Cotswoldshire

Have just spent a terrific weekend exploring the Cotswolds with John, Perry and Richard.

As usual, I got very little sleep the night before leaving, but managed to close my eyes and catch maybe as much as half an hour's shut-eye in the car on the way up.

Once there, we boldly embarked on a 6K walk around the hills near Stanton. Yup, hills. That meant starting-off by going uphill.

Here I felt a little shamed. John has been cycling to work for years, Tim is currently in training for a marathon, and back in the day Rich used to occasionally get referred to as "Mr Muscle-Man". Me - I found myself drawing breath at the back, and was mightily grateful when we all stopped for tea and cake at a village hall. Fortunately the second half of our trek was mainly downhill.




We also found this huge metal mouse-wheel thing, which John and I had a brief go at driving.


Fortunately there were no sheep nearby at that point.

In the evening, after having checked our stuff into the excellent Bed and Breakfast at Woodmancote, we crossed over the border into Bishop's Cleeve to have a huge curry, followed by making our way across to the pub.

By now I was seriously flagging. Perry was tabling that the moon landing pictures were genuine, and I was just too weary to argue. Soon I might even be moving in slow-motion myself, and how much could that potentially weaken my argument?

By the time we were making our way back up the hill to the B&B, I was stumbling about like a drunk.

Sleeeeeeeep...


Fully recharged, after the traditional B&B full English breakfast, Sunday saw us head out for coffee at Costa, before finishing-off with a long pub lunch by a nearby steam railway.


An outstanding weekend. Sure, aside from the walk we didn't really do much, but that was the point.