The Country Life

I live in Manchester, the third biggest city in England and, while I love the place and love city life, I sometimes forget about the rest of the country. Places like Manchester, Liverpool, London and Birmingham are sprawling metropoles, built up and beautiful in their own way.  The city is full of life, with every single activity you can think of resting gloriously at the end of your fingertips. The city is bustling full of people from all walks of life. City dwellers are rarely stuck for something to do.

City life is definitely not boring – that’s why I love it.

Yet there is a part of me that seeks tranquillity and as I get older, I find myself thinking about more serene pastimes and thankfully there are places close by where I can enjoy that side of life too.

Such was the case on my birthday a week or so ago. Mrs PM and I decided to explore an area of England that we had only ever seen through the windows of a car as we drove through it on our way from one city to another.

This time, I wanted to sample country life, the polar opposite of city life.

I have sampled this before, visiting areas like North Wales, the Lake District and the Peak District but I had never visited the Cotswolds, an area in the southern part of the Midlands, that covers six counties. It is located just south of Stratford upon Avon, the birthplace of Shakespeare, in the north stretching as far as Bath in the south west and Oxford in the east. The maps below give you some idea of where it is.

I had been to Bath in the south but spent most of the time in the city itself rather than exploring the countryside. We chose the north part of the Cotswolds and a little town called Chipping Campden, with a population of just over 2,000 people situated 135 miles south of Manchester (around two and a half hours in the car).

Our accommodation was provided by a small hotel on the main street, which also doubled up as a pub and restaurant.

The first thing I truly noticed here was how calm, relaxing and peaceful it was. We had arrived fairly late and after the sun went down we went for a short stroll around the small town to get our bearings.

It didn’t take long.

The pubs and restaurants were housed in beautiful buildings made of a honey coloured stone that perfectly illustrated the stereotypical small English country town, complete with thatched cottages.

It was wonderful.

The next day we drove from Chipping Campden for a walk from the even smaller town of Broadway to Broadway Tower, a ramble through the Cotswolds countryside, a distance of around five miles. The weather, for once, didn’t let us down. I was expecting rain but all we had was a typical cloudy and slightly cold day but not one single rain drop ruined our walk.

On the way we saw magnificent views of the English countryside as we climbed to Broadway Tower, the second highest point in the Cotswolds. We stopped for coffee just before we arrived at the tower and listened to a conversation amongst a lively group of pensioners who were walking to keep fit. I was amused because they were all country folk and quite posh, discussing party politics and evangelising about the current Prime Minister and her ministerial appointments in a way that you would never hear on the streets of Manchester.

The view from Broadway Tower itself was wonderful and it wasn’t so high that it would trigger my fear of heights.

After the tower we walked back to Broadway, where we found small shops selling traditional country items, in particular tweed clothing that you would rarely seek in the cities. Moreover, to validate the twee image of the town, some of the people were also dressed like traditional country folk. We even saw a group of Morris dancers.

Later, in the evening, we had a hearty meal in a different pub in Chipping Campden before retiring for the night.

The next day, we enjoyed a full English breakfast served by a waiter who personified the traditional image of an Englishman, complete with polite comments and even a wry smile at one of my jokes, which exposed his true mask after trying to portray himself as formal with a stiff-upper lip.

I almost said “Caught you,” but opted against it after a level one look from Mrs PM.

Later we embarked upon a slightly smaller walk in the countryside surrounding Chipping Campden, passing some very nice and very large houses that probably served as country retreats for rich people living in the Birmingham and South Midland area. We walked past farms, through fields, along country lanes and public footpaths passing other walkers who greeted us with a pleasant “Good morning.”.

It was so peaceful and serene with clean country air, hardly a car in sight and a relaxed gentle atmosphere around the place.

Part of me wanted to stay, to become a member of the country folk and abandon the city forever. When I thought more about this, I realised that deep down I am a city man and I would have to say goodbye to this delightful area of England. The city offers so much more and I would miss that. Yet as I get older, I think I also need to immerse myself in the countryside more, spending weekends away from the hustle and bustle of the city and the hassle of work life. Such trips serve a perfect purpose; to calm me down and make me appreciate fully the country I live in.

Here are some photographs that hopefully give you some idea of what I am talking about.

A cottage in Chipping Campden

Broadway

Broadway Tower 

Just to prove that Broadway Tower is British

Spiral staircase in a turret

Dry stone wall

Strangely carved bushes

Chipping Campden Town Centre

A church in Chipping Campden

A lovely view of English countryside

I hope you like them.

There's No "R" In "Bath"

“Welcome to Bath,” said the slightly strange landlord of the little B & B we were going to stay in. Except he said Barth instead of Bath. 

I felt like saying “BATH! It’s B-A-T-H! There is no R in BATH!” 

Bath is in the south and I am from the midlands; what did I expect? Over the years I’ve tried to stop myself correcting southerners but in a city like Bath, it was really difficult, particularly when there was a big rugby match on in the city and every other sentence I heard on Saturday was peppered with phrases like:

“Do you think Barth will beat London Irish?”

 “Come on Barth!”

  Mrs PM and I are on a bit of a mission to see some of the sights of the United Kingdom we haven’t seen yet. Last year, for Mrs PM’s benefit, we spent a weekend in London. Now it was the turn of Bath, a city that neither of us had visited before.

 The first thing that struck me was how small the place is. The city is dominated by Bath Abbey, a phenomenal structure whose origins date back to the 7^th century. As we strolled through the city on a cold but pleasant and sunny Friday afternoon, I was quite stunned when I turned a corner and saw this magnificent building in all of its glory.

Bath Abbey

As we walked around I was amazed at the number of tourists flocking around and taking photos. I love the fact that we have so much history in the UK and Bath has its fair share of that. Right next to Bath Abbey are the Roman Baths, dating back even earlier than the abbey, and I simply couldn’t resist the temptation to pay them a visit.

 I’ve always been fascinated by the Roman Empire, possibly assisted and encouraged by spending five years at school studying Latin. I can still recognise Latin words and phrases even now.

 Inside the Roman Baths, I impressed Mrs PM by mentioning that the Roman name for Bath was Aquae Sulis. Used to me now she just rolled her eyes and said “You told me on the way down here.”

 The Romans were a resourceful bunch and built the baths in the first century AD on the site of a hot spring, previously located at a shrine to the Celtic goddess Sulis (hence the name Aquae Sulis – the waters of Sulis). 

 As we descended into the complex, it was quite literally like stepping back in time, enjoying Roman ingenuity and culture.

  

Roman soldier admiring the Abbey

This guy has hair like me

A bit too cold for a dip

On the following day, we decided to venture even further back in time by visiting Stonehenge, a mere hour away from Bath. After a hearty English breakfast, we drove through fog-shrouded countryside to the adjacent county of Wiltshire.

Foggy Fun

I remarked to Mrs PM that a photograph of Stonehenge in the fog would make a great picture and once again the English weather let us down by warming up just sufficiently enough to disperse the fog by the time we arrived.

 I was quite surprised to see how close the ancient monument was to the road and theoretically we could have just driven past a few times to see Stonehenge from various angles. We decided that we should wear our tourist heads and join the throngs of foreign visitors and get up close and personal with the ancient stones – well as close as they would allow us to – which sadly wasn’t that close.

Welcome to Stonehenge

I loved listening to the accompanying auditory guide and was fascinated by some of the theories about who built Stonehenge and why it was shaped and planned the way it was. The truth is that nobody knows and I loved all of the ideas from Merlin to aliens.

Get your rocks off

Not quite enough fog

We arrived back in Bath just in time to visit the pub for lunch and found ourselves surrounded by crowds of rugby fans having a pre-match pint before the game between Bath and London Irish. The pub we were in was next to the Abbey and from our lofty position upstairs we watched the crowds crossing over the bridge to the game. 

As we left the pub, Mrs PM asked “I wonder where the ground is?” 

The Bath supporters replied. Bath scored a conversion and a huge roar pointed out the location of the ground, just over the river. Not only was the ground visible, but we could also see the scoreboard and, as we crossed the river and walked alongside the ground itself, there were a few vantage points where we could have watched bits of the game. 

Half time - Bath are winning

This way to the rugby game

Hailing from Manchester, it is not often I get to visit a city that has a deep history of rugby; Bath is such a place and various pubs have walls covered in memorabilia from the club, like signed shirts etc.

 On the other side of the river, Mrs PM suddenly turned to me and said:

“I’ve lined up some birds for you.”

 “What?” I said.

 She pointed across the river at this:

Birds for Dave

 On our final day, we checked out of our small B & B and took one last stroll round the city. I’m not a huge expert when it comes to architectural styles but I do appreciate old buildings. Bath is full of them and this is one of the main reasons it is a tourist hotspot.

 Here are some examples.

 Our final journey was to visit some friends in the picturesque village of Lacock, about 12 miles from Bath. On the way, I noticed a few of the odder English place names. I’ve always loved the eccentric naming choices made for some places in England and as we drove, I had to chuckle at two places in particular.

 We drove though the village of Box.

 And we saw signposts to a great place called Birdlip.

 I wonder whether the founders of Birdlip actually found a bird with lips?

 Or whether they had a weird sense of humour?

 Anyway, this may be my last post for a while because I am off on a business trip, on 1^st March, to the city of Muscat in Oman, another country I have never visited. I'm away for three weeks.

THREE BLOODY WEEKS!

 The hotel I am staying at has wi-fi access so I might be able to write the odd post – if I’m not too busy.

 In the meantime, I’ll bet you are curious about the final score in the rugby game.

 It was:

 Bath 40 London Irish 16

 And for those from Bath …

 Barth 40 London Irish 16