Blogs from Gloucestershire, England, United Kingdom, Europe - page 3

Well day two started well we drove to Stanton and left the car. If you read yesterday's post you would have seen we got lost in a tiny village looking for a bus and that was Stanton so you would have thought we would have known our way around this little village. NO we did not learn a thing and spent another 1/2 hour walking around this tiny village looking for where we needed to start our walk. Anyway we found the start and off we walk. What a lovely part of the countryside it is so picturesque and if you have never been around this part of the country then it should be on your list. So we get to one field and what do I see a sign saying "Bull in Field" this is ... read more

5 September 2019, Thursday Day 4 Thames Path, Lechlade to Tadpole Bridge, day 20 of travel Riverside Inn with its paddle boat swans as well as live swimming swans was our start for the day. Across the bridge and along the pasture we walked. The Halfpenny Bridge toll booth is right on the bridge at the Riverside Inn. One of the few remaining historic toll booths but no longer a toll bridge. Traffic is busy on these one lane bridges controlled by traffic lights. After a short walk we come to St John's Lock. This is now the resting place of Father Thames statue. We cross and pass several bridges, some are made of wood, others are made of stone. As we pass through the fields and meadows we also come across the first of the ... read more

3 September 2019, Tuesday Day 18 of travel, day 2 on Thames Path, Ewen to Crichlade. After breakfast at the Thames Head Inn we took the taxi to Ewen, where we started our walk along the Thames Path. This is where we had left off yesterday. The walk was across grassy meadows and fields, dodging left and right, as the the river snaked its way through the valley. We passed by some stately Cotswold stone homes and fences. This stone is a creamy yellow colour. There are beautiful flowers in the gardens and along the path. The river through here is only a small ripple of water and pools. We came to our first mini weir and several groups of swans. The partially cloudy sky provided some great reflection of the trees and clouds where the ... read more

I’d forgotten how quaint a double bed could be, especially in a poky, “under the eaves” room! But I’m pleased to say that breakfast at this disappointing place was delightful, even though the drizzle outside tried to dampen our spirits. We set off for the north western bank of the Severn River, to a village called Aylburton, where Tom’s 7xG grandparents (William Jones & Anne Prifford) lived at the time his 6xG grandmother (Anne Jones) was born In 1695. We continued on then to Lydney, to church of St Mary the Virgin, where William & Anne had married in 1684, young Anne was baptised in 1695, and then where she marries Henry Imm in 1725 and their baby Mary (Tom’s 5G grandmother) was baptised in 1730. We know it was the same church because the burials ... read more

Time - it's that funny old thing. You cannot buy it. You cannot barter for it. It slips through your fingers like grains of sand. It moves at its own pace. Sometimes quickly. Othertimes painfully slow. Looking back at time it is hard to work out what you did with it and where it went to. As you get older you appreciate it more, you accept that you only have a limited time and look back like the song a little in anger at what time you have not used productively. This year has proved that time does indeed fly. One minute we were thinking about Christmas, putting up the tree and clearing the snow. Our thoughts were on our next holiday in the sun. The start of another year of travel. February arrived and with ... read more