Two days of sunshiney goodness in the Cotswolds, does a lot for ones frame of mind. So much so that we have decided to buy a big old barn in a little village, convert it into a lovely home (you know with a big log burner, squishy leather sofas and a rolltop bath). We’ll find a massive old wooden kitchen table at a local antique shoppe and there will always be fresh flowers on it. The table will have a story from the family whose kitchen it has sat in for forty odd happy years. And the ex-RAF pilot who sells it to us will explain that Mr Kitchen Table passed away recently and Mrs Kitchen Table has moved to a smaller bungalow further up the road. Through a quirky series of events we will meet and she and I will become lovely friends. She will tell me about her life and her children and grandchildren. And she’ll introduce me to the local branch of the WI and I will cycle to meetings on my pashley. They will adopt me as one of their own and will teach me the secrets of cake baking and jam making, and doggie training (for we will have room enough for at least a couple of labradoodles). Meanwhile, Science Guy will go all Edward Scissorhands on the gardens and uncover a farm building, which in turn will become the home of the owl sanctuary that he will then run. People will come from far and wide to see our owls. It will be just like that sonnet.
Such is the fantasy that can be created after merely hours among the honey-stoned, wisteria covered cottages that are scattered across the countryside. Wine, also helps (particularly if the hire car that got you there is powered by a Massport 2 stroke).
So yay for Banks and the Holidays they create. Yay for thatched cottages and woodland strolls, buttered toast and home-made marmalade, fields of wild flowers and champagne, egg and cress sandwiches, and mid afternoon cream teas. Yay for the medieval wool trade that brought such wealth to the area, leaving it with such a glut of a villages riddled with gorgeous cottages, that its place in history is secured for evermore.
And yay for winning lottery tickets.
Comments
I have a bicycle very similar to that except mine’s white. Should I be ashamed? I would like to say that I haven’t ridden it for years.
Ditto to Robin’s novel comment!
And am SO picturing you on your Pashley wearing a flippy skirt, sandles and wide brimmed hat, with wicker basket full of old world red wine, a rustic bagette and some mouth-watering soft cheese!
I am so there! (children? … what children??) ;)
my heart is swooning over that picture. I wish i was there right now.
Ah, how I love The Cotswolds… and Bank Holidays, specially sunny ones!
This sounds lovely and perfect and just like a novel I want to read. Can you hurry up and live it and then write it so I can read it? And can I be the eccentric acquaintance (with glamorous, if inappropriate, footwear) from the States who stops by unexpectedly and has a fling with the handsome, charming, widowed-too-young vicar?
Just don’t tell The BF that last bit…
I am very very envious of your lovely white cycle :)
PS – thanks for the Birthday wishes!