some lovely yellow fields on the way to Seven Springs.   

The higlight of today's walk is probably to be found at the top of Leckhampton Hill where we see a few dozen people paragliding, circling around on the thermals like some of the buzzards we have seen.  It's an amazing way to see Cheltenham below but takes some serious guts to launch yourself off the edge trusting only to some thread and material.  It is a magical sight to see so many of them in the air, circling around and it's quite mesmerizing.  We stop and watch for some time and the Rutland and Australian couples that I met yesterday do the same.  Had I not been walking on a Saturday I'd have missed this sight.    

When we finally do push on round the corner to the Devil's Chimney landmark, we realise that we have stopped and stared so much at paragliders, scenery and stone walling that we have covered 4.5 miles in 3 hours.  This is possibly sub-snail's pace.   I think it demonstrates the wisdom of shorter stages and doing in ten days rather than 7 or 8 though.  For me, to be trying to cover, say, 15 miles today, would have meant feeling (self-imposed) pressure when I was watching the paragliders.  I'd have felt I should get on with it and not linger too long.  As it is, there is no rush, though we really ought to step up the pace a little bit.  So we crack open lunch at the Devil's Chimney and walk on. 

Next stop is the National Star College at Ullenwood who have recently opened the fabulous Star Bistro in their new development.  We've only just had our sandwiches so there is no way we could eat there but they have just been nominated as Cotswold Life Food & Drink Awards Finalists for 2012.  The menu looks amazing and it's pretty reasonable too.  The coffee is excellent and you get a couple of lovely little treats with it, I particularly liked the pistachios in chocolate.  When we comment on the quality of the coffee afterwards the person who serves us tells us that Rocket Coffee is roasted in an old copper roaster in nearby Stroud.  More than that, they build schools and hospitals in the places they buy the coffee from and so it's a real partnership.  I love that the Star Bistro know and care and enthuse about this stuff.

If I was local I'd certainly visit.  It's open from 11-4 on Tuesday to Friday, 10-4 on a Saturday and they plan to do some special Sunday lunches too.  It's well worth dropping in if you are walking the Cotswold Way, especially as you walk past the entrance to the college on your route.
  

Suitably refreshed we walk though some lovely wooded areas and on to Crickley Hill.  Again we stop and stare out over lovely scenery, it is a warm, clear day and has been perfect walking weather.  

It's a bit of a rude awakening after such a lovely stroll to then emerge at the noisiest and most dangerous part of the walk.  The Air Balloon roundabout at Birdlip is busy as cars rush between two motorways and you need to take care as you cross.  They are faster than you might think and after 9 miles or so, you are probably not as fast as you think.  Thankfully the route only follows the main road to Cirencester briefly and, again, you are in the quiet of the route to Birdlip. 

   

Having been bouyed by a signpost that told us Birdlip was just a half a mile away, we have to get the map out when we hit the old (pre-bypass) road  from Birdlip to Gloucester.   We've parked in Birdlip village so are faced with leaving the route here and a short walk up the road to the car, or crossing the road and taking in some more woodland before we cut back on a different footpath nearer the village.  We elect to do the latter, even though it means walking down and up, in short succession, a reasonable slope - certainly reasonable for this time in the walk anyway.  I do it because I have half an eye on the next stage, which at 13.5 miles will be the longest, and cutting even half a mile off that seems worth it.  Andy does it because he's a long suffering friend. 

At the bottom we meet our Australian friends, who have their map out and are wondering, not unreasonably, where Birdlip has gone.  Through local knowledge - partly garnered through playing cricket in such villages - we point them back up the hill to where they are heading for the pub.  We continue and join them a bit later.  We sit together on a table in the pub garden swopping stories and they are thrilled to find that Andy is a Cotswold dry stone waller and have lots of questions for him.  It's a good way to end the day and with the weather, scenery and people, it's been my best day yet.  Next stop, in a couple of weeks time, Randwick.