I’ve been off the internet for a few days having ventured
into deep country where the Hot Spots don’t reach!
The weather was grey but dry and reasonably warm when we set
off from Trowbridge for the Snowshill on Monday. It’s only a couple of hours
drive and we bypassed Chippenham, Malmsbury and Circencester.
Mostly we travelled through farmland. Arable crops mostly –
this is prime farmland – although was a field with rootling pigs. There was a
surreal moment when the hedge disappeared and beyond the wire fencing was an
airfield littered with huge aircraft – I’m talking 747s - in what is apparently an aircraft scrapyard.
In villages with
names like Bourton-on-the-Water, and Stow-on-the-Wold we caught glimpses of
lilac, apple blossom and the last throw of the magnolias behind the traditional
stone walls that mark out this part of the country. In the countryside the
verges were billowing with cow parsley and red campion and the bluebells are so
late this year that they were everywhere.
The green was broken up with huge swathes of the eye-gouging
yellow of the rape crop in full flower, a colour so powerful that it was
reflected off the low misty clouds.
We’d left home late the morning so that we could stop for
lunch and took a slight detour into Lower Slaughter (yes, there is an Upper!)
and ate at The Slaughters Country Inn, where we shared a “country platter” and
discovered that this part of the world is a favourite with Americans on walking
holidays.
3 comments:
I think you must have driven past what used to be called Kemble airport (it's now Cotswold Airport). They have some large planes astonishingly close to the road which suddenly appear! Their website says "The airport is home to one of the world's most thriving aircraft recycling organisations". So it's not a scrapyard, they're just in transition!
Were the pigs which you saw Gloucester Old Spots? - creamy-pink coloured with large black splodges.
I wish you had or were having better weather, as the Cotswolds is just perfect in the spring/summer sunshine. Whatever the weather, I hope you had a lovely time at Snowshill and enjoyed the gardens!
That certainly sounds like it, Helena. Glad to hear that they're being "recycled" rather than scrapped.
We did see some Gloucester Old Spots, but also a field full of ordinary pink piggies. :)
The weather was grey apart from one sunny afternoon/evening and the rain on Thursday was bitter! Had a lovely time anyway.
I think there's also a luscious Slaughter Manor - cos I once went to a party there....
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