England - Part 1
October 20 - November 10

There are also pages about Beer and the Cotswolds Motoring Museum

We've crossed to England but before we did, Calais gave us one last delight - a brilliant rainbow complete with a reversed-spectrum ghost. There's a name for that but we can't think of it.

Spent a couple of nights in Canterbury to regroup, rent a car, pick up some tour books, and start thinking about an area to look for long-term housing.

We relocated near Bury St. Edmunds for almost a week and found out about "self-catering cottages". It's actually cheaper to rent a self-contained 3-room apartment with bedroom, lounge, and kitchen than it a hotel room.
 

Also visited a flint mine in Surrey - possibly the oldest industrial site in Europe. 4,000 years ago stone-age people dug 20ft deep pits through the chalk layer to get at the flint beneath. There are 400 pits, now filled in, across a 100-acre field which were probably dug one per summer.

About 20 pits have been excavated by archeologists and one is open for inspection. Mining went about 12 feet out in the flint seam before being abandoned. 5 to 7 horizontal shafts were dug in each pit.

Timber shoring has been added for us tourists even though you can't go into the seam. The picture below misrepresents the height of the shaft, they are really only 3 to 4 feet high.
 

The landscape from the ground is heath-covered moonscape populated by sheep.
It would make a very interesting golf course.

Silbury Hill, in Wiltshire near Avebury, is about 3500 years older than the Indian mounds in the U.S. No burials or anything else except dirt has been found in this mound and it's purpose is a mystery, like much of the other prehistoric sites on the Salisbury Plain.

Near Cheddar, Bristol is a large crowded city with some old buildings surrounded by post-war monstrosities. There's little to offer except a couple of old townhouses and the MS Great Britain, the first ocean liner. We spent an afternoon and moved on to the Cotswolds.

This amazing bedspread has a line on the pillow area reading
"THOMAS & MARY KITCHEN 1856"

The Red Lodge a couple of blocks away was built in 1590 by a local merchant. Reconfigured a few times as it went through families, only one room is original. Lord Byron's sister used the place as a school for wayward girls in the 1850s.

The Cotswolds. Cots are small fields surrounded by stone fences - found all over England. Wolds are hills. This area is quite hilly - there are some 11% grades - and the English love to drive around seeing the small villages. The villages are quite distinct with most buildings made from local cream-colored rock, either rough or quarried smooth, and all the fences are similar rock, dry-fit.

The region stretches from the head of the Severn near Bristol east to Oxford and north to Birmingham. Stratford-on-Avon might be the only town in that stretch you've heard of.

Bourton-on-Water.
Touristy town with a river running through the village green.
Museums, shops, a 1930s model of the village, and a model railroad layout.

Chipping Camden.
Untouristy with one long High St and this magnificent church at the lower end.

Stratford-on-Avon.
A modern town where parking would be easier without 5 tourist attractions.
This is Shakespeare's birthplace. A block from the modern town center.

There's also:
New Place - where WS died. It was demolished in the 1700s because the owner was sick of the tourists.
Nash's House where WS's granddaughter lived.
Hall's Croft owned by WS's daughter and her husband, a doctor.
And. . .

Anne Hathaway's Cottage.
Well, the Hathaway home before and after she married Will.
It was in the Hathaway family until 1899.

A model village was built in Bourton-on-Water in 1937 and that started the village down the line as a tourist city. It's still a popular tourist attraction and for good reason - it's cute. It's in 1/9 scale which is quite big. A lot of work, actually.

Only the church is this detailed inside.

We chose Stow-on-the-Wold to stay for a while. It's one of the more touristy towns but has a local feel to it. Local shopping includes more than gift shops. A good library. It's accessible to Oxford, Cheltenham, Cirencester, Swindon, and Birmingham. There's also 8 pubs serving real ale. Population 1,999. Go figure.

We'll be here through all of November and until December 16th.
 

It's almost pheasant hunting season. They're everywhere on the back roads.

The Library.

The leaves are turning.

The local church has two yew trees planted a long time ago next to the door.

Our "holiday cottage" is at Park Farm in Maugersbury. Don't try to find that one on a map. It's a half-mile south of Stow-on-the-Wold and has a dozen houses. We're at the end of a dead-end loop with a walking trail to town.

Our landlords built 5 rental units on the family farm and they are all charming as all get out.

Daisy Bank. Our home for 6 weeks.

Daisy bank is the single-story building to the right.

Across the fields to the back of the house.

4-poster bed. How romantic.

Oh, our current rental car is a Renault Clio.
Ads on TV say "French manufacture and British engineering".
That about sums up this piece of junk.

We've settled in here but are heading down to visit the Lees for a few days in Beer, Devon. Then it's back to Stow for a nice long soak. Terry's found a quilt club and maybe an embroidery guild. Bob has lots of good bars to explore - quiz nights almost every night. If there were just wi-fi acess and a snooker club nearby it would be perfect.