Cotswold stoned

As it has been a while I just thought I'd let you all know what I've been up to.

Tallulah and I visited Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds for a week at the end of January in order to visit my mother (still poorly) and see friends and relatives. Seeing Oxfordshire again - after not having visited the city for a year - I realise how much I love it's obviously not the Oxfordshire I remember growing up in. A bit like recalling a particular summer I suppose - it doesn't matter what actually happened back then, just the fact that you remember it as being a good time.

We went out into the Cotswolds because, much though I like Manchester (still unsure if it likes me), sometimes one needs a little breathing space and some green. Felt a yearning for the honey-coloured stone of my homeland that I had to scratch...

For those of you who have never been to the Cotswolds I offer the following guide:

a) It's all very green except for the people who are, on
b) The Cotswolds still operate on the barter system, so take a chicken.
c) The inhabitants are all very wealthy - so make it an antique chicken (regency for preference)
d) The inhabitants are all country folk who appreciate rural crafts - like running over your pet in a 4 x 4.

I now append a photograph of one of a bustling metropolis in the Cotswolds. Witness the simmering urban tension.














Visited Cheltenham for the first time too. The best way I can describe Cheltenham is 'Bath on a budget'. It has a lot of the same Regency spa town feel - but Cheltenham feels a little contrived in comparison to it's bigger more cousin which probably throws the whole 'Jane Austen' connection in Cheltenham's face at every family gathering.

One thing that Bath does not have is a "Wishing Fish Clock" (at least to my knowledge) . Obviously, when I heard this I had to go and have a look and it certainly the finest example of a piscine-related wish time measuring device of wish fufilment that one could hope for - a photograph is appended below















On the way back home to the North we visited the Bicester Retail Park. This may have been a mistake as Tallulah has now discovered that they have a Jimmy Choo outlet there - which she proceeded to approach with all the reverence of a pilgrim approaching the shrine of Saint Horace (patron saint of forgetting to set the video).