Virtual Travel ~the Cotswolds 2006

In search of something other than pictures of Josie and daylilies and the garden, I decided to ramble through my archives and revisit our walking tour in the Cotswolds--can it have been fourteen years ago! 

It was just the two of us for ten days, following our map to the pre-arranged lodgings where luggage would be waiting. We walked through woods . . .

And pastures (usually dotted with sheep.)

Once, far in the distance, I saw the house of my dreams . . .

And on the edge of a village,  a garden to dream of.

We ended our trip by taking the train to Oxford--the school of my dreams--where I could commune with the shades of C.S. Lewis, Dorothy L. Sayers, and J.R.R. Tolkien. And I could imagine myself following paths that Harriet Vane and Lord Peter had wandered. 

It was the trip of my dreams . . . it's good to have these pictures to remind me of a different time.

From the Archives -- My Second Favorite Place to Be . . .

Chasing Steeples

 As we were watching a DVD of Inspector Morse last night (alas, we've run through all the Foyle's War episodes,) I found myself thinking of our last trip to England -- a walking tour in the Cotswolds in 2006.  We made our way along well-marked public paths through fields and woods and almost always, as we approached the next village, we would sight the steeple of the largest and oldest church.

 We managed to visit a few stately homes and even statelier gardens but my favorite parts were less grand ... the pastures (humming 'Sheep May Safely Graze') . . .

 

and the tidy vegetable gardens.

 The houses set me dreaming . . . how charming to live in a cottage with a thatched roof!

Or, in this house below, which I saw only at a distance. It was perhaps my favorite, isolated as few others were.

 But a quick perusal of the ads offering houses for sale let us know that not in this lifetime could we ever afford property in the Cotswolds.

Not even a fixer-upper.