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Cotswolds A Week in the Cotswolds, England

Pauline

Forums Admin
After living in the Cotswolds for five years we moved to Dorset last October. But this week we are back in the Cotswolds to meet up with some ST/SE friends, @Shannon , @Chris and @Colleen , who are in London for a couple of weeks but wanted a weekend in the Cotswolds to go to Giffords Circus.

It seems strange to be once again in a vacation rental in the Cotswolds, like we did for many years before we moved here. We are all in Blockley, near Moreton in Marsh. The circus is nearby at Daylesford Farm.

Giffords Circus is a local circus that is not your typical circus. They perform in summer on village greens around the Cotswolds. It is small - 400 people in a tent - and run in an old fashioned way.

The weather has been a bit dreary lately but as we picked S, C and C up at the train station, the sun came out. We sat out in the narrow garden of the terrace house we rented.

The circus was excellent. Each year they do a story. This years was set in the US Wild West, in pioneer times. The plot was fun and the circus acts were great.

The next day (today, Sunday) @jonathan and Philippa joined us in the even stronger sunshine for an outdoors lunch before S, C and C headed back to London. Those of us who remained did a fabulous afternoon hike from Blockley to Batsford and back (2.5 hrs).

The Cotswolds are at their finest now. The hedgerows are in bloom, flowers everywhere, so beautiful.

Some photos from our walk.
 
Jonathan, Philippa and Steve on the flowery trail.

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Lime trees on the road at Batsford. We saw a beautiful herd of deer in the grounds of the Manor House and someone out in a field with a very large bird near their falconry center.

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On the trail heading back to Blockley, a very pretty village.

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Today we drove south to our old stomping grounds. First a stop in beautiful Lower Slaughter where we encountered many other tourists.

Then to Waitrose in Cirencester to get sandwiches for lunch. From there to Sapperton, a perfect golden stone village beside a river valley. We first hiked here in 2000 and have done this hike many times since. A photo of garlic flowers on May from the woods there is *still* the header on ST. We did this hike just before we left last October and today we did it again. Three blissful hours walking through woods, meadows, more woods, then along the no longer used Cotswold Canal. We had our lunch in a field of buttercups.

Hot (72!!!) and sunny. A bit too hot walking in the fields.

We ended at The Bell in Sapperton for a drink in their garden and then moved inside for dinner with a friend.

Driving back the road near Stow was closed for evening roadworks so we drove the beautiful lanes back to Blockely.

Field of buttercups.

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Historic brick bridge over the old canal. The wild irises are starting to bloom.

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Everything is blooming.

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Today we drove 2 hours north to Nottingham to look at a sofa!

I have found only one company in the UK that makes sofas and chairs without fire retardant chemicals. http://www.ecosofa.co.uk The UK has the strictest laws in Europe so furniture here is full of harmful chemicals. The rest of Europe has chemicals in furniture too, but not as much. In the US this is finally changing. With the new legislation from California furniture manufacturers are able to use fewer chemicals if they choose to.

People justify the use of these chemicals by saying they save lives by preventing fires, but the articles I read show that these chemicals can be harmful to health and don't even work well to prevent fires. Ecosofa meets the requirements using natural materials like wool and horse hair. We have slept on a chemical-free mattress for years but I had not realised how bad regular sofas are. We selected the sofa and chair (Mozart) and are bringing home cover color samples.

We spent 4 hours driving to look at a sofa!

Overcast today and warm. We should have gone hiking when we got back but instead were zombie-like after all the time in the car. Most was on busy and boring motorways bypassing Warwick, Coventry, Leamington Spa, Leicester. We didn't stop to see any of them. Nor did we go into Nottingham. Bad tourists! The only interesting part of the drive was the first 30 minutes on the Fosse Way, a modern road built on top of a Roman road that was built on top of a prehistoric road.

Some articles about this:

The Guardian - California law change sparks nationwide demand for flame-retardant-free furniture
http://www.theguardian.com/sustaina...lifornia-steelcase-knoll-herman-miller-kaiser
California law change sparks nationwide demand for flame-retardant-free furniture
As the state prepares to end its flame-retardant requirement for furniture, hospitals are using their purchasing power to make more untreated furniture available

http://www.debralynndadd.com/q-a/ikea-and-flame-retardants/

Scientific American - Cancer-Linked Flame Retardants Eased Out of Furniture in 2014‏
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/cancer-linked-flame/

EWG - Avoid Fire Retardants
http://www.ewg.org/research/healthy-home-tips/tip-4-avoid-fire-retardants

EWG - Five Couches Without Fire Retardants You Can Buy Right Now
http://www.ewg.org/enviroblog/2015/03/five-couches-without-flame-retardants-you-can-buy-right-now
 
Back to the Cotswolds. It was hot (72F) and sunny today. It rained last night. Rain was forecast for this afternoon but it never appeared.

We did a walk that we last did 10+ years ago, where we got lost about 2/3 of the way. I don't like to have a trail beat me, so this was my opportunity to walk it again and not get lost. This time we found the trail. It was clearly marked. I don't know how we missed it last time.

We started in Bourton on the Hill, just a few miles from Blockley, walked to Longborough and had lunch in the pub. Then back on the other side of the valley where we got great views of Sezincote, a Manor House built to look like an Indian pavilion. 2 1/2 hour walk. We met a local walker on the walk and had a long talk about this EU Referendum. I have been asking people we talk to for their opinions and it has been interested. I am on the fence myself so it is interesting to hear opinions from long term Brits.

The walk was mostly flat and beautiful. Lovely views, fields, cows, crops, hedgerows in bloom.

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It has been nice to have four hot and sunny days, but I would rather have days like this at home, where we live by the sea. It has been a bit too hot for me. We did not do the longer hikes I thought we would do. Still, we had a nice time. Spent more time sitting in the garden reading or knitting, which was nice.

Tomorrow we head home, stopping at Whole Foods in Cheltenham first. We don't have a natural foods shop like this near us.

On our way up here last Friday, our satnav told us there was a 2hr delay on the M5 so it rerouted us. I double checked on my smartphone with BBC traffic and an accident on the M5 had closed all the northbound lanes. We ended up driving through the Somerset levels and enjoyed the drive, but it took 3 1/2 hrs to get to Painswick instead of 2 1/2. We had tea with our neighbor from when we lived there, then drove on to Blockley.

We are leaving a day early so we can leave later in the morning and hopefully avoid Friday traffic on the M5. And the temps are dropping back to mid 60s as we get home.
 

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