Friday, June 18 Thanks to our hostess, we were able to spend a couple nights in southern Scotland, staying with a co-worker of Lou’s. The trip north in a rented Hyudai gave us a taste of British motorways—way too similar to freeway travel in the States. It took most of the day to crawl past …
Thursday, June 17 This was a not-so-busy day as I blogged and guzzled while the two Ls attended a book club circle up in Winderton. Good sleeping, too . . .
Wednesday, June 16 Here came another jaunt around the Cotswolds, which name means an elevated, open place with stone sheep shelters. This day began with a stop to pick strawberries at Hidcote Boyce. From there, we wound our way through Chipping Campden. “Chipping” denotes shopping, a little of which we did. Our picnic lunch overlooked a gorgeous …
Tuesday, June 15 Lou dropped us off at the train station in Moreton-in-Marsh for our 37-minute commute to a fabulously medieval city we had only passed through days earlier. Oxford is known as the City of Dreaming Spires and certainly lives up to its motto. The university consists of some 38 colleges and six private halls, all …
Out and about . . . Many English town, village, and hamlet names include geographical references to rivers, hills, roads, and other settlements. The closest town to Brailes is Shipston-on-Stour, four miles west. Like the Spanish, English folk put the noun before the adjective: River Stour rises in these eastern Cotswolds and joins the River …
Pardon the brevity: photos in the meantime . . . Sunday the 13th, off to Stratford.
Saturday the 12th began with a trip to the local bakery for trail snacks and a half-pint stop at Gate Inn, the pub in Upper Brailes. According to Linda: Louisa dropped us north of town to begin our day’s walk. The path led to a cattle paddock with a herd of HUGE cows and one …
Friday morning saw us awake and eating a couple breakfasts while we secured our bearings and planned the day. At 11:00, we stepped out into the cool and followed Lou to a footpath leading south out of Brailes. Our destination was Whichford, some three miles away. England’s USGS equivalent is their Ordnance Survey, which publishes …
I could see a little of the west Irish coast before a cloud covered just about everything else below. As the plane was a bit ahead of schedule, we circled around a few times before our much-anticipated descent. Touchdown was at Heathrow Four into a cool, overcast day. A long line of immigrants cued up …
We drove to Houston Tuesday evening and slept at my sister Carol’s. The Super Shuttle arrived at 11:25 Wed morn and swept us to Bush Airport, where we checked in and experienced the usual injections, inspections, detections, infections, neglections, and selections. With plenty of time until our 3:45 take-off, we enjoyed a healthy lunch of …