Where's Bertie? He's sitting on a patch of grass behind the club building at Bourton Rovers Football Club, for which privilege we have paid £15, including access to a toilet, water and a drain.
Weather: Some cloud in the afternoon, but otherwise sunny and warm.
I slept until gone 7am! Bliss! A lazy start then ensued. Over breakfast I started looking at possible destinations for today. The original plan for this trip involved us heading over to Cheddar*, however, for a number of reasons**, it no longer entirely made sense to do that. After much map-poring, I settled on Bourton-on-the-Water. We've both driven through some of the Cotswold towns in the past, but neither of us has ever really visited the area and, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't any significant diversion from the most direct route home.
The drive through Burford on the way to Bourton had me exclaiming "Isn't it pretty?!", and Bourton hasn't disappointed either, even if it was, during our afternoon wander, rather too busy. Being a hot day, a huge number of people we passed were eating ice creams, and with the number of ice cream vendors, I wondered how many ices are sold each day. Later I got a partial answer: the chap selling ice creams from a chest freezer on the front of a bicycle, from the Cotswold Ice Cream Company, said they sell 8-900 per day. The ice cream is made just across the road on a daily basis and once that day's allocation is gone, that's it - they have no more to sell. In the whole town there must be many thousands sold on a warm day.
Pretty and people. I'm sure many of the people in this snap were carrying ice creams.
We had no plans for what to do with ourselves, but when we came upon the Motor Museum, we impulsively bought tickets (£7 each) and went in. It's apparently the #1 tourist attraction in Bourton, and whilst it's far from the best motor museum we've ever been in, it was diverting enough. It was, however, a bit cluttered with some slightly random displays (it reminded me of the place that I refer to as the Concordeski Museum in Germany).
Emerging back into the late afternoon, Mick had a cream tea on his mind, and given the choice between the place whose chalkboard offered a 'large scone' or the one boasting 'an enormous scone' he chose the latter. The scones were indeed large, and good quality too.
No clotted cream on mine. Cream is, in my opinion, an odious substance.
We walked back to Bertie via a far longer route than was necessary, taking a path via the ponds/lakes that sit behind the Football Club, taking us past the campsite where we had wanted to stay, if only they'd had a pitch available (just for the location, it would have been worth the £3 more than we are paying here). I shall investigate more paths in that direction in the morning.
For now, as I type this, Mick is in the football club bar, watching England play (lose to, as it turned out) Hungary. I'd feared the tables outside the bar would be busy with noisy revellers into the night, as there's a Motorcaravan Club rally going on on the football pitch, but the few people who were using the outside tables were exceedingly quiet and had all gone by 2030. (It turned out they close at 2130 anyway. They did let Mick stay to see the final whistle, but he was the last one out and they locked the door as soon as he was through it.)
(*Cheddar was on the agenda for 3 reasons: 1) when we omitted the circuitous route via the Gorge on our LEJOG walk in 2008 we did so on the basis that we would return to visit the Gorge properly, yet 14 years later we still haven't been near the place; 2) I saw a video a few weeks ago of someone running across the top of the Gorge and through the Mendips and immediately declared we needed to go and run that route ourselves; and 3) That route goes over a Marilyn I've not yet bagged.
**Primarily: 1) this was originally supposed to be a 3-week-trip, but latterly got cut down to 2 weeks; 2) the length of the run I want to do in the Cheddar/Mendips area doesn't fit in with my training plan for this week; 3) it's far enough out of our way to need a good reason to go there.)
Weather: Some cloud in the afternoon, but otherwise sunny and warm.
I slept until gone 7am! Bliss! A lazy start then ensued. Over breakfast I started looking at possible destinations for today. The original plan for this trip involved us heading over to Cheddar*, however, for a number of reasons**, it no longer entirely made sense to do that. After much map-poring, I settled on Bourton-on-the-Water. We've both driven through some of the Cotswold towns in the past, but neither of us has ever really visited the area and, in the grand scheme of things, it wasn't any significant diversion from the most direct route home.
The drive through Burford on the way to Bourton had me exclaiming "Isn't it pretty?!", and Bourton hasn't disappointed either, even if it was, during our afternoon wander, rather too busy. Being a hot day, a huge number of people we passed were eating ice creams, and with the number of ice cream vendors, I wondered how many ices are sold each day. Later I got a partial answer: the chap selling ice creams from a chest freezer on the front of a bicycle, from the Cotswold Ice Cream Company, said they sell 8-900 per day. The ice cream is made just across the road on a daily basis and once that day's allocation is gone, that's it - they have no more to sell. In the whole town there must be many thousands sold on a warm day.
We had no plans for what to do with ourselves, but when we came upon the Motor Museum, we impulsively bought tickets (£7 each) and went in. It's apparently the #1 tourist attraction in Bourton, and whilst it's far from the best motor museum we've ever been in, it was diverting enough. It was, however, a bit cluttered with some slightly random displays (it reminded me of the place that I refer to as the Concordeski Museum in Germany).
Emerging back into the late afternoon, Mick had a cream tea on his mind, and given the choice between the place whose chalkboard offered a 'large scone' or the one boasting 'an enormous scone' he chose the latter. The scones were indeed large, and good quality too.
We walked back to Bertie via a far longer route than was necessary, taking a path via the ponds/lakes that sit behind the Football Club, taking us past the campsite where we had wanted to stay, if only they'd had a pitch available (just for the location, it would have been worth the £3 more than we are paying here). I shall investigate more paths in that direction in the morning.
For now, as I type this, Mick is in the football club bar, watching England play (lose to, as it turned out) Hungary. I'd feared the tables outside the bar would be busy with noisy revellers into the night, as there's a Motorcaravan Club rally going on on the football pitch, but the few people who were using the outside tables were exceedingly quiet and had all gone by 2030. (It turned out they close at 2130 anyway. They did let Mick stay to see the final whistle, but he was the last one out and they locked the door as soon as he was through it.)
(*Cheddar was on the agenda for 3 reasons: 1) when we omitted the circuitous route via the Gorge on our LEJOG walk in 2008 we did so on the basis that we would return to visit the Gorge properly, yet 14 years later we still haven't been near the place; 2) I saw a video a few weeks ago of someone running across the top of the Gorge and through the Mendips and immediately declared we needed to go and run that route ourselves; and 3) That route goes over a Marilyn I've not yet bagged.
**Primarily: 1) this was originally supposed to be a 3-week-trip, but latterly got cut down to 2 weeks; 2) the length of the run I want to do in the Cheddar/Mendips area doesn't fit in with my training plan for this week; 3) it's far enough out of our way to need a good reason to go there.)
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