A Walk About…

Before we left the Cotswolds we wanted to take a walk about the land around Fox Cottage. The lanes were so narrow getting to and from the cottage that I wanted to walk out and take some photos because I was paralyzed when driving them wondering what we might encounter around the next curve.

A couple of these lanes were not right outside Fox Cottage but on the road between Chipping Campden and Snowshill.

After we walked to the end of the clear path we headed back to the cottage.

The driveway back to the cottage.

Our next destination would be very different from our cottage in the Cotswolds.

So here we are back in the states for almost 6 weeks now. Our bathroom is still not totally done. Maybe by the end of this week. Our weather continues to be dry and warmish with a few thunderstorms thrown in here and there. Dear and I worked real hard at this old house on Saturday pulling weeds, clearing two trash cans full of pine needles from planters, cleaning out the garage and taking a huge load of stuff to Goodwill.

Now here we are in the last week of August! Our son Josh and Laura celebrate their 13th wedding anniversary today. All of our kids are in the state of Washington again. We thank God for bringing them all safely back here from road trips and work assignments. Nothing big on the calendar this week. How is your August winding down?

InSPIREd Sunday

On our first full day in England we visited Chipping Campden and walked past St. Katherine’s Catholic church on High street. We left Chipping Campden and went on to Snowshill and walked in the church yard of St. Barnabas.

Thanks to Beth and Sally who inspire us each week with InSPIREd Sunday.

Our church was inspired today to go out into our Community to help spiff up our local schools and get them ready for the school year. So this is a little view of what our Sunday looked like outside of our buildings with spires.

Broadway in the Cotswolds

On day 7 of our trip to England in July we decided to visit the little town of Broadway in the Cotswolds. We arrived early which is always a good plan when you know big tourist buses would probably arrive at noon.

There are just enough shops to enjoy strolling through without feeling overwhelmed.

Plenty of Inns with pubs and other types of restaurants to eat in.

I enjoyed seeing this old couple heading over to the Tea Room.

We decided to eat at the Crown & Trumpet before we left Broadway.

We enjoyed chatting with the locals who gave us many recommendations and opinions about a good brew, good food, politics, and good places to visit in England.

Some people might find some pubs to be a little too cozy. We enjoy the atmosphere in most of the older pubs. We avoid the newer ones.

I better keep moving along or I’ll never be done with my posts from our time in England. This was our last full day in the Cotswolds and on our way to our next self-catering location in Ross-on-Wye we made two stops. One of the stops was in Bourton-on-the-Water and then we stopped at Gloucester Cathedral.

Today back in the real world it’s Friday and I’ve got to get outside and mow the lawn and tidy up a bit. We have a quiet weekend ahead. On Sunday our church will not have regular services. We’ve been called to go out into our neighborhood schools and help the teachers and staff get the grounds and classrooms ready for the school year. We will scrub desks, clean out planters, pressure wash, and do other projects as a support of the communities we live in. We call it Community Serve Day. Hope you all have a nice weekend.

Fences ~ Cotswolds

Here’s one rustic fence from the little town of Broadway in the Cotswolds.

Linking up with TexWisGirl at Run*A*Round Ranch Report for Good Fences #22.

There’s good news back here in the burbs of Seattle. Our kids have moved most of their stuff into their new apartment that is walking distance to the school our Son-in-law will be attending. There are some job opportunities on the horizon, too. Here’s a fence from their complex.

Fox Cottage ~ Cotswolds

ABC Wednesday is on the letter F this week.

Thank you to Denise Nesbitt and the ABC team for keeping the meme alive.

Our first self-catering experience in England was at Fox Cottage so…

…F is for Fox Cottage

First and foremost is a fair warning that this post is full of fotos of the Fox inside and out!

We had our own mostly private area between the cottage and stables across from the cottage.

I believe our side of this U shaped space were stables in the past, too, which have been converted and upgraded to a living space.

For those of you not familiar with the term self-catering it means you take care of yourself while you rent a property. Generally there is no daily maid service and no breakfast provided. We enjoyed making our own “Full English” and when the fragrance of those sausages hit the air we had several visitors arrive at our door begging!

When we arrived we were greeted with fresh flowers and a sweet loaf that I didn’t get a foto (spelling in honor of F) of.

Free wifi and lots of channels on the telly. Kinda funny that places advertise wifi as being free when you know you are paying for it anyway in the full price of the property. I did specifically choose properties while in England that advertised free wifi. Since we weren’t using our cell phones we wanted to feel connected to home and family whenever we could.

We fully appreciated the fabulous exposed rough beams throughout the Fox.

The old features that were worked into the space were enjoyed.

The mix of old and new was just right. There were interesting things to try to figure out and some quirky frustrating things to deal with but our overall experience was very nice.

Our views were very peaceful. During our time at the cottage there was only one day in a downpour that we shut all the windows.

We had to go out to the pump room to get our ice from the deep freeze.

The peace and quiet of this spot was so lovely. We could hear water flow through the farm. The birds were our alarm clock in the morning. It would be so dark at night we had to use a night light to make it safely to the bathroom which was a step down from our bedroom. No city lights, no street lights and no porch lights. I really was hoping to maybe see an owl but that didn’t happen except for this one.

The owners of the farm and cottage live in the house you see next to the owl and behind this view of the cottage.

The outside view to our space.The view out to the land between us and the little lane at the entrance to the farm.

Getting to and from the Fox is a whole other story for another day.

Things around our “cottage” here in the states are a little hectic right now with our kids from the East Coast staying with us as they move into their new apartment and life on the West Coast. I hope to get around to as many of the ABC “F” posts as possible between loading and unloading boxes…

Hope your festivities this week are full of fun and frolic with friends and family.

Need a Tea Break?

Since we are all friends I have a confession to make…

…although we passed quite a few tea rooms while we were in England I only had tea once and it wasn’t in a tea room. Oye. I will show you all the lovely tea rooms that you can choose from if you travel to England.

This one was in Broadway in the Cotswolds.

Our daily timing was way off for stopping to enjoy a cup of tea in the afternoon. By then we were usually a bit warm and needed something cooler to drink.

Love the name of this one, Mrs. T. Potts…pretty clever. It was real close to Martha’s coffee house on the main street running through Moreton in Marsh.

On our way to Banbury we saw Mrs. Brown’s Tea room.

In Bourton on the Water there were a few tea rooms to choose from.

This restaurant/tearoom was less appealing than the Small Talk Tearoom above.

If we didn’t manage to walk right past a tearoom we enjoyed seeing signs for tearooms.

We got a little closer to a proper tea experience with these delicious scones and clotted cream but the drink of choice on this morning was coffee.

On one of our last days in England I decided it was high time to have some tea so as not to totally disappoint my tea drinking readers.

It wasn’t the finest of tea services in the bar of our hotel. The scones were no where near as nice as the ones we had in Hay on Wye.

This was my tea and tea experience. One hot and the other one cold. The cold one may or may not have had some alcohol in it. Most of our afternoon tea experiences looked more like this…

Not too light, not too dark, and it had to be ice cold.

Katie and Andrew are moving into their new apartment today. I’ve been cleaning off some furniture we had in the garage for them to use. As soon as I get the call that they are close to the apartment with the pod of their stuff I’m heading over to do what I can to help. I have 2 fans in the car because it’s warm today and their 4th floor apartment is not air conditioned. On most days here in the Western Washington area you can live comfortably without A/C. I don’t think we’ll be drinking tea this afternoon…

Happy Monday to you all!

Hogwarts Infirmary ~ Bodlein

This magnificent room in the Bodlein in Oxford was used as the Hogwarts Infirmary in the Harry Potter Movies. The detail of the carved ceiling is amazing don’t you think?

Our timing wasn’t the best to be able to get the guided tour of the library room while we were in Oxford. You have to sign up for their timed tours and we were a bit late out of the gate to do that. Next time…

This post will wrap up our day six in Oxford and I’ll be moving along to day seven in Broadway soon.

And now for some local news…

We finally have some sunshine again and the rain has paused for a few days.

Thankful for that as Andrew and Katie will begin their move into a spanking new apartment on Monday. How nice to not have to deal with pet hair this time around. I’ll share some photos next week. They will pick up their pod and empty that and then get the rest of their belongings that are at this old house. They used a U-Haul pod which was more economical for them than other pod companies. The savings probably comes from the fact that you pick up and deliver the pod yourself from the local U-Haul Carrier. Then they ship it across country for you. When it arrives close to your zipcode you have to pick it up and return it. Their pod is being delivered to a very inconvenient place in the Seattle area. We are northeast of Seattle and the pod is being delivered south of Seattle with the route to get there going right through downtown Seattle. Traffic timing will be a huge necessity.

Today there’s a little gathering of friends of theirs at this old house. The Pork Butt is in the smoker and has been since 3am.

What does your Saturday hold?

Toadstool Fences ~ Bourton on the Water

On our way to Ross on Wye and our 2nd self-catering cottage we stopped in Bourton on the Water for a very short visit. This is where we saw this unique toadstool fence by the river and across the street in front of this next building.

There were a couple more fences in town that caught my eye.

I’m linking up to Good Fences #21 with TexWisGirl at Run*A*Round Ranch Report for this weekly meme. TexWisGirl is the hostess with the mostess!

The week is flying by. I’m surprised and happy to report our traveling kids might have already chosen an apartment and it has quick occupancy. Their pod of possessions has not arrived in the Seattle area yet (probably on Monday) so the idea of emptying out the pod into an apartment is more appealing than emptying it out into our garage and then moving it all again. Andrew was able to transfer his driver’s license yesterday in record time at the DMV. It’s wonderful when things work efficiently. Now if only I can get back into an efficient routine.

InSPIREd Sunday ~ St Michael and All Angels’ Church

While we spent a morning in the Cotswold town of Broadway we enjoyed a visit to this church just down the road from the Pub we were going to have lunch at. The present parish church, built in 1840, and dedicated to St. Michael and All Angels, is a building with nave, two aisles and chancel.

Its chief antiquity is the pulpit, which is a fine piece of wood carving, and was transferred from the old church. It was reconstructed and part of it was used to form a chair which had since been stolen from the sanctuary.

We were intrigued with these ornate Eagle lecterns that we saw in most of the churches and cathedrals we visited in England. I researched to see the significance of this design. Here’s one explanation:

THE FLYING eagle is the symbol of John the Evangelist (see Revelation 4:7) who proclaimed Christ as ‘the Word of God’ at the beginning of his Gospel. The flying eagle is thus a suitable emblem from which God’s word is read, reaching (we hope) the ends of the earth. The eagle is also thought of as the bird which flies nearest to heaven. I am not sure such lecterns are confined just to the Anglican church. It was not until the Reformation that the lectern became prominent in ordinary parish churches of the reformed tradition, carrying the open bible.

This is my favorite Stained Glass Window from this church and appropriate for a church named St Michael and All Angels Church.

I love old doors of all kinds and this door into the church is very cool.

InSPIREd Sunday is hosted by Beth and Sally. This is a weekly meme devoted to sharing religious architecture from around the world.

Hope your Sunday is going well.

Good Fences ~ Oxford, England

It’s time for Good Fences #20 at Run*A*Round Ranch Report with TexWisGirl.

This fence with “Head” posts is in Oxford England close to the Bodlein and and next to the Sheldonian Theater and Old Ashmolean. Each post has a different head.

I didn’t have a lot of time to research why there are heads on each of these posts and information about them isn’t an easy click away.

Last night while Dear and I watched an episode of Inspector Morse they drove on the street next to this fence. I enjoy seeing places we have walked when we watch shows like Morse, Inspector Lewis, or Lord Peter Whimsy series from Dorothy Sayers mysteries.

I’ve got to run today and will be around later to see more Good Fences. Hope your day is going well.

The Happy Wonderer ~ ellen b.

To honor and encourage

Category Archives: England