WALKING THE COTSWOLD WAY - AND DRIVING. PART TWO.

When you walk in the Cotswolds or anywhere else in England for that matter you greet your fellow walkers, or even speak with them. Well, come to think of it you do this on trails in other countries too, even in Norway. It's the unwritten rule of hikers. 

Less normal probably is that you befriend your fellow hikers. Tove and I did - we met two American girls who were walking the same distances as us - though only half the total distance - and were staying in more or less the same B&Bs and hotels. Our experiences over the five days that our paths (literally) crossed were exactly the same: Rain or sun, bulls in fields, steepness of hills, walking sticks or not, blisters, sore knee, badly signposted paths but isn't it gorgeous, what's your room like etc, etc. Jan and Tanya from Mississippi became our friends.

I know I talk as if I did walk all the time, which of course is not true! But I did take part in the above conversations with great enthusiasm! On leaving Winchcombe Jan decided to take a day off too (but as opposed to me she'd been walking two whole days), and in pouring rain we got the bus into Cheltenham and a taxi from there to the suburb of Charlton Kings. Jan found her hotel and I found our B&B, Detmore House. Bed and Breakfast? It was more like a hotel, but with only four rooms - called Oak, Beech, Walnut and Maple. Ours was the Maple Room, and it was pure luxury. The snag about arriving early by car was that our accommodation was not usually open for check-in, but I peered through the front door and saw that our bags had arrived. They were collected every morning by 9.30 and driven to the next overnight place. 

The following morning Tove and I were joined at the breakfast table by a middle-aged couple who sounded Scottish. "What shall we do today?" the wife asked her husband. "Well, the same as yesterday," he replied. "Eat and drink."

No hiking there then. 

Detmore House

The Maple Room

Sitting room for the Detmore House guests

The Pittville Pump Room in Cheltenham

I have friends all over the world, so what's more natural for me than boasting of an old friend in the Cotswolds? Because my knee was hurting so much and I still didn't know exactly what was wrong with it, my friend suggested I go see the famous osteopath Mark Lester in Cheltenham. Famous for osteopathy? I think not, though he seemed to know very well what he was doing, taking one look and a feel and proclaiming torn ligament, then covering my knee with suction cups and electricity and sticking pins into me.

Well, as a matter of fact, Mark Lester is famous! For what you may ask. For being a close friend of Michael Jackson's and a child actor and leading star of the musical "Oliver!" from 1968! Lying there on his bench with my David Bowie dress pulled up high I was a bit apprehensive that he would burst into song: "Consider yourself at home, consider yourself one of the family! I've taken to you so strong, it's clear we're going to get along!"

After the superstar treatment in Cheltenham it was back to the next Cotswold village and time for a meal and great conversation in the warm evening sunlight on the terrace of the The Royal George Hotel in Birdlip with Tove, Jan and Tanya, and a good night's sleep. I decided the following day that I'd try a bit of walking again. I was sure that Mark Lester's needles had helped! But this time I had found out where there were bus stations, and an 8 kilometre walk was more than enough!

Again we found that hiking is an excellent way of getting to know people. A bit lost in the woods after Birdlip - the Cotswold Way's characteristic acorn signs were sometimes hidden behind leaves, sometimes a bit bewildering - we met young Jemima sporting the English countryside uniform of summer dress and wellies, walking her beautiful red Hungarian Vizla dog. There really weren't that many people out and about on the trail, so asking for help to find the right way couldn't be taken for granted. But Jemima walked with us for quite a while and in that time we learnt a lot about her and her husband, her two children, their schools, their moving around England because of the husband's military work, their settling in the Cotswolds due to inheriting a house there. "Oooo, lucky you living here," we said. "Yes and no," she replied. "Quiet, dark and boring in winter." Well, yes. In her early thirties probably, I could see her point.

Seeing Tove walk away after the bus stop onto the second half of the trail, I waited 50 minutes for the bus. Arriving at our new destination - the idyllic town of Painswick - I checked into our room at the Falcon Inn only a few minutes before she arrived. Painswick was a wool merchant and weavers' town in the 18th century, but is mentioned as far back as 1086 in the Domesday Book. It's THE typical English village - a postcard basically. So incredibly picturesque! Our lovely room at the Falcon Inn - an inn dating back to 1554 - looked across at the grounds of St Mary's Church and its 99 yew trees. The Devil won't let the 100th one grow, according to legend. 

 

That afternoon in Painswick we could feel the weather changing, becoming warm, no, hot - and we spent hours on the benches in the backyard terrace of the Inn, drinking dry draught cider, watching how the entire owner family pulled together to plant flowers and decorate the outside area beautifully. I think Tove and I covered all the poignant verbs written on the Falcon Inn Wall and I finally cried a bit for my huge loss and my grief and my thirty-second wedding anniversary coming up in just a couple of days. Tove let me cry and I thought - this is what friends are for.

 

After a fantastic dinner and wine - neither of us was walking the following day - we crept into bed and watched the almost full moon throw its eerie magical light on the churchyard and its 99 yew trees and chatted, read a bit, yawned and slept. And I did sleep well in the Cotswolds.

Tove's bed

WALKING THE COTSWOLD WAY - AND DRIVING. PART ONE.

Two months ago my friend Tove and I walked ten days in the Cotswolds - the Cotswold Way, as it's called - a 160 kilometre long trail through some of the most beautiful landscape in England. Well, again I lie, because I did not walk this distance at all, having injured my knee about a month earlier and experiencing the most awful jabbing pains. As I found out a few days into the trip - when I finally had some treatment - it was a torn ligament, hence the swelling, the inflammation and the pains.

So yes, I stupidly ventured out on a 160 km walk knowing that I had knee trouble, but I didn't want to cancel the trip, and honestly believed that I'd get some walking done anyway, as long as I stuffed myself with painkillers.

Tove and I both being serious anglophiles (we met at the University of Sussex in Brighton) agreed that we'd just have to make the most of it, even if it was obvious that she'd have to walk parts of the way without me to accompany her.

First night - the Noel Arms in Chipping Campden

On June 25 trains took us from Gatwick Airport to Moreton-in-Marsh at the north end of the Cotswolds, through familiar railway stations and scenery that I knew well from my English days more than 35 years ago. Our walking trip was to end up in the south, in Bath, ten days later. The friendly taxi driver who drove us from Moreton to Chipping Campden explained that this is a very prosperous region of the country, with recent house sales in the range of 4 million pounds. As we were to learn later a lot of wealthy Londoners have made villages in the Cotswolds their homes, sometimes after having owned holiday houses here first. Fabulous thatched cottages were in such abundance both here and in other villages along the way so that after a few days we almost stopped noticing them!

Chipping Campden

Stanton

Determined there was nothing seriously wrong with my knee I set out the first morning from the Noel Arms Hotel in Chipping Campden. 16 kilometers lay ahead of us - piece of cake! Though heavy clouds hung over us and dropped a little rain every now and again, the landscape was exactly as we'd imagined and the trails were pretty easy through rolling green fields and kind hills. We stopped for coffee halfway in Broadway, and that's when I should have called it a day. But no, I had to continue! After Broadway came the longest and stoniest and steepest hill I have ever climbed - it beat any hill in Norway! Or perhaps it just seemed that way because by now my knee was practically wobbling with pain and measured twice the size of the other one. It looked more like a football than a knee in fact. Later I've heard that up-and-down hills are definitely NOT good for the knee. Fortunately I had with me a pair of walking sticks, and though I never thought I'd use them they turned out to be a gift sent from heaven.

Broadway Tower

Arriving at the Old Post House Bed & Breakfast in Stanton was also like coming to heaven! Our lovely host Jo showed us to a separate house in her absolutely amazingly beautiful garden - the little stone house used to be the old telegraph, now it was a welcoming bedroom for two tired women - especially me. I totally collapsed on my bed!

The main house - the Old Post Office

"Our" house 

Squirrel bush in Jo's garden

Jo and her husband had worked as journalists in London and had bought the Old Post House as their holiday home. When the Internet was properly developed they moved to Stanton for good, and Jo began concentrating on her new occupation - Bed & Breakfast. And her fantastic garden. I was given a special tour, a treat that I appreciated immensely. One of my courses at University was "Landscape in English Art and Literature," so I do know a bit about constructing a garden to please the eye.

There was no way I could walk the following day, so Jo said she'd drive me to our next destination - Winchcombe - as she was going there anyway to do some shopping. "No," I said, "that must be too far!" "It's five minutes down the road," she said, and that's when it dawned on me that the walking distances along the Cotswolds are up and down, this way and that way, left and right, down and up again, detours all the way. Well, basically this is what walking is all about, isn't it? "Look," she pointed upwards as we were driving through the valley, "this is where your friend will be walking for hours," and before we knew it we were in Winchcombe.

Jo and I talked in the car before I left her, and I made her cry. Not my intention of course, but we connected immediately - call it chemistry, call it a meeting of souls, call it whatever. In just a few minutes, talking food and recipes and children on the way there, we were suddenly deep in conversation about life, death and love. My own emotions are raw and bare these days, and I think they are so apparent they lie almost on the outside. On my skin. In my face. I express them, basically, probably without even realising. We'd had similar experiences, similar lives in many ways. An older husband, three children, turning around our lives, making fresh starts.

I'll never stop marveling at human meetings.

Jo told me to go and visit Sudeley Castle in Winchcombe, and what a wonderful suggestion it was! I wouldn't have missed it for the world! The playground for Henry VIII and several of his six wives, this exceptionally well kept and beautifully restored castle, chapel and gardens gave me immense pleasure. Walking around the grounds and the buildings for nearly three hours was tough enough on my knee, but so worth it. This kind of experience is food for my soul. I'll treasure it forever.

Katherine Parr was Henry's last wife and the one who survived him, and she made an important influence on the politics at the time, especially on Queen Elizabeth I. She is buried at Sudeley Castle.

Bill Bryson writes about this particular view point in his book "Notes From a Small Island"

Henry and his wives - their various dress fashions were thoroughly explained

The white garden - it reminded me of the one I'd just seen at Jo's house

My Winchcombe day was wrapped up by another great experience - a visit to this grave outside Cheltenham:

Well, it's only rock 'n' roll, but I like it.

Playing with my newly acquired dolls in our room at the White Hart Inn, Winchcombe

THE HOLIDAY BUBBLE

My blog has been on holiday for two months - as have I. I've spent time in England, walking the Cotswolds - or not walking, as the case may be. It turned out I had torn a ligament in my knee, which I didn't know until I had it examined in between the walks. But more about that later - the Cotswold experience merits a whole blog post of its own!

The second part of the summer holidays was spent in my family's summer house in the southern Norwegian coastal town of Kragerø - where, to my knowledge, we were blessed with sunny weather that turned out to be unique compared to the weather the rest of the Norwegian summer. After I left for Bulgaria a week later reports of constant rain, cold and wind came ticking in on my various news feeds. 

I was in Bulgaria for four weeks without seeing so much as a raindrop, let alone a cloud. Well, I lie actually, there was a local rain shower that lasted approximately ten minutes, and I'm sure that many people, especially the farmers, would have loved to see a little more of it.

Obviously, everything will be a first for me this year after my husband died. It was my first time back at the summer house and my first time back in our holiday apartment in Bulgaria. These are heavy, exhausting and bittersweet experiences, but necessary ones - all part of the mourning process, which is still very present in my soul, mind and body. I say body too, because - yes - I actually feel myself hurting physically when the pain of sorrow furrows through me.

Arriving our holiday complex of Marina Cape on the Black Sea coast at five in the morning, with two tired but excited granddaughters, I put them to bed in our apartment on the 1st floor - where their mother had been for a week already - and installed myself on my friend Svein's terrace downstairs to watch the sunrise. He wasn't there so I was free to reminisce and cry a bit on my own. As was always the tradition for the three of us after a night flight we'd pour ourselves a glass or two of Calvados and make a toast to summer and the good life. The guys would smoke their cigars. This early morning on my own I made a toast to my husband and to the memory of our dance at the bar one year ago to the day.

Five days later Svein arrived on the same night flight and again we toasted in Calvados on his terrace. I seem to remember that we shed a few tears then as well.

My comfort is that my husband had a wonderful Bulgarian holiday last year - before his brain tumour once again started growing aggressively at the end of August - just after we returned home from what we knew would be his last summer.

Yes, I am still in mourning, nineteen weeks and two days after he died. I'm still deep in grief. My sadness lies just under the surface. My tears press right behind my eyes. My sobs hover in my throat, not very far down at all. My friends tell me I'm strong, but I'm not. I feel weak, vulnerable and alone and all I wish is for someone to hold me tight and comfort me and tell me everything will be all right. But my facade is great. I seldom break in front of others. Someone I thought I knew well said to me just a few weeks ago: "You need time to get over your husband." Get over?! I'll never get over him, and I'm not meant to either. But I know that in time emotions will mellow and memories grow softer. "Time" is the key word here, and I'm going to let that "time" roll on gently for as long as it takes.

Returning to everyday life on Monday was hard. All through the holidays I have been with my fabulous family, my daughters and granddaughters and extended this year to my daughter's fiancé, his son, his sister, her son, her friend, and not least MY loving friends. But managing again on my own from day to day is the most difficult thing I do. Having a partner to discuss those eternal everyday practical issues with, but also for sharing the quietness and comfort of your own home, has proven to be the toughest challenge for me. Perhaps that is why I feel so alone and out on a limb sometimes.

The black swans of Bulgaria. Its monogamous partner is right there beside it - to the left.

This afternoon I found it necessary to draw some comfort from words outside me. I discovered what I needed in the final words of my daughters' memorial speech to their Dad at his funeral:

"We miss you from here to eternity. We miss your safe words. Your right attitude and your beautiful soul. You had an incredible ability to make us see the good things in life and always raised us up when we were down. As you would have said: "If you don't experience any downs you won't have any ups either." Simple but true.

You and Mum have turned us into the persons we are today, and we feel nothing but gratitude and love towards you.

You taught us to stick together. And now is the time to do so, more than ever. We shall be there for each other through good days and we shall be there for each other through bad days. Daddy's positive energy lives on inside us. Today we shall not just mourn, but we shall celebrate and raise our glasses to what a fantastic man you were. So tonight we'll make a toast to you, Daddy - the way you always toasted yourself and those you loved."

Yes, the positive energy. Thank you, my amazing daughters, for reminding me. I will surely find it again.

My husband's and my last trip to Bulgaria was in late September last year. He told me before he died that he'd removed his wedding ring there because his fingers had become so thin he was afraid he'd lose it. "I'm certain it's in the drawer of my bedside table," he said. And there it was, amongst all his Casino membership cards. So now I'm wearing two. (And, yes, we wear wedding bands on our right hand in Norway). 

Bulgarian memory

Yesterday's hairdresser selfie

The holiday bubble can be hard for anyone to emerge from. I started strenuously emerging from it by doing what my husband would always shake his head at - going to my hairdresser's. "Why don't you get your hair cut in Bulgaria, like I do?!" he'd say. "What you pay is crazy!" Yes, my love. But it's still my guilty pleasure and greatest indulgence. I still have that same old expensive routine, like clockwork - every eight weeks. Some things will never change, my darling, mourning or no mourning.